Sunrise.

Write about whatever you like in the comments. I really missed comments yesterday! So glad to have them back. I know readers are still there, but it really means something to me to see your words.

"The Tetris Company, the company that owns the rights to the classic video game, denounced a clone of the game produced by the Trump administration that has the player block space aliens and zombies from crossing the U.S.-Mexican border."

I'm reading "Tetris Owner Denounces Trump White House Clone of Game/Responding to Build the Wall, an apparent copy of the retro video game, the Tetris Company said 'we take copyright infringement very seriously'" (NYT gift link).

Here's the "arcade" page at whitehouse.gov and, clicking through, here is the "Build the Wall" game that is, basically, Tetris. 

"Washington professor who parodied university 'land acknowledgment' wins $600K settlement."

FIRE reports.

It has become increasingly common in academia to encourage statements that formally recognize indigenous ties to the land. In December 2021, Reges criticized land acknowledgment statements in an email to faculty, and the next month he parodied UW’s model statement in his syllabus: “I acknowledge that by the labor theory of property the Coast Salish people can claim historical ownership of almost none of the land currently occupied by the University of Washington.” Reges’s statement was a nod to John Locke’s philosophical theory that property rights are established by labor, and a response to the Computer Science department’s recommendation that professors include the UW’s model statement in their syllabi. Reges objected to the political nature of the UW’s model statement and sought to demonstrate that there are competing views on the value of land acknowledgments.

That was retaliation and viewpoint discrimination [by the University] according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

The tilted hat.

"Grow the fuck up"

Cardinals manager Oli Marmol was furious with umpire Doug Eddings after Eddings told rookie pitcher Hancel Rincon to fix his hat in the middle of his MLB debut pic.twitter.com/3t3AitYsCX

— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) September 5, 2026

DETAILS: "Marmol ejected after rookie Rincon told to straighten hat out" (MLB).

“The batter [Rockies catcher Hunter Goodman] said, ‘Hey, can he wear his hat like that?’” [umpire Doug] Eddings recounted after the game. “I really didn't know, but it was really, really crooked. I asked the catcher to tell him to straighten his hat out, and the pitcher did. Nobody said anything until he gave up a couple runs.” 

Rincon said the comment didn’t distract him from his debut and that he didn’t argue with Eddings about his comment. “I had no idea why he told me to do it,” Rincon said through an interpreter. “It's fine.”...

“I had an issue with Doug,” [Cardinals manager Oliver] Marmol said... “Just Doug. He took it upon himself to tell our rookie pitcher the kid's ‘not going to wear his hat on my field that way.’ You got Dontrelle Willis, CC Sabathia, Pedro Strop -- plenty of guys that have worn it way more tilted. I have an issue with that. That's just a power-hungry move, in my opinion."

SIDETRACK: "The way you wear your hat..."

And I think of the 4th sentence of "Moby-Dick":

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

"An Illinois mother allegedly hanged her 2-year-old son that she described as the 'anti-Christ' — hours after discussing the Lindsay Clancy case with friends...."

"Corie Walsh, 38, is facing first-degree murder charges after one of her neighbors found Walsh’s son, Barrett, hanging from the rafters in the family’s basement.... Walsh allegedly told investigators she killed her young son because he’s the 'anti-Christ' and 'devil,' according to prosecutors. Little Barrett was found with his feet off the ground, and a ligature around his neck.... Walsh was reportedly found lying in a bathtub, fully clothed and drenched in bloody water."

The New York Post reports.

Is this the new "Me Too" movement?

"Not everyone at the Anti-Capitalist Co-Working Club is an actual anti-capitalist...."

"The club isn’t for debating Marxist theory or organizing labor unions. For many, the name simply signified a set of values they believe are missing from modern work culture: rest, community and self-actualization.The club, which operates on Fridays out of a recently opened arts space called Living Room in Mount Pleasant and costs $20 per day, was founded last month as an alternative to the sort of co-working spaces that gained popularity after the pandemic — such as WeWork and Industrious that allowed remote workers a quiet place to log in outside of their homes. Unlike these spots, the Anti-Capitalist Co-Working Club explicitly rejects the 'grindset.'"

