It's the last day of October.

Write about whatever you want.

"[M]y speech was not a critique of Arabs or Islam, but of Islamism... a toxic ideology conceived and promoted by the terrorist group, the Muslim Brotherhood.”

"Let’s see which reporters take the time to read this post and then correct their stories."

Writes RFK Jr., at great length, at X. 

He links to various reporters, and I don't think any of them have responded.

The Daily Wire and The Washington Examiner have, however, noted his post: here and here.

"The Senate race in Michigan... will test moderate and independent voters’ appetite for a combative brand of unalloyed progressivism."

"The party’s activist class believes Dr. El-Sayed’s success next week would establish a proof point that left-wing populism is a winning message, even in swing states. He has embraced an economic agenda that sharply attacks the billionaire class and taken a clear stance against Israel. Centrist Democrats fear that a potential El-Sayed triumph in an otherwise favorable climate for Democrats could be badly misinterpreted as a mandate."

That's how the NYT puts it in "The Most Important Race Shaping 2028 for Democrats Is Happening Now in Michigan/The fate of Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive candidate in the race, will serve as a litmus test for the left’s potency heading into the next presidential contest."

I suspect the Times wants El-Sayed to lose. 

There's this quote from Matt Bennett, an executive vice president of the centrist Third Way think tank: "The danger is that the triumphal stuff coming from the left will take hold as a narrative that 2028ers believe. I think he will win despite — not because of — the fact that he has campaigned mostly to the left."

Which "narrative" is more true — because of or despite? Good luck with the "despite" side of that narrative flogging.

From the comments over there:

"There was the button that produced literature. And there were of course the buttons by which she communicated with her friends."

"The room, though it contained nothing, was in touch with all that she cared for in the world.... The clumsy system of public gatherings had been long since abandoned.... Seated in her armchair she spoke, while they in their armchairs heard her, fairly well, and saw her, fairly well.... Her lecture, which lasted ten minutes, was well received.... Then she fed, talked to many friends, had a bath, talked again, and summoned her bed.... She made the room dark and slept; she awoke and made the room light; she ate and exchanged ideas with her friends, and listened to music and attended lectures; she make the room dark and slept.... And of course she had studied the civilization that had immediately preceded her own — the civilization that had mistaken the functions of the system, and had used it for bringing people to things, instead of for bringing things to people. Those funny old days, when men went for change of air instead of changing the air in their rooms!"

Wrote E.M. Forster, in 1909, in "The Machine Stops" (commission earned).

This was the book he wrote between "A Room with a View" and "Howards End," and it seems to presage the web, A.I., and social media. That seems odd, but my understanding is that he, like many others, was reacting to "A Modern Utopia" by H.G. Wells. 

Here's a book I read a while back, "The Ministry of Truth: The Biography of George Orwell's 1984." It tells the story:

"To wander aimlessly is very unswinging. Unhip."

Having a hundred thousand beers in Milwaukee.

one of the best moments in wisconsin sports history pic.twitter.com/C70YmB5dCZ

— Nick Whalen (@wha1en) October 30, 2026

This interview alone cements Jake Bauers and Sal Frelick as Milwaukee Legends 🚬🍻🍾#ThisIsMyCrew #WonOurWay pic.twitter.com/FCHFddXcWz

— Connor (@DTownCnnrBrown) October 31, 2026

Things got weird. https://t.co/e2SmSOvtIW

— John Egan (@BrewersRaptor) October 30, 2026

Darkness on the eve of election.

The view from Memeorandum — where I've gone for many years to see an overview of the day's talked about headlines — is a non-view: 

 Jamison Foser / Finding Gravity:

The New York Times invents a Democratic scandal while ignoring a new Trump rape allegation  —  America is four days out from the end of an election in which America's deeply unpopular fascist ruling party is trying to retain control of Congress.  The week began with yet another new rape allegation … 

Discussion: The Nation, Fox News, The Wrap and New York Times

RELATED:

 Greg Sargent / New Republic:

Inside Trump's Dark Plot to Keep Senate in GOP Hands Even If Dems Win  —  On Thursday night, the Republican governor of Alaska refused to commit to certifying the outcome in the Senate race if Democrat Mary Peltola wins.  Which means that if she does triumph, refusing to seat Peltola … 

Discussion: Political.org, Anchorage Daily News, The Federalist, Politico, Axios and Washington Examiner

 New York Times:
Justice Dept. Confirms Alaska Inquiry Even as Its Focus Remains Unclear

Discussion: Associated Press, Newsweek, Political.org, Eurasia Review, WJBK-TV, Alaska Public Media, The Hill, Mediaite, Fox News, The Daily Wire and The Guardian

It's a story of woeful blindness: the focus is unclear, the plot is dark, things that do not exist are seen, and things that exist are unseen.

This gets my favorite tag: "seen and unseen."

And, yes, I know: What the hell is "Finding Gravity"? I'll just say the NYT did a big investigation before publishing its story on the dirty-trick name-game in Alaska. If there's a "new rape allegation," maybe the Times is at the stage of doing an investigation. You can't seriously believe that every allegation of rape should be published immediately... and on the eve of elections. 

Sunrise.

"[W]hat surprised me most was that nearly all of Lucy’s co-workers and former mortuary classmates are women, specifically young women in their twenties and thirties."

"'There were only three guys in our class and one of them was a trans man. There were a lot of queer people,' she explains. I’d assumed she would be a quirky outlier in a class of gaunt, poorly socialized men, but as a tattooed lesbian with a warm Midwestern disposition, Lucy actually represents a growing majority. A quiet changeover has taken place in mortuary science—one largely obscured by the shroud separating the death industry from polite society. Over the past four decades, female enrollment in mortuary programs has grown from five percent to roughly 75 percent of recent graduating classes. As a journalist who came up during the peak of girlbossery, I’d been pitched all manner of 'female first' stories—'Would you like to interview Chobani’s first female yogurt sommelier?'—but this felt more substantial than a corporate puff piece. So why this generational shift? And why now?"

