"Texas Children’s Hospital will create the nation’s first 'detransition clinic,' fire five physicians and pay the state $10 million..."

"... under an unusual settlement announced Friday by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R). The clinic would focus on providing [free] medical care to patients who had undergone gender-affirming healthcare and work toward reversing its effects, Paxton said.... The move follows an investigation that began in 2023 after Texas passed a law banning health providers from facilitating gender-affirming medical care for minors.... In a statement, representatives from the hospital system insisted they had been compliant with all laws but were settling to 'protect our resources from endless and costly litigation.'"

The Hill reports.

I'm also reading the Axios report of this story. There's this quote from Paxton:

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"A judge in Manhattan declared a mistrial on Friday after the jury in Harvey Weinstein’s rape trial was unable to reach a verdict..."

"... on the charge that the disgraced Hollywood producer raped an aspiring actress in a hotel room in 2013. It’s the second time a jury has not been able to reach a verdict on this charge."

The NYT reports.

Screen grab from the NYT:

The typo has now been corrected, but I honestly thought for a second that "juros" might be some new slang for "jurors." You know how there's all this cutesy millennial slang like "doggo" and "kiddo." 

"What I find funny is when people play things straight. I don’t like comedy that winks at you."

Said Joe Sedelmaier, quoted in "Joe Sedelmaier Dies at 92; Ad Auteur Behind ‘Where’s the Beef?’/He directed nearly 1,000 comedic commercials, including a much-quoted spot for Wendy’s and one for FedEx featuring a manic speed talker" (NYT).

"Around 1980, mainstream psychiatry adopted a medical model."

"A new edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, U.S. psychiatry’s bible of diagnoses, published that year, enshrined the change. Ever since, troubles of the mind have been viewed mostly as physiological diseases of the brain, with treatments focused largely on pharmaceuticals. The medical model was partly a reaction against psychiatry’s decades-long dominance by psychoanalysis and its offshoots.... The discipline, meanwhile, was under attack in popular culture; the antipsychiatry movie 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest' won five Oscars in 1976. The field wanted to be viewed as a true science. Then Prozac, an S.S.R.I., was released in the United States in 1987.... The idea of Prozac — and, soon, its close S.S.R.I. cousins — as an unmitigated medical advance was spread by a flood of pharmaceutical advertising. The ads presented readily comprehensible brain science: Mental illness boils down to an imbalance of chemicals.... The chemical imbalance theory has never been substantiated and has been supplanted by other hypotheses that are equally elusive to proof...."

From "The Strange Alliance Trying to Remake American Psychiatry" (NYT). By Daniel Bergner, author of "The Mind and the Moon: My Brother’s Story, the Science of Our Brains and the Search for Our Psyches."

"President Donald Trump is expected to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service in exchange for the creation of a $1.7 billion fund to compensate..."

"... allies who claim they were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News. The commission overseeing the compensation fund would have the total authority to hand out approximately $1.7 billion in taxpayer funds to settle claims brought by anyone who alleges they were harmed by the Biden administration's 'weaponization' of the legal system, including the nearly 1,600 individuals charged in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol attack as well as potentially entities associated with President Trump himself."

ABC News reports.

It's mid-May, the 15th, and we see deep red columbine.

Back home, it's time once again to move the avocado tree back out onto the deck. That's a big production, and I played only a small role in the process, but it was a bit more than just taking this picture:

Xi is pulling the old chair-rigging power trip.

沙发肯定是特制的，习近平座的沙发明显高过川普的沙发，而川普比习近平身高10厘米，中共在这些细节上处处用尽心机。 pic.twitter.com/qP4ifU8im7

— David Tsai/蔡慎坤 (@cskun1989) May 15, 2026

Reminds me of the time Trump confronted David Letterman. It was December 2, 1987:

"How come this seat is at such a low level? You know, I'm looking at him. He's got this stage rigged, folks.... That seat is a good six inches higher than my seat."

Even better, the dictators cranking up barber chairs in "The Great Dictator" — here.

"In one scene, a military police officer asks Jesus to produce his identification. 'I don’t have one!' Jesus says. 'I don’t have anything!' In another scene, Jesus walks on water by becoming a duck."

From "Frank Stack, Painter Who Secretly Drew 'The Adventures of Jesus,' Dies at 88 For 20 years, he hid his identity behind the nom de plume Foolbert Sturgeon as he chronicled Christ’s encounters with modern-day hypocrites in comic-book form" (NYT)(gift link, so you can read more, including some of the comics).

“I’ve always loved to see my stuff in print, but I was on the horns of a dilemma,” he wrote. “Did I dare to publish the cartoons under my own name when my job was at risk if the university ever noticed that I worked in the most disgraceful of all media — the awful COMIC BOOK?” 

Entertaining... or a dire warning against high-speed chasing?

Footage released by authorities in Wisconsin shows a suspect's car go flying over another vehicle as they attempted to flee.

The suspect, who is being held on multiple charges, was eventually arrested after a short foot chase, officials said. https://t.co/k49wKvl3pK pic.twitter.com/vkphFcC8s2

— ABC News (@ABC) May 15, 2026

There are other ways to catch a fleeing person.

Musk, re-enjoying what the camera caught, his supreme coolness.

pic.twitter.com/QMgqquoGkS

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 15, 2026

"Honestly, before this, I had never heard of Spencer Pratt. The thing I am concerned [about] and feel about him is that I feel like..."

"... he’s exploiting the grief of people in the Palisades, and I just think that’s just reprehensible."

Said L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, fighting for reelection and surprised by this upstart, quoted in "Karen Bass is terrible at this" (Washington Examiner).

The feeling I get:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by lulu (@retrofilmglow)

Sunrise (and 5.2% moon).

Talk about whatever you want in the comments.

"Speaking just ahead of Trump, Xi... said a major question for the two countries was whether they could avoid the 'Thucydides Trap'...."

I'm reading "Xi asks Trump if U.S. and China can avoid 'Thucydides Trap' at high-stakes summit" (CNBC). (That's the original headline. The headline was rewritten, perhaps to avoid mystification, as "Xi warns Trump: Mishandling Taiwan will put U.S.-China relationship in 'great jeopardy.'")

You probably know Thucydides was a historian in ancient Greece, but is "Thucydides trap" a common term? It's pretty recent, according to Wikipedia, coined and popularized in the last 10 years, and used specifically in the context of the U.S. and China. 

"Applicants are not entitled to a stay of an adverse court order based on lost profits from their criminal enterprise."

"They cannot, in any legally relevant sense, be irreparably harmed by a court order that makes it more difficult for them to commit crimes."

