Sunrise — 7:08.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

Bonus video by Meade: This is today's sunset with the full moon rising:

"A jury on Jan. 30 found a psychologist and surgeon liable for malpractice after they supported and performed breast removal surgery..."

"... on a 16-year-old girl who at the time identified as transgender. Fox Varian, now 22 and no longer identifying as transgender, was awarded $2 million in damages.... The jury found that in many respects the surgeon and psychologist had skipped important steps when evaluating whether she should go forward with the surgery and had not adequately communicated with each other. These missteps were a 'departure from the standard of care,' they decided."

National Review reports.

ADDED: Benjamin Ryan writes, at X: "I was the only reporter to attend the entire 3-week, historic trial.... The entire case file was put under seal when the trial started (although I obtained all those documents before they was sealed), and all the transcripts from the trial are also under seal. The riveting trial was sparsely attended and there was only one other reporter at the trial; and he only attended for part of it and, as I observed, took few notes. So my own hundreds of pages of notes from the trial will likely remain the only way for the public to learn about the all finer details of what transpired, possibly ever (or until an appeal, should that happen)...."

"Antinatalism Explained."

I'm not endorsing this idea, and I can even see why one would want not merely to resist but to actively suppress it, but I would recommend courageously hearing out the argument. It's quite challenging, but why is it wrong?

Related: there's a big new movie out about the Shakers:

"The [Epstein] files appeared to contain at least 4,500 documents that mentioned Mr. Trump."

"One was a summary that officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation assembled last summer of more than a dozen tips from the public involving Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein, according to emails released by the Department of Justice on Friday. It is unclear why the investigators put together the summary, which includes accusations of sexual abuse by Mr. Epstein and Mr. Trump. The emails did not include any corroborating evidence, and The New York Times is not describing the details of the unverified claims. Mr. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in connection with Mr. Epstein. In response to a request for comment, the White House referred to a public statement from the Justice Department, which said that Friday’s documents 'may include fake or falsely submitted images, documents or videos.' Many of the other documents were news articles or emails that referenced Mr. Trump."

From "Powerful Men Who Turn Up in the New Batch of Epstein Files/Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Sergey Brin were among those who exchanged messages or visited with Jeffrey Epstein, according to the newly released documents" (NYT)(gift link).

Oh, no!

It's just cruel. Please. This hurts my heart:

Gift link.

Waxing gibbous.

The full moon rises this afternoon, at 3:42 p.m. here in Madison, and it won't set until 7:17 a.m., but we think tomorrow will be very cloudy, so we wanted to see the near full moon today, and the setting time was 6:40 a.m.

Do you understand why the setting times are 37 minutes different on 2 consecutive days? The sunrise times on those 2 days are only 2 minutes apart, 7:14 and 7:12.

The video above is from Meade, and that's me in the corner at the beginning, capturing this:

"Can I ask a question I have been dying to ask? You all might think it is a weird question but I've always been curious. What is your favorite time of day?"

That's the utterly inane question Dana Perino asked Melania Trump on "The Five":

That is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard on television. I don't intentionally watch news on TV — sometimes it overflows onto me — so I'm not the best judge of how close to the bottom that is. 

For the record of things no one needs to know, Melania's favorite time of day is "very early morning." Why? Because it's quiet, you have your coffee, and you check your email.

ADDED: Of course, the film is getting terrible reviews — for example, "Melania review – First Lady is a preening, scowling void of pure nothingness in this ghastly bit of propaganda," by Nick Hilton in The Independent: 

"Thank you. I needed a moment of levity today."

Thanks to Catherine O'Hara for all the many for the moments of levity.

Sunrise — 7:43, 7:40, 7:21, 7:21.

Today's photos are in reverse chronological order, which shouldn't seem odd at all considering that the blog's posts are in reverse chronological order. And yet, never until today had I even thought of putting the photos in reverse chronological order. Today, the photos themselves cried out for reverse chronological order and I was utterly compelled.

***

Talk about whatever you like in the comments.

"To think, 190 miles an hour down Pennsylvania Avenue — this is going to be wild."

Said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, quoted in "Trump announces August auto race in downtown Washington" (Politico).

The Trump administration plans to usher a massive auto race into downtown Washington in August as part of a broader celebration of the United States’ 250th birthday, President Donald Trump announced Friday.

Flanked by senior officials in the Oval Office, Trump signed an executive order to launch what the White House has dubbed “the Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington, D.C. — the first ever INDYCAR street race in the Nation’s capital.”

"DOJ concludes Epstein files review with release of 3.5 million records."

