Well, plenty of people think something filthy, dirty, and disgusting looking is representative of the country.

Imagine an art installation titled "America." It wouldn't have sparkling clear water bubbling cheerfully now, would it?

But I'm reading "Trump Says He’s Renovating ‘Filthy’ Reflecting Pool on the National Mall/The pool, which is more than 2,000 feet long, was the site of Martin Luther King Jr.’s 'I Have a Dream' speech and other events" (NYT)

“It’s filthy, dirty — the water’s disgusting looking,” Mr. Trump recalled a friend telling him. “It’s not representative of the country.”

"I kissed Bryan, a gardener, on his red leather couch. I kissed Ray, a painter, in his lofted bed and smashed my head into his ceiling fan."

"Andrew 1 kissed me at the Met in front of a painting of hell. 'Sometimes I think this is hell,' he said, gesturing around us before putting his mouth on mine. Andrew 2 seemed confident over text but wary in person. He surprised me with a smooch on a street corner while we waited for the light to change.... Haden, a sommelier, met me to walk a friend’s dog. We kissed kneeling on the welcome mat while our hands fumbled to free the pug from her harness. Thomas, a surfer, walked me to the subway after playing pool at a dive bar. He planted one on me outside the C train.... When men asked why I was single, I told them it was because my partner of 20 years walked out on me with as much warning as one might get before an earthquake.... In return, the men were unexpectedly kind. I had heard so many horror stories about the emotional capacity of the male species, but these guys told me I didn’t deserve to be treated that way...."

Writes Erin Chack, in "From Kissing One Guy in 20 Years to 11 in a Month My husband leaving nearly broke me. I tried to put myself back together by dating for the first time in my life" (NYT)(gift link, because I think it's a well-written essay).

ChatGPT's astounding hallucination: "Joe Biden did not withdraw after the primaries were over. He stayed in the race through the primaries and remained the nominee. Kamala Harris did not replace him as the Democratic nominee."

I was reading the NYT article, "Concern Grows Over Republican Congressman’s Mysterious Absence/A spokesman for Representative Thomas Kean Jr. said an unspecified 'personal medical issue' has led the New Jersey Republican to miss House votes."

The last vote Mr. Kean cast was on March 5.... [A] campaign spokesman said that Mr. Kean was “dealing with a personal medical issue” and would be “back to a full schedule soon.”... “He’s going to be totally fine”...

I went to ChatGPT just to ask about what sort of medical issue it might be. He needed to keep it secret. It's "personal" (embarrassing somehow?). And we know he'll be "totally fine" "soon." On reflection, I suspect there's some dissembling in there. I prodded ChatGPT to consider that Kean is ultimately going to withdraw from his re-election race and that what's going on now is a matter of timing. The primaries in New Jersey will happen on June 2d, he'll win, then withdraw, and then the Republican Party will be free to slot in whomever they want. 

ChatGPT was dubious about my hypothesis, so I said: "Just look at the last presidential election. The Democratic Party avoided a crowded primary because they let the incumbent look like he was going to go forward. When it was too late and the primary season was over, Biden withdrew, and the party got to put Kamala Harris in. I assume that was coordinated and the timing of Biden‘s withdrawal was done to spare the party a contentious primary season."

Here's ChatGPT's amazing answer:

That interpretation doesn’t really line up with how the 2024 cycle actually unfolded—or with the incentives the party was facing.

First, some grounding: 

• Joe Biden did not withdraw after the primaries were over.
• He stayed in the race through the primaries and remained the nominee.
• Kamala Harris did not replace him as the Democratic nominee.

So the specific sequence you’re describing—“incumbent clears the field, then withdraws late so the party can install a successor”—didn’t actually happen in that case.

Thanks for the "grounding," Chat.

"[Wendy] Duffy’s son, Marcus, died at the age of 23 after choking on a tomato that became lodged in his windpipe while he was sleeping."

"Nine months later, she tried to kill herself by overdosing and had to be put on a ventilator for two weeks. Ultimately, she said, no amount of medication or therapy can make her whole again and that she 'can’t wait' to die. She’s already chosen what she will wear on her deathbed and told the Daily Mail that Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ 'Die With A Smile' will be playing as she passes on.... [Duffy said] she paid Pegasos, a Swiss assisted-dying nonprofit organization, $13,500 to euthanize herself under its care... This time, she said she wants it to be 'neater.' 'I could step off a motorway bridge or a tower block but that would leave anyone finding me dealing with that for the rest of their lives,' she said."

From "Physically healthy mom to end life by euthanasia at Swiss clinic after death of her son" (NY Post).