Writes Justice Thomas, dissenting from the Supreme Court's grant of a stay in Danco Laboratories v. Louisiana, pending its disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari. The stay permits Danco to continue to ship its abortion drug mifepristone, undercutting Louisiana's law criminalizing abortion.

There's also an Alito dissent. Excerpt: "What is at stake is the perpetration of a scheme to undermine our decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U. S. 215 (2022), which restored the right of each State to decide how to regulate abortions within its borders. Some States responded to Dobbs by making it even easier to obtain an abortion than it was before, and that is their prerogative.... [M]ifepristone shipped to Louisiana... causes nearly 1,000 abortions per month...."

"Reviving a political dynasty is best not left to chance.... But just hours into his Day 1 launch, the candidate abruptly announced a change of plans..."

"... according to three people familiar with the events. Forget dialing for dollars — Mr. Schlossberg said he needed a nap. He then effectively disappeared for the day, leaving his team reeling.... [A] group of fellow Democrats, family friends, union leaders and others with direct knowledge of the campaign described an operation so erratic and plagued by turnover that it raises questions about how he might handle himself as a member of Congress. Especially early on, Mr. Schlossberg would regularly blow off weekly strategy meetings called for his benefit, and made a habit of disappearing for long stretches with little notice or explanation. (He did carve out time to swim or paddleboard in the Hudson most days.)...." 

That's the NYT in "Inside Jack Schlossberg’s Chaotic Campaign to Revive Camelot/Erratic behavior and staff turnover have colored Mr. Schlossberg’s bid for a House seat in New York, raising questions about his readiness for office." 

Sounds like a lot of Democrats want to be rid of Schlossberg and the NYT is there to help. 

What did he do that's so bad — sleep and swim? I'd say let Schlossberg be Schlossberg.

And the Dems look desperate. Another NYT tab I have open in my browser right now is "Democrats Can’t Let This Antisemitic Sex Therapist Win Her Runoff." 

"Right now they’re eating a lot of sedges, which are a plant with high moisture content in it, because they’re trying to get their stomachs working again."

"It’s not like they’re ferociously hungry and are looking to eat the first person that comes by."

Said Andy McMullen, founder of Bearwise, "an organization specializing in bear safety training," quoted in "Black Bear Fatally Mauls Uranium Contractor in Northern Canada/The attack, at a remote uranium mining site in northern Saskatchewan, was only the fourth fatal black bear encounter in the province’s recorded history, officials said" (NYT).

Another McMullen quote: "Here in Canada, unless you’re in downtown Toronto, you’re in bear country."

"I understand that the job market is rough, but what is it with this lemming-like behavior where so many young people feel they need to be in NYC?"

"It shows a real lack of imagination. NYC is not that great; there are alternatives."

"Move. Go elsewhere. Find meaning and joy in your life outside of NYC. It exists. This is a big country."

"I must be the one confused …. it seems. Average student debt of $38k but move to the most expensive city without a job and complain about the affordability of hip-hop dance classes?"

Those are the top 3 highest-rated comments on the NYT article "In a City of Big Dreams, Many Young Adults See a Cloudy Future/A bleak job market. Rising rents. Huge debt. In New York and other cities, traditional milestones of adulthood feel further away for some 20- and 30-year-olds."

Right under the headline, there's a photograph of a 24-year-old man, lying flat on his back in bed and clutching a pillow. He looks despondent. We're told he "feels guilty telling friends he can’t join them for dinner. He wants to start a family one day, but worries. 'I can’t even afford myself, so how am I going to afford someone else?' he said. And he laments that he can’t pursue some of the hobbies that have always brought him joy, such as hip-hop dance. Classes are too expensive: about $25."

Well, by all means, cater to their sensitive feelings.

"N.Y.U. Students Object to Speaker Who Calls Their Generation Coddled."

That's a NYT headline, and of course, I suspect it of being intended to provoke the kind of sarcasm I put up there in the post title.

The person the students "object to" is Jonathan Haidt, who's been selected as the speaker at their graduation. As the NYT puts it: "the choice reflects a dismissal of their values at a moment they should cherish." He's getting the platform of their graduation ceremony.

In his breakout book, “The Coddling of the American Mind,” he and his co-author, Greg Lukianoff, argued that schools cultivated a mentality of fragility, making personal safety paramount, while de-emphasizing problem-solving skills. Students, they concluded, were insulated from encountering uncomfortable situations and upsetting ideas, leaving them ill-prepared to handle difficulty as adults....

“Many students have reported feelings of disappointment, disgust, unenthusiasm, defeat, and embarrassment,” the letter went on, expressing regret that their celebratory moment had instead “become another instance of being misunderstood.”

The students' letter noted that a recent NYU graduating class got Taylor Swift as their speaker. Another got Sonia Sotomayor. Haidt is a professor at N.Y.U. Maybe the students wanted more of an exciting personality, but certainly not a scold! You can understand the disappointment, disgust, unenthusiasm, defeat, and embarrassment. You're asking your family to come to this big event for you, one where students 4 years ahead of you got Taylor Swift, and you have to tell them it's a business school professor who writes about how Americans are too fragile these days. Yeah, I see how "embarrassment" got on that list of feelings. 

"Bitching about a season of TV that's not even written yet....gotta love the internet."

Says one comment in a Reddit thread about the HBO series "Rooster," after a line of dialogue in the first season finale episode that suggested a new narrative for one of the secondary characters.

Somebody else says: "Wouldn’t be the first time a studio monitored fan reactions on Reddit and took them into consideration while working on future seasons."

What were the other times? Well, back in 2017, there was "Reddit users correctly guess ‘Westworld’ season 2 plot twist/Westworld creator Jonathan Nolan says he's had to re-write the script" (NME). Nolan said: "It’s annoying sometimes when people guess the twists and then blog about it, but the engagement is gratifying, on one level, because if someone guesses your twist, it means you’ve done an adequate job.... You can’t complain when people are that engaged. It’s very gratifying — but stop doing it, please."

Stop doing it? Ridiculous! If there's one thing people instinctively do with any new material that comes their way, it's try to predict the future. If we weren't designed to do that, we wouldn't be drawn into stories with plots in the first place. 

Here's a neuroscientist talking to Joe Rogan about her study of the capacity of the human mind to predict the future, which she seems to believe in:

"The US and China 'should be partners and not rivals,' President Xi has said, as he and President Trump exchanged warm words during bilateral talks in Beijing."

