"... at the bizarre, lonely intersection of second-wave feminism and Manhattan privilege. Many of the girls in my private high school had their breasts enlarged and their noses shrunk. I congratulated myself for not following suit, even though I didn’t have a bump on my nose and I wasn’t flat chested. My mother, the writer Erica Jong, had a whole gestalt back then: pro-sex feminism, which of course meant keeping herself appealing enough for men to want to have sex with her. She worried about her own weight and beauty constantly. Julia Phillips, a successful film producer and writer, once compared her to 'Miss Piggy when her face is in repose'.... My mom was the concubine of more than a few powerful men. To preserve that status, she had a face-lift in her 50s. Many of the feminists who populated my mother’s narrow townhouse — Andrea Dworkin, Betty Friedan and Phyllis Chesler among them — did not believe in molding themselves into something different for men’s delectation. These women rejected the beauty-obsessed power structure that my mother embraced. Instead, they hoped to change that culture by refusing to comply with it...."
Writes Molly Jong-Fast, who got a deep plane face- and neck-lift, in "I’m Not Going to Lie About My Neck" (NYT gift link).
१२ ऑगस्ट, २०२६
Moving the frozen eggs to the front burner.
I don't know how much more of this we'll be seeing, but I wanted to record what seems like an incipient trend, the women's issue we somehow suddenly need — egg freezing.1. A couple days ago, in an episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast, "Why Adults Are Getting Cancer at a Younger Age," there was the story of a 36-year-old woman with breast cancer, facing surgery and chemotherapy, who was asked by her doctors if she wanted to freeze her eggs: "And so first things first, like my brain wasn't even on the cancer. My brain was like all the things that go into freezing your eggs and what that meant for like my future and what that meant. Like my boyfriend and I at that time, like we weren't talking about having kids...." And the journalist assures us that "egg freezing is a really intense process, it's intense emotionally and it also intense physically."
2. In yesterday's NYT, there was "Ocasio-Cortez Opened Up About Freezing Her Eggs. She Got Women Talking. Many women say being open about the fertility treatment is a form of empowerment. But critics say all the talk can be misleading" (gift link). "Until about 2012, freezing eggs to preserve fertility was considered an experimental intervention for urgent cases like cancer patients whose fertility would be compromised by treatment. Like breast cancer, menopause and menstruation, egg freezing has become yet another women’s health issue in which open discussion is seen as a form of empowerment. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez herself said that it was 'badass that I’m going to be giving myself shots in the green room' of a TV studio..."
NBC’s Steve Kornacki at a loss for words.
NBC’s Steve Kornacki reacts to the USB drives that were missing election data in Wisconsin.
— Brandon Doggett (@brandondoggett) August 12, 2026
“Are you serious? They have to do… God… Okay…” pic.twitter.com/Byj6KQJBX9
"I'm not going to travel the world with a cooler full of sauerkraut. It's ridiculous. I can't do it!"
🤣 LMAO! Marco Rubio just dropped this hilarious response to Sec. RFK Jr.'s diet
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 11, 2026
Q: Have you adopted RFK's diet of red meat and fermented vegetables?
RUBIO: "No! This is a CRAZY diet. This is a diet that consists of eating sauerkraut and meat. Now you understand like this is… pic.twitter.com/qgaMNjsIhu
"There was so much vulnerability and yearning there. It was heartfelt and pure girl power. Arlene on that song was inspiring. I wanted to record a record like that."
Said Ronnie Spector, about "hearing 'Maybe' for the first time on her grandmother’s Philco radio as a teenager."
Quoted in "Arlene Smith, Whose Song ‘Maybe’ Helped Define Doo-Wop, Dies at 84/With the Chantels, a groundbreaking female vocal group, she tugged heartstrings with the indelible hit and paved the way for a wave of 'girl groups'" (NYT gift link).
At that point, doo-wop — born of city street corners — was dominated by male acts like the Penguins (“Earth Angel”), Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers (“Why Do Fools Fall in Love”) and the Del-Vikings (“Come Go With Me”).
Despite the fact that a few pioneering Black female groups like the Teen Queens (“Eddie My Love”) and the Bobbettes (“Mr. Lee”) had hits before the Chantels, the record industry “didn’t know what to do with us,” Ms. Smith later said in an interview with the site ClassicBands.com.
"Maybe" is the subject of Episode 65 of the great podcast "A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs." Excerpt:
"For now, we polka."
Tonight's all about @DavidCCrowley. He's earned this win and the accolades.
— Tony Evers (@Tony4WI) August 12, 2026
I am so proud of David—he's the future of our Party, and I can't wait for him to be our next governor.
For now, we polka. Tomorrow, we're back at work to win.@TomTiffanyWI, we'll see you in November.
Trump said we could just "bop along" in Iran: "We could just keep it alone, and they’re going to fail. We could just keep, you know, doing sort of just like nice and easy, relaxed."
Quoted in "Trump floats ‘easy, relaxed’ Iran war phase focused on hurting regime’s economy: 'I’m their banker.'"
“I’m sort of negotiating. You see, they’re very devious negotiators because they’ll agree to something, then they’ll go out and tell the press that they never agreed to it. They’re very dishonest people.”
“We have three strategies,” he declared.
The race was close, but Francesca Hong has conceded and the risk of a democratic socialist Governor for Wisconsin is over.