Axios reports.

Bring on the voracious readers.

"My 11-year-old nephew is a vivacious reader...."

So begins the first comment I see when I open up the comments section at "Why Boys Are Behind in Reading at Every Age/Boys’ reading struggles are not inevitable, research suggests, and addressing the deficit could improve outcomes in school and beyond" (NYT).

The commenter is female or so I surmise from the name Hannah. The malapropism — "vivacious" for "voracious" — amused me. I guess she got overly enthused that her boy — despite the burden of being a boy — was reading, really reading, reading a lot. It's hard to picture reading being done vivaciously, but I enjoyed trying. And "voracious reading" is trite. We ought to stop saying it. I'm tired of the eating metaphor for reading, and it's not as though I can picture people eating books. Vivacious reading is at least something new. 

And please don't try to tell me that "vivacious reader" isn't wrong because Ken Follett is quoted (somewhere) saying "Without books I would not have become a vivacious reader, and if you are not a reader you are not a writer." Follett originally used the old trite expression "voracious reader" and somebody else screwed up copying the quote. 

But let's read the article! Excerpt:

"There’s pasta in the pantry and jarred sauce in the refrigerator. So what compels Kiely Reedy to keep having spaghetti with marinara delivered..."

"... from the restaurant down the street, for several times the cost of cooking the dish herself? It’s not that the restaurant dish is particularly good, she said. 'It’s the instant gratification.' From her roughly $50,000 annual salary as a data processor in San Diego, Ms. Reedy, 34, spends at least $200 to $300 a week on food delivery.... Between raising two young boys and putting in long hours at a marketing job in Atlanta, Kevin Caldwell can almost never find the time to make dinner. So he and his husband spend about $700 a week to order in. 'I am so burned out and tired, I would rather just throw my credit card at the problem and delay that unhappiness until the bill comes,' he said. His 4-year-old son doesn’t read yet, 'but he can put together an order' on the Chick-fil-A app, said Mr. Caldwell, 39. 'I am impressed, but I am also terrified.'"

From "Freedom With a Side of Guilt: How Food Delivery Is Reshaping Mealtime/Almost three of every four restaurant orders in the U.S. weren’t eaten in a restaurant, according to recent data. We spoke to readers who are devoted to delivery but question the costs" (NYT)(gift link).

I've never ordered in prepared food. I mean, back in the 1900s, I would order pizza sometimes, but not since then. I know about these services — Door Dash, Uber Eats, etc. — but I simply don't want them. We don't go to restaurants either, but I wonder if delivery is preferable to restaurants. Restaurants involve going out, which could be either a positive or a negative. Do you have time to burn? Even if you do, do you want to spend it sitting at a table waiting and under social pressure make conversation (and not to look at your phone)? Maybe that's just not what people do anymore. 

"Federal agents arrested the former CNN anchor Don Lemon late Thursday..."

"... on charges that he violated federal law during a Jan. 18 protest in St. Paul, Minn., against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, his lawyer said. The case had been rejected last week by a magistrate judge. Attorney General Pam Bondi said that she had ordered the arrests of Mr. Lemon and three others in connection with the demonstration at a church.... Mr. Lemon, who was scheduled to appear in federal court in Los Angeles on Friday morning to contest the charges, has said he was reporting as a journalist when he entered Cities Church in St. Paul to observe a demonstration against the immigration crackdown...."

The NYT reports.

Sunrise on Lake Mendota felt like an outtake from "Help!"

The Fab Bad(ger) Four run back into the sunrise:

What did make the cut in "Help!":

"Free yourself of old-fashioned ideas."

That's not the L&M commercial I'm searching for. And neither is this, though it does have an amazing performance by Teri Garr:

That first video shows what it meant to "live modern" in the 1950s. The couple reminds me of my parents. The Teri Garr commercial shows the ordeal of living in the 1970s and the pathetic hope that cigarettes could bring 2 decent struggling humans together for a tiny moment.

But the one I was looking for is a 1960s commercial with a jingle singing "They said it couldn't be done." The thing that supposedly couldn't be done was to put a filter on a cigarette and have it still taste good. The ad began by showing a few things that "they" said couldn't be done that really were done. The only example I remember is showing Florida as a big swamp followed by images of glorious Florida real estate. The logic of the commercial was that if other supposedly impossible things happened, then this other one probably happened too. See how 1960s that was? 

"What I think is actually going on is a deep, religious-like impulse to believe that there is a godlike, omnipotent intelligence out there..."