Did you think it was possible to fall asleep while eating and choke to death? Sit up, pay attention, or don't eat. You could kill yourself and kill your mother.

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"We can fix this with Republican votes, and we will. Every Democrat has opposed money for the Border Patrol and ICE at a time of great peril."

Said Senator Lindsey Graham, quoted in "Senate Adopts G.O.P. Budget, Defeating Democrats’ Affordability Proposals/Republicans pushed through a budget plan with a $70 billion increase for immigration enforcement after an overnight session in which they beat back Democratic proposals aimed at lowering costs" (NYT).

On the other side, there's Senator Chuck Schumer: "This is what Republicans are fighting for. To maintain two unchecked rogue agencies that are dreaded in all corners of this country instead of reducing your health care costs, your housing costs, your grocery costs, your gas costs."

And as long as we're talking about ICE, there's this: "Tom Homan Invites Pope Leo on ICE Ride-Along: 'They’re Talking About Something They Don’t Understand'" (Mediaite). "I’m speaking for myself, a lifelong Catholic. I wish they’d stay out of immigration. They don’t know what they’re talking about. Because if they wore my shoes for 40 years and talked to a nine-year-old girl that got raped multiple times, or stood in the back of a tractor trailer with 19 dead aliens at my feet, including a five-year-old boy that baked to death."

"Donald Trump will launch a 'revenge' attack on the White House media when he confronts them in person at a Washington dinner on Saturday night—then flee before there can be revenge...."

"Trump will leave the White House Correspondents’ Association event after making his speech, so he will miss the presentation of press awards—one of which would be certain to embarrass him. He has told aides he has no intention of still being in the International Ballroom at the Washington Hilton when the Wall Street Journal is honored with the Katherine Graham award for its scoop about a bawdy letter Trump allegedly wrote for Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday card.... Mentalist Oz Pearlman is performing this year, replacing the usual comedian and avoiding a potential Trump roast...."

From "Trump’s Plans for ‘Mic-Drop’ Media Confrontation Are Leaked/The president is planning a rage-fueled moment at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner" (Daily Beast).

"Donald Trump will launch a 'revenge' attack" — why is "revenge" in quotes? The article doesn't have Trump or anybody else using that word.

They've replaced the comedian with a mentalist?

"Reinforce the academic core of the university; don’t allow classes to be dominated by open laptops or other devices; do more to ensure that people do not self-censor; respect the ideals of free speech and academic freedom; 'be human.'"

Those are among the "smart and sensible recommendations" to be found in Yale's "Report of the Committee on Trust in Higher Education" according to "Yale Has Come Up With a Surefire Way to Make a Terrible Situation Worse" (NYT). That's written by the president of Wesleyan University, Michael S. Roth.

Sorry, I'm having a Marx Brothers flashback: "The Dean is furious! He's waxing wroth!"/"Is Roth out there, too? Tell Roth to wax the Dean for a while."

So what is Roth waxing wroth about with this anodyne committee report? 

The committee claims that in 2016, “departing from its traditional emphasis on the creation and dissemination of knowledge, Yale expanded its mission statement to include ‘improving the world today,’ educating ‘aspiring leaders worldwide,’ and fostering ‘an ethical, interdependent and diverse community.’”

It's weird to make a show of retreating from something so mild and vague. But Roth paraphrases the rejected mission as a matter of "independent thought, a commitment to truth even when it’s inconvenient and a focus on the creation of truly democratic citizens." Is that what the Trump administration has been "punishing" and what Yale is trying to be self-defensive about? 

"[I]n 1972, Keith Stroup, founder of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, discovered ['Reefer Madness'] in the Library of Congress archives."

"He screened it at a New York benefit, catching the eye of Robert Shaye, founder of the new production company New Line Cinema. Shaye knew it had potential as an accidental satire so he rereleased it, holding midnight showings marketed to college students across California campuses in particular. The rest is campy cult classic history, one that includes a 1998 stage musical, which has been revived in productions big and small around the country since, and a 2005 TV movie musical starring Kristen Bell, Alan Cumming and Neve Campbell. 'Reefer Madness' may be the first film to be embraced by a generation because it’s so bad — or so bad, it’s good."

That's from a new NYT article, "'Reefer Madness,' the P.S.A. That Backfired Spectacularly/The comically self-serious and outrageous 1936 morality tale, which warned the public about marijuana, became an unintentional parody and midnight-movie classic decades later."

First, I was sorry to see the article omitted the name of the author of the story:

 

Image taken from Wikipedia.

That's amused me for a long time.