At least this time around.
Here's the NYT report (gift link):
My questions:
• What proportion of the votes for Hong were supporters of the Republican candidate Tom Tiffany — voters who thought Hong would be a weak opponent for him? It was an open primary, and I saw some open encouragement of this behavior. Tiffany obviously had his nomination sewn up. You can see that David Crowley only won by about 3,000 votes. How much larger would his margin of victory have been without those insincere strategic votes for Hong?
• Why did Hong concede so quickly, with such a narrow margin? Why not wait at least until all the votes are in? Why not ask for a recount? She's entitled to a recount if the margin is 1% or less, but it's only paid for by the state if it's less than 0.25%. To drag out the process after the primary would help Tiffany. That's good reason not to indulge in a recount, but why not wait until all 100% of the votes are counted? She conceded when it was less than 95%.
• Why were the polls so bad?! The final Marquette poll, from July 22–27, released July 29, had Hong at 38% and Crowley at 7%. There was also another candidate at 16% (Barnes), but he dropped out. Still, giving all the Barnes votes to Crowley would only put Crowley at 23%. That 38% for Hong looked awfully strong. But I wouldn't assume the polls got it wrong. The polls inspired a lot of people to attack Hong, making her look unusually foolish and driving a lot of Democrats into voting for what is practical and strategic and not for the radical who excited them so much.
• Speaking of exciting radicals in Wisconsin, these votes were falling into place as a highly visible and emotional street protest was escalating in Madison after the death of Corey Ruiz. Though Ruiz had apparently attacked the police with a knife, Hong quickly denounced his killing as "a state-sanctioned… execution." Those protests went on for 2 weeks, mostly during the period when there were no new polls. How much did those impassioned protests turn Wisconsin voters against Hong?
***
As for me, I was going to sit this one out, but in the end I did go over to the Congregational Church and cast a vote.
११ ऑगस्ट, २०२६
"What a blast from the past! The New York Times hasn’t pulled out the infamous 'beer test' for a political candidate since May 22, 2015..."
"... when it ran ['Finding a Candidate You’d Like to Have a Beer With.'] The 'beer test' was once a massively overused campaign reporting cliché. It grew out of a Sam Adams ad campaign in the 2000 race, and from Bush-Gore through the 2016 cycle it was nearly impossible to escape 'beer test' coverage. Then Donald Trump won the 2016 beer test by default — it was hard to imagine Hillary Clinton having a beer at all — leading even Slate to pronounce 'there has never been and perhaps never will be a candidate you’d be more eager to have a beer with than Donald Trump.'
That's Matt Taibbi, in "Cliché Alert: Return of the 'Beer Test'/The New York Times reverts to old form, thanks to a blue-party schism" (Racket).
That's Matt Taibbi, in "Cliché Alert: Return of the 'Beer Test'/The New York Times reverts to old form, thanks to a blue-party schism" (Racket).
Here's the NYT article that set Taibbi off: "He’s Not a Democrat. Democrats Love Him Anyway."
I invite you to persuade me to go over and vote in the Wisconsin primary today.
Observing myself, I believe I am abstaining. 
Of course, as I've said many times, I'm a big believer in the right to not to vote. It's like the right not to speak. Or the right not to profess any religion.
UPDATE:
"Debbie Rodman, the keeper of a 3,694-day streak, once stood on top of a toilet at Yellowstone National Park in an attempt to receive enough Wi-Fi..."
"... to solve the Crossword. Ten years in, 'it’s been part of my daily routine for so long, I will never voluntarily give it up,' Ms. Rodman, 67, said. 'Someday when the lights go out, that’ll be how my streak ends.'"
From "What It Takes to Keep a Puzzle Streak for Years/Meet the players who persist through childbirth or intense athletic feats to ensure they solve Wordle and other puzzles every day" (NYT gift link).
From "What It Takes to Keep a Puzzle Streak for Years/Meet the players who persist through childbirth or intense athletic feats to ensure they solve Wordle and other puzzles every day" (NYT gift link).
"Now, I’m 13 days post-op. Only one of my friends has been negative about it."
"Before the surgery, he said, 'It’s weird to me that you’d do this, because you’re someone who preaches embracing who you are.' The confusing thing is that he’s very 'black pill,' which is a trend that says you need to be beautiful in order to get a job or find a soul mate. I hate black pill, because it’s pushing the narrative that hurt me as a little girl: that looks are the only things that matter.... Maybe I’m contributing to that narrative by getting this procedure. But I looked in the mirror after my surgery, and I thought, Wow, this feels like the real me. It sucks that I have to change a part of me to truly like myself."
Said "R., 18, is an incoming college freshman from Colorado who got a deep neck-lift and rhinoplasty," quoted in "Three People on Why They Wanted New Faces" (NYT gift link).
Said "R., 18, is an incoming college freshman from Colorado who got a deep neck-lift and rhinoplasty," quoted in "Three People on Why They Wanted New Faces" (NYT gift link).
That realization "Wow, this feels like the real me" is so "Twilight Zone."
"Zuckerberg acknowledged 'a risk that an imbalance of power between individuals and government leads to a loss of freedom or totalitarian state.'"
"His solution was to create superintelligence which ensured that users were responsible for deciding the model’s values, not the developer. He said there should be 'a fully private mode for personal agents where even Meta or any other service provider cannot see or grant access to your information.'"