"... who 1. knows we’re here, 2. is monitoring us and is concerned for our well-being and 3. will save us if we’re good. Researchers have found, for example, an inverse relationship between religiosity, meaning and belief in aliens; that is, those who report low levels of religious belief but high desire for meaning show greater belief in extraterrestrials. They also found that people who self-identified as either atheist or agnostic were more likely to report believing in ETIs than those who reported being religious (primarily Christian). From this research, and my own on the existential function served by belief in aliens, I have come to the conclusion that aliens are sky gods for skeptics, deities for atheists and a secular alternative to replace the rapidly declining religiosity in the West — particularly the United States and the United Kingdom, where, not coincidentally, most UAP sightings are made."

Writes Michael Shermer, publisher of Skeptic magazine,  in "I’ve reported on UFO sightings for decades — and come to this conclusion" (WaPo)(gift link).

"How can you succeed when you say things like that?"

Somehow, I never tire of these old montages. When I monitor the news these days, I wonder what is going to end up looking this foolish in some future montage. 

Sunrise — 6:59, 7:19, 7:23.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"Advocates of Fafo say it teaches their child independence and the consequences of their actions, even if those consequences are uncomfortable or..."

"... at the extreme end, harsh. Critics say it relies too heavily on fear and humiliation, and that while children might comply as a result, it damages trust. Done properly, however, there isn’t much to separate the styles: true gentle parenting embraces boundaries and consequences, and Fafo doesn’t have to be punishing. But this is online-influenced child rearing, where extremes are pushed, nuance is out and polarisation is in...."

From "The rise of Fafo parenting: is this the end of gentle child rearing?" (The Guardian), which links to this widely shared example of the parenting style:

"Um, the President of the United States called me Monday morning and asked me to deploy here. I got here Monday evening, and I'm staying until the problem's gone."

Said Tom Homan, in Minneapolis, just now. I'm quoting from the transcript at YouTube, here, along with video.

What follows is my edit of the high points from the 35-minute performance:

Morning Meadeification.

"... writhing in the throes of transphobia—expressed as homophilia..."

A striking phrase, found in Nell Zink's "Sister Europe: A Novel" (commission earned).

A bit of context: "He felt an unexamined, eminently absurd pity for the lonely royal. In parallel (the two trains of thought never crossed), he felt that additional exposure to him would be good for Demian, who was writhing in the throes of transphobia—expressed as homophilia—and clearly hoped Nicole would emerge from her gaudy chrysalis as just another twink in golf duds."

At least he's in the Injustice Hall of Fame.

Perfection. pic.twitter.com/Gurj0l8nJn

— Savage (@SavageSports_) January 29, 2026

ADDED: Who else in in the Injustice Hall of Fame? Well, Tolstoy never won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Gandhi never won the Nobel Peace Prize. Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick never won a Best Director Oscar. The Monkees are not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Ken Doll is not in the National Toy Hall of Fame. And Hillary didn't get to be President.

Sunrise — 7:20, 7:22.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments.

Moving to Australia (from the UK) "makes you more attractive. At least that’s what young expats who moved down under claim as 'the Australia effect.'"

I'm reading "Moving to Australia made my fiancé more attractive/Young adults find travelling down under does wonders for their self-esteem and sex appeal. It’s what happens when you live life without stress, one says" (London Times).

Among the scores of travellers showing off their “glow-ups” is Abigail Phillips, 29, who posted on Instagram her fiancé’s transformation from pale and formal to a surfer boy with a golden tan, mullet and trendy moustache. “I really do like the ’tache and the curly hair,” said Phillips

The news of authenticity.

1. "Museum of Authenticity Annex Closes, Exhibits Feature is Expanded in Original Location" (Ark Valley Voice): "The Museum of Authenticity has offered unique, curated exhibits of art and utilitarian artifacts in Salida for years. While the larger annex off of F Street has closed, the museum itself has not gone anywhere...." 

2. "Time To Get Serious About Workplace Authenticity" (Forbes): "Think of your favorite leaders, whether political icons, sports captains, or CEOs. How would you objectively measure their authenticity? There is no baseline. No benchmark. If you find Trump authentic you probably adhere with his values; same goes for Obama. By the same token, not many Trump fans would find Obama authentic, and vice-versa."

3. "The authenticity double standard is negatively impacting female leaders/We tell brands that humanity drives commercial success, so why do we still advise women leaders to suppress theirs?" (MarketingWeek):

"During the trial it emerged that when [Barron] Trump phoned the British police, he gave the operator the woman’s home address, rather than her actual location..."