From "Keeping Up Appearances/The women taking over the funeral industry" (LA Review of Books).

Is this about... makeup?

"Democrats were far more enthusiastic about taking the poll than Republicans were. Registered Democrats were more than twice as likely as registered Republicans...."

"After 2020, many polls, including The Post’s, adopted additional methods to guard against the threat of nonresponse bias, leveraging voter files with extensive information on past turnout and demographics to help ensure more representative samples. Polls also began weighting samples based on which candidate voters supported in the previous presidential election. Studies found this was effective in reducing errors in 2024, although polls still underestimated Trump’s support.... 'The partisan enthusiasm gap likely explains the disconnect between Democratic and Republican willingness to respond,' said Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, which co-sponsored the poll. 'With an unpopular president, inflation, a war that Trump voters never asked for, the lack of GOP enthusiasm is not surprising. Are Republican voters this late in the election cycle feeling so down about their party’s chances that they just don’t want to talk about it?'"

I'm reading "We polled Kansas. Democrats wanted to talk. Republicans, not so much. The Post is publishing results of its Kansas Senate poll in the interest of transparency and to highlight the challenges the poll faced" (WaPo)(gift link).

Sounds like Rozell wants to put the gloomiest face on Republicans. I can think of other reasons why Republicans might not want to talk to pollsters. Anyway, I'm skeptical about pollsters. Is "poll" even the right word, once it becomes a game of "leveraging" and "weighting"?

Big questions?

I'm reading "The Brutal Harvard Class That Suddenly Everyone Wants to Take/It’s an ungodly amount of reading and no easy A. So why are freshmen lining up to get into Humanities 10?" (Wall Street Journal).

The philosophy professor posed big questions to the 90 students gathered in Boylston Hall: “Why did Austen create such an unlikable heroine?” she asked. “Why read novels at all?” And finally, as the 75-minute lecture ended, “What will become of Emma—and what will become of you?” 

The students burst into applause.

Big questions? I'd say small questions.

I'd ask — instead of "Why read novels at all?" — why go to college to read a novel and to listen to a professor comment on the likability of characters and whether we identify with them. That sounds like a local reading group that barely gets off the ground. 

That reminds me. Last night I dreamed I was a law professor again.

"I knew nothing about any other candidates on the ballot except for me and the incumbent. That is all I have ever known about. I am not interested in tricking voters."

Said Mary Peltola, quoted in "Midterm Elections Live Updates: Peltola Says She Didn’t Know About Alaska Ballot Stacking Plan/As Republican anger grew over the plot, Mary Peltola, the Democratic candidate for Senate, said she had no knowledge of any effort aimed at 'tricking voters'" (NYT).

It sounds like she's engaging with us as a human being....

I'm always being real. pic.twitter.com/4C95rfFNCl

— Elizabeth Holmes (@ElizabethHolmes) September 7, 2026

Brewers at the Packers game.

MORE:

THE CHAMPS ARE HERE @Brewers https://t.co/WGUpDjmxdG

— Green Bay Packers (@packers) October 30, 2026

SAUSAGE RACE AT LAMBEAU FIELD!!!!! OH MY GOD THIS NIGHT IS AWESOME https://t.co/87rDiXSSlQ

— Big B (@bigpackers4x) October 30, 2026

After that Lambeau Leap, how is Sal Frelick?

"I'M GOOD." https://t.co/JvTgIeR5vv pic.twitter.com/w6fLjdFnLU

— Talkin' Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) October 27, 2026

The Voice Guy.

"I'm still standing — no muscles, no tendons — nobody know how I do it."

Sunrise.

The first picture looks out over the lake at 8:03, 33 minutes after sunrise. The second picture — which has the lake in the background (you can see if you look closely) — was taken at 8:11. The sunrise time was 7:36 [NO: It was 7:24]. We were out there in time for it, and I have a photo, but the view was somewhat duller. Do these details matter? They matter a bit to me, 7+ years into something I call The Sunrise Project. What are the rules, if any?

"Democrats don’t have an easy road ahead. But, paradoxically, the better they do in 2026, the more likely they are to ignore their party’s weaknesses with working-class and rural voters."

"Those weaknesses led to Trump winning the 2024 election, but they are likely to fade from the party’s memory as Democrats, buoyed by the fool’s gold of midterms success, attempt to placate an energized left. Celebration is easy; confronting underlying problems is hard. Thus, when Republicans get shellacked on Nov. 3, expect Democrats to see the result as an enthusiastic endorsement of the party rather than a repudiation of the GOP — a far more plausible explanation...."

Writes Ruy Teixeira, in "How a ‘blue wave’ ultimately could cripple the Democratic Party/Midterms success could blind Democrats to problems for 2028 and beyond" (WaPo)(gift link).

Sunrise in the woods.

The radio announcers were much better — I know, Meade put them on some of the time — but they screw up the not-quite-live TV coverage.

Love how this dude spoils the live coverage because he's listening on the radio, running 10 seconds ahead of the TV broadcast. https://t.co/uAG3ZhQfFK

— Ryan Nantell (@RyanNantell) October 29, 2026

"What the f–k does it look like I’m up to? I’m being an oyster farmer," said Graham Platner.

Quoted in "Accused rapist Graham Platner is pissed as ever after crashing out of Maine Senate race: 'Who the f–k are you weirdos'" (NY Post).

The Post pressured Platner to say how he felt about his life now and collected remarks like "It just seems to be, like, life, man" and "It goes the way it always goes, friend" and "People from away have no idea what it is we do for a living."