From "Even anti-capitalists need to work. Enter a different kind of co-working space. In a response to D.C. work culture, the Anti-Capitalist Co-Working Club invites people to spend their 9 to 5 in ways that reject the grind" (WaPo)(gift link).

$20 per day! Somebody's trying to make money. But who would join? You pay someone else to brand your doing your own work as anti-capitalist. But you're working! Maybe it's a way to get a sense of community with other women who are on the left. But you're working!

“Let’s all take a big breath together,” club organizer Sarah Stern said in a firm, gentle voice. The 20 or so people in the airy room inhaled slowly in unison, after a long stretch of silent work time....

In case you wondered why I said "women."

A typical session involves 90 minutes of independent work time followed by a lunch break, where Stern invites attendees to chat with neighbors by using prompt cards with questions like “What’s something you’ve unlearned about ‘hustle’ culture?” and “What’s your go-to ritual when you need to recharge?” Ninety more minutes include reminders to stretch and an art break....  An “art library” has supplies to paint, embroider or sew, including a jar filled with real cicada wings. The soft instrumental songs are akin to what one might hear in a yoga class....

How embarrassing! Credit to Stern for getting the Washington Post to write an article about her little capitalistic anti-capitalistic scheme for extracting $20 bills from ladies who long for a chance to make friends. 

Sunrise.

This is the open thread, but there's been trouble with the comments function all day, so it might look empty. Thanks to the few who are able to get through and keep the home fires burning. 

"The defense argued that Judge William Sullivan should investigate a lone holdout on the jury before declaring a mistrial..."

"... which would allow the prosecution to continue to pursue a murder conviction. A justice is expected to rule quickly."

The NYT reports on the impending declaration of a mistrial.

The day of intense courtroom drama was prompted by a message to the judge on Thursday from the jury’s foreperson. It said a lone holdout juror had acknowledged doubt about the case, but refused to follow the law. The note came on the sixth day of deliberations. Ms. Clancy’s lead lawyer, Kevin Reddington, said the foreperson indicated that the jury was split 11 to 1, with the majority ready to find his client not guilty.

UPDATE: Mistrial declared.  

"It's natural for dogs."

Take a side:

"Ken Paxton, you might not like the way he dresses, and I say this, it's so insulting to him, but I might as well say it."

"You might not like the way he looks. You might not love his look.... But he was the best Attorney General in the country, perhaps... and that speaks a lot louder than the suit he’s wearing that doesn’t look so great. Or anything frankly."

"The surrogate mother’s rights over the fetus she is carrying are greatly curtailed and she loses all rights to the baby she delivers."

Wrote Gloria Steinem, quoted by Kathryn Jean Lopez in "Gloria Steinem, a Voice Against Commercial Surrogacy" (National Review).

In 2019, when Andrew Cuomo sought to legalize commercial surrogacy, Steinem wrote:

A state that medicalizes and rents out female bodies — with third party profit as a motive and little or no regulation of risk to the women egg donors and surrogate wombs — jeopardizes a woman’s fundamental right to health and freedom and puts profit ahead of the long-term welfare of the fetus.

The use of the word "medicalizes" made me wonder what Steinem thought about hormone and surgical treatments for gender dysphoria.

Grok pointed me to her 1977 essay, "If the Shoe Doesn’t Fit, Change the Foot," where she expressed dismay that some people "surgically mutilate their own bodies" when what we need to change our ideas about sex roles.

The driver may be drunk, but it's the cop whose speech is slurred.

Oregon court throws out the charges:

Comments don't seem to be working for the last hour or so.

Even I can't comment. Maybe publishing this post will unclog things.

UPDATE: I still can't comment.

UPDATE 2: I asked Grok and was told this seems to be a general problem with Blogger. It recommended waiting. Please don't submit comments about how something's wrong with the comments. We don't want the sudden publication of 100 comments saying what's wrong with the comments. Feel free to submit comments that are on-topic comments. Hopefully, they'll come through later.