"That's as strange as it gets."
I’ll take “things I’ve never seen before” for 500 please. pic.twitter.com/gWVQkBDV2b
— Michaela Bennett (@MichaelaB_22) August 11, 2026
Fish swallows golf ball.
The London Times reports: "Charl Schwartzel of South Africa had to take a one-stroke penalty after his attempt on the 134-yard par-three 7th at Trump Bedminster ended up in the water, and was swiftly swooped upon by a resident fish."
१० ऑगस्ट, २०२६
"These days I am a middle-aged man who works the door at a bar in Chicago that is reasonably popular with the youths, and I am routinely flummoxed..."
"... by the sartorial flotsam that comes packing itself in. The other night a guy came in with a shoulder-length butt cut and his T-shirt tucked into his jeans. 'Now there’s a dork,' I thought. I could’ve clocked him from down the block. But no. An hour later I went outside, and he was making out in the alley with a six-foot freaking supermodel — and she was goth. Or at least she was dressed like what I consider to be a goth; nowadays I don’t even know..... Why is everybody under the age of 30 these days dressed like an actual lunatic?... The subcultures of my youth were a sort of surrogate extended family. In a society jettisoning the type of organizations and communities that stitched it together over the 20th century, finding someone or a group of someones who were the same thing as you served as a bulwark against the fracturing sense of atomization. Making up a subculture every couple of months basically does the opposite, keeping you permanently aloof from the kids around you. I mean, half these things barely sound like groups of anything. What the hell is a performative matcha boy — some guy who drinks a thing? How’s that going to be your tribe?"
Writes Thomas Morton, in "Gen Z-ers Dress Like They’ve Never Worn Clothes Before" (NYT gift link)(lots of photos at the link).
#1 reason for blogging this story: It used my favorite word, "flummox."
"I'm not sure why WaPo covered this, but ignored trump wearing a wig that is styled like his mother's hair during her last year of life."
That's the top-rated comment (by far) on the WaPo article, "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she’s freezing her eggs/The Democratic congresswoman, 36, said she made the decision to undergo the fertility procedure to 'feel more in control of my life'" (gift link).
I was trying to figure out whether and how to blog the AOC story. I saw her video yesterday:
I haven't seen such a display of political abdominal flesh since the days of LBJ and his gall bladder surgery:AOC is starting her journey for freezing her eggs!
— Winter (@LeftyWinter) August 9, 2026
Sharing her doing the shot.
"Don't be weird about this even though I know you all will be".
She knows the internet so well. pic.twitter.com/2ywzN8R5d9
Still wondering how to blog that. But what's all this about Trump and his wig?
"It recounts an immigrant’s life story, told by a Mexican construction worker who toiled, prospered, became an American citizen..."
"... and brought up American children, including a son lost in Afghanistan. 'They were raised to believe in this country,' he sings, heaving a sigh that speaks volumes before continuing, 'that I barely recognize now.' Widowed and alone, all too aware of brutal immigration arrests, he’s going back to his long-ago Mexican hometown."
That's a description of the song "Volver a Celaya," by Steve Earle and Los Lobo, in "9 Songs We’re Talking About This Week/Karol G returns, Steve Earle and Los Lobos link up and Temper City climbs the charts" (NYT gift link).
That's a description of the song "Volver a Celaya," by Steve Earle and Los Lobo, in "9 Songs We’re Talking About This Week/Karol G returns, Steve Earle and Los Lobos link up and Temper City climbs the charts" (NYT gift link).
"Hobbies have helped Kimura feel more secure and find her voice, partly because many of her hobbies end with a finished product..."
"... giving her a feeling of accomplishment. Unlike the women in previous generations in her family, whose lives were centered on marriage and raising children, she feels empowered to pursue the activities that bring her happiness. 'I feel like I can design my future,' she said. As for romantic relationships, Kimura said she’s not closed off to dating indefinitely. 'I just don’t feel like I’m in such a rush anymore.'"
"The Korean supergroup BTS has pulled its blockbuster album 'Arirang' from Grammy Awards consideration, in protest..."
"... of the new Asian Pop Music Performance category....The Recording Academy has been cooking up new categories for years. It started out with 28 in 1959. We’re up to 100 now.... Some reflect true genres and discrete markets. But most are the malignant offspring of the record business’s historical segregation, which divided Black and white artists into separate genres and markets, even if they were playing sonically similar music.... After a song from 'K-Pop Demon Hunters' won big this year, Asian Pop was created...."
Writes Dan Charnas, a professor at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at NYT, in "Pop Music Is the Problem" (NYT gift link).
Here's how I'd frame the question: Why don't the Grammys have a category called White Pop Music?
There are 2 directions to go with that question. You could say it's white supremacy or you could say it's anti-racism.
९ ऑगस्ट, २०२६
RIP Beth.
The London Times tells us: "Grassley is not the first member of Congress to develop a strong attachment to a piece of machinery. John Boehner, a former Speaker of the House, appears frequently with his lawn mower. The senator John Kennedy has a cross trainer in his garage that he has named Margaret, 'after Margaret Thatcher because both kick butt.' His wife, Becky, 'won’t let me bring Margaret in the house,' he said, in a video posted this year. So he uses Margaret in his garage and then lifts weights, watched over, metaphorically speaking, by his Iron Lady companion."It’s a sad day at Grassley household…. For my 34 years and 15 yrs before that at my mother in law’s home Beth has worked dependably….