They won't let him melt back into obscurity. The word "rapist" in the headline feels lowly and mean. I'd have to look it up. I'll just publish this and click the "Graham Platner" link to to remember what that was all about... back when it mattered. Now, there's this other guy being the Graham Platner to Maine's Susan Collins. Don't know a thing about him. The details of midterm elections in states other than my own are not something I like to get tangled up in. I'll be glad when the 2026 election day is over and we can get back to endlessly mulling over presidential candidates. 

"At one point [Mary Peltola] required her staff to feed her family's pet chameleon, which is named Meatball, which only ate crickets."

"At one point, they had to feed Meatball in her congressional office when she was in Congress, and these live crickets escaped, and staff had to recapture them. So that was an example where they felt this was beneath their duties or somewhat demeaning of employees.... So one of the employees Mary Peltola fired in August was her campaign manager, a woman named Elisa Rios. I began talking to Elisa Rios, and she told me a pretty incredible story about what really happened with Dan J. Sullivan and the role Democrats played in his candidacy...."

I'm listening to today's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "A Plan for Two Dans: How Democrats Manipulated Alaska’s Ballot/An investigation by The New York Times looked at how two people named Dan Sullivan ended up on the ballot for the Senate."

The underlying NYT story was the subject of a blog post yesterday, but that one did not have crickets, and I can't miss a good opportunity to bring out my "insect politics" tag.

I mean, have you ever heard of insect politics? They're very... brutal. No compassion, no compromise. We can't trust the insect....

A word to the wise politician: After you've demeaned someone by forcing them to scuttle about capturing crickets, don't fire them, not before the election. Better yet: Don't keep your pets in the office, especially not if they — or their food — creeps people out or smells like hell. That is, if you must keep a pet in your office and you are a politician, make it a dog. There are lots of dogs kept in the offices of congresspersons. Dogs are the official pet of politics. They signal that you are human and normal. You might need that. Trump haters love to tell us he's lacking a dog. And Nixon saved his skin by mentioning his dog named Checkers, Bill Clinton procured a dog (Buddy) to offset his cat (Socks), and Obama ostentatiously acquired the dog Bo. The dog is the animal if you want to be a politician.

Have you ever heard of dog politics? They're very friendly. No brutality, no live crickets. 

Random lady not random at all.

I am now being told that this is Miz's fiancee

— Carter Lowe (@cjlowehoops) October 29, 2026

Context:

The trees at sunrise.

And here's Meade's view of the sunrise....

"In the summer of 2025, a staffer for Mary Peltola, the Alaska Democrat who was eyeing a run for Senate, received unusual instructions from top campaign aides: Find as many people named Dan Sullivan in Alaska as you can."

"The staffer complied, combing through voter records to produce a list of Dan Sullivans from across the state.... Dan S. Sullivan is the name of the state’s Republican senator. And if the Peltola campaign or its allies could track down and persuade another Dan Sullivan to run for Senate, the confusion could cost the senator crucial votes on the state’s unusual, four-person ballot.... This spring, a retired teacher from a tiny fishing village along the Alaska Panhandle, reachable only by air and sea, announced his candidacy for Senate. His name was Dan J. Sullivan. The Peltola campaign has repeatedly denied any involvement in his candidacy. But The Times has found, based on interviews and text messages, along with documents prepared for a potential lawsuit against the campaign, that not only did Ms. Peltola’s team work with people trying to recruit Mr. Sullivan to run for Senate, but the effort was much broader. The group worked to coax other would-be spoilers into the race, to dilute the incumbent’s support and help catapult the Democrat to victory...."

The NYT exposes Peltola, in "Inside Democrats’ Secret Effort to Stack Alaska’s Ballot/Operatives aligned with Mary Peltola, the Democratic nominee for Senate, spent months recruiting candidates to peel votes from Senator Dan Sullivan, the Republican." 

That's a gift link. It's a long article, so check it out, especially if you're inclined to think the NYT is always just trying to help Democrats.

"I was promised Kermit the Gangster Frog, and didn’t get a photo of such a poster."

Said Gus, the top-rated commenter at the NYT article "Kermit the Gangster Frog? Only in These Vintage Ghanaian Movie Posters/In the 1980s, video clubs in Ghana used hand-painted posters to draw African audiences to Hollywood movies. Now they’re attracting American film buffs."

Lots of great photos of posters at the NYT article, and here's the one they didn't think was worth a photograph but that proved so enticing as click bait. It got me. Sure, Kermit the Gangster Frog. I'm clicking. 

The lakeshore path at sunrise.

They're frying the animals.

Trump on solar panels: "They kill all the animals. The animals jump on them and they fry." pic.twitter.com/EShkbJ7oJ1

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 28, 2026

"They came up big today. It's going to be hard.... It's when you're achieving something like this, it's going to have its adversity."

"You know, we had some things go our way yesterday. They had some things go their way this today. So that's the way it is. You just live with it. And if you're a competitor, you you wake up tomorrow morning, come ready to play. [Will the plan tomorrow be Misiorowski?] Yeah. And and to have that as, you know, your guy for this type of situation. Um Yeah. I mean, it's all hands on deck, you know, you just you can write it up and and hope that they perform like the best back of their baseball card, but that doesn't always happen, you know. So, you just you go with what you you believe is the the deal. And um you know, I trust our guys."

Pure baseball talk, from Brewers manager Pat Murphy, after last night's loss to the Rays.

"Just in case you forgot about the horrors of the world for half a second."

Watching everyone Stand Up to Cancer at the World Series reminded me of the most hilarious Bill Burr bit of all time 😂 #WorldSeries https://t.co/LCkT0GQCOn

— Junior Terrazas (@terrazas_junior) October 28, 2026

Hilarious, but he is obviously deliberately luring his antagonists to display homophobia.

Trump: I love the meat! Ahhhh! I love it, look! *gestures* pic.twitter.com/TV3OGDz4o0

— FactPost (@factpostnews) October 27, 2026

To see the homophobia display by Trump antagonists, read the responses to this video, here, at X.