UPDATE 3: I tried to comment on that other blog of mine, the one that I linked to yesterday, The Time That Blog Forgot, and the comment would not publish. I take that as a good sign. Anyway, I'll continue putting up posts and move forward where forward motion is possible. We'll see what happens.

UPDATE 4: Another hour without comments. So lonely! I tried Meade's old blog, Puparazzo, but I couldn't comment there. That proves it's a Blogger problem, not a me problem (or a Meade problem). Good news. 

UPDATE 5: A comment got through — it's on the next post — but only one. I feel that help is on the way.

UPDATE 6: In the comments here, Wince suggests signing out and back in again. That didn't work for me.

UPDATE 7: I see that there are some comments, but I'm still not able to comment. I can see that Blogger is looking into the problem, and we bloggers seem to be just waiting. Hope things work out soon. 

This is like the way if you mock someone for making a typo, you'll make a typo.

But it's far worse:

The guys at @PodSaveAmerica laugh at JD Vance for not knowing what the academic definition of a blood libel is—and then immediately demonstrate that they know even less about it than he does...

Instant Karma. pic.twitter.com/LFN6HY6rAx

— H.A. Hazony (@HAHazony) September 3, 2026

There's so much blood in the old stories, so much blood to choose from. They ALL get confused. The term "blood libel" is specific, but there is seemingly very little awareness of what it refers too. Over time, where there is misuse, does the meaning broaden? Actually, it can. It's called "extended use."

And the OED entry for "blood libel" recognizes the original and the extended use: "The (unfounded) accusation that Jewish people use the blood of Christians in religious rituals, esp. in the preparation of Passover bread; an instance of this (cf. blood accusation n.); (also in extended use) an unfounded defamation."

That's enough to warrant circumspection with respect to what Vance said. Those Pod Save America guys veered right into ridicule. A big mistake... especially since the topic could not be more serious.

ADDED: Here's "The Ridiculous Hyper-Parsing of JD Vance" by Rich Lowry at National Review.

Sunrise.

That's my only photo. I saw a flash of lightning and chose to head back home. But Meade made a target of himself out on the dock, and he kept going all the way to the primary vantage point. There, he took this:

And he made an awfully nice video:

"We’re like Adam and Eve trying to build the futuristic garden of Eden where you can just exist and your world takes better care of you than you could yourself."

Said Kate Tolo, 30, quoted in "My extreme life with Bryan Johnson, multimillionaire biohacker/He’s the Silicon Valley entrepreneur who famously injected his teenage son’s blood in a bid to reverse his biological age to 18. Kate Tolo is his collaborator and girlfriend. So what’s it like to be in a relationship with a man who has an obsession with staying young?" (London Times).

Johnson is 49.

I don't think 49 and 30 is such a bad age gap, but she does sound kind of naive... as presented to the public. Who knows what they are really like or how they're collaborating? How do I know they even have a sexual relationship? Well, there's this:

"Ha ha. Wouldn't it be funny if I started it up again? 18 years have passed!"

"But in the larger scheme of things, what is 18 years? The whole idea was to liberate myself to wander around on the time line."

I left a comment on an old blog post, here.

Unsaid things.

That's a favorite tag of mine and I've even blogged about the tag.

In 2014, I said: "I feel that I've found the psychic key to my favorite tag: 'unsaid things.'... Did you know that before I started blogging I believed myself to be a person without political opinions? I used to read the New York Times every day and feel that I had no opinion. It was such a distinctive feeling — no opinion was my opinion — that for a while, to counteract it, I challenged myself, upon reading at least one article a day, to arrive at an opinion. What do I think of that? In blogging, early on, I had to tell myself to stop before moving to the next item and write one more sentence. You have to say something about that. I had to make it a discipline: To write one more thing...."

And in another 2014 post, I wrote: "Unsaid things is one of my favorite topics, and things that fall into this category are things that, aptly enough, most people would leave unsaid. There's a convention in human society not to outline the secret motives of others. As long as someone hasn't actually said something, you ought not to act as though you know what that thing is. But I'm here to transgress on that convention. I think I can and should do it...." (7 reasons why are said at the link but I will leave them unrepeated here.)

