2 marriage concepts — similar, yet very different.

1. Pretend your spouse is "dead and is a ghost." That is, that they can do nothing to help around the house. (This isn't the same concept as "ghosting" someone, so please don't be confused. It's a committed decision to take full responsibility for everything.)

2. "The good-guy presenting husband." He does everything he's asked to do and is no trouble at all but is the source of no ideas about getting anything done.

#1 is, we're told, the key to a successful marriage, which I think is believable if you understand it the right way, which is that both partners are simultaneously conceptualizing the other as a ghost. Each is stepping up to do 100%.

#2 is someone you may think is not bad enough to leave, but, we're told, he is. I note that the "good-guy presenting husband" does not fit into the "ghost" concept, and the wife is not treating him like a ghost. She's asking him to do things, and he is doing them. Now, I wonder, if either the wife of the good-guy presenting husband or the good-guy presenting husband (or both) were to switch to pretending their partner has died and is now handing around with you as a ghost, their mediocre marriage could become a success. 

Slip.

"You've had sex with him... all 3 times."

"Washington felt like a penitentiary to him. 'There is no human intercourse in it... at any rate for the President.'"

"He" = Woodrow Wilson.

From A. Scott Berg's "Wilson" (commission earned), in a passage found, photographed, and texted to me by my son Chris, who's getting close to the end of his project of reading a biography of each American President.

Read on:

One is surprised to visualize the President of the United States traipsing through the streets of Manhattan, hoping to be incognito, collecting a crowd, and then ditching it by wending through the Waldorf-Astoria and hopping on a motorbus.

That seems like enough, but then to hear that the President "could not help wishing... that someone would kill him."

AND: Here's another passage Chris sent me from that book. This happened in 1879, when he was a law student, age 23:

"For years, President Trump has complained that his personal and business bank accounts were deliberately closed after the Jan 6., 2021, attack on the Capitol...."

"In a response to a lawsuit filed last month by Mr. Trump and the Trump Organization, JPMorgan, the nation’s largest bank, said for the first time late Friday that it cut off more than 50 Trump accounts in February 2021, shortly after Mr. Trump’s first term ended. The accounts included those for Trump hotels, housing developments and retail shops in Illinois, Florida and New York, as well as Mr. Trump’s personal private banking relationship that handled his inheritance from his father.... In one unsigned note to Mr. Trump, dated Feb. 19, 2021, the bank wrote that he would need to 'find a more suitable institution with which to conduct business.' The letter closed with, 'Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter' — a phrase that Mr. Trump himself is fond of using...."

From "JPMorgan Admits It Shut Trump’s Accounts After Jan. 6 Capitol Attack/Nation’s largest bank, in response to a lawsuit filed by the president, confirmed his longstanding complaint about 'debanking'" (NYT).

"This is the CEO of Victoria's Secret, claiming that Epstein, who he hired to manage all of his money, had alerted him to the danger if you didn't inventory forks and spoons...."

"A guy like Les Wexner has to protect himself from fork theft. Understand? So that's where Jeffrey Epstein came in. Even his lawyer is looking at him like, well, this is an odd example. Even his lawyer's like, this is why we gotta keep it to five less, five words or less. Because now we're like, you're talking about forks and knives and spoons. Les Wexner on what Jeffrey Epstein did for him.... People could be stealing your silverware and Les Wexner's like, well that's what a good thought. I'd never thought that, here's all of my money. Let me give you power of attorney over literally all of my assets. Because you came up with this...."

"I love the U.S.A.!"

Jack Hughes processing the emotions of the CLUTCH overtime goal for GOLD! 👏 pic.twitter.com/TAX9U76pbK

— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) February 22, 2026

The issue is YOU!

Rep. AOC holds back tears: "If you think I do not understand foreign policy…. the issue is YOU" pic.twitter.com/gdBpDE8jVh

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 22, 2026

Made me think of this:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mike Gauyo 🇭🇹 (@b.l.a.c.k.b.o.y.w.r.i.t.e.s)

"A man was shot and killed by law enforcement, including agents from the United States Secret Service, after he entered the secure perimeter of Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla...."

"... early Sunday morning, according to a statement posted by the agency on X. The man, who the agency said was 'in his early 20s,' was confronted near the north gate of the Mar-a-Lago complex, and was carrying what appeared to be a shotgun and a fuel canister, the Secret Service said."

The NYT reports.

ELSEWHERE: "Kennedy Center Performance Canceled After Substance Poured on Ice Rink/An individual poured an unknown dark liquid onto a temporary skating rink at the Kennedy Center late Thursday night, in what the venue called a 'calculated' attack" (NYT).