ADDED: "This post got my 'homophobia politics' tag, and I clicked and looked back to see where that went. The original post that motivated me to make the tag was 'Emerging trend: Democrats insinuating that Republican politicians are gay ('I'm saying this is a trend to watch, because I'm seeing the second example of something within one week'). That was something that was going on in 2014. Remember? I didn't."

Why is that in quotes? Because I wrote it back in February 2020, in a post titled "You know I think Biden's new anti-Buttigieg ad is homophobic." And I'm using the tag again today and finding it interesting, again, to go back and see where I have used it before. 

AND: Here's Trump critiquing the press for excerpting the very thing I'm saying he knows they're going to excerpt and means for them to excerpt (and I'm crediting him with cleverness for setting multiple damaging traps and having fun with it):

Trump: The fake news only covered the ass part. They said 'what the hell was Trump doing talking about a man's anatomy? He was talking about his ass.' I studied his ass to see where the power came from pic.twitter.com/ClGLdKarW7

— Headquarters (@HQNewsNow) October 28, 2026

Sunrise on the lake.

Afternoon in the woods:

"What’s the most memorable place you’ve cried in New York? (Be specific!)"

The NYT is soliciting stories about crying in the city. Fill out the form they have at "New Yorkers, Where’s the Best Place to Cry in the City? To help us report an upcoming article, we want to hear about all the places you’ve cried — subways, sidewalks, stoops, saunas and beyond."

I know from listening to pop songs over the years that the best place to cry is in the rain.

You cry in the rain so no one can tell you're crying. Similar but importantly different is "Raindrops" by Dee Clark. There, the man is crying, but he's in denial: "Oh no, it can't be teardrops/For a man ain't supposed to cry." It's not raining at all.

And here's Flight of the Conchords playing with the same idea:

There's also the situation where it really is raining and you nevertheless are perfectly aware that a person is crying. Most notably: "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain."

"So we had the privelege [sic] to watch one of the most amazing team performances in a World Series in history. And we wake up to see a summary of the game..."

"... and this is what we get? No offense to the author, but my goodness WaPo, what an embarrassment."

That's the top-rated comment on the main World Series article featured on the front page of The Washington Post. It's titled: "How a World Series team turns batting practice music into psychological warfare/The Milwaukee Brewers are famous for playing sleeping tunes during their opponents’ pregame sessions. So the Tampa Bay Rays came prepared."

And here's the last paragraph: "The World Series thus far has been tight, with the first two games, both Milwaukee wins, decided by a run apiece. The margins can come from anywhere, and the Rays’ chance to retaliate awaits. Game 3 begins at 8 p.m. in Tampa. But first, batting practice."

Here's the entire sports coverage on the front page, right now:

Game 3 has been over for more than 12 hours. It was quite something, 10 to 1, and nobody should be saying "The World Series thus far has been tight" at this point. But I get it. The Washington Post's sports coverage is for people who basically don't care about sports. So you get sports with music, sports with Paris, and sports with "short kings."

"Over the years, she dated several younger men, including a Russian 25 years her junior whom she met in the parking lot of a grocery store..."

"... where she found him admiring her Porsche Boxster. A month into the relationship, he casually mentioned that the last woman he dated paid him $1,000 a month. That’s when she implemented a new rule: 'I said, "From now on, they have to have been born when Kennedy was shot."'"

From "Boomer women are dating after divorce. Men don’t always meet their standards. In the 1990s, baby boomer women set records for divorce. Thirty years later, how’s their love life?" (WaPo)(gift link).

It's interesting — isn't it? — the rules people make as they try to guard against making the same mistake again. I would have thought: Get rid of that Porsche. Or at least: Don't trust anything that starts with him admiring your Porsche Boxster in a grocery store parking lot.

"Another way in which antidepressants may work involves the enhancement of neuroplasticity..."

".... or the brain’s ability to reorganize its structure and connections. Continued treatment with antidepressants may bolster brain chemicals and processes that promote neuroplasticity. (Psychedelics are thought to work as a treatment for depression and anxiety, in part, for a similar reason.) The hypothesis is that the drugs open a 'window' of plasticity through which the brain has a renewed ability to change the way it is wired. Patients treated with antidepressants often feel more mentally malleable and better able to move away from unhelpful thinking patterns. Some researchers have proposed that we should think about antidepressants as relieving a kind of cognitive constipation."

From "Millions Use Antidepressants. We Still Don’t Understand How They Work. Here’s how psychiatrists like me think about the most promising hypotheses" (NYT).

"I'm really good at real estate and fixing things. I fix things very good..... I always build beautiful and inexpensive.... I can do it naturally.... It actually relaxes me...."

"If you would have seen the White House...  it was in horrible condition.... The plaster was falling off the exterior.... They had four or five windows where literally the ornamentation was up on one side and had fallen off or half fallen off in the other. And I fixed it. We made a mold of the good one and we put it on the other one and we got it all beautiful. And then we skim coated with an exterior plaster that's phenomenal. The entire exterior with the best artisans you've ever seen.... The White House is now in better shape than it was in 1792, when it was built.... Look, tell Obama the following: The White House is a symbol of America. And when it's dirty, filthy dirty and broken, when the windows are cracked, when the exterior monuments — they call them monuments on the outside — when they're good on one side but missing on the other side of a window, people notice that... 20 years ago, I came into the White House and... I said, 'Man, this place is in bad shape.'... It's been a long time... and I made up for lost time.... And I didn't take any time. I'd literally do it when I walk home from the Oval. I'd walk I'd look up. I'd say, 'Boy, that wall is really bad. Let's go. We got to fix it, fellas.'... And I would try and explain that to a guy like Obama, but he wouldn't understand. He doesn't he doesn't understand the White House has to be clean, pristine, beautiful. It can't have cracks in the column. It can't have big blotches of stone laying outside on the ground from 30 years ago.... Nobody loved it like I do. Nobody loved it. And now the White House is in beautiful shape...."