"...  which was at Rumiantsev’s home. How Trump knew her address is... unclear.... On November 3, 2024, Rumiantsev 'flew into a rage' and smashed an air fryer after discovering the victim had used the word 'sweetheart' in a message to Trump.... Rumiantsev eventually admitted he was 'jealous to some extent' but claimed the woman was 'leading him [Barron] on.' He told the jury he was merely trying to make her understand how her behaviour looked to others. 'I want to just make clear that her actions towards [Trump] were wrong and it was not fair,' he said. On the night of January 17 last year the pair drank Korean wine, whisky and cognac ordered on Deliveroo. When Trump called repeatedly that evening, she did not answer, [the prosecutor] said. Rumiantsev’s jealousy... 'boiled over.' He spat in her food and kicked her in the ribs...."

I'm reading "Russian guilty of ‘jealous’ attack over Barron Trump friendship/The US president’s son ‘saved a life’ when he called 999 from America and provided crucial evidence that led to the arrest of Matvei Rumiantsev" (London Times).

So Barron took action to save the woman from a man who supposedly thought the woman was being unfair to Barron. Nothing excuses the violence, but I find it interesting that Rumiantsev was — in his version of the story — looking out for Barron. 

Sun lines.

This morning on Lake Mendota:

"We have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside. Many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank. Somebody's going to write that children's story about Minnesota."

Said Tim Walz, quoted in "Tim Walz condemned for comparing Minnesota children to Anne Frank" (USA Today).

I suppose the condemnation is about equating what happened to Anne Frank to what is happening to the deportees, but I'd like to throw in a little additional condemnation for not knowing enough about Anne Frank's writing. She wasn't a person with a story to tell. It was "The Diary of a Young Girl." Very little of the book is about the larger political drama that forced her to hide indoors. It's about her life as a young girl, and we, the readers, bring the larger context of the Nazis and how she was captured and died. That story is not in her book, which is about the inward life of a young girl. Anne Frank was an excellent writer, and the world lost her. I hope there's a similarly excellent writer enduring the present-day ordeal, but literary art is something beyond having a good story to tell.

Does Tim Walz even know the book he calls a "children's story"? Anne Frank was 13 to 15 years old when she wrote her diary, and much of it is about emerging sexual feelings — especially the "Definitive Edition." It’s quite striking: "Until I was eleven or twelve, I didn't realize there was a second set of labia on the inside, since you couldn't see them. Moreover, I thought the little tube you use to urinate out of was uninteresting.... When you're standing up, all you see from the front is hair. Between the outer labia are the inner ones... The entrance to the vagina is hidden between them.... The clitoris.... is particularly sensitive."

See "Which Version of The Diary of Anne Frank Is Best?" (Redeemed Reader): "The Definitive Edition includes a section in which she decides 'losing your virtue doesn’t matter' under the right circumstances (Thursday, March 2, 1944). Both editions imply that she is chafing under their circumstances and that both sets of parents disapprove of the time she and Peter spend together in Peter’s room; the diary implies that not much more than kissing is happening.... Obviously, there’s nowhere in public for Anne and Peter to go on dates; just as obvious, though, is that two young people in love are playing with fire to spend lots of unchaperoned time in a person’s bedroom."

"When did we all decide that sweats and pajama pants were the appropriate attire for air travel?"

"What incentive do we have in such a demoralizing environment?"

Sunrise — 7:02, 7:16, 7:21, 7:23.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments.

"And yet the grammar of institutions is that of the subjunctive, the 'as if': as if arresting and incarcerating someone could change them..."

"... as if arresting and incarcerating someone could change what they did to you. Without such fantasies, we are left with stark reality, with the realization that this did happen to you, hurt you, and change you irreparably. That means that to counter such insidious, impossible fantasies, I’ve found my only refuge is to return relentlessly to the reality of what happened to me and to accept the daily heartbreak that there is no form of repair, institutional or otherwise, that exists that will ever change what happened, as much as I might wish otherwise...."

Writes Anna Krauthamer, in "Why I Didn’t Report My Rape/In 2021, six men sexually assaulted me in a Las Vegas hotel room. Something more than abolitionism prevented me from reporting the crime" (The Nation).

"Abolitionism" refers to "the complete dismantling (not reform) of the prison system."

"DO NOT make the mistake President Biden made for not firing a grossly incompetent DHS Secretary."

Writes Senator John Fetterman to President Trump, quoted in "Fetterman calls on Trump to fire Noem: 'Americans have died'" (The Hill).

When I first read that line — "Americans have died" — I thought he meant to say the entire nation has lost its soul.