So naturally, I'm powerfully drawn to this article by Ariana Eunjung Cha in The Washington Post: "The 'Gen Z stare' — and the decline of saying things out loud/We’re speaking fewer words every year. Scientists worry what that’s doing to our brains" (gift link).

First, I don't like the focus on the number of words.

"Gloria Steinem, lodestar of the modern women’s movement, dies at 92."

A Washington Post obituary (gift link).

In a tribute to feminism, the obit waits until the 6th paragraph to tell us how she looked: "With her willowy physique, her fashionable miniskirts and her straight, parted hair, she brought glamour as well as passion to her work, challenging the popular perception of feminists as bra-burning radicals."

Paragraph 8: "Ms. Steinem burst to the fore in the 1960s not as an activist, but as a high-flying freelance journalist for publications including Esquire, Cosmopolitan and Vogue. She experienced firsthand the sexism that she would later fight on behalf of other women. Ms. Steinem recalled a taxicab conversation between the renowned writers Gay Talese and Saul Bellow, in which she said Talese remarked in her presence, 'You know how every year there’s a pretty girl who comes to New York and pretends to be a writer? Well, Gloria is this year’s pretty girl.'"

Here's the NYT obituary: "Gloria Steinem, Personification of the Women’s Movement, Dies at 92/She challenged sexist assumptions, helping women develop a sense of self-worth and gain a measure of equality at work, at home and in society at large" (gift link).

The NYT tells us how she looked in paragraph 4: "For more than half a century, she personified the women’s movement and became its most enduring symbol; her tinted aviator glasses and curtain of streaked-blond hair parted in the center made her one of the most recognizable women in the world."

Sunrise.

"Trump is going to get his ballroom — even if courts conclude it’s illegal."

Said lawprof Leah Litman, quoted by Adam Liptak in "Trump’s 'Lightning Speed' Outpaces the Courts/In his breakneck construction of a grand ballroom and in many other initiatives, critics say, the president has tried to outrun judicial review" (NYT gift link).

When the ballroom case was argued before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in June, Judge Patricia A. Millett asked... If the government were to move very quickly to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty... was it true that “nothing can be done” by the courts? 

Yaakov Roth, a Justice Department lawyer, did not try to duck the question. “I think that’s right, yes,” he said.... 

When the case reached the Supreme Court last month, the challengers warned the justices that Mr. Trump had “decided to try to outrun judicial review.” In response, Solicitor General D. John Sauer did not exactly deny the charge. He crowed that a 250-person crew had been working 20 hours a day, seven days a week, and that the project, which he said included key security upgrades for the White House, had passed the point of no return....

It's in the structure of things that the Executive has speed as a tool. Remember when Justice Robert Jackson quoted Napoleon — "The tools belong to the man who can use them"?

Recent birds.

Caught by Meade. On Monday, a great blue heron made good use of its long skinny legs:

 

Yesterday, there was a turkey vulture on the path:

"Wearing vintage clothes in Denmark can be a sign of one’s right-wing politics, he said, but for him, dressing up was an inclusionary practice: 'I’m trying to make it nonpolitical.'"

From "Look of the Week/A First Time Out in Clothes That Have Been Around the Block" (NYT gift link).

"She was a noble and polite girl, a Christian. But all of a sudden she acted like an animal."

Said Mario Cisneros, quoted in "'Don’t Worry About Me': Attacker’s Father Thought She Had Turned a Corner/Pamela Cisneros was killed by the police in Times Square after she stabbed two people, one fatally. Her father said she had stopped going with him to her mental health appointments" (NYT gift link).

"Don't worry about me" is what the daughter said to the father. I originally read the headline to mean that the father was telling us not to worry about him. I do feel sorry for the father. Imagine seeing your daughter, "a noble and polite girl, a Christian," suddenly acting "like an animal," becoming a knife-wielding murderer, and now dead.

Why we're listing to "Undun" this morning at Meadhouse.