"We merely believed two of the most powerful cultural icons of our time. Bill Cosby and Bill Clinton..."

"... each pointed my generation of aspirational teenagers toward a Black Camelot.... [Cosby] invested the cultural capital of being America’s dad into becoming America’s minister on Black aspirations. Despite being raised in subsidized public housing in Philadelphia, the comedian Cosby merged with the well-to-do Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable of 'The Cosby Show.' That’s the Bill who built Hillman to show Black families what was possible. But it was another Bill — William Jefferson Clinton — who made Cosby’s fictional world feel like an early draft of the real world. Clinton gave us Black cool in a white Southern package. He was from a place called Hope, like a divinely chosen character we could have learned about in vacation Bible school. He played saxophone on 'The Arsenio Hall Show' and prayed well in Black churches. His casual affinity with and for Black Southern culture was political gold...."

Writes Tressie McMillan Cottom, in a new piece in the NYT called "I Believed in the Promise of Hillman College. What Happened?"

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you like in the comments... including the Brewers game, World Series game 3.

"Grading for correctness just adds a huge incentive for them to use AI for homework instead of doing it themselves, and penalizes students for honesty."

Said UC Berkeley professor (and winner of the Fields Medal) Richard Borcherds.

Quoted in "UC Berkeley professor refuses to grade his students’ homework after noticing worrying trend: 'No point'" (NY Post).

"France has beautiful days ahead of it... its recovery begins here in Orléans. This is the symbol of the fight against stupidity, against abandonment, against resignation."

Said Marine Le Pen, addressing supporters of France’s "far-right" National Rally in Orléans (where Joan of Arc defended France in 1429):

The lakeshore woods at first light.

"He was a one of one. Anything he’d seen, he could draw for you — like the logo of a defunct 1910s company or a piece of footwear."

"He was like a visual savant. It was weird. You would refer to something visual, and he’d go, 'Oh, yeah, I can sketch that up for you.'"

Said Ethan Coen, quoted in "J. Todd Anderson Has Died. The Coen Brothers May Be Lost Without Him. The storyboard artist produced scene-by-scene sketches that shaped films like “Fargo,” “The Big Lebowski” and 'No Country for Old Men'" (NYT)(gift link, lots of drawings and photos).

"What happened to the internet? It used to be fun. Look at me in 2012. But lately, it's gotten a little weird...."

"The Parks Department sees an old, decaying, noncompliant place. We see versatile, high-quality, high-performance equipment."

Said Salo Coslovsky, an associate professor of urban planning, quoted in "New Fight at Gritty Manhattan Park Is Over ‘Punk Rock’ Pull-Up Bars/The Parks Department has a $10 million plan to renovate the northeast corner of Tompkins Square Park, but fans of its workout bars want things to stay just as they are" (NYT).

The idea that it's "punk rock" comes from a personal trainer, Danny Kavaldo: "People don’t come here to get the newest, shiniest equipment; people come here because it’s Tompkins Square Park. There’s an energy you can feel, it’s gritty, it’s punk rock, it’s the East Village."

"In a 1993 cover story — 'Revenge of the Philistines' was the headline — Forbes lumped a Stankard piece in with 'junk collectibles.'"

"If he heard the sneering, Mr. Stankard did not seem to care. A devout Catholic, he saw melting his woodland worlds into miniature as a higher calling. Wearing purple didymium lenses to protect his eyes from the sodium flare heated glass emits, Mr. Stankard worked beneath a Benedictine motto: Laborare est orare, Latin for 'to work is to pray.'"

From "Paul Stankard Has Died. Behold What He Did With Paperweights. Yes, paperweights. Working over a nearly 5,000-degree gas flame, he created glass marvels that sold for tens of thousands of dollars. He was 83" (NYT)(gift link, with photos).

I thought the whole thing was a joke, but there really are stingrays on view — and available for touching — at Tropicana Field.

Aaron Ashby and Brice Turang finding out there are stingrays in a tank in Tropicana Field is straight comedy 😂😂 #Brewers #WorldSeries https://t.co/eYD2tnaHVV

— Cameron Ezeir (@camezeir) October 26, 2026

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I don't approve. Leave animals alone. But isn't a stingray the beast that took out the Crocodile Hunter? I look a bit more closely at the truth/fiction of this special feature of the Rays' ballpark. These are not stingrays but cownose rays. Still, I would leave fish alone. (Yes, they are fish, cartilaginous fishes, like sharks. No bones!)

"But Ladies’ Man: The Careless Heart of John F Kennedy is far more interesting than its tacky title suggests."

"(Sloppy subtitle too: Kennedy’s heart was not exactly the organ he was putting about back then.) Leamer has become known for telling the stories of the people around a famous person: Capote’s Women, Hitchcock’s Blondes, Warhol’s Muses — you get the picture. He goes through the stories of some of Kennedy’s mistresses here and includes first-hand interviews with the few still surviving, such as the posh Radcliffe student Diana de Vegh, whom Kennedy eventually installed as a researcher in the White House so he could have quickies with her in the Lincoln Bedroom. 'It was chit and chat and then some sex and then go home,' de Vegh tells Leamer, making Kennedy’s seduction methods sound on a par with a teenage boy’s...."

From "Why did JFK risk everything for casual sex?/In Ladies’ Man, Laurence Leamer asks what drove President Kennedy to conduct affairs with everyone from his secretary to an alleged Nazi spy" (London Times). 

"Leamer’s main argument is that Kennedy’s compulsive sex life was driven by his poor health.... He also had repeated painful STDs due to his refusal to wear condoms.... If I had to pick Kennedy’s lowest point in this book

"No sooner had we had that first dinner at the White House, which is a very seductive and beautiful place..."