But he meant the simpler, concrete reality: Renee Good and Alex Pretti have died.

There's also this: "Trump Holds 2-Hour Meeting With Noem Amid Backlash to Minneapolis Shooting" (NYT): "The meeting came after Ms. Noem requested to see the president.... Ms. Noem has been the face of the administration’s immigration crackdown, and she has been among the most vocal in spreading false accusations against Mr. Pretti, including labeling him a 'domestic terrorist.' The Oval Office meeting also included several of Mr. Trump’s top aides.... The meeting came the same day Mr. Trump announced he was sending Tom Homan, his border czar, to oversee the operation in Minneapolis. The move was seen as a way to elevate an official who is steeped in Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s longstanding practice of prioritizing targeted arrests, rather than the kinds of sweeping raids that the Trump administration has carried out in cities across the country."

The referenced "grossly incompetent" Biden DHS Secretary was Alejandro Mayorkas, who oversaw the 10+ million illegal border crossings. Why didn't Biden fire him? A cynic would say Biden approved of what was happening. And yet even if he approved, he should have signaled that he did not approve, and firing the Secretary is a showy way to express disapproval.

"I fell into an oceanic unconsciousness — did a high dive into eternity, circled the solar system infinite times, breathed the breath of my ancestors, became everything and nothing...."

"Eons later, I was reborn. I opened my eyes onto a new world. I would not have been surprised to have discovered myself cradled in my mother’s arms, unable to speak, ready to start my whole life over. Or to find that I had grown a long white beard and that everyone I knew was dead, including the gastroenterologist and his staff, and to have been informed (by the A.I. robots monitoring me) that I was actually the last surviving human being. Instead, I opened my eyes to see a nurse wheeling me into a recovery room. My brain fumbled for a few seconds until it rediscovered a scrap of human language. 'How long was I out?' I asked...."

Writes Sam Anderson in "Want Nirvana? Try a Colonoscopy. It turns out that despite everything you’ve heard, getting a colonoscopy is wonderful" (NYT).

"School called and asked why one of my children have not logged on. I explained that me and my wife both work and suggested that maybe Mayor Mandummy could come by the house to help the kids get connected."

From the comments section to the NY Post article "Remote learning is not for the weak — here’s how a day of it went thanks to Mamdani’s no-snow day verdict."

And here's the most popular comment:

I looked at my grandkids this morning and said - "OK, here is the deal. Get dressed for the snow, as we are hitting the park, and NO computers today or Tue. We go back to school on WED.......but today and tomorrow is fun, french fries, milk shakes, pancakes - with lots of nutella"

They screamed, and we had a blast.

They ran and ran and ran around in the snow and they were so adorable.

Sunrise — 7:20, 7:25.

Please use the comments section to begin topics of discussion — topics not already under discussion in other threads. In particular, I'm putting the discord in Minnesota off limits. Go to this post or this one to talk about that. The overnight open thread is not a place for anger and repetition. Bring some light.

AND: I put up an even newer post on the immigration strife. I'll update the time of this post so it can continue to sit on top of the day's travails.

"Gregory Bovino has been removed from his role as Border Patrol 'commander at large' and will return to his former job in El Centro, California, where he is expected to retire soon..."

"... according to a DHS official and two people with knowledge of the change. Bovino’s sudden demotion is the clearest sign yet that the Trump administration is reconsidering its most aggressive tactics after the killing Saturday of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents under Bovino’s command.... For the past seven months, Bovino has been the public face of a traveling immigration crackdown on cities governed by Democrats. Noem and other Trump officials gave Bovino the 'commander' title and sent him and his masked border agents to Chicago, Charlotte, New Orleans, and then Minneapolis. Bovino became a MAGA social-media star as he traveled the country with his own film crew and used social media to hit back at Democratic politicians and random critics online. Veteran ICE and CBP officials grew more and more uneasy as Bovino worked outside his agency’s chain of command and appeared to relish his role as a political actor...."

From "Greg Bovino Loses His Job/The Border Patrol chief has been ousted from his role as 'commander at large,' and will return to El Centro" (The Atlantic)(gift link).

Bovino was the one in the "Nazi" coat:

unmistakably drawn from fascist pageantry. Take Border Patrol commander Bovino’s long black trench coat, worn I would guess not for function but for theatrical authority. It is costume politics, a visual performance of domination meant to intimidate [not] persuade
✍️@HenryGiroux pic.twitter.com/AFWKS8jInr

— Jeff Ballinger (@press4change) January 21, 2026

"Governor Tim Walz called me with the request to work together with respect to Minnesota. It was a very good call..."