But, second, I don't believe "Reefer Madness" was the first thing that "a generation" embraced because "it’s so bad — or so bad, it’s good." Personally, I remember going to see "The Green Slime" in 1969 for this reason. I remember hearing that it was what "all the heads" in New York were seeing. 

But I see the distinction: "The Green Slime" was trying to be so bad it's good. "Reefer Madness" was trying to warm young people away from marijuana.

Or was it?

AND: Even as we speak: "Trump administration moves to ease federal restrictions on marijuana/Marijuana had the same classification as heroin, LSD and others before being reclassified for lower potential for abuse" (Guardian).

ALSO: I took my "Or was it?" question to Grok, which assured me it was sincerely intended as propaganda. That made me think. I wrote this sentence to sum up my thoughts: "Propaganda is inherently funny but circumstances might cloud one's ability to appreciate the fun."

"You can get married at the New York Marble Cemetery on Second Avenue/The Balloon Saloon in Tribeca has the best gag gifts and the biggest fake poops in town."

"Avoid trampoline parks at all costs. Throw a less chaotic kids’ party instead at Twinkle PlaySpace in Williamsburg. For $399, hire NY Teacup Piggies to bring in three piglets for the young partygoers to play with.... Call Beverly Fish at Chezzam for out-of-the-box entertainment — think actors in rat costumes serving a cheese platter.... You can hire a babysitter to walk your child (ages 4 to 15) from school to your home (or wherever they need to go) using the service Trot My Tot. You’ll pay a maximum of $25 per hour.... Cheeky tweens tend to enjoy the 'butt scavenger hunt' at the Brooklyn Museum; ask for it at admissions.... "

From "259 Things New Yorkers Should Know/The second edition of our annual handbook will help you make the most of the city" (NY Magazine).

I looked up the "butt scavenger hunt" so you don't have to:

"Coyote vs. Acme — a film Warner Bros. famously tried to scrap in 2023 — has released its first footage ahead of coming to theaters this summer."

Hollywood Reporter observes.

Warner Bros. had planned to scrap the completed movie as part of a $115 million write-down. Social media uproar helped to save the project, which Ketchup Entertainment acquired for distribution. The shelving attempt was one of the first headline-making decisions under CEO David Zaslav (along with another high-profile and completed project, Batgirl).... Zaslav previously told The New York Times about the decision, “The question is, should we take certain of these movies and open them in the theater and spend another $30 or $40 million to promote them? And [the] Warner Bros. team and HBO made a number of decisions. They were hard. But when I look at the health of our company today, we needed to make those decisions. And it took real courage."

I've seen the trailer, and I think they made the right decision to scrap this thing after making the wrong decision to manufacture it in the first place — to insert the Warner Brother cartoons into the real world, especially a real world full of lawyers... it's awful... but then that's the opinion of someone who has an aversion to movies based on pre-existing intellectual property and to movies about lawyering. So check for yourself:

ADDED: Let's remember that Chuck Jones had rules for the use of Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, and this movie egregiously breaks rule #6: "All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters—the southwest American desert." 

"The three members of TMZ’s new Washington, D.C., bureau arrived at Capitol Hill last Monday...."

"The celebrity-gossip outlet’s Washington operation had started off with a bang. The partial government shutdown had enraged TMZ founder Harvey Levin, who thought he might shame Congress back into session by publicizing how lawmakers were spending their recess while federal workers went without pay. The photos did not disappoint. There was a khaki-clad Lindsey Graham at Disney World, holding a bubble wand and boarding Space Mountain. There was Ted Cruz scrolling in his Economy Plus seat. There were members of Congress touring Edinburgh Castle while on a trip to Scotland. 'The reaction in D.C. was, "Oh, that’s just a codel,"' said Washington communications veteran Nu Wexler, referring to a congressional delegation. It wasn’t clear TMZ understood the distinction or if it cared...." 

From "Washington Enters Its TMZ Era" (Intelligencer).

"Veterans are greeting the arrival of TMZ’s aggressively tabloid approach with a mix of curiosity and wariness. 'If they can expose scumbags who rape and abuse women, that would be a great public service,' said Axios CEO Jim VandeHei. 'If they just make a mockery of a widely mocked institution, that would be a shame. Let’s see the road they choose.'"

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"I could have tried to adopt, though I think a single gay man would still be right at the back of the queue..."