"... Bill [Mayer] wanted to come back. The Gofer called me multiple times, saying how much Bill loves me, that he respects me more than anybody, and wants to come back for a second meeting... Also, I wanted to tell Bill that he’s a major POTHEAD. He’s got to stop, it’s very bad for his health. He looked like hell this time. Bill was drunk and had alcohol in his hand as he walked through the White House. Stephen A. Smith and Kid Rock came along with him.... After the first dinner, Bill Maher was friendly, I guess, everyone walked away pleased. He gave me a good first show, with lots of Laughing Machine laughter, which is a real term, but it is what it is, and then reverted back to his former self, and his old ways. I understand that. He’s doing his thing. I never took it very personally. I would always mock his Low Ratings, whenever I heard. He’s not a nice guy, and what he spouts isn’t what he believes. He has to cater to his base, which is mostly composed of Losers, and people who don’t like working...."

A snippet from Trump's long Truth Social post about his second dinner with Bill Maher, which he's writing only after Bill Maher talked about the dinner on his show last Friday.

Here's a little of what Bill said that irked Trump so much:

And here's some coverage of the dinner that preceded Bill Maher's show. It's from "The View," but it include clips of Trump saying everything was great:

The Art of the Baseball.

Apollo and Daphne, by Daniel Seiter, 1675-99, 📸 by Jeff Phelps https://t.co/kzcgBxN1eh

— ArtButMakeItSports (@ArtButSports) October 25, 2026

I like this ArtButMakeItSports X account:

And look at that NYT "Connections" image.

Sunrise.

The heron at dawn.

We see this heron every morning — lately — at a place I call the AVP (alternative vantage point). Now, we feel he knows us and waits for us. Before, he'd been standing rooted to one spot quite near the shore, undisturbed by our approach. There was an aura of mutual respect and trust. But this morning, as we walked up to where we would first see him, he flew up and crossed right in front of us. It was glorious! Then he landed right over there, where you see him in the photo, and he remained rooted there, posing for all our pictures.

Here's Meade's video:

Does Obama even know what cheesecake is?

I've listened to this 20 times:

I believe he's trying to talk like a standup comedian. I feel as though he's been coached on how to sound like a standup comedian who is also the Obama who once presided over what's now supposed to be remembered as a golden age.

That's not easy, but when he gets to his big punchline — "He's got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory" — it's like he doesn't even know what cheesecake is let alone have any familiarity with the restaurant chain a lot of Americans regard as a pretty nice place to go out to eat.

He went.

"We need to get a system that can get that right." Broadcaster Joe Davis reacts to the swing call that ended Game 2 of the World Series https://t.co/9IXmVGNPlC

— Talkin' Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) October 25, 2026

The MLB rule book does not define a "swing" or "checked swing." It is 100% the umpire's judgment. But just about every accepted understanding makes that swing. The barrel of his bat was through the hitting zone -- past parallel to the front of the plate. Had the ball struck the bat it would have gone into fair territory. That's no different than a bunt attempt that isn't pulled back in time.

— Shipwreckedcrew (@shipwreckedcrew) October 25, 2026

"That [burned Limoges] City Hall is at the epicenter of generations of struggle. It's not connected to how I fancy croissants and brie..."

"... and red wine but all I can find now is kebab in a shop blaring rap.... We should be alert to how the history of struggle is obscured by the reactionary and racist commodification of nostalgia and tourism."

"Whereas clowns were naive idiots, bouffons savagely undermined the people in power."

"They were doing something important: using biting and at times cruel humor to undermine systemic injustice. It’s what satirists have done throughout history.... Ali G is a white imbecile—a delusional cultural appropriator—who steals the fashion and lyrics from his favorite gangsta rap and dancehall idols, from Compton to Kingston.... Like a good bouffon, he undermines that establishment—not the culture he loves and borrows from.... Each of my characters has a specific mechanism to encourage people to drop their guards and show what they really believe, prejudices and all. Borat, an antisemitic journalist, exposes Jew hatred, xeno­phobia, sexism, and casual racism. Erran Morad, a stereotype of a tough-guy Israeli commando—'I’ve been in 14 terror attacks,' he says in my new movie Ali G: Who Iz I?, 'and started two'—exposes Islamophobia.... Ali G works on another level. He’s not extreme—he’s just extremely dumb. But his absurd questions lead powerful people to underestimate him and answer in earnest, revealing their own biases...."

Writes Sacha Baron Cohen, in "Why Satire Is No Laughing Matter" (Time). 

According to Baron Cohen, the "bouffon" is a "tradition dated back to 11th century France, where societal outcasts—gay people, heretics, those with deformities—would be let back into their villages once a year to put on shows viciously mocking the ruling class."

I noticed that Time essay because of "What to Know About ‘Ali G: Who Iz I?’ Sacha Baron Cohen has revived his fictional wannabe rapper in a new movie that will be in theaters for just this weekend. Here’s what to know" (NYT).

Here's an excerpt from that (showing why Baron Cohen is highly motivated to justify his continuation of the Ali G character):

"A few years ago, I had the rather rudimentary realization that my aversion to being cold was causing me to shrink my life to fit within the walls of my apartment during winter."

"I’d decline invitations, measuring the worthiness of an activity by its proximity to a thermostat. When I realized being cold is not an emergency — it’s just discomfort, and discomfort can be tolerated — I got a better winter coat and stopped dreading February so much.

I'm reading "Outside Chance/We’ve plunged fully into fall, complete with cozy scarves and puffy vests. Why not venture into the woods?" — by Melissa Kirsch, who draws a distinction between being "outdoorsy" and "outsidey."

The movie I'd like to see is "My Dinner with Robert."

I'm picturing a "My Dinner with Andre" style conversation in a restaurant, and it's Billy Corgan and Robert Smith.