"... and we, actually, seemed to be on a similar wavelength. I told Governor Walz that I would have Tom Homan call him, and that what we are looking for are any and all Criminals that they have in their possession. The Governor, very respectfully, understood that, and I will be speaking to him in the near future. He was happy that Tom Homan was going to Minnesota, and so am I! We have had such tremendous SUCCESS in Washington, D.C., Memphis, Tennessee, and New Orleans, Louisiana, and virtually every other place that we have 'touched' and, even in Minnesota, Crime is way down, but both Governor Walz and I want to make it better!"

That's from PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP at Truth Social.

That's nice. I can think of a couple cynical things to say, but I'll leave them unsaid.

Those wonderful "-id" adjectives.

A few posts down, I used the word "fervid," which I like, and have even blogged about before, and a couple commenters took notice.

I like it, not just for the meaning but visually, the letters. Something about that "-id" ending, which seems a bit unusual for an adjective. And yet, if you go looking, you'll find a lot.

Some of my favorites: fetid, flaccid, florid, gelid, horrid, insipid, intrepid, languid, limpid, livid, lucid, lurid, morbid, pallid, placid, putrid, sordid, stolid, stupid, torrid, trepid, turbid, vivid.

I looked up the "-id" ending in the OED and I got this strange response:

"To Those I've Hurt/By Ye Formerly known as Kanye West."

"Twenty-five years ago, I was in a car accident that broke my jaw and caused injury to the frontal lobe of my brain. At the time, the focus was on the visible damage - the fracture, the swelling, and the immediate physical trauma. The deeper injury, the one inside my skull, went unnoticed...."

Writes Kanye West, in what is a paid advertisement in The Wall Street Journal.

It wasn't properly diagnosed until 2023. That medical oversight caused serious damage to my mental health and led to my bipolar type-1 diagnosis. Bipolar disorder comes with its own defense system. Denial. When you're manic, you don't think you're sick. You think everyone else is overreacting. You feel like you're seeing the world more clearly than ever, when in reality you're losing your grip entirely.

"The killing of Alex Pretti is a heartbreaking tragedy. It should also be a wake-up call to every American, regardless of party..."

"... that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault. Federal law enforcement and immigration agents have a tough job. But Americans expect them to carry out their duties in a lawful, accountable way, and to work with, rather than against, state and local officials to ensure public safety. That's not what we're seeing in Minnesota. In fact, we're seeing the opposite."

So reads the "Statement by President Obama and Mrs. Obama," posted on X by Barack Obama.

We were just talking about the "microvacation."

Remember that guy who "flew to Athens for 8 hours, where he toured the Parthenon... then hopped on a flight to Egypt, saw the pyramids, rode a camel and visited the Grand Egyptian Museum, all before returning to San Francisco in time for Sunday dinner."

I thought there needed to be some decent proportion between the time on planes and the time used to good effect at the destination. But check out this guy, flying all the way from NYC to Tokyo and back with just a single day in Tokyo. No hotel, no packing, just dropping in, hitting a few sights and eateries, and getting the hell back out. He landed in Tokyo in the morning and flew back out that same night:

"Big Time, Strong, Glamorous, and Exciting."

What do you want from football?

I'm reading Trump, complaining about football, at Truth Social: "I can’t watch the new NFL Kickoff. Like many others, I just turn my head. Who has the right to make such a change? So disparaging to the game! The original was Big Time, Strong, Glamorous, and Exciting. The ridiculous new Kickoff Rule takes away the prestige and power of the game. I hope College Football doesn’t follow suit!"

Glamorous.... the most powerful man in the world cries out for the old-time macho brutal collision of giant male bodies and what he's missing is the glamor.

I'm looking up "glamorous," and I like, for Trump's use of the word, the OED's second definition: "Attractive or appealing in an exciting way, esp. because out of the ordinary or suggestive of a more colourful or thrilling way of life." One of the sample quotes is from the 1960 novel, "The Custard Boys": "The cinema, the newspapers and the war books conditioned us to look upon war as glamorous and exciting."

Perhaps somewhere in Trump's fervid mind there's the notion that MAGA really means "Make America Glamorous Again."

"In his nonfiction book 'A Swim in a Pond in the Rain”' (2021), about reading the Russian masters, he described 'people who’ve put reading at the center of their lives because they know from experience that reading makes them more expansive, generous people.'"