There is a Bob Dylan connection:

"Undun" was written by Bachman after hearing Bob Dylan's "Ballad in Plain D," which included the phrase "she was easily undone." Bachman's song tells the story of a girl he had seen at a party who, after dosing herself with LSD, slipped into a coma.

But that's not it. It started with that Fetterman-and-shorts post at 5:50 a.m. In the comments, Temujin said:

"In the mid-eighteen-hundreds, amid the advent of photography, the Victorians shot still-life arrangements of lizards crawling over fruit and dead game birds hanging from a nail..."

"... capturing with their new technology the savagery of hunger, the oneness between natural decay and human appetite. For much of the following century, food photography functioned as a sort of ethnographic art, a form of restrained realism preoccupied with light and shadow, shape and symbolism. But, in the nineteen-thirties, the introduction of color printing to advertising changed how food was shot on camera, and thus conceived of culturally. Dishes were now a thing to be drooled over and sold, products that emphasized the sensual, the luscious, the beautiful.... The surreality of commercial food photography and its later evolution into food porn may have been an artificial and sensationalist representation of the things we ate, but it at least managed to seduce.... Restaurants choosing to showcase computer-generated approximations of the dishes they serve inspire neither gluttony nor lust...."

Writes Brady Brickner-Wood, in "The Unique Horrors of A.I. Food Slop/Why does it feel so unsettling when restaurants use generative A.I. to create their menus and promotional materials?" in The New Yorker.

No 19th century photographs at that link, so I found 2 for you: "The First of September" (1855)(showing 2 dead game birds hanging from a nail) and  William Louis Henry Skeen, "Still Life of Exotic Fruits & Lizard from Ceylon" (c. 1880)(with, of course, lizards crawling over fruit).

Those 2 old photographs are not as exciting as I'd leapt to imagine they were. I should have noticed the promise of dreariness in those words "ethnographic art" and "restrained realism."

My imagination was fueled with images of old still-life paintings like this:

"Jesus? He would have been just one of many Jewish sect leaders of his day, had he not had St. Paul to proselytize and the Roman Empire to finish the job."

"Genghis Khan? The mere beneficiary of heavy rainfall. Adolf Hitler? 'Hitler’s own life before the age of 30 gave no hint of his subsequent qualities as Germany’s leader,' Diamond writes. 'How, then, can we claim that no one else could have become the mature Hitler?' How indeed? Figuring out how to separate historical forces from human agency has puzzled scholars since the days of Herodotus and Thucydides.... Now, [Jared] Diamond proposes a new tool for assessing leaders. Rather than using 'the biographic method' of studying leaders in their own context, he suggests the 'natural experiment.' Social scientists have used natural experiments — finding occasions where life allows them to run comparative data studies — to analyze things like the economic impact of the minimum wage. Diamond claims that natural experiments also have significant potential in political history, religious studies and sports. The problem is, they don’t really work.... Can the natural experiment help us figure out the historical effect of a president being assassinated — or narrowly escaping such a fate?"

I'm reading "What Is It About Jesus Christ and Genghis Khan? In “Profits, Prophets, Coaches, and Kings,” Jared Diamond considers the impact leaders might have had on the course of their civilizations" (NYT gift link).

That's Dan Jones — author of "The Plantagenets: The Kings Who Made England" — reviewing the new Jared Diamond book (commission earned).

"Now I see people now are wearing shorts now with suits, so maybe that's enough to really bring me over to the side [of wearing suits] full time."

Said John Fetterman, wearing a suit for once:

September comes in with a glorious sunrise.

"I enjoy it. From throwing on some wacky stuff to some really slick stuff," said Travis Kelce.

Link to Vogue.

More Kelce fashion-talk: "I kind of take bits and pieces from everybody and everything that I see, and just kind of change things around depending on which situation I’m in and what event I’m going to.”

Why do I find this so funny? "Dog Dad"... the posing... posing as nonchalant.

"The Vogue editrix has proven time and again that she’ll stand by the designer despite his hateful comments. But one thing matters more to her than loyalty: money."

I'm reading "Why Anna Wintour scrapped the Met Gala’s tribute to John Galliano" (London Times).