My dream is inspired by something Corgan said in the Popcast podcast at "Billy Corgan Unloads After a Lifetime of 'Mocking, Bullying, Laughing'" (NYT)(audio and transcript):

[W]e were told at some point in the early 2000s that those types of songs with those types of themes were no longer relevant, and off they went. That it was too complicated. The Cure had the same problem. I’ve been friends with Robert [Smith] for many years, and we would sit there somewhere in the early 2000s over a Chinese meal and lament, like, what the hell happened? This emotionally resonant music just seems like it’s been shoved aside by sociopathic influencers with kind of one-note music.... When they sold out alternative ethos for pop domination — in essence, celebrating Rihanna as an alternative star and wiping Siouxsie [Sioux] off the map — that to me was the great betrayal of the alternative ethos. So suddenly all the things that make alternative music so beautiful — the messiness, the dissonance, the out-of-tune guitars — it was like, nah, that’s just too messy. We don’t have time for that anymore. I started literally comparing the guitar in interviews to the saxophone....

There they are, Corgan and Smith in a Chinese restaurant, puzzling out what the hell happened. It's the Wally/Andre situation. There was an art form. It was vital and they were in the center of it, and where are they now? What happened? 

Sunrise, Part 2.

Sunrise, Part 1.

"Testosterone levels have dropped worldwide by as much as fifty per cent since the nineteen-seventies..."

"... a decrease associated with the rising prevalence of obesity, because excess fat tissue decreases the production of testosterone and its binding proteins.... The Trump Administration draws a sharp distinction in legitimacy between the use of hormone therapy in the case of transgender-affirming care versus in cisgender-affirming care.... 'The trans population I take care of—a fair number of them aren’t looking to become something different than the gender they feel they are,' [endocrinologist Brad] Anawalt told me. 'They’re not looking to become supermen or superwomen.' This was a provocative suggestion: that transgender care, by offering harmony between a body and an identity, is, in a sense, naturalizing, whereas TRT used to compensate for insecurity and enhance masculinity might be the more unnatural intervention...."

From "Is the Military Low-T? New data suggest that a quarter of American servicemen may have low testosterone. That doesn’t mean what Pete Hegseth thinks it does" (The New Yorker).

A gentle non-dispute about the whereabouts of toys.

As “Winnie-the-Pooh” turns 100, Britain is renewing calls for the original stuffed bear and his friends to return from the New York Public Library. The library has resisted requests, citing the toys’ age and popularity. Oh, bother! https://t.co/hMAhdlFRpO https://t.co/wTquTiQL7q

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) October 15, 2026

Response from the British Embassy in Washington:

The Kiffness succinctly sums up American politics.

The last time we noticed The Kiffness, he was riffing on Trump's "They're eating the dogs." He's South African and said he's non-partisan. He's got a special rapport with cats.

Sunrise.

Just the 2 of us.

"Interacting with the horses 'helps us attune to energy, ours and theirs, and seems to create a sense of safety — not just in the head, but centered, felt, and grounded in the body....'"

I'm reading "6 Horse-Centered Retreats That Go Beyond Trail RidesI/n new programs, interactions with horses go beyond riding to meditation, yoga and therapy that practitioners say can help restore life balance" (NYT).

Top-rated comment over there: "You can go to all these wildly expensive resorts and the actual horse encounters are extra? Go to a stable somewhere and volunteer to muck out stalls."

Yeah, take a workation. Oh, no, I can't use "workation" to mean a vacation that consists of doing some romantic form of work like operating a horse-drawn plow or candlemaking or pottery. That particular portmanteau is already being used to mean continuing to do your regular work remotely, in some nice vacation spot.

Meanwhile, there are these elaborate fantasy vacations. Go to the link and see photographs of people lying down while a horse more or less kisses them. I can't imagine going all the way to, say, Indonesia, to submit to the ministrations of a horse. It's presented as therapeutic, but there you'd be, expecting luxury and spirituality, surrounded by other people with the same expectations and dependent on a business that strives to give you what you paid for. 

"You might have wondered, as I did, whether it’s even possible to authentically recreate such a famous experiment."

"'Stanford Prison Experiment' has become a cultural shorthand for sinister power dynamics. As a participant, wouldn’t you know how things turned out last time? Wouldn’t you try, equipped with the knowledge that cameras were capturing your every move for millions of viewers, to make things not turn out that way?"

I'm reading "This landmark experiment was horrifying. Why is Netflix performing it again? The Stanford Prison Experiment has been rebirthed for your viewing, uh, pleasure" (WaPo)(gift link).

"The Justice Department charged two former FBI officials with lying to Congress about an investigation around a laptop belonging to former president Joe Biden’s son Hunter."

WaPo reports (gift link).

In 2020, Floris and Benavides briefed Republican lawmakers about the laptop as part of a congressional investigation into Hunter Biden. Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), then the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, claimed that the FBI officials gave that briefing as a way to frame the investigation as Russian disinformation....

"The Horse-drawn Carriage in New York City is a quintessential New York experience. So sad that, for political reasons, we will see it go!"

 Said President Trump, quoted in "New York City Passes Horse Carriage Ban, Ending a Central Park Tradition/A passenger’s death in June became the impetus for the City Council to ban the practice, but the bill will likely face a court challenge before being implemented in 2028" (NYT).

I don't see the "political reasons." It seems as though the ban is precisely about the subject of the ban, the safety and ethics of using horses this way in New York City. Weighing the pros and cons produces a difference of opinion and one side had the power and therefore got its way. I see no basis for saying there was something "political" as if the real dispute was about something else.

Was it "a quintessential New York experience"? Yeah, it probably was. Best seen from a distance though. Did I ever do it? Yeah, once. In the 1970s. Not recommended. 

"The thing that you learn as an older person too, is that you really don’t love that many things. You think you do, but you don’t."

"You find that out when it’s too late. By that point you have passed up so many of the great things that you wish you had and you accumulated all this stuff that is absolutely worthless."