"... but I remember seeing my nephew for the first time, back in 1997 — just recalling it makes me emotional — and feeling this tug, a real visceral knowing that I was related to this little human being, that we share a gene pool. I wanted the same with my own child. When I reached 50 I thought, ‘It’s now or never,’ and I really started looking into surrogacy seriously.... A couple of friends took a beat or two to respond when I told them about my plans. Another asked, 'Do you really want to be coping with a stroppy teenager when you’re in your seventies?' I think my parents, who are both in their eighties, and sister were concerned that, aged 50-plus, I didn’t realise the enormity of what I was letting myself in for.”

Said Simon Burrell, quoted in "What it’s like to be a single dad (with a child via surrogacy)/The frequency of single fathers having children through surrogacy has tripled. Simon Burrell tells Helen Carroll why he spent £200,000 on becoming one. Plus: I was the UK’s first solo surrogacy father" (London Times).

"But Trump’s urge is toward gigantism, not grace. This is as true about his ballroom... as it is about the proposed arch."

"It is, simply, un-American. It is even, in its derivative way, un-French, since the Parisian instances are, at least, right-sized for their place and their purpose. If it were ever to be built, future generations would dream of its demolition. Its injury to the democratic spirit is too large to contemplate, and would be too hard to look past, even from a distance."

Writes Adam Gopnik, in "Donald Trump’s Triumphal Arch and the Architecture of Autocracy/When asked by a reporter whom the arch would be for, Trump said, 'Me'" (The New Yorker).

Is gigantism un-American?

Sundust.

"It's discouraging to come up here and see all the heads down..."/"Sir, you're on a 2-minute timer here so let's go."

Resident speaks at the Seattle City Council

The Democrat city council wouldn’t even look up at him. He asked them to at least look at him and they rudely tell him his time is almost up

He tells them they’re like Animal Farm

“It reminds me of George Orwell's famous saying from… pic.twitter.com/Unkx9ZEYcs

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) April 22, 2026

I love the elegance with which the citizen adapted to the city council's effort to throw him off, to reduce him to nothing. He made the experience into the substance of what he was able to say within the harsh time constraint. He spoke slowly and with dignity and even worked in a George Orwell quote. 

"As some of you might recall, earlier this year I had an AI oopsie of my own..."

Writes David Lat, in "An AI Screw-Up By... Sullivan & Cromwell? There are multiple ironies involved in this unfortunate incident."

I’ll simply repeat my two signature quips, urging you to extend grace when it comes to AI fails:

   • “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes… for an AI screw-up.”

   • “The next time you hear about an epic AI fail, instead of (or at least after) laughing your ass off, perhaps have the humility to say this to yourself: ‘There but for the grace of God go (A)I.’”

Or, if you prefer, here are some bon mots from Claude, which it generated after I fed it my two sayings and asked for more along the same lines:

"'If the Democratic Party is to flourish in the future,' Mr. Platner told me, 'it needs to be an antiwar party.'"

"As talks to end the latest disastrous war focus on reopening a narrow strait of water that was open before the war began, this seems like an obvious conclusion. And yet many Democratic politicians would most likely be wary of embracing it.... [M]any Democrats seem to fear being seen as antiwar. What if they vote against wartime funding, and then an Iranian attack targets U.S. troops or the homeland? Or what if Mr. Trump bombs Iran, and the regime collapses and is replaced by something better? You could feel this calculation within the Democratic Party as the war began — a hedging that only dissipated when the war’s brutality and insanity became clear.... We like to frame our wars as virtuous, but they are not. Instead, they resemble a declining empire sowing chaos along its periphery as a matter of strategy.... [T]he forever war has been destroying America from within, like an organism that must keep growing to survive, filling us with fear of outsiders and contempt for one another. War does that to societies: Once you normalize taking human life abroad, you tend not to value it at home...."

Writes Ben Rhodes, in "Graham Platner Went to Hell and Back. He Has a Simple Message for Democrats" (NYT).

Rhodes was a speechwriter for Obama. Platner is the likely Democratic Party candidate for U.S. Senator for Maine. 

Shaping the SPLC story.

I'm taking a position of cruel neutrality and see myself spending much of the day observing how the 2 sides are shaping the story.

Let's just start with the way things look at Elon's place:

Is it terrible or is that a huge loophole?

Terrible https://t.co/geK2swDv82

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 22, 2026

The litigation is already pending: "Lawsuits pending at Virginia Supreme Court over redistricting referendum" (ABC 13 News). There are 3 lawsuits, 2 of which challenge the language. The vote was allowed to go through, but we'll see what the court says. I can see how one might argue that the voters didn’t approve of anything that doesn’t "restore fairness" and the plan put forward by the Democrats was designed for the purpose of advancing the party— not to restore fairness — so the voters did not approve it.