"Trump praised his host as a 'great leader' and 'friend,' predicting that their countries would have 'a fantastic future together.' However, Xi warned the two nations could come into conflict if the Taiwan question is 'mishandled.' He told his US counterpart that 'the Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-US relations,' according to remarks published by Chinese state media shortly after talks began.
'If mishandled, the two nations could collide or even come into conflict, pushing the entire China-US relationship into a highly perilous situation,' Xi added."

The London Times reports.

I'm quoting the UK newspaper, but I did note the Washington Post and New York Times headlines for this story. Both use the same verb: 

The Washington Post: "Xi warns Trump that mishandling Taiwan could spark 'conflicts.'"

The New York Times: "Xi Warns Trump on Taiwan at Beijing Summit."

Warns. 

That puts Xi in the dominant position. Trump is on the receiving end.

By contrast, the London Times headline is "Xi tells Trump: China and US should be partners, not rivals."

Tells. That makes a difference. I chose the UK newspaper because I'm put off by our own newspapers' endless antagonism toward Trump and seeming desire to cause anxiety to Americans.

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"A group of Miami residents sued President Donald Trump, Florida officials and trustees of Miami Dade College on Tuesday over Trump’s planned presidential library..."

"... claiming that the college’s decision to hand over a coveted parcel of land for the project constitutes an illegal benefit for the president. The litigants — who include a current Miami Dade College student — allege that the land transfer violates the Constitution’s domestic emoluments clause, which bars states from attempting to influence a president by giving him gifts. They argue that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and his handpicked board of trustees at the state-operated college were wrong to give a nearly three-acre parcel in downtown Miami to Trump’s library foundation last year in exchange for $10. The county’s property appraiser had said the land was worth more than $67 million...."

From "Trump’s plan to use his library as a hotel sparks lawsuit/Litigants allege Florida officials violated the Constitution’s bar on attempts to influence the president through gifts, by handing over a valuable parcel of land" (WaPo).

Trump in China.

Wheels down in Beijing!

President Donald J. Trump lands for a landmark summit with China, greeted by Vice President Han Zheng during a welcome ceremony. pic.twitter.com/4q2mATZrn4

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 13, 2026

Thrusting.

Giants were asked not to do the thrusting celebration anymore so instead they were as polite as possible https://t.co/lesg7G6iVl pic.twitter.com/NKjHORMPVo

— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) May 13, 2026

Oh! I found the "ratbag" video!

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A post shared by ITV News (@itvnews)

We discussed the Rod Stewart quote based on the text alone, yesterday, here.

"Once the domain of mellow Gen X-ers in the ’80s and ’90s, the hacky sack is experiencing a renaissance at the hands — well, the feet — of Gen Z."

"High school students around the country are freshly enthusiastic about the toys, crocheted bean bags that once hung in the air like the scent of marijuana. Parents and teachers mostly seem glad to watch young people be entranced by something other than their phones...."

From "Hacky Sack Mounts a Comeback With Gen Z/Teenagers are booting the game out of the 1990s. 'It’s kind of bringing everybody together,' one said" (NYT).

"Along Colombia’s main river, fishing nets once filled with catfish are coming up emptier — replaced by the wake of churning beasts that shouldn’t be there."

"Fishermen are terrified to cast their hooks at night. 'They’ve changed our lifestyle,' said Giovanny Contreras, a fisherman, as he navigated his boat past the bulbous eyes of a male hippo peering at him.... It began as a drug lord’s whim: four hippos that Pablo Escobar brought as exotic pets for his sprawling estate in the 1980s. Now an unruly herd has bedeviled Colombia for decades...."

From "The Fight to Euthanize Pablo Escobar’s Hippos in Colombia/Colombia is planning to cull a population of wild hippos, the offspring of the drug lord’s pets, dividing a town where hippos are the main draw" (NYT).

It sounds easy. Kill them all. It's an invasive species — dangerous and damaging — and huge.

But no: "The hippos have long lent a touch of magical realism to daily life in Doradal. Visitors are greeted by kitschy hippo statues, locals offer hippo-watching tours and some residents have reportedly stolen baby hippos to try to breed them as pets. Many residents regard the beasts with a mix of pride, pity and prudence...."

Magical realism? The literary style? Is this related to "One Hundred Years of Solitude"? Would that be about attracting tourists to Colombia — readers who romanticize the destination and can be drawn into thinking they can see something dreamlike here — or is it about some kind of genuine culture of incorporating amazing new things into the traditional world?

"Students’ test scores had been increasing since 1990 — then abruptly stopped in the mid-2010s."

"That coincided with two events: an easing of federal school accountability under No Child Left Behind, which was replaced in 2015, and the rise of smartphones, social media and personalized school laptops. The pandemic then accelerated learning declines.... [No Child Left Behind] set a goal that all students would be proficient in reading and math, and schools that did not show progress could face penalties. It coincided with a period of rising test scores, especially in math, though reading scores improved more modestly. Low-performing students saw the biggest gains. The law, though, was deeply unpopular with many educators and parents. Critics said it put an outsize focus on testing, pushing schools to teach to the test and spend less time on other important subjects, like the arts or social studies. In 2015, Congress replaced it, and many states dialed back on requirements. Like many who have studied the law, Brian A. Jacob, professor of education policy at the University of Michigan, [said] 'It was not a cure-all, but I think it really did improve student achievement.... There’s evidence that school accountability does change behaviors of teachers and administrators and probably parents and students.'"

From "Your School District Is Probably Scoring Worse Than 10 Years Ago/The drops in U.S. scores go beyond the pandemic and cut across income, geographic and racial divides, new data shows" (NYT).

It was the screens and the pandemic — that's all they need to say to fend off the return of No Child Left Behind.

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

The flowers are golden alexander.

"When we were fighting for gay rights — a fight I think we have essentially won — we knew that some issues were more popular than others."

"So we tended to start by trying to win the ones that were most popular. Gays in the military. Employment. We didn’t go after same-sex marriage, we didn’t make marriage a litmus test, until the very end. I analogize that to male-to-female transgender sports. That is the most controversial part of the agenda — the equivalent of gay marriage — so put it at the end. If you go at it that way, you build support for it. But if you insist on the most controversial parts all at once, you make it harder."

Said Barney Frank, quoted in "Barney Frank, in Hospice, Has Advice for the Democrats/Mr. Frank speaks about the missteps of the Democratic Party and his hope for its future. 'Frankly, if I weren’t dying, people wouldn’t be paying as much attention'" (NYT).

"Since last October in Memuro, Hokkaido, a café specialising in French toast has been open to parents and babies free of charge from 9pm on Sunday to 6am on Monday."