"This is pleasant to imagine, and I suppose it’s true up to a point, but who doesn’t know a lot of big readers who are jackasses from head to toe? One thing’s certain: The writers who insist on the morally improving nature of fiction, and who robe themselves in the folds of wisdom or beneficence, tend to be the ones to avoid. 'If there is any test that can be applied to movies,' Pauline Kael wrote — her test applies to books, too — 'it’s that the good ones never make you feel virtuous.' Saunders’s new novel, 'Vigil,' is slim, about the size of Mitch Albom’s memoir 'Tuesdays with Morrie' or Richard Bach’s novella 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull.' It’s not as soft and shallow and saccharine and strenuously earnest as those books, but it’s not impossibly far off. It’s a hot-water bottle in print form. It’s going to be an enormous best seller for depressing reasons.... [I]t’s about an angel named Jill who presides at the deathbed of an oil tycoon and determined planet despoiler named K.J. Boone...."

Writes Dwight Garner, in "George Saunders Serves a Heavy Helping of Virtue in a New Novel/In 'Vigil,' an oil tycoon on his deathbed receives a visit from an angel" (NYT).

We made it out onto the Lake Mendota ice.

The sun popped.

Yes, that's Meade out there. Just before that, he saw it this way:

Spotify's "daylist" chose this for us:

Though spring is here, to me it's still September....

For us, it's winter.

"She... helped cut the trailer, which features a particularly arch interaction between husband and wife."

"'Did you watch it?' President Trump asks her over the phone, as she stands in her office in Trump Tower. 'I did not,' she responds. 'I will see it on the news.' It was a clip Melania chose herself. 'That’s the essence [of the movie],' says [Marc Beckman, her senior adviser]. 'People have never seen this part of their relationship before.' Melania as the chief executive, busy with other things. Trump as the sensitive husband. Melania then selected the marketing imagery, which was painted across billboards from the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles to Times Square in New York City. 'Melania’s vision is very symmetrical, right angles, black and white,' says Beckman, comparing the brand guidelines to those of fashion houses such as Chanel, Christian Dior and Bulgari. 'It’s all about supporting this luxury brand that she’s building.'"

From "Sensitive Trump, Melania the boss… inside the first lady’s second term/Her new documentary, which premieres this week, reveals the 55-year-old as the power behind the throne with firm views on her husband’s actions" (London Times).

"In 1981, David Bowie attended an Uncle Floyd performance at the Bottom Line nightclub in Greenwich Village..."

"... and later met Mr. Vivino backstage.'I said to him, 'How did you hear about the show?"' Mr. Gordon recalled. 'And he said, "Everybody talks about it," and that he and John Lennon and Iggy Pop used to sit and watch the show.' Mr. Gordon said that Mr. Lennon, who had been killed just a month earlier, had wanted to attend the performance. After meeting Mr. Bowie and his producer, Tony Visconti, 'Floyd says, "Jimmy get these guys outta here. We got a show to do!"' Jimmy Vivino said. Two decades later, Mr. Bowie wrote and recorded 'Slip Away,' a moody song about Uncle Floyd.... Twinkle twinkle Uncle Floyd/We were dumb/But you were fun, boy..."

From "Floyd Vivino, Throwback Comedian Known as Uncle Floyd, Dies at 74/His silly, vaudeville-style variety show was filled with his piano playing, skits, puppets and guest stars like Cyndi Lauper and Bon Jovi" (NYT).

If the game is scored by the quality of the guys about whom you said "get these guys outta here," Uncle Floyd wins.

Clicking on this headline, I had no idea it was going to be about the challenges faced by persons with neurodivergence.

The headline (in the NYT): "Your Wedding Doesn’t Have to Be Long, Loud or Uncomfortable."

And I hallucinated an "ress" after "Your Wedding D." I thought the news was "Your Wedding Dress Doesn’t Have to Be Long, Loud or Uncomfortable." Yes, those full-scale wedding dresses must be uncomfortable! I've gotten married twice, but never in one of those famous white things that I grew up thinking belonged to the past. 

I scrolled through the article looking for the new short, quiet, comfy wedding dresses, saw all the mentions of neurodivergence but still clung to my misreading. I thought neurodivergent women must have distinct preferences in clothing and wedding dressmakers are coming up with solutions. 

But, no, it's not just about the dress. The whole wedding is subjected to scrutiny from the point of view of the neurodivergent. I finally read the article competently, and I must say these accommodations for neurodivergent people still produce weddings that are way too much for me:

Sunrise — 7:25.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments.

"The right to publicly carry weapons is a centerpiece of Second Amendment advocacy and has emerged as a key issue in the shooting of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti...."