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"I wish I could designate myself as a 'foreign-policy Republican,' but there’s no such option, so I have to go whole hog."

"By registering as a Republican rather than an independent, maybe I can have some influence on moving some Republican policies toward the center. I have given up on trying to change the Democratic Party. My main goal is to send a message that many traditional Democratic voters can’t accept what it is becoming—a replica of left-wing European parties that are hurting their countries."

Writes Alan Dershowitz, in "Why I’m Becoming a Republican/I first registered as a Democrat in 1959. The party’s hostility to Israel is too much" (Wall Street Journal).

We're at war. If you find yourself cheering for the other side, you've lost your way.

The word traitor gets thrown around too much.

But, uh, this is a United States senator openly cheering on Iran against American military forces. pic.twitter.com/TYVYGO44oR

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) April 21, 2026

And look at him, grotesquely smiling, as he makes the excuse that we don't understand "sarcasm" anymore — you know, the form of humor that consists of saying the opposite of what you think:

JUST IN: Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy doesn't say he has any regrets after furious backlash to his X post calling reports of Iranian ships slipping past the U.S. naval blockade "awesome."

"I guess I just have to be more careful about sarcasm on Twitter," Murphy exclusively told… pic.twitter.com/MB6nuZjY9V

— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 21, 2026

"Twitter has become kind of a cesspool, I probably should give up on sarcasm on Twitter," Murphy says, as if the debased speech of others — who?! — undermines our capacity to understand sarcasm. Why? If anything, this "cesspool" quality ought to make us more likely to think somebody's just talking shit.

But Murphy wants to elevate his cynically spit out "awesome" into something subtle. He's doing sarcasm and the shitheads of the cesspool can't figure it out. They can't see that when a Senator says something, it really counts as the opposite of what he said through the magic of the time-honored device known as sarcasm.

Does Chris Murphy need to apologize? Of course, not. He's essentially already said he's sorry — sorry "Twitter" made the people so shitty they don't understand sarcasm anymore.

"I was very impressed with myself to have the head of Apple calling to 'kiss my ass.'"

Writes Donald Trump, on Truth Social this morning:

I have always been a big fan of Tim Cook, and likewise, Steve Jobs, but if Steve was not taken from the Planet Earth so young, and ran the company instead of Tim, the company would have done well, but nowhere near as well as it has under Tim. For me it began with a phone call from Tim at the beginning of my First Term. He had a fairly large problem that only I, as President, could fix. Most people would have paid millions of dollars to a consultant, who I probably would not have known, but who would say that he knew me well. The fees would be paid but the job would not have gotten done. When I got the call I said, wow, it’s Tim Apple (Cook!) calling, how big is that? I was very impressed with myself to have the head of Apple calling to “kiss my ass.”

Childrearing tips from Eleanor Roosevelt.

My son Chris sent me that clip, which I think is from "FDR: A New Political Life" (commission earned). Chris has a project of reading (at least) one biography of each of the U.S. Presidents. He's not reading them in chronological order though, and he's a lot closer to the end than it looks. Anyway, I'll correct this post if I'm naming the wrong bio. So hold off on snapping up that book until later in the day. And think twice about jury-rigging a chickenwire cage to hang your baby out an upper story window. Or are you the sort of busybody who calls the authorities on a very modern mother who just might be Eleanor Roosevelt?

UPDATE: The book is actually "FDR" by Jean Edward Smith. Chris says it has "a lot of anecdotes." 880 pages. That other one is a mere 284 pages. 

"Morante, born José Antonio Morante Camacho, is widely regarded as the leading 'torero de arte' of his generation, and deemed by some to be the greatest ever."

"Famed for his mastery of the cape and a style that blends risk, improvisation and aesthetic refinement, critics regularly attribute 'mysticism' to his best performances.... A recent El País commentary called one of his performances a 'virtuosic, stirring, surprising, baroque work — an act of improvisation by an artist who is not of this world, capable of hypnotising, with a supernatural ability entirely alien to modern bullfighting.' Another suggested it would not be surprising 'if a religion were founded in his honour.'..."

That's from The London Times., where it looks like this:

Sunrise.

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

ADDED: Me, by Meade:

"Finding a new name was surprisingly easy. A Weatherman would drive out to a rural graveyard and look around..."