"There are areas for babies to crawl around and sleep, as well as changing tables and nursing booths. Users can relax, knowing their babies’ cries aren’t keeping others up.,,, Across the country in Tokushima Prefecture, a childcare support centre runs monthly 'crying cafés' with specialist staff.... The concept comes from Yonakigoya, a manga by a cartoonist and mother that was published online in 2023. The titular 'night-time crying house' is a space where overwhelmed mothers and babies can de-stress in the small hours...."

From "Overnight 'crying cafés' serve coffee with a side of tears/The night-time refuges in Japan are popular with mothers who can relax knowing their crying child is not disturbing anyone at home" (London Times).

"There's something that's kind of weird out there... Can I call it the painfully unsophisticated, highly educated political hobbyist?"

"And this is the audience for an awful lot of political media... and it is people who have a pretty good degree of education. They're highly attuned to politics and they're highly partisan. And that last bit of it — the highly partisan — actually means they become much less sophisticated about politics and law because... the volume consumers of political media are the most wrong about their political opponents. So... your median TED Talk listener is probably... a very partisan audience.... And if... you're left-leaning, and you're highly partisan, and you're highly attuned to political media, what is the one thing that you have in your mind about the Supreme Court? Totally biased against this [challenge to Trump's power]. You can't win. It's always gonna rule for Trump, blah, blah, blah.... They are just deluged with... it's rigged, it's rigged, it's illegitimate, it's rigged..... So then you have this attorney come in who's a fellow liberal who won in front of the six three Supreme Court. And he is going to, if that's your mindset, look like Zeus walking down from Mount Olympus.... You know, I walked in to the Lion's den of the 6-3 Republican court and got a 6-3 Republican court to strike down the signature policy of a Republican administration. Look at me. I am the God king!.... And it is a message that lands with a particular audience incredibly well because... it's premised on all of their false assumptions about the Supreme Court. If you actually walked in with a realistic view, he was the favorite. He was the favorite!"

Said David French in the new episode of the podcast "Advisory Opinions," "The TED Talk Heard ‘Round the World" (at 00:44:17)(transcript at that link).

And here's the Neal Katyal TED talk they're talking about.

"The Trump administration’s spotlight on testosterone and its increasing availability through online clinics come at a time when exaggerated, uncompromising, even aggressive masculinity is in vogue..."

"... in Hollywood and online in the so-called manosphere. Wildly popular figures like Joe Rogan and Andrew Huberman have spoken about their own use of T.R.T., framing it as a medical treatment for aging. But many influencers go much further, amplifying the message that being 'low T' is synonymous with low status, weakness and sexual inadequacy — and often profiting off promotional links to T.R.T. clinics, or even starting their own. That message seems to be reaching younger men in particular. Clavicular, the 20-year-old streamer who popularized the 'looksmaxxing' subculture, which casts the relentless pursuit of physical attractiveness as the clearest route to social capital, has said that he started using testosterone at age 14 to achieve 'a more dimorphic look.'..."

From "Why So Many Men Are Obsessed With Testosterone/From the Trump administration to online influencers, the hormone is increasingly seen as the key to achieving a new male ideal" (NYT)(gift link).

"Last week, the Department of Transportation released the first trailer for the Duffys’ odyssey, and boy does it look lavish."

"The family of 11 is shown riding in style in new model SUVs provided by Toyota — official vehicle partner of the show — lounging in bathrobes in hotels, snowmobiling, and even screaming down water slides on a Royal Caribbean cruise (another partner of the project). The trailer was met with widespread public backlash, with critics calling the seven-month production not only out of touch given the high costs currently hitting American travelers, but a potentially unethical misuse of federal resources. Duffy, who thinks people shouldn’t fly in comfy clothing because it’s uncivilized, is encouraging Americans to drive this summer, and get to know their country. 'We’re encouraging everyone to go take a road trip to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary,' he says in the trailer, adding later to Fox News that a road trip 'fits any budget.'"

That's from the Rolling Stone article "How Much Would It Cost to Fuel Sean Duffy’s Reality Show Road Trip?" which is updated "to reflect that the Duffys did not actually set sail on a cruise, and that they only enjoyed its amenities while it was docked."

With that correction, the price doesn't seem so astounding. I couldn't find the number, but then I only skimmed and then searched the page for a dollar sign. We're told the family — of 11 — drove 4,706 miles and maybe 2,458 miles more. Who would do that?! These people are taking care of 9 children. Why would you want to kick them around? Calling it "lavish" is nuts.

Here's that trailer that made Rolling Stone get all peevish:

Did that make you want to do a big road trip or did it make you want to wait until the 250th anniversary celebrants get back home? Or to never go anywhere again. I hear the bears are biting up in Glacier National Park.

"Dog owners love pretending dogs are these magical social connectors, but in reality they just attract endless unwanted interactions with random weirdos."

"Every walk becomes an open invitation for strangers to stop you for pointless conversations about dogs. Suddenly some bloke you’ve never seen before is standing there for 15 minutes talking about breeds, dog food, dog behaviour or telling you stories about his own mutt while you awkwardly stand there wanting to leave. Half the people that approach dog owners are bizarre as fuck too. I never once understood why I was expected to happily stand around talking to random strangers in the middle of nowhere just because they spotted a dog. And honestly, I’m convinced a lot of dog owners enjoy this because the dog gives them instant validation and attention from other people. The animal becomes a social prop."

From a rant at Reddit called "I dated a dog owner and this is what I found." I'm only quoting one point on what is a 5-point list. To get the full effect, read the whole thing.

The ranter has a very receptive audience, because it's on the Subreddit "Dogfree: We Don't Like Dogs." It's not really anti-dog so much as anti-dogpeople: "This is a subreddit for those who do not like or own dogs to discuss modern-day dog ownership and its effects on society. This is our corner of the world. Weigh-in from dog owners is off topic and disallowed. Thank you for respecting our space."

"I'd rate him top 10, could you imagine Ole' Blue Eyes singing 'It's alright Ma, I'm only bleedin''?"

A comment on the facebook post "Bob Dylan is the 56th greatest vocalist in music history," which links to "The 100 Best Vocalists of All Time/Vocalist Week begins with an artist-assisted list of the best to ever pick up a microphone" (Consequence).

That reminds me, when I was a teenager, my father liked to engage me in what he called "Socratic" debate, and I vividly remember the time he took the position that if a microphone was used, it was simply not music.

I think of him this morning as I encounter the greatest vocalists in music history restated as the best to ever pick up a microphone.

History is a long time, far longer than the era of the microphone. I assume nearly all of the top thousand greatest vocalists performed without a microphone.