— Chuck Grassley (@ChuckGrassley) August 8, 2026
It's just by chance — and consistent blogging methodology — that Margaret Thatcher came up twice today. The earlier post is about her plan to send coca-eating moths to Peru.
"Is that Peter Thiel’s boy with that Ohio charisma he’s got? That guy. I think we’ve had enough of him."
"The last thing that he said that made any sense was 'Hillbilly Elegy,' after he said that Donald Trump had no business being president of anything. That was the last time he made sense, and then he decided to suck up to power."
Said Abdul El-Sayed, quoted in "Vance rips Michigan’s ‘crazy’ El-Sayed: would be a ‘terrible senator'" (NY Post).
Said Abdul El-Sayed, quoted in "Vance rips Michigan’s ‘crazy’ El-Sayed: would be a ‘terrible senator'" (NY Post).
"Margaret Thatcher’s government spent £100,000 on a top-secret plan to 'bomb' Peru with voraciously hungry moths in a radical attempt to destroy cocaine crops."
The London Times reports.
The method is relatively cheap and simple. From what is known of Eloria [noyesi] it might be thought of as a ‘smart bomb’ with a very short range."...
"The moth is indigenous to Peru and is highly host-specific to the coca bush. There is no evidence of it feeding on other plants … Its use as a control agent could, therefore, be concealed."
I wonder what else has been going on in the use of tiny animals in warfare. I found this, at the History website: "Bugs of War: How Insects Have Been Weaponized Throughout History/For millennia, six-legged soldiers have been conscripted to torment enemies."
At the end of the 2nd century, the Roman emperor Septimius Severus was on his way to wresting control of Mesopotamia from the local monarchs.... As the Roman legions advanced on the desert stronghold of Hatra.... The defenders crafted earthenware bombshells loaded with scorpions.... As Severus’s men reached the walls of Hatra, scorpion bombs rained down....
More recently:
During the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong dug a network of underground tunnels allowing them to decide when and where to fight.... Feeling his way through a dank passage, [an American] “tunnel rat” might overlook a trip wire and have a load of scorpions rain down from a hidden cavity in the roof. The Viet Cong also conscripted the Asian giant honeybee.... Soldiers gingerly relocated colonies to trails used by the Americans and then attached a small, explosive charge.... For their part, the U.S. military funded a research program to devise an apparatus to spray the Vietnamese enemy with the alarm pheromone of bees, thereby converting the local insects into fierce allies.... But the “weapon” was never deployed....
AND: Wikipedia has an article, "Entomological warfare."
Entomological warfare (EW) is a type of biological warfare that uses insects to interrupt supply lines by damaging crops, or to directly harm enemy combatants and civilian populations. There have been several programs which have attempted to institute this methodology; however, there has been limited application of entomological warfare against military or civilian targets, Japan being the only state known to have verifiably implemented the method against another state, namely the Chinese during World War II. However, EW was used more widely in antiquity, in order to repel sieges or cause economic harm to states. Research into EW was conducted during both World War II and the Cold War by numerous states such as the Soviet Union, United States, Germany and Canada. There have also been suggestions that it could be implemented by non-state actors in a form of bioterrorism. Under the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention of 1972, use of insects to administer agents or toxins for hostile purposes is deemed to be against international law.
A poster from 1942:
"Starting in the mid-2000s, the Democratic Party adopted a position that retail politics was due for an internet upgrade."
"Turning up for church hall meetings was well and fine. But haven’t you heard that Americans are bowling alone? Better to email. Phone banking turned into text-a-thons, where volunteers sent millions of text messages to cellphones we had not yet learned to ignore.... That... felt like the future in 2008.... By 2020, the Democratic advantage in digital campaigning was long gone.... As algorithms turned neighbors into unrecognizable partisans with crazy conspiracy theories, Silicon Valley abandoned the Democrats for Trump. Through it all, the frantic fund-raising text messages just kept coming.... [In the Michigan primary,] Abdul El-Sayed upset the deep-pocketed, establishment choice, Haley Stevens, by building a relational campaign on an economic populist message. El-Sayed won, in part, by characterizing the $62 million in outside money that backed Stevens’s campaign as a sign of... political corruption...."
Writes Tressie McMillan Cottom, in "Socialists Are Winning Because They Listen to People" (NYT gift link).
So... money isn't the answer. You need something other than money, and the socialists do have something. How, then, can they be stopped? The linked column puts it like this: "I’d be looking for the candidates who are thinking and running as if they know that bases are made of people, not dollars."
If you really wanted to show that you are about people, you wouldn't say "bases are made of people." You'd say people matter and hide that the reason they matter to you is they're what is required to make a "base."
The socialists are to the Democratic Party what the Tea Party was to the GOP. All they need now is their Trump.
८ ऑगस्ट, २०२६
Duck Beach sunrise.
When we use this vantage point, it unsettles the ducks from the place I've named after them, Duck Beach. They insist on swimming off every time, all of them. I try to explain that we're only here for the sun, but they have no free choice. They must swim off into the sunrise. But the sun is, day by day, moving to the right, southward, and before long Duck Beach will not work as a sunrise vantage point and we can end our futile effort not to set off the ducks.***
Write about whatever you want in the comments.