"... until he found the headstone of a person who would have been about his age but had died as an infant. Then he’d head over to the county courthouse and ask for a replacement birth certificate. Soon, he would have an official government license with his photo, but a new name and a whole new identity. My dad grew his beard out. My mom cut her hair short, dyed it red, and started dressing like a California hippie—big glasses and flowing dresses—rather than in her signature black leather, miniskirts, and knee-high boots. They set up safe houses—cheap apartments in working-class neighborhoods. They took jobs as construction workers, longshoremen, and nannies—work that didn’t require a Social Security card and always paid at the end of the day, in cash. Meanwhile, their bombing campaign intensified.... The method they used was simple: a young white woman dressed up as a secretary would walk into a building, place a bag or a purse in an empty rest room or office, set a timer, and walk out...."

Writes Zayd Ayers Dohrn, in "My Childhood in the Weather Underground/My parents founded the radical revolutionary group, then became fugitives. I was born in hiding, and spent my early years on the run" (The New Yorker).

"This foray into looking at humans as creatures that are governed by instinct and biology offered little in the way of advancing Darwinist theory..."

"... nor was his explicit approach of studying man as a mere ape a novel one. What ensured the popularity of The Naked Ape was first its clarity of prose, and second, the era in which it was published, where a popularised 'back to nature' philosophy and sexual liberation were all the rage.... [T]he salacious manner of the book helped to guarantee it success. During copulation, he wrote, 'the female breasts … shows a significant increase in size. By the time orgasm has been reached, the breast of the average female will have increased by anything up to 25 per cent of its normal dimensions. It becomes firmer, more rounded and more protuberant.' Elsewhere, Morris would tell readers that the human penis is the largest of all primates, and the only one without a bone, making it harder to achieve an erection.... The Naked Woman (2004) was a similar blend of zoological observation and detailed titillation, with an analysis of women’s backs ('even at rest … naturally more arched than a man’s back'), legs ('part of the sexual fascination … is that they focus attention on the point where they meet'), buttocks (they 'transmit a powerful gender signal') and breasts (which 'operate first as visual stimuli and then as tactile ones'). Never short of ideas, Morris also advanced the theory that female breasts had developed as imitation buttocks 'to shift the interest of the male to the front.'..."

From "Desmond Morris obituary: natural world expert/Zoologist, broadcaster and author best known for The Naked Ape dies aged 98" (London Times).

I'd always thought woodpeckers were in it for the insects, but now I see at least this one guy is in it for the music.

He's into the metallic resonance. Listen all the way to the end:

This was out at our sunrise vantage point this morning. The boxes are part of the equipment attached to a pole out there. It's a bit unsightly, but I believe it's for science — weather, maybe, or is it surveillance?

Wherever music has emerged, hasn't the first musical instrument always been the drum? (That is, the first instrument beyond the musician's own mouth.) Or is it the flute?

"He wants to use his presidency not only to slash the country’s budget but to wage an ideological war and rewire the country’s mentality."

"He wants to dismantle what he calls the 'aberrant' concepts of social justice and economic equality and make the nation’s core principles capitalism, the free market, a limited state and individualism. 'We are at war,' Mr. Milei said at a right-wing festival last year, and added: 'We are fighting a cultural struggle, an ideological battle, a war for the survival of our freedom.' At political rallies and international summits, in public policies and a deluge of social media posts, Mr. Milei has relentlessly sought to infuse Argentina with his libertarian ideals. And turn it into a model for the world. A nation where people are loath to eat alone or drink a cup of mate, the national infusion, without sharing with the person next to them is embracing a leader whose fundamental message is that people should fend for themselves. 'He is trying to break our DNA,' Juan Grabois, an opposition lawmaker, said of Mr. Milei. 'To destroy the communal identity of our people.'... Laziness to Mr. Milei is a vice stemming from years of left-leaning governments that turned society to indolence by giving citizens generous benefits...."

From "Javier Milei Wants to Rewire the Argentine Mind/Argentina’s right-wing president has tamed the country’s runaway inflation. Now he wants to transform its values" (NYT)(gift link, because there's a lot going on over there).

And here he is in his superhero costume:

"There’s always two poles in any movement. There’s this pull toward being post-human, shinier, newer, cloned, etc., the sense that people have elevated the lacquered surface of the machine over the body."

"[And there's this pull toward] I’m real. I think we’re like old stone houses. We have the value of antiquity. If you haven’t tweaked yourself, it’s like you have a working fireplace that’s been going since 1680. We’re authentic.... For all women, there’s that line between choosing to be malleable and pleasing and to conform with the collective norms or refusing it.... No, I’m not playing that game."

Said the 77-year-old French Vogue editor Joan Juliet Buck, quoted in "Why Fashion Suddenly Loves Older Women/Representation of women of a certain age has never been higher. What’s going on?" (NYT).