"A berry green, [most] beautiful beetle I’ve ever seen. And I just picked him up and I said, ‘Whoa, you’re so pretty.’ And within seconds, I felt burning through my body."

From "Maine woman picks up ‘beautiful’ bug that caught her eye — it almost killed her" (NY Post).

Notable sentence: "With her kids in tow, the desperate mother bolted straight up a grassy hill — ignoring the park’s windy, paved path — to the park’s gift shop, where she collapsed in front of Dean Martin...."

"When Anthony wasn’t clearing trails at parks across the country, the 'motorhead' could be found cruising around Florida or preaching at his local Catholic church...."

"Before his final excursion in Montana, Anthony hiked through the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and the connected Grand Teton National Park, Starved Rock State Park and the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, his father said. 'His life experiences in 33 years — some people don’t get to do ’til they’re 90 or their whole life,' [his father said]."

From the New York Post article about Anthony Pollio, 33, who was, apparently, killed by a bear in Glacier National Park. 

Here's a picture from Pollio's Facebook account:

"If I could cook you one meal, what would it be?"

"Oh, uh, deep-fried PB&J."

"May I say, well done in the Americas. You were superb, absolutely superb. Put that little ratbag in his place."

Said Rod Stewart, quoted in "Rod Stewart hails King Charles for putting ‘ratbag’ Trump ‘in his place’/The singer made the remark during a line-up at a 50th anniversary concert for the King’s Trust at the Royal Albert Hall, London" (London Times).

Did King Charles put Trump in his place? Maybe it's like that "bike rage" incident with Benedict Cumberbatch we were talking about yesterday. Two entirely nonviolent men stopped to exchange a few sharp words. 

The commenters over there at the London Times are going after Rod. Top-rated comment: "Rod Stewart put the King and Queen in a very embarrassing position by making political comments in a receiving line. It just shows he has no class whatsoever and doesn’t have the brains he was born with."

And: "Ah, Rod Stewart who made millions for being a hedonistic rockstar boasted about numerous, groupies, and rampant infidelity calling somebody else a 'ratbag' while shaking hand with the highest example of infidelity. Must have his picture in the dictionary next to hypocrite!"

Is this the first appearance of the word "ratbag" on this blog? No, it came up here, where I quoted the NYT obituary for Barry Humphries ("Dame Edna"). The NYT has printed "ratbag" a few times. In a 1984 piece about travel guidebooks, it has: "[I]n a section on 'picturesque patterns of speech'... the 'Maverick Guide to Australia' tells us that a bicyclist there is called a bikey, that to grizzle means to complain and that a ratbag is an eccentric character."

Well, Trump surely is an eccentric character. He should own it. Kind of cool too — isn't it? — in the American way of thinking — to have Rod Stewart calling you a "ratbag."

ADDED: Let's also consider the notion of putting someone "in their place." It reflects a background belief that people have a social rank or a station in life. For Rod Stewart — who, I hear, started from gasoline alley — to praise the King — a person of the highest rank — for putting someone "in their place" is pretty funny. And, we're told, the King just laughed. And didn't that put Rod in his place?

Take me back, carry me back down the gasoline alley where I started from....

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"This day is historic in Alberta history. It’s the first step to the next step — we’ve gotten by Round 3 and now we’re in the Stanley Cup final."

Said Mitch Sylvestre, head of Stay Free Alberta, at the Elections Alberta office today, with 7 trucks to delivering what is said to be almost 302,000 signatures — 178,000 signatures are needed to trigger a vote.

Quoted in "Alberta separatist group submits signatures for referendum on leaving Canada" (MSN). 

Daniel Béland, a McGill University poli sci professor, said: "Right now, support for independence in Alberta is rather low. Less than 30% and much lower if we only focus on hard-core supporters...."

"And it is a vicious cycle: the more women and non-binary people do the overwhelming majority of resistance work..."

"... the more men take in the wrong-headed message that this work is not for them...."

Writes Saul Austerlitz, author of "How to Assemble an Activist," in "How do we get more men to join the anti-Trump resistance? My activist group is about 80% women. Where did all the men go – and how can we get them back?" (Guardian).

My first thought was: Don't push the "and non-binary people" talk. But anyway isn't it funny that you're so vitally interested in the male/female split and simultaneously hot to insert "and non-binary people"? 

"My unscientific conclusion is that the men who have already drifted away, whatever their reasons, are unlikely to come back. Instead, now is an ideal time to extend an invitation to the men in our circles who hover on the edges, shouting fruitlessly at their TV screen or social-media feed, not knowing yet how much good they can do – or how much better they will feel

"About 1 in 4 Americans think the April shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner was staged...."

".... according to a survey published Monday. Roughly 1 in 3 Democratic respondents said they believed the event was staged, compared with about 1 in 8 Republicans, according to a survey published Monday by NewsGuard, a company that rates the reliability of online news outlets. Respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 were also more likely than older people to think the incident was staged, according to the report."

WaPo reports, in "Many Americans think Trump assassination attempts were fake, survey finds/About 1 in 4 say the correspondents’ dinner shooting was staged, the poll found, including roughly a third of Democrats, as conspiracy theories spread widely online."

Is it Trump's fault?

"A character doesn't know if they're in a comedy or a drama. They're just living their life, right?"

"And so if funny things happen around this character, then the movie or the show is a comedy. But if it's tragic or scary or whatever, it leans towards drama. Sometimes it's a mixture of both. But I think if you can tell a character knows they're in a comedy, it's intrinsically less funny. I like somebody like Alan Arkin or Peter Sellers—they always seem very true to their characters. You couldn't tell whether Alan Arkin was doing something intensely dramatic or something crazily funny. He'd play different characters but he was equally committed to both of them and never letting on. He was never winking like, 'I'm in a comedy. Here we go. Watch this joke. You're going to laugh.'"

"It was crazy. It was such a pompous road rage it almost felt like it had been staged. He was calling Benedict 'deluded' and 'a liar.'"

"Benedict still managed to charm everyone watching even though he was having a meltdown. They went at each other about five times. It was really busy, and they blocked the lane so no one else could get through. The masked guy was obviously some kind of vigilante. He was really taken aback when he saw it was Benedict Cumberbatch, but he doubled down on his rage. Everyone was just stood there with jaws dropped. These school kids asked 'is that Dr Strange?' and asked for a picture with him. Benedict said 'not at the moment, in a minute'; he was lovely with them, they were awe struck. I don’t condone dangerous driving, but for this guy to follow him and cause an incident like this was worse than Benedict slowly cutting that light."