"Bill Essayli, Los Angeles' top federal prosecutor and a Trump ally, received fierce blowback from gun-rights groups over his Saturday claim that there is a 'high likelihood' law enforcement will be 'legally justified' in shooting someone who approaches them with a gun. The National Rifle Association responded on X that this sentiment was 'dangerous and wrong.' Gun Owners of America condemned Essayli's statement, writing that the Second Amendment 'protects Americans' right to bear arms while protesting—a right the federal government must not infringe upon.' Essayli claimed that condemnation 'mischaracterize[d]' his statement...."

From "Gun rights groups challenge shooting of legally armed Minneapolis man" (Axios).

And here's Jonathan Chait, in "What MAGA Really Thinks of the Second Amendment/Now Americans know" (The Atlantic)(gift link).

"He props his smartphone against a pile of books and adjusts the settings so the screen won’t go dark. He sets a timer. Then he waits."

"Eyes closed, Samuel A. Simon traces his breath from his ankles up through his chest, checking in with each part of his 80-year-old body before he begins. A purple binder holding a play script rests in his hands; the opening lines come from memory. Midway through, he falters. 'I’m getting all over the place,' he mutters, flipping a page. He finds his spot, then continues. Simon was diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease in 2022. As his memory has grown less reliable, he has turned his experience with the disease into a one-man play, 'Dementia Man: An Existential Journey,' performing it publicly as a way to hold on to a sense of self.... Remembering one’s lines before a live audience is daunting — even without a disease that steadily erodes memory. Simon has chosen to take on that challenge anyway. For nearly three years, he has performed 'Dementia Man' in small theaters and public libraries across the country...."

From "He’s telling his story onstage even as Alzheimer’s takes his memories/Samuel A. Simon, a former public interest lawyer who worked with Ralph Nader, performs his 'Dementia Man' play to help himself and others come to terms with Alzheimer’s disease" (WaPo).

"Most people just don’t have a human who wants to cuddle them twice a day and force them on walks."

But if you do, you might not need a dog to preserve your brain volume.

"The humane thing to do is not use an exterminator and save these little animals that are happy and want to live."

Said Frankie Floridia, president of Strong Island Animal Rescue League, quoted in "Rescuers saved 450 pet rats. Now they’re trying to get people to adopt them" (WaPo).

They were "pet rats" in the sense that they were the type of rats — domestic rats, "fancy rats" — that are bred to serve as pets, but these rats were no one's pets. They were just running around "in a now-condemned house in the New York City suburbs."

“They’re in the walls; they’re in the cabinets; they’re in the drawers; they’re in the couch,” Floridia said. “They were basically everywhere.”

Once captured, the rats are separated by gender to prevent further breeding. Females can give birth to eight to 18 pups every three to four weeks.

Separated by gender?! Who cares about gender, here? The problem is the rats are breeding like mad. It's a matter of hard-core sex.

We're told that it's hard to get people to adopt rats. First of all, people hate rats, but the hatred isn't justified against the fancy rat. We're told this type of rat is "usually smaller, more tame, more social and easier to handle" than those rats people loathe. Second, "they must be adopted in pairs or more, as they are social animals." You might think that you can be a lone rat's dear friend, but "Humans cannot mimic the kind of social interaction they need from another rat."

Ha ha. You might have thought human-style friendship would satisfy the rat, but you would need to "mimic" a rat, and the rat experts already know you will fail at that. That seems fair. I, a non-expert, would say that you are huge, you are unpleasantly hairless, and you are not tame, social, and easy to handle. What does a rat want with you? You should adopt a rat, because the rat is "social," but then your sociability toward the rat is not even the right kind. The rat needs another rat. And these rats were used to 449 other rats.

But these rats will be adopted. They've got a whole long article in The Washington Post about their need. And WaPo tells us "The rat rescue community is by far the kindest." That's quoting Erica Kutzing, vice president and co-founder of Strong Island Animal Rescue League, who has kindly ideas about that kindness:

"I think it is attributed to the fact that rats are the underdogs, and they can almost be a representation of the forgotten people; the people who don’t always fit in. People resonate with rats because they are kind of seen as an outcast.... We are not going to stop until we find placement for everyone. We don’t have any other choice."

Rats are the underdogs, but they probably do make a pretty good pet, perhaps better than the underdog dogs kindly people adopt as rescue pets. And yet, I think you'll look better to other people if you express your overflowing kindness toward a dog. You, with a rat... it will be more...

With a friend to call my own, I'll never be alone, and you my friend will see, you've got a friend in me....