The article is by Vanessa Friedman, who continues: "Authenticity is, of course, one of the current buzzwords not just in fashion, but in culture generally. It’s a reflection of the fear that individual style has been lost to the algorithm.... It’s not just influencers and celebrities who have become the vehicles for this version of ageless sameness. It’s political figures, too.... As many MAGA women have embraced the plumped and smoothed 'Mar-a-Lago face,' it has become an expression of a larger social swing toward exaggerated norms and old-fashioned patriarchal gender roles rather than simply a cosmetic fad."

Morning fire.

"Tucker Carlson... has called the nicotine pouch brand ZYN a 'lifesaving' product that can increase productivity and 'male vitality.'"

"Mr. Carlson went so far as to say that the pouches are 'like the hand of God reaching down and massaging your central nervous system.'...  'What the Make America Healthy Again movement is saying is, "I am going to question what I’m told," said [biohacking influencer Dave Asprey,] who has encouraged his followers to do their own research on and experiment with nicotine, which he calls one of 'Mother Nature’s cognitive enhancers.'... Another common refrain among MAHA supporters is that the medical establishment has made Americans sicker by suppressing information about natural cures and instead pushing prescription medications. That was the focus of an episode last year of the popular 'Culture Apothecary' podcast, titled 'Nicotine is NOT the Villain: What Big Pharma Hides from Parents.' Alex Clark, the podcast’s host and a leading figure in the MAHA movement, interviewed a chiropractor and alternative medicine practitioner who suggested that the drug industry had buried information on nicotine’s benefits and claimed that nicotine could treat Covid, cancer and more...."

From "Influencers Are Spinning Nicotine as a ‘Natural’ Health Hack/The influencers, many of them aligned with the Make America Healthy Again Movement, say the medical establishment has unfairly demonized the compound" (NYT).

like the hand of God reaching down and massaging your central nervous system — reminds me of that Trump-is-like-Jesus illustration:

"The New York Times... says a boom of older mothers is coming to reverse low fertility, but the math is against them."

Explains Maibritt Henkel, at The Argument, with some devastating graphs.

"Chinese carmaker Seres has been granted a patent for what it calls an 'in-vehicle toilet' that slides under a passenger's seat for visits to the loo while on the road...."

"Chinese electric vehicles have become increasingly packed with unconventional features, like built-in massage seats, karaoke systems and a fridge, to stand out in a highly competitive market.... The loo will come with a fan and exhaust pipe to channel odours out of the car.... Waste is collected in a tank that has to be emptied manually. The toilet also features a rotating heating element that evaporates urine and dries other waste. When not in use, the toilet is concealed beneath the seat, making full use of the space inside a car without requiring more room."

BBC News reports.

Via Metafilter, where somebody links to this video:

"The cloud-being in the pictograph... includes the symbols of a snake, which is associated with lightning, and a hummingbird, which is believed to be..."

"... a messenger with prayers to bring rain. The outstretched arms of the cloud being have rain as well as its full body consisting of rain. The lightning snake under its arm is stimulating the rain to fall. It looks like a storm cloud with lightning that has a heavy downpour in one region and lighter rain falling in others. There are examples of cloud beings with lighting that have a very similar appearance to modern photographs of storm clouds that have captured lightning bolts. Clouds can seem to be standing on lightning feet, which look like plant roots going down into the ground...."

From "Prehistoric Art of the Colorado Plateau: It’s All About Clouds!" (Cloud Appreciation Society).

"In different cultures and historical eras, pitch polarity was not designated as 'high' vs. 'low' but rather..."

"... by 'light' vs. 'heavy' (Kpelle people in Liberia), 'sharp' vs. 'heavy' (ancient Greek music theory), 'small' vs. 'large,' used in Bali and Java, as well as among Kpelle and Jabo in Liberia...), 'young' vs. 'old' (Suyá people of the Amazon basin...) or 'weak' vs. 'strong' (the Bashi people of central Africa...). Often, pitch vocabulary seems to derive from specific cultural practices. For instance, pitch classification for the Shona mbira (Zimbabwe) includes the opposition of 'crocodile' (low pitch) with 'those who follow crocodiles' (high), and 'stable (person) who holds the piece together' (low) vs. 'mad person' (high), as well as 'old men’s voices' (low) vs. 'young men’s voices' (high), 'men’s voices' vs. 'women’s voices,' and 'thin' (low) vs. 'thick' (high).... In the Gbaya xylophone (Central African Republic), notes are arranged genealogically, and include (from low to high) grandmother, mother, father, son and daughter...."

From the delightfully named "Beethoven’s last piano sonata and those who follow crocodiles: Cross-domain mappings of auditory pitch in a musical context" (Academia) by Renee Timmers.