Said the person who caught it on video, quoted in "Benedict Cumberbatch in bike rage row after running red light/A ‘vigilante’ cyclist called him deluded and a liar during the ten-minute altercation, which was filmed by a passer-by" (London Times).

 

Sunrise... with moon.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

"So, what I notice when you talk with people is you seem like a tough guy, but you're really sensitive."

"You're an incredible listener, obviously. You learn all these things and you're putting together—this is my impression—a kind of map of the world, a map of knowledge through all these different people's eyes. My question for you is: how do you see culture shifting? Because I think you're really sensitive to it, and you're kind of like one of these signal fish—you notice what's happening in the environment and you're going to guide the school of fish accordingly. Do you think the culture is shifting toward better use of these exceptional — or natural — capacities that we already have, or do you think we're shifting away from it and we're going to run away in fear?"

Says Julia Mossbridge, a cognitive neuroscientist, beginning her interview with Joe Rogan by asking him a question.

Rogan gives a good answer:

I could plainly read that this anti-Pratt ad seems like a pro-Pratt ad, and I still thought, surely this must be a clever pro-Pratt ad.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen an attack ad that comes off as an endorsement like this one https://t.co/MU0rAHM0Gc

— Dr. Ben Braddock (@GraduatedBen) May 10, 2026

Vance or Rubio? "According to multiple people close to the president, Mr. Trump asks advisers who they prefer..."

"... before frequently musing that he should just have Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio run together on the same presidential ticket in 2028. Mr. Trump’s advisers say he is simply having fun polling people, and that 2028 is not at the top of his mind at all.... According to several people close to both men, Mr. Vance and Mr. Rubio, who are friends, do not want to be seen as competing against each other for the 2028 presidential nomination.... By several accounts, the two actually do get along. It is not uncommon to see them laughing together at White House events. They talk about sports and family when they are together. They are also both very aware of the chatter about their reputations and respective futures...."

I'm reading "Vance or Rubio? Trump Muses on Successor as the ‘Kids’ Fill Bigger Roles. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are boosting their profiles, generating speculation about who’s lining up for the 2028 presidential nomination" (NYT).

I'd like to see both of them running, and I'd like them to find a new way that could be fascinatingly cooperative. I'm inferring that they both strongly support each other and are used to working together. They don't have to compete against each other at all. Each could recommend the other. Debates could have both of them arguing for essentially the same thing but giving the people the opportunity to choose which one will be the presidential nominee and which the vice presidential nominee.

A Spencer Pratt joke about free buses.

Zohran Mamdani: The NY subway will be free.

Spencer Pratt: The LA busses will be free... from urine, feces, stabbing, and attacks.@spencerpratt "So that's kind of similar. We both have free things for public transportation." pic.twitter.com/eWmPOsynrM

— jay plemons (@jayplemons) May 9, 2026

"In the book, [Jon] Krakauer describes [Sandy] Hill as a 'millionaire socialite-cum-climber' and claims sherpas carried her espresso maker..."

"... with beans from her favourite New York restaurant, and newspaper clippings about herself to be handed out at the Everest base camp. 'A great many people were offended by her ostentatious displays of wealth and by the shameless way she chased the limelight,' Krakauer wrote in the book, which sold in its millions. [Hill] later said that the 'espresso maker' was actually an eight-inch manual stovetop percolator.... The book also depicted an anonymous couple in the group, referred to as X and Y, who had an affair on the expedition. 'That was me. I am Madam X,' Hill has confirmed, while her partner was a snowboarder. The liaison angered the sherpas as they believed it brought bad karma and caused the storm...."

I'm reading "'Villain' of Into Thin Air breaks silence on Everest tragedy/The New York socialite Sandy Hill speaks for the first time about what happened on the mountain 30 years ago and the depression that followed her ordeal" (London Times).

"At Notion, the $11 billion business software developer he founded 13 years ago, [Ivan Zhao] hired a high-schooler."

"'We had to ask his parents for permission,' he explained. 'This guy has no experience working anywhere, but he is so talented, and he just grew up with YouTube, grew up with language models, so he knows how to access information given the tools in front of him.' The move was a small example, Zhao argued, of what he referred to as a new 'abundance approach' unlocked by powerful artificial intelligence (AI) tools. 'We’ve become a lot less picky about your capabilities and years of experience,' he explained. 'We are almost doing the reverse of what we were doing before.' Where once Zhao hired mostly mid-career, mid-level workers, Notion... now targets either very young or senior operators. The former are high on 'agency' (the enthusiasm to try things and embrace new tools); the latter often have high taste (a sense of what works and what doesn’t, refined through years of experience)...."

So begins "America’s white-collar jobs bloodbath gathers pace/US business has embraced AI, but predictions of mass unemployment may be based on the false premise that there’s a fixed amount of work to be done" (London Times).

"The worst part about AI is that it is giving the experience of competence to people who are stupid."

"These people who now are firing off 30-page Claude AI slop documents and they think they're smart and brilliant. They're following up with you, asking you to read them, and you check them out. None of it makes sense! These are people who, before AI, they were incompetent people. They couldn't even make a document, they couldn't write a good 2-page document, they couldn't organize their thoughts. Because they couldn't do that, they actually couldn't produce any output. And now they can produce output. They produce extremely long outputs that are terrible. It's because they, for the first time in their lives, have the experience of competence. It's making the rest of us miserable."

Says Jake Abrams, on TikTok. I prefer to read his comment as text, but you might want to observe him and see if it affects your reaction to what he's saying. I saw this first as video and decided to blog it but took the trouble to make a transcript because I find the video distracting. He drops the microphone at the end.

Clearly, he thinks he is one of the smart people. He doesn't like the stupid people horning in on the space that belonged to him and his people — you know, the ones who were always producing documents that gave off the impression of competence. Have those documents been making much sense? Were they concise? 

Now that everyone can produce long documents that look good superficially, what's going to happen? If people continue to read documents, will they separate out the search for what was written by A.I. or will they judge everything skeptically? It's more likely that they will use A.I. to read the documents and to assess them critically. In the end, who's going to feel that they are "smart and brilliant"? Is Abrams afraid that those he wants to view as stupid, perhaps because they didn't go to a good college, are going to play the game of using A.I. better than those who thought they had it made because they did go to a good college?

We'll see who picks up the tools and uses them best. 

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"Once an unseemly feature of the web’s fringes, deliberately ambiguous chatter about political violence has spread on mainstream platforms over the past year..."