Civility bullshit?
From Peter Baker, in the NYT: "Insults, Expletives and Fat-Shaming: Vance Trolls Critics on the Right and Left/The vice president has dispensed with the decorum and restraint of his predecessors to directly take on opponents and journalists on social media with sometimes profane and often personal jabs" (gift link).
It's only "civility bullshit" — for the purposes of my blog tag — if the person calling out incivility would take a different position if the purported incivility were coming from someone on his own side.
I like the inclusion of Vance's self-defense: "I tend to err on the side of openness. That’s probably a generational thing, right? I come from a very tech-forward generation." That is, if you don't get me, maybe that means you're old. And: "I think one of the good things about social media is that it actually exposes you to unfiltered raw opinions, and that’s one of the things that I need to hear as a political leader."
And I had to laugh at this quote from a law professor: "Vice President Vance’s willingness publicly to disparage others in personal terms stands apart from the behavior of modern vice presidents during the last half-century.... [I]t departs from the norms associated with the office and undermines the goal of promoting rational public discourse."
And I had to laugh at this quote from a law professor: "Vice President Vance’s willingness publicly to disparage others in personal terms stands apart from the behavior of modern vice presidents during the last half-century.... [I]t departs from the norms associated with the office and undermines the goal of promoting rational public discourse."
Notice the lawprof specified "modern vice presidents." Is that designed to keep us from looking for nasty quips in the complete quotations of John Adams and Aaron Burr?
"Sound carries faster through water than through air, and soon we heard a plink-plink-plinking. It was followed by what sounded like bacon..."
"... sizzling in a frying pan, which turned out to be a bubbly photosynthesizing elixir of microbes, decaying muck and insect larvae. Then there was a clicking — possibly aquatic snails... — and the quiet pops of fish mouths opening and closing, a miraculous sound that this lapsed fly fisherman thought she would never hear. Somewhere in the humid thickets a bullfrog croaked... During the pandemic, he... started listening to tidal pools along the sea walls — hearing nothing at first and then drawn by a 'persistent scraping.' It turned out to be limpets: aquatic snails that have teeth stronger than Kevlar to feed on algae and excavate rock. (He said he wouldn’t mind being reincarnated as a limpet.)... On our walk, we 'ear-witnessed' a Sabrett hot-dog stand’s hot buzzy generator before taking the subway to the Brooklyn Bridge, where he captured its vibrating walkway and staccato of speeding cars clip-clopping over metal plates."
From "It’s the Summer of Soundwalking. He Is Your Sherpa. 'We may be hearing but not listening,' Jacek Smolicki said, showing a reporter how sound travels through tree roots in Central Park and amplifying the scraping of aquatic snails" (NYT gift link)(lots of photos and sound recordings).
"They planned to make 'black-bear pastrami'.... 'We were really diligent,' he said. 'We made sure we did everything by the book. We knew we’d be under scrutiny.'"
"As Mr. Chin and his friend carved up the bear in the first-floor kitchen [of the Cornell dorm], some of their peers were studying at nearby tables. Other students walked by and took pictures. 'Most people were really curious,” he said. 'Like, "Hey, we’d love to try some." We were just explaining, like, "Hey, none of this goes to waste,"' Mr. Chin said."
From "Students Skinned a Bear in a Dorm. Cornell Realized It Should Ban That. After two Cornell University students skinned a black bear in a communal kitchen last year to make a meal, the school changed the rules" (NYT gift link).
Really?
I see that Byron wrote this in a letter dated 1807: "I have got a new friend, the finest in the world, a tame bear." He is said to have walked it about on a chain.
From "Students Skinned a Bear in a Dorm. Cornell Realized It Should Ban That. After two Cornell University students skinned a black bear in a communal kitchen last year to make a meal, the school changed the rules" (NYT gift link).
From the comments: "Not the first time students and bears have resulted in a college needing to change its rules. Lord Byron famously kept a pet bear in his Cambridge dorm after he learned that pet dogs were not allowed."
I see that Byron wrote this in a letter dated 1807: "I have got a new friend, the finest in the world, a tame bear." He is said to have walked it about on a chain.
"Judge Urbanski... ruled a year ago that Stonewall Jackson High School students participating in extracurricular activities had their First Amendment rights violated..."
"... when they were forced to serve as 'mobile billboards' by carrying the 'Generals' name on their uniforms. [The plaintiffs' lawyer] recalled the 'heartfelt and unwavering' testimony from students during the trial, 'describing how Confederate school names make them feel unwelcome, devalued and ultimately inferior to their white peers.'..."
In 2020, in the midst of the George Floyd protests, Stonewall Jackson High School was renamed Mountain View and Ashby-Lee Elementary was renamed Honey Run. In 2024, a new school board restored the old names.
"The school board’s decision to rename the schools after Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Turner Ashby 'cannot be divorced from racial discrimination,' Judge Michael F. Urbanski wrote in his ruling. Those Confederate generals 'fought to preserve a political system that enslaved Blacks, and their legacy was used as a tool to fight school desegregation,' added the judge...."
"The White House is the People’s House, and under the Constitution’s Property Clause, Congress exercises plenary control over the building and its surrounding land."