We're told "a container that had been left on the ice." And in the X post about Mar-a-Logo, it says the now-dead person arrived with "a fuel can."

"Working with the fantastic Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, we are going to send a great hospital boat to Greenland to take care of the many people who are sick, and not being taken care of there."

"It’s on the way!!!"

Wrote Trump, quoted in "Greenland does not need US hospital boat to be sent by Trump, says Denmark/Prime minister and defence minister rebuff US president’s claim that Arctic islanders are 'not being taken care of'" (The Guardian).

Things I'm not talking about.

1. Susan Rice.

2. Mamdani's snow shovelers and the 2-ID requirement. 

3. Trump's re-tariffing gimmick.

4. Our war with Iran.

5. Photograph of Prince Andrew.

I'm not judging these stories to be inconsequential. I just have nothing to add, nothing that fits my approach to blogging anyway. I like them as items to list. The list signifies that I feel some pressure. They're nagging at me. But I'm resisting. Feel free to talk about them in the comments. They're actually all good topics. I'm just not feeling the value of my own yammering on them. Maybe you think I've already said too much, what with that one word.

"Gimmick" is "Originally U.S. slang," according to the OED, which defines it like this: "A gadget; spec. a contrivance for dishonestly regulating a gambling game, or an article used in a conjuring trick; now usually a tricky or ingenious device, gadget, idea, etc., esp. one adopted for the purpose of attracting attention or publicity."

The oldest appearance of the word is an entry in the 1926 "Wise-crack Dictionary": "Gimmick, device used for making a fair game crooked." 

Meaning.

One of the most meaningful gifts I’ve ever received in my entire life. pic.twitter.com/AfupGNVTpY

— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) February 22, 2026

"By protecting the lives of preborn children with the same laws that protect people who are born, we are simply loving our neighbors in the womb as ourselves."

Said Southern Baptist Convention President Clint Pressley, quoted in "TN bill would allow death penalty for women who have an abortion/Tennessee has some of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the country. The Human Life Protection Act prohibits all abortions from fertilization, without exceptions for rape or incest" (The Tennesseean).

Two Tennessee Republicans are seeking to impose the death penalty on women who have abortions, requiring the same penalties for women “involved in the homicide of her own unborn child” as defendants charged with homicide.... The bill specifically removes legal protections for pregnant women currently in statute, and classifies harm done to an unborn child as equal to assault on a person "born alive."

It would not apply to “a spontaneous miscarriage,” or to “unintentional death of an unborn child” after “undertaking life-saving procedures” to save the life of the mother and “to save the life of the unborn child.” No other exceptions are specified in the amendment text....

Imagine an oral argument in our current Supreme Court on the question whether the death penalty for abortion is cruel and unusual punishment. I suspect you'll want to say it will never come to that. 

Hasn't Canal Street always been funky?

Man takes a stroll through New York City..

This place is absolutely COOKED. 💀💀 pic.twitter.com/Lc9Yx5kPUd

— American AF 🇺🇸 (@iAnonPatriot) February 22, 2026

I watched that video, and yes, it looks awful, but has it "metastasized" and "gone insane"? It's Canal Street. The voiceover declares it's the "most expensive" part of New York and calls it "Tribeca" and "Soho." It's Canal Street, being Canal Street. 

I looked at those wares vendors had laid out all over the sidewalk, and I'd like to bring some lateral thinking to the problem. The product you see there is almost entirely women's handbags. It could become utterly uncool and dumb to carry a handbag. A handbag is literally a burden. It makes you vulnerable to theft. You don't need it. Designers whose clothes you may not be able to buy make a customer out of you by offering this carrier of their name, causing you to feel that you need it more than you do. Wake up to the post-handbag world and those guys hawking handbags will disappear. 

What, beyond your iPhone, do you need to carry these days? The closer you can get to nothing, the better you are. That's the idea to sell, but who is motivated to sell it? I know I'm being silly, at my age and my distance from New York, to try to influence the anti-handbag trend, which has to hinge on the pleasure and freedom of the consumer, not hatred of street vendors. These are guys making a living, and if your aim is to walk down an uncluttered, uncrowded street, reroute off Canal Street.

By the way, I used to live in NYC — from 1973 to 1984 — and 2 things about me back then: 1. I avoided Canal Street, unless I was swooping into that one place where I bought art supplies, and 2. I never carried a purse, I went out of my way to figure out how to carry everything in various pockets, I had a whole feminist/hippie conception of what I was doing, and I regarded women with purses as embarrassingly uncool.