I got there via a discussion with Grok that began with my question "Why is it that the most emotional part of a melody is always (almost always?) a move to a higher note?" The answer shouldn't be because in real life heights are exciting/scary/magnificent.  

Imagine thinking about a melody in terms of crocodiles and those who follow crocodiles!

At the Sunrise Café...

... you can talk all night.

What does an arch mean? If Trump, fascism. If Mamdani, warmth and friendliness.

There was this, April 10th, in The Washington Post:

Today, we've got this in The New York Times:

"Iran decided to fire bullets yesterday in the Strait of Hormuz — A Total Violation of our Ceasefire Agreement!"

"Many of them were aimed at a French Ship, and a Freighter from the United Kingdom. That wasn’t nice, was it? My Representatives are going to Islamabad, Pakistan — They will be there tomorrow evening, for Negotiations. Iran recently announced that they were closing the Strait, which is strange, because our BLOCKADE has already closed it. They’re helping us without knowing, and they are the ones that lose with the closed passage, $500 Million Dollars a day! The United States loses nothing. In fact, many Ships are headed, right now, to the U.S., Texas, Louisiana, and Alaska, to load up, compliments of the IRGC, always wanting to be 'the tough guy!' We’re offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran. NO MORE MR. NICE GUY! They’ll come down fast, they’ll come down easy and, if they don’t take the DEAL, it will be my Honor to do what has to be done, which should have been done to Iran, by other Presidents, for the last 47 years. IT’S TIME FOR THE IRAN KILLING MACHINE TO END! President DONALD J. TRUMP"

Trump, on Truth Social, this morning.

Jordan Peterson and akathisia.

We figured out that dad has a psych med induced neurological injury, and has been suffering from akathisia. It’s been 6 years since any psych medications. Last summer his symptoms started, after a flare up likely induced by mold (CIRS) and stress. It was complicated by pneumonia… pic.twitter.com/wPjAz4XsLT

— Mikhaila Peterson (@MikhailaFuller) April 18, 2026

"It takes most college students at least four years to earn a bachelor’s degree. Christie Williams finished in three months."

"The North Carolina human resources executive spent two months racking up credits through web tutorials after work in 2024, then raced through 11 online classes at the University of Maine at Presque Isle in four weeks. Later that year, she went back to earn her master’s — in just five weeks. The two degrees cost a total of just over $4,000. Since then, she has coached a thousand other students on how to speed through the state college, shaving off years and thousands of dollars from the usual cost of a degree. 'Why wouldn’t you do that?' Williams asked. 'It’s kind of a no-brainer if you know about it.'"

From "Students are speeding through their online degrees in weeks, alarming educators/Some online colleges allow students to take unlimited courses on their own time, leading to quick degrees and worries about devaluing credentials" (WaPo).

So, perhaps everyone's degree is devalued, because it becomes too easy to see that what the degree represents is not such a big deal. But another thing that's devalued is the experience of in-person education. Why wouldn't everyone switch to the cheaper, more efficient method? The purveyors of in-person education need to prove what they have on offer is better. We assume it's better, but is it? And is it that much better?

It's a little hard to believe he shaved.

"While the police made light of Mr. Augustine’s pasta-and-switch method, calling it a 'pasta-tively terrible plan,' his scheme was just the latest in a trend of Lego thefts."

I'm reading "Man Charged in Lego Theft Scheme of Replacing Pieces With Pasta, Police Say/A California man was charged with grand theft after the police said he reaped about $34,000 in what an official called an 'off the charts' pasta-and-switch scheme involving Lego kits" (NYT).

Read Hayes, a research scientist and criminologist at the University of Florida and the executive director of the Loss Prevention Research Council, said it was possible that Mr. Augustine’s use of uncooked pasta — which he described as “off the charts” — was meant to simulate the shifting sound of the pieces inside the box.

So this guy was able — at least 70 times — to return boxes and get a refund without it being noticed that the box did not contain the original Legos? It was enough that the box sounded as though it contained Legos. This worked 70+ times?! And the police act like it's cute and make puns.

"A federal appeals court on Friday allowed construction to continue on President Donald Trump’s new White House ballroom until June, just a day after a federal judge halted progress."

NBC News reports.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post has just come out with an "analysis" of the quantity of Trump's "fixation" on building the ballroom: "Trump’s fixation on White House ballroom is increasing, Post analysis finds/The president has publicly highlighted his ballroom project on roughly a third of the days this year."

That's a gift link, so you can check to see how WaPo measured the mind of Trump.