"The White House is also the centerpiece of President’s Park, a National Park stewarded by the National Park Service. According to the government, as the oldest public building in the District of Columbia, the White House is the crown jewel not just of President’s Park, but also of the Lafayette Square National Historic Landmark District, a site listed for preservation in the National Register of Historic Places. The founding architect of the Nation’s capital, Pierre L’Enfant, designed the capital city’s layout to focus on the towering Capitol building—the gleaming palace of the people in the new democracy—and to contrast it with the simple humility of the White House.... Each President is a temporary tenant, not the owner, of the White House and its Executive Residence.... Over just three days in October 2025, without undertaking promised consultations or obtaining Congress’s permission, President Trump bulldozed the entire East Wing in order to construct a massive, 90,000 square-foot ballroom paid for by private funds with no congressional oversight...."
I'm reading National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States v. National Park Service, the new decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
And here's WaPo's report: "Trump says he’ll bring ballroom fight to Supreme Court after lower court halts work/An appeals court ruled earlier Friday that construction must stop until Congress authorizes the project. The ballroom is among the president’s top priorities for this term" (gift link).
Trump's reaction, at Truth Social:
७ ऑगस्ट, २०२६
"This whole thing has been really surreal and absurd... it’s a relief, but there’s a detachment to that relief of extreme concern for other people and for our country."
Said David Hearn, "the Olympian," quoted in "Judge Dismisses Former Olympian’s Felony Charge in Reflecting Pool Case/The move ends the criminal case for David Hearn, a former Olympic canoeist, after prosecutors acknowledged that the Trump administration’s claims of vandalism were false" (NYT gift link).
"The episode culminated in a consequential showdown in the Oval Office between [Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney], who appeared to be fighting for her job, and Mr. Trump, with Doug Burgum, the interior secretary, in attendance. Ms. Pirro told Mr. Trump that Mr. Burgum had misled him with a self-serving cover story for his own mistakes. Mr. Trump seemed considerably less angry by day’s end, and Ms. Pirro emerged from the meeting with her job intact, for now."
And here, with a gift link, is "Inside the Oval Office Showdown Between Trump and Jeanine Pirro/Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, told President Trump that his interior secretary, Doug Burgum, had misled him with a self-serving cover story for his own mistakes."
That article, from August 4th, says "This account... demonstrated a core truth of Mr. Trump’s second term: Anyone willing to contradict the president is in trouble, even if the dissenter happens to be a family friend who has faithfully executed his prosecutorial agenda over the years."
Yeah? But Pirro got her way, and she's still there. So much for "a core truth."
Years ago, I went to see George Carlin in concert. The stranger sitting next to me, a young man, somehow knew the entire script of the show...
... and was reciting it out loud, along with Carlin. Though I objected very much to this intrusion on my experience of the show, somehow I chose not to ruin what seemed to be HIS idea of fun. I did absolutely nothing about it and he kept it up for the entire show. Looking back, I can't imagine how HE could have done that or how I could have done what I did. Any ideas?
That's a perplexity I'd filed away in the back of my memories for a long time, but, just not, I decided to put it to Grok. Response:
"Setting aside the plagiarism and fabrication allegations, I’m struck by just how … bad Arday’s work is."
"It makes me cringe to watch video of Professor Hilary Cremin, head of Cambridge’s faculty of education, fawning over him: 'We’re so lucky to have you. You’re the best in the world in terms of the research you do.' I’m gobsmacked that she didn’t think it might be worth trying to read the book he’d claimed to have written before offering him a plum academic job."
Excerpt from the review: "As young Arday failed to hit his milestones, doctors declared him 'deficient' and said he was 'no better than a vegetable.' Arday was, by his own account, a profoundly intellectually disabled child. He claims that he could 'register sounds, but I couldn’t shape them into meaning.' He also says that smearing his faeces on the wall was one of his few sensory releases.... 'Most of my memories of my early childhood are of generalised images, sounds, sensations, feelings, rather than specific events, perhaps because language helps us to form memories, and I didn’t have access to that until I was older.'"
Writes Sonia Sodha, in "Jason Arday is the product of academia’s soft bigotry/Universities risk undermining genuine equality of opportunity when they reward identity over merit and sideline proper scrutiny" (London Times).
"If money won’t matter in 2036, why don’t you pledge to donate your current wealth… to charity no later than 2036?"
A question from the economist Daron Acemoglu to Elon Musk, quoted in "Is Elon Musk right that money will be worth nothing in ten years? The world’s richest man says there’s no need to save because AI is going to change the value of everything. He might have a point…" (London Times).
Musk's answer: "I am actually going to do something along these lines." Hmm. So he's not going to do that. He's going to do something else. Like what? Invest in companies that create many jobs and make things for the benefit of mankind, that is, what he's been doing all along? Or hold onto his wealth until it disappears because, according to his theory, money will be nothing in 10 years, so that will be about the same as giving it all away?
"For the first time, scientists have used artificial intelligence to create new kinds of viruses... raising the disturbing possibility that the technology could someday be used to invent dangerous pathogens."
I'm reading "This A.I. Just Created Viruses Not Found in Nature/Scientists trained artificial intelligence on libraries of DNA and then asked the model to create recipes for viral genomes. Sixteen of them were viable, yielding new viruses" (NYT gift link).
