"I swear to God if I were a young woman today I would choose celibacy over having the government in charge of my body. Stripping woman of the right to bodily autonomy is in itself a form of rape."

So writes one commenter at the Washington Post article "Woman charged with murder after allegedly taking abortion pills, going to hospital/The 31-year-old Georgia woman went to the emergency room with severe pain after allegedly taking abortion pills at home, according to police and court records."

We're told "Alexia Moore delivered a 22- to 24-week-old fetus 'with cardiac activity' in December, according to an arrest warrant, which cited Moore’s medical records. The newborn, a girl, died within an hour."

Delivered a fetus? The child was born alive, then died. I think they mean that they detected cardiac activity while it was in utero, so they delivered what was, on delivery, a baby.

"Think about the 250th. A lot's going to happen this summer on the Mall. But come the end of the year, what's still going to still be on the Mall? The bronze bison."

From "Smithsonian brings bison back to the National Mall with gigantic statues" (WaPo)(gift link, because this is all about the photographs).

Andy Beshear seeks to distinguish himself as the anti-Vance.

I'm reading "Andy Beshear Delivers a Scathing Attack on JD Vance in Ohio, Stoking 2028 Tensions/Mr. Beshear, the Democratic governor of Kentucky, sharply criticized Mr. Vance as both angle for potential presidential runs" (NYT).

Speaking at a local Democratic Party gala in the Ohio county where Mr. Vance grew up, Mr. Beshear accused the vice president of talking down to the people of Kentucky.... And he argued that “Hillbilly Elegy” — Mr. Vance’s well-read memoir about his youth in Kentucky and Ohio — amounted to “poverty tourism” and “trafficked in this tired stereotype” about the region.... 

Mr. Beshear has repeatedly accused Mr. Vance of overstating his blue-collar roots and misrepresenting himself as a product of Appalachia.

Waking up at 3 a.m. — "the quiet interstice of night"....

"A defibrillator delivers up to 1,000 volts to a patient’s heart; inmates executed by electric chair typically receive about 2,000."

"A typical lightning strike, by contrast, transmits 100 million volts or more. But lightning races through the body in milliseconds, and therefore often spares it. Some people... recall the moment vividly.... the flash of light whiting out all vision; the sound, which many survivors say is the loudest they’ve ever heard. The pain, for some, is excruciating, yet others feel no pain at all. 'It felt like adrenaline, but stronger,' one survivor reported. 'I felt an incredible pulsing,' another said, 'a burning sensation from head to toe.'... [Afterwards, f]orgetfulness, sleep problems, sexual dysfunction, and headaches that manifest as intense pressure—like 'my eyeballs are just popping out,” one person told me—are common. Some people become hypersensitive to noise; others lose their hearing entirely. A few, almost miraculously, are freed of a prior ailment: a bad leg healed; vision, once impaired, restored.... Some have to relearn simple things, things they’ve done their whole life—how to read, how to sing, how to ride a bike.... One woman told me she often feels as though water is running down her limbs.... Inexplicable odors can emerge; food can taste like cardboard or glue...."

From "What 100 Million Volts Do to the Body and Mind/The odds of being struck by lightning in America in a given year are one in 1.2 million. How does the experience reorient a person’s sense of chance, of fate?" (The Atlantic)(gift link).

6:34 a.m.

Photo by Meade.

"We decided to erase him."

"At the moment, [Saturday Night Live UK] has a grinning, whooping, gurning American mania to it."

"... [W]e and our US cousins have wildly differing senses of humour.... Much of the best British comedy relies on understatement, subtle wordplay, self-deprecation, self-mortification. It’s why Larry David is the American many Brits find most funny: he, like us, understands that life is a vale of tears, suffering and torturing yourself over mild social awkwardness...."

Writes Charlotte Ivers, in "Saturday Night Live UK review: Britain is funny but this isn’t yet/There’s talent in the cast — shame this Sky One debut was four parts American gurning, one part Princess Diana" (London Times).

A description of the "cold open": "Keir Starmer... and David Lammy... are psyching themselves up to phone Donald Trump, with the help of their 'Gen Z adviser.'... Keir: 'Oh golly, what if Donald shouts at me?' Gen Z adviser: 'You’re looking for more of a special situationship.'"

Also: "In a sketch parodying news headlines, the question is asked whether, once Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is in prison, he will 'be able to keep his mouth shut.' This is followed, I regret to inform you, by the punchline: '"I hope not," said his cellmate’s penis.'"

I don't see what's American about those jokes. And I don't see why the SNL format forces writers to use American-style humor! Worse, don't excuse your bad jokes by claiming they are American. The SNL format — cold open, monologue, sketches, Weekend Update, music performance — is an empty shell into which writers can insert whatever humor the producers want. Take responsibility. Or withdraw into the vale of tears and suffer and torture yourself. Apparently, you find that amusing. 

As for the "grinning, whooping, gurning American mania" — I only know the word "gurning" from the perennial reports of the World Gurning Championships. I see the NYT had one last year: "In This Pageant, the Ugliest Face Wins/The World Gurning Championships in northern England celebrate the centuries-old art of face-pulling."

That's been going on for years. I remember reading about the World Gurning Championships in LIFE magazine in the 1960s:

Here, you can buy that issue of LIFE on eBay. It was March 14, 1969. The cover story is "The Daring Contraption Called LEM." Inside: "The Race for the SST." And here's an ad: "McDonald's introduces Big Mac/A meal disguised as a sandwich." And: "Why is the Camaro the pace car again?/Because it's the Hugger."

That's all so American. And the American point of view was that gurning was a British oddity.

ADDED:

More clips from the show: here.