"... most often in reference to Trump and Elon Musk, according to a new report from Know Your Meme, which tracks the rise of viral posts. 'Somebody should do it' and its online variants, the authors wrote, is wink-nudge shorthand for suggesting that somebody kill a powerful person. One of the earliest cases to go viral was a TikTok video from a Brooklyn comedian nebulously talking about 'all the Elon, Trump stuff.' Someone should 'throw their life away,' he said in the February 2025 post, and 'take one for the team.' The conservative Libs of TikTok reposted the clip. So did Musk, helping it rack up 48 million views.... Know Your Meme found that interest in the 'Somebody should do it' trend spiked after an armed man’s thwarted attack last month at the White House correspondents’ dinner in Washington, where Trump was scheduled to speak...."

From "They’re not saying someone should kill Trump. But they’re coming close. 'Somebody should do it' and its variants have become increasingly popular online memes" (WaPo)(gift link).

The top-rated comment over there: "Trump has condoned threats, attempts, and actual murders of people he doesn't like, and his sycophants condemn any comment they say is aimed at him as TDS. No one should be calling for assassination of anyone; I prefer impeachment or the 25th amendment to get him out of office. Trump's own rhetoric has fueled the fire and perhaps he should stop calling for senators and others to be killed."

You have to be very deeply into Democratic Party politics to write a blank-days-that-shook-the-blank headline about this.

"10 Days That Shook the House Map and Democratic Confidence."

That's the top headline at the NYT this morning. 

You know the story: "Just two weeks ago, Democrats felt increasingly emboldened about taking control of the House in November after seeming to fight the redistricting wars to a draw. But two court rulings — one by the Supreme Court and another by Virginia’s top court — and an aggressive new push by red states to carve up congressional maps have delivered the Republican Party its biggest burst of momentum in many months. Put bluntly, Republicans have roughly 10 more House seats that favor them than they did just 10 days ago, and Democrats are suddenly grappling with a new landscape."

This feels like one of those NYT articles that's mainly performing the service of tending to the readers' emotions. Let's all do panic together this morning. When I encounter that sort of thing, my natural instinct is to go somewhere else. If we're doing group emotion, I'm looking for the door.

So: I'm interested in the history of titles in the blank-days-that-shook-the-blank form. The original is "10 Days That Shook the World," the 1919 first-hand account of the Russian Revolution by John Reed. His editor described Reed's frenzy:

"Skipping meetings and sending an A.I. note taker instead has been called 'the latest office power move.'"

"Wallet-size recorders that use A.I. to log live interactions have become a product category.... A.I.-generated transcripts... preserve all sorts of things — offhand comments, quickly corrected statements, jokes — that humans would rarely write in the meeting minutes.... In a lawsuit or an investigation, that can make every word uttered discoverable. Even worse, say corporate lawyers: Sharing the meeting with an A.I. bot may void attorney-client privilege.... [Another] concern is accuracy. An A.I. transcript could, for example, record 'does matter' as 'doesn’t matter.' If that sentence comes up in court years later, the mistake may be difficult to remember. Corporate lawyers also worry about A.I. note takers’ lack of context and discretion. For example, recording every word of a board meeting, no matter how tangential the remark, could be legally perilous...."

From "All Those A.I. Note Takers? They’re Making Lawyers Very Nervous. A trendy productivity hack, A.I. note takers are capturing every joke and offhand comment in many meetings. They could also potentially waive attorney-client privilege" (NYT).

Human memory is also not perfect. Who remembers old conversations and can testify about them with verbatim accuracy? And yet we've relied on frail humans all these years. 

"On a recent afternoon at the Venice Biennale, I walked into a bright blue portable john and peed for art."

"Just outside the booth, a naked woman was submerged in a huge water tank, breathing through a scuba mouthpiece. My urine was about to pass along a tube from the toilet through several filtration systems, before topping up her glass chamber’s water level. The performer, who would stay in the tank for at least four hours, was essentially living in other people’s waste. And she had plenty of donors. The toilet is part of a presentation called 'Seaworld Venice' by the choreographer and theater-maker Florentina Holzinger that is undoubtedly the biggest talker of this year’s Biennale, which opens to the public on Saturday and runs through Nov. 22."

From "These Toilets in Venice Have the Art World Aflush/Undoubtedly the biggest talker at this year’s Venice Biennale is the Austrian pavilion, where visitors can make their own contributions to the work on show" (NYT).

I clicked on that link for "Seaworld Venice" and was confronted with big red letters saying "I live in your piss."

This is the kind of degradation of women that feminists used to rail against, but, here, the artist is female, so I guess we're not supposed to notice. The message is purportedly environmentalism. Also the artist puts herself out there: "Part of the performance at the pavilion involved Holzinger swinging her body from side to side inside a metal bell attached to a crane to make it ring out." Video at the link. Holzinger is naked. A commenter over there notes that she risks deafness, performing as a bell clapper.

ADDED: I don't remember ever seeing "talker" used to mean the thing being talked about: the show is "undoubtedly the biggest talker of this year's Biennale." I understand "talker" meaning a person doing that talking, but not This show is a big talker, meaning it's what everyone's talking about. I guess it's like the use of "-er" in "looker" used to refer to someone people look at and not the one doing the looking.

The OED defines "talker" only as the one doing the talking. An example from Jane Austen (from "Emma"): "I am rather a talker; and now and then I have let a thing escape me which I should not." 

And then there's that Shakespeare adage, from "Richard III": "Talkers are no good doers." I think we don't use that one too much. We're more likely to go with: "All talk and no action," "Actions speak louder than words," "Talk is cheap," and "Walk the walk, don't just talk the talk." 

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments... except the Virginia Supreme Court case about the redistricting referendum. I just put up a new post about that, so scroll down for a concentrated conversation about that.

"In its 4-to-3 opinion, the Virginia Supreme Court wrote that Democratic legislators had violated the state’s constitution with their move to enact a new map meant to give their party 10 out of the state’s 11 U.S. House seats..."

".... up from the six it currently controls. Virginia voters had approved a constitutional amendment to allow for the map in a referendum. The problem, the court’s majority suggested, was that the first vote on the amendment in the General Assembly, which would authorize Democrats to redraw the map, occurred days before last fall’s legislative elections — meaning that some Virginians who cast their ballots early did so without knowing how their state lawmakers would vote on the new map. That, the justices wrote, violated the process laid out in the State Constitution. 'This constitutional violation incurably taints the resulting referendum vote and nullifies its legal efficacy,' the majority wrote...."

I'm reading "In Huge Blow to Democrats, Virginia Court Strikes Down House Map/The decision is a major victory for Republicans, wiping away a measure approved by voters to allow Democrats to gain as many as four House seats in the midterms" (NYT).