Researchers long ago learned how to manufacture viral genomes; they are used to investigate antiviral drugs and vaccines, as well as to learn how viruses work. But [in] the new study... [s]cientists... taught A.I. to recognize patterns of DNA structure in nature, and then to use that data to write recipes for entirely new viruses. The researchers followed those recipes to create DNA molecules, which they inserted into bacteria. The modified bacteria then produced viruses never seen in nature. The viruses were able to infect other bacteria, demonstrating that they were viable.
"Trump privately tells donors to back Vance while publicly keeping 2028 open."
“At the end of the day, we need to elect JD,” Trump said during an Oval Office meeting with donors roughly two weeks ago, according to two people with knowledge of the comments who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter....
Even as Trump buoyed his vice president to donors in the Oval Office, though, he was still peppering people around him with questions about Vance versus Rubio.... An adviser to the president with direct knowledge of Trump’s comment to the donors said that Trump has privately resolved that Vance will be the heir to the GOP, but that it is “too early” to determine when Vance will announce his candidacy or when Trump will publicly endorse him.
Six other Trumpworld advisers and allies, however, cautioned that they aren’t convinced the president has settled on Vance, noting that Trump tells different things to different people and could still change his mind about an endorsement for 2028. Trump aides widely agree that the president will delay endorsing to avoid appearing to be a lame duck....
६ ऑगस्ट, २०२६
"Madison’s independent police monitor told News 3 Now that she stands by her words after she was seen on video Tuesday saying she 'will burn this city down.'"
“That comment is a metaphor,” [Aeiramique] Glass told News 3 Now during an interview Wednesday evening. “So many people have used that comment when they're talking about whether it be fighting against injustice when something is wrong, or when something happens.” Glass went on to say that she made the comment while speaking to people who she trusted, who understood her words. “I don't care that they were recording me,” she said. “I was in pain and had just gotten jumped by a lot of officers.”
"He does not appear to have suffered much stigma from living at home, and for several months even dated a woman he had met..."
"... at a cafe where he worked part time to burn off anxious energy.
'We ended up bonding really hard — we’re both writers,' said Mr. Balmat, who hopes to publish a novel someday. 'We were both really passionate about what we were doing, struggling to figure out how to turn it into money.'
When he invited his girlfriend over to hang out, the attention from his parents was sometimes embarrassing. 'They would both drop in on us if we’re watching a movie on the couch, to be like, "Can I get anybody any snacks?"' But his girlfriend took it in stride. It turned out she had moved back home, too."
Parents are only sometimes embarrassing.
Your job in a café is only a way to "burn off anxious energy."
I don't know. Maybe this is the stuff of a worthy novel. Actually it feels like a TV sitcom. A really old-timey one. I'm picturing Balmat's mother as a June Cleaver type. And Balmat is Wally. Gee, Mom.
"Let’s start there, with your former father-in-law’s story today about your daughter and the little blue bunny doll that she cannot sleep without."
Said Jake Tapper, quoted in "Bunny Dolls and Disturbing Allegations: Max Miller’s Strange CNN Interview/In a 23-minute appearance with the anchor Jake Tapper, the Ohio Republican made an unusual effort to rebut a multitude of allegations that have threatened his re-election bid" (NYT gift link).
The "former father-in-law" is Senator Bernie Moreno.
We're told: "Mr. Miller bobbed and weaved, criticizing Mr. Moreno, until Mr. Tapper interrupted. 'It’s not really the issue, though, right?' the anchor said. 'The issue is — the one I asked you about is — did you hold this doll hostage?' (Mr. Miller said 'no' before returning to his harangue about his father-in-law.)"
This is why you should never get divorced. You create all those "former" this and thats, and they might say anything. And make sure to always give your toddlers whatever toy they cry out for. You never know who might one day say that was the precise item without which the little cutie pie could not sleep. One day, it's your little daughter's mundane struggle over bedtime, and some day in the future it might be the symbol of what a monster you are.
The last bit of the article: "Mr. Tapper concluded the interview by asking if 'anyone in your life' is telling Mr. Miller that 'it really might be in the best interests for your daughter and for your own mental health to drop out.' 'My daughter is going to grow up one day, and she’s going to see all of this,' Mr. Miller said. 'And she’s not going to see that her father caved to political and social media pressures for something that he never did.'"
"Evolution shaped humans to rest—and to run only when absolutely necessary."
I'm reading "Born to Rest: Why Exercise is Hard" (Harvard Magazine, August 9, 2016).
[Daniel] Lieberman, Lerner professor of biological sciences, says that humans have... been selected to exercise only as much as they must to survive. The ancestors of modern humans lived as hunter-gatherers. In this subsistence lifestyle, food was often scarce, so resting was key to conserving energy for survival and reproduction. In other words, humans were born to run— but as little as possible.
“No hunter-gatherer goes out for a jog, just for the sake of it, I can tell you from personal experience,” says Lieberman. “They go out to forage, they go out to work, but anything else would be unwise, not to mention maladaptive” in calorie-restricted environments.
So I am thinking that if you are idle and thinking of yourself as lazy, lethargic, sedentary, or even deserving of a diagnosis of pathological demand avoidance, think again. You may be the most authentically human of human beings, closer to what nature designed.
I hadn't used my "deeply" tag since last May.
It's a deeply bloggy tag, so it makes me want to do a post collecting recent iterations of "deeply." The first time I used it — in "Deeply... it's such a poser word" — I had a 12-point list. That was back in 2014. Let's see what "deeply" has been doing lately.