Said Isaac Mizrahi, quoted in "A New Guide on the Endless Quest for Personal Style/A new book from the RealReal, the secondhand designer retailer, has ideas for how to develop taste that is your own" (NYT).

"So with the first few BMOs I tried, I combined [the bread, butter, and cheese] into a sandwich, and ate quickly and efficiently with both hands."

"'That’s the burger method,' said Mr. Dyrholm, the Politiken critic. Two friends set me straight. 'It’s just, like, very, very important that you eat it like this,' said Emma Toft Kromann, holding it open-faced. 'If you see someone eating it like a burger, you know they’re not from here,' added Ophelia Ernland. A bolle med ost is the elevenses of a city caught between hustle and hygge...."

From a long NYT article that's just about how people in Copenhagen eat bread with butter and some cheese. The headline is "It’s Sliced Cheese on Bread. And It’s Rocking Copenhagen’s World. The Danish capital is obsessed with this stripped-down snack, and the city’s top bakeries won’t stop until they’ve perfected it."

I haven't seen "elevenses" for so long, I almost thought I didn't know the word. I do know it, but I looked it up anyway. Here:

Ha ha. "Fourzes." "Fourzes" does not, like "elevenses," have its own OED entry. (I do think "elevenses" is plural, so that's a quibble with "A bolle med ost is the elevenses.") 

Anyway, bread and butter and cheese. Perfect. Why do we even need to be reminded that it's a thing? There's a particular way that it's a thing — in Copenhagen.

ADDED: Wikipedia has an entry for "Elevenses." You've probably encountered the word in classic children's literature:

"Would You Listen to A.I. Music? Maybe You Already Do.... If you were to hear A.I. music, would you recognize it as something made by a machine?"

That's a NYT article. It asks you to listen to a song — by "Diane Butler" — that is machine-made out of a million real country songs.

“I listened to it, and I was like, oh, my God, this is my anthem. I’m obsessed with the song,” said Ms. Stamatis, a 38-year-old mother of three in Denver. “I was sending it to all my friends.”

Eventually a message came back from one of those friends: “It’s an A.I. bot. Stop listening right now.” Another texted: “I can’t believe you guys got catfished by an A.I. bot.”

I read that yesterday, but I didn't blog it, because it didn't quite cross my bloggability line. But I'm blogging it now, because Meade just sent me this:

So was he tricked? No, he says he knew it was A.I. He saw it in the middle of the night and wanted to preserve it. He forgets exactly why. 

The NYT article is mostly about whether streaming services ought to have safeguards that exclude A.I. music or at least bonk you over the head with the fact that it is A.I. music. But I think what's really important is that we, the humans, remain engaged in search for truth. It's absurd to ask machines like Spotify to do the work of detecting the work of music-making machines. We end up with a world of machines interacting with machines, and what is left for use to do? Consume the music that one machine or the other has decided is good for us? Well, isn't it good that the bearded cowboy thinks we'd better call our mother before it's too late and we're the ones left crying?

BUT: On the other hand, the machines can make this music so fast and affect emotions so quickly that the streaming service is entirely overrun and we won't use it anymore or, worse, we'll become fools for everything artificial. 

"We don't ride bicycles in Iowa."

Joe Mitchell: "Thank God you're building the ballroom. Thank God you're getting rid of those awful bike lanes. We don't ride bicycles in Iowa." https://t.co/pMkgvYZhv0

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 23, 2026

Is a ballroom more of a motorcycle thing or a bicycle thing? Seems to me motorcycling and bicycling go together more than either fits into the world of ballrooms. 

The Brewers profess their love for the national anthem.

What will be going through these #Brewers players heads during the National Anthem prior to game 1 of the World Series tomorrow?? https://t.co/jwaaMAl2jn

— Cameron Ezeir (@camezeir) October 22, 2026

Sunrise.

October trees at 7:33 a.m.

"A mum of two died after she crashed her car en route to a hospital after being stabbed at a retirement village."

"Eleanor Barnfield sustained 'puncture wounds' after being attacked at work in Bridgend, South Wales. After being told by the ambulance service that there would be a long wait, the 47-year-old tried to drive herself to hospital, according to eyewitnesses." 

From "Mum of two dies in crash while driving herself to hospital after being stabbed at retirement village" (GBNews).

ADDED: How different is it in America? See "Shot or stabbed? You may not want to call an ambulance/Analysis: Victims more likely to die if transported to the trauma center by EMS" (Philly voice)("For certain types of injury, it might be best to call the police, Uber or a cab – however you can get to the trauma center fastest").

"That was great. Man. Wow. Man. I love that. I watched that. I saw that. That was incredible."

Trump said “Man, I loved that,” after a man allegedly punched a protester during a midterm rally in South Carolina. https://t.co/A9efIOdxEG

— The Mirror (@DailyMirror) October 22, 2026

"Did Elon Musk decide by personal fiat to cut off Ukraine's access to vital communications?"

Memeorandum organizes the links about Starlink:

 Paul Krugman:

It's Time to Take Starlink Away from Elon Musk  —  Americans did not give him the right to make national security policy  —  Did Elon Musk decide by personal fiat to cut off Ukraine's access to vital communications?  Although Musk claims that the decision was made by Trump … 

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog and twitchy.com

RELATED:

 The Hill:NEW!

Rubio, Hegseth point finger at Musk in Starlink slowdown  —  Top Trump administration officials are starting to point fingers squarely at SpaceX founder Elon Musk for the decision to slow down his company's Starlink satellite internet services and its military counterpart Starshield for Ukraine … 

Discussion: CNBC, Reuters, Ars Technica, The Daily Wire, Forbes, Stars & Stripes, Breitbart, Bloomberg, NewsMax.com, Mediaite and Mercury News

 Michael A. Cohen / MS NOW:
Elon Musk is trying to make himself more powerful than the government

Discussion: Townhall, Atlantic Council and Mediaite