"Pentagon releases dozens of UFO files offering transparency on 'alien and extraterrestrial life.'"

That's the headline from The New York Post, from a whole hour ago, so I infer that there's nothing too exciting there.

I've never believed there have been alien visitors to Earth, so I had no hopes or fears relating to this new transparency. Did you?

Venomous bites.

Kyle Rittenhouse, who gained fame for opening fire at a 2020 civil rights rally in Wisconsin, was hospitalized after he was bitten by a venomous spider, the noted firearms enthusiast says. https://t.co/sPEoH0rhjy

— NBC News (@NBCNews) May 7, 2026

Jake Tapper looks supremely woeful as he labors to help us with Marco Rubio's 90s hip-hop references.

The pain in Jake Tapper‘s face is priceless-he really feels the need to let you know that Marco Rubio used hip-hop references 🤣 pic.twitter.com/gOHjK6g1Hj

— Karli Bonne’ 🇺🇸 (@KarluskaP) May 7, 2026

"While devoting most of her time to her son, Monita Wong said she needs to maintain a little distance."

"On the second floor of the foundation building, she incorporated two small bedrooms, for [her husband] and herself. 'I am reluctant to go back to the condo,' she said. When the owner of the lot next to the condo chopped down the spruce that Matthew loved, she brought the stump to the foundation building. 'I could not stop them,' she said. 'But I thought it would be good to have it here. It is outside now.'"

From "A Grieving Mother Safeguards Her Son’s Artistic Legacy/The troubled painter Matthew Wong’s star was on the rise when he died [by suicide] at 35. His mother, Monita Wong, is making sure his work can still be seen" (NYT)(gift link so you can see more of the mother's story, some of the son's paintings, and photos with the captions "Wong's paint tubes, stained sneakers and even the light switch were relocated from his studio" and "Monita Wong carried over the clutter to recreate her son’s studio in the headquarters of the Matthew Wong Foundation in Edmonton, Alberta").

Quote from an art dealer: "He was a very attractive, tall figure, very well spoken. It was very refreshing the way he talked about art in general and not of himself. He was very direct and clear. I had no idea he was depressed. I had no idea he was autistic."

"Someone creates an X account, sets it to private, and posts hundreds of different predictions with every possible virus name and scenario imaginable."

"Then, once one event vaguely lines up with reality, they delete all the other failed predictions and leave only the 'correct' one visible."

Dr. Simon reveals one simple trick.

I'm glad I have a tag called "predictions."

"Death is different on the internet."

Writes Julia Angwin, in "Meta Is Dying" (NYT).

Lifeless companies like AOL and Yahoo are still technically with us. You can visit their websites.... But they are, as the kids say, peak cringe. Many teens wouldn’t be caught dead with an AOL account, a Yahoo email address — or a Facebook profile.... 

Sunrise.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments.

Key word: "typically."

Jen Psaki on the 2028 Dem primary:

"There is no, thank God, dark room in Washington where people sit around and they decide here's who the nominee is going to be."

She just described exactly how the last Democrat presidential nominee was chosen. pic.twitter.com/5QpQagvG6t

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) May 7, 2026

What's with all that finger-pointing business?

"Sen. Jim Justice (R-West Virginia) and I introduced the Hot Rotisserie Chicken Act to allow Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients to use their benefits to buy hot rotisserie chicken."

Writes John Fetterman, singing the praises of working across the aisle, in "John Fetterman: I haven’t changed. Here’s what has. Working across the aisle is the only way forward" (WaPo).

We can work together. We can accomplish something for the people. We can deliver hot rotisserie chicken.

"Wow. Okay."

Said the Pope, accepting the gift of a paperweight from Marco Rubio.

I felt awkward just watching it.

"In 2025, more than 100 dams were dismantled in 30 states, reconnecting around 4,900 miles of waterways...."

"The resulting free-flowing waterways are healthier, cooler and less prone to algal blooms, and serve as vital habitat for migratory fish and other aquatic life. They’re also safer.... While dams that are critical for flood regulation, water storage or irrigation must stay in place, many no longer serve their original purpose and are at risk of collapse.... The National Inventory of Dams, compiled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, lists about 92,000 dams.... But, according to the National Aquatic Barrier Inventory, there are hundreds of thousands of smaller and unregulated structures that block waterways. The majority were built to create swimming and fishing holes or reservoirs for water supplies, or to generate power and irrigate farm fields.... Low-head dams, which are designed to have water flow over them, create a recirculating current downstream that can trap people and debris. They’re known as 'drowning machines'.... 'There’s just so many of these deadbeat dams on the landscape.'..."

I'm reading "America the Undammed/More miles of the country’s rivers were reconnected last year thanks to dam removals than at any other time in history" (NYT).

And I noticed this, from a few years ago: "Dams like the one that killed Anna Last are 'drowning machines'" (Knox News). There's a good diagram at the link, showing the treacherous water flow, and here's part of the explanation:

Song of the Wandering Althouse.

Meade used A.I. to animate one of his "Sunrise path" photos from this morning. It's funny to see how I walk in the world according to A.I.

You can listen to the whole Donovan song here. And here's the original Yeats poem, "The Song of Wandering Aengus." I recommend memorizing that and having conversations about it. We did and do.

"What [James] Cameron did was not inspiration, it was extraction. He took the unique biometric facial features of a 14-year-old indigenous girl..."

"... ran them through an industrial production process, and generated billions of dollars in profit without ever once asking her permission."

Said the lawyer for Q’orianka Kilcher, quoted in "James Cameron stole my face, actress claims/Q’orianka Kilcher, who is of indigenous Peruvian descent, is suing the director, alleging that he and Disney violated her rights for the blockbuster franchise" (London Times).

Kilcher claimed that Cameron had told her at an event in 2010, one year after Avatar’s release: “I’ve admired your activism work in the Amazon.” She said he later gifted her a signed one-off sketch of the Avatar character with a handwritten note that read: “Your beauty was my early inspiration for Neytiri. Too bad you were shooting another movie. Next time.”

"Avatar" is the highest-grossing movie of all time, so you can see how Kilcher must feel that she's owed something or that Cameron will be persuaded to give her more than that sketch and the compliment. That "Too bad/Next time" must hurt her! And it must hurt him now to be accused of making a movie "that presented itself as sympathetic to indigenous struggles, all while silently exploiting a real indigenous youth behind the scenes."

The law in question is California’s right of publicity law. Here's the text.

I'm giving this my "lawsuits I hope will fail" tag, but I could be talked out of it.