1. "The Once-Shameless President Is Deeply Embarrassed/As Donald Trump faces one humiliation after another, he is attacking those he blames" by Jonathan Lemire in The Atlantic, published today. Gift link. "But how Trump will respond next to this ongoing embarrassment remains unknown. He’s made the war deeply personal. Will he now bail on the stalled war entirely, leaving Iran more empowered in the region? Will he follow through on his threats to dramatically escalate the conflict, perhaps even to strike civilian infrastructure and energy sites? Or will he channel his rage against Americans who point out his mistakes?"
4. "The Woody Guthrie story you’ve probably never heard is deeply Jewish/A documentary recasts the folk singer’s legacy through the influence of his mother-in-law, Yiddish poet Aliza Greenblatt" (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, August 3, 2026). "The film ['Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls: Another Side of Woody Guthrie'] makes the case that Guthrie’s extended Jewish family was not incidental but integral in his artistic and personal evolution. It is a story that stretches from Oklahoma to Coney Island to the Yiddish literary world, and from the folk revival’s Jewish impresarios to one remarkable immigrant woman whose influence has largely gone unrecognized."
6. "'I Deeply Believe Dogs Have Superpowers and Secrets’/Prompted by a fierce attachment to his own pet, Paul Yoon wrote a harrowing yet hopeful novel, set during wartime, told from a canine perspective" (NYT, August 2, 2026). "Like his finest literary forebears who have written from a dog’s perspective — Virginia Woolf ('Flush'), John Berger ('King: A Street Story'), Jack London ('Call of the Wild') — Yoon pulls it off without being treacly or condescending.... It helps that Etna can understand everything that’s said by people around him. This was partly a practical choice, as Yoon explains: 'I wanted to create a bridge for the reader to experience this world and this journey.' But, he added, 'I deeply believe dogs have superpowers and secrets.'"
2. "UN rips ‘deeply troubling’ Iran for executing at least 56 people since start of war: ‘Has no place in our world'" — published today in The New York Post. "Several people were executed in the last two weeks alone, including a 19-year-old charged with 'enmity against god' for allegedly partaking in January’s protests. Two others arrested during the protests were also executed. And in July, two people were executed out of a group of 12 convicted of 'corruption on Earth' and 'enmity against God' over connections to four police killed in January."
3. "Ken Jennings Says He Cares 'More Deeply' About Trans Rights Than Any Other Issue" (Them, August 3, 2026). "Ken Jennings... recently got into a relatively minor back-and-forth on Bluesky with people who claimed his subscriptions to the New York Times were supporting an anti-transgender media organization.... Would I subscribe to the New York Times? No. Would I unfriend someone who did? Not necessarily.... Do I do the crossword puzzle? Yes, because nothing else quiets the anxiety I feel about living in our current reality quite like trying to find a five-letter word for boredom. Ah, 'ennui,' my old friend."
3. "Ken Jennings Says He Cares 'More Deeply' About Trans Rights Than Any Other Issue" (Them, August 3, 2026). "Ken Jennings... recently got into a relatively minor back-and-forth on Bluesky with people who claimed his subscriptions to the New York Times were supporting an anti-transgender media organization.... Would I subscribe to the New York Times? No. Would I unfriend someone who did? Not necessarily.... Do I do the crossword puzzle? Yes, because nothing else quiets the anxiety I feel about living in our current reality quite like trying to find a five-letter word for boredom. Ah, 'ennui,' my old friend."
5. "Neil Shubin on Trusted Science in a ‘Deeply Partisan Age’/An eminent fossil hunter takes the reins at the National Academy of Sciences in a turbulent moment for American researchers" (NYT, June 2026). "As an institution, we are — by charter and design and history — nonpartisan. But we are in a deeply partisan age. Just by doing our work, we will be viewed in a partisan light no matter what. So our job is to double down on the science. We need to be a trusted source of data."
7. "The Deeply Human, Complexly Queer Animated Animals of 'Bouchra'" (autostraddle, August 3, 2026). "In Meriem Bennani and Orian Barki’s bold film Bouchra, an NYC‑based lesbian filmmaker... tries to process her relationship with her Moroccan mother through a semi‑autobiographical meta‑fictional drama stemming from a coming‑out letter she sent nine years prior.... It’s told via anthropomorphic animals in a hyperrealized backdrop.... [E]ntirely animated in Blender, Bouchra’s experimental animal‑filled approach takes some getting used to."
"It is deeply troubling to see radical, far-left candidates winning in places that are potentially presidential swing states."
Said Jonathan Cowan, president of Third Way, a centrist Democratic group, quoted in "Moderate Democrats Prepare for ‘War’ Against an Ascendant Left/One moderate group says the progressive wins are 'deeply troubling' and is planning a $15 million effort against democratic socialism" (NYT gift link.)
The article notes that "the next big test is only a week away": "In Wisconsin, Francesca Hong, a democratic socialist and state assemblywoman representing the progressive hotbed of Madison, has emerged as the party’s front-runner for governor in another key battleground race." There's not one word about the candidate/candidates the moderates are pushing.
Top-rated comment over there: "Third Way and some other centrist groups seem far more interested in defeating progressives than defeating MAGA and far more interested in telling Democratic voters they’re wrong than earning their votes. If moderates are losing, then the problem is with those candidates, not the progressives who beat them."
५ ऑगस्ट, २०२६
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