In February 2011, a drunk Galliano was caught on video at La Perle bar in Paris saying to a Jewish couple, “I love Hitler” and “People like you would be dead. Your mothers, your forefathers, would all be f***ing gassed.”

"Jurors have said they are unable to reach a unanimous verdict in the trial of Lindsay Clancy..."

"... a mother who was accused of murdering her three children while suffering from undiagnosed postpartum psychosis. After about 18 hours of deliberations, the 12 jurors — nine women and three men — informed the judge on Tuesday morning that they are deadlocked. Judge William Sullivan ordered the panel to continue deliberating...."

From "Lindsay Clancy jury unable to reach unanimous verdict/Jurors were ordered to continue deliberating on Tuesday morning after informing the judge they could not reach a consensus on murder charges" (London Times).

"Clancy’s defence attorney, Kevin Reddington, told jurors she sought care 19 times between September 2022 and January 2023 for her depression, anxiety and insomnia. In that time, he said she was prescribed 12 drugs — antidepressants, sleep aids and an antipsychotic — by five healthcare providers. 'My God, what does she have to do? She was reaching out for help, and she was not getting it,' Reddington said....Clancy cried at the defence table throughout the state’s closing argument. Her attorney, Reddington, told the jury: 'This young lady did nothing wrong in her life. She was a nurse. A daughter. A wife. And a darn good mother.'"

"Global spritz mania means that tourists demand the drinks even in formerly spritzless regions like Sicily..."

"... which is a bit like expecting a Creole restaurant in the French Quarter to make you a Rochester garbage plate. In Venice, where the spritz was invented and long seen as a working-class drink, it has been repositioned as a glamorous society accouterment. This historical revisionism irks some locals. 'It was drunk by gondoliers and prostitutes,' said Marco Salvadori, a Venice native who made drinks at Harry’s Bar for years. Mr. Salvadori is pro-spritz, but remembers when Harry’s and other elite bars and hotels would not deign to make them. They’ve since surrendered...."

From "What the Bartender Really Thinks About Your Spritz/You might expect the fizzy summer drinks to be a downer for the people who make them by the hundreds. But think again" (NYT gift link).

Are tourists hoping to emulate the social elite of the places they visit? Take Venice. I'd imagine the vibe of the old gondoliers and prostitutes would suit them just as well. I don't know. I don't travel too much, but when I do, I don't indulge in fantasies of oneness with the locals. So much mental work involved in that, and what does it get you? Or do you think that if you drink the right drink the fantasy will open itself up to you. But it's not the right drink, the article tells you. The bartender is laughing at you (but happy to take your money for a drink made in 2 seconds). Well, then, everyone wins. Everyone is happy, more than happy, including me, standoffish me, just writing a post about tourists who order spritzes in Sicily and Venice. 

Waking up to September.

"In 1986, Justice Byron R. White... summoned his clerks to his chambers for a special assignment that took several weekends. Together they marked his quarter-century on the court..."

"...  by feeding his records, including from the landmark Miranda rights case, into a shredder purchased for the occasion, according to Dennis J. Hutchinson, his biographer. 'Well, here’s an article. Here’s an entire book,' one of the clerks later told Mr. Hutchinson, describing what it was like to insert invaluable history into the jaws of the machine. 'I couldn’t believe how much history was going down the chute,' he said."

Writes Jodi Kantor "How the Supreme Court Locks Away Its Own History/After Justice Scalia died, the justices held private negotiations about locking away their papers. We may not see the ultimate record of the Roberts court for decades" (NYT gift link).

To suppress these communications is to promote the belief that the Justices are humble servants of the law, a belief that enhances their power. But how can that work unless all the Justices go Byron White on their papers? And it's too late for that. Justice Blackmun set the release date for all his papers at 5 years after his death. He died in 1999. You might think that would motivate the other Justices to formalize their position one way or the other, but Justice Scalia, who died in 2016, did not. Perhaps his papers are full of material that offsets things in Blackmun's, but it doesn't seem that he cared. Perhaps he thought the final written opinion was the operative text. That's what a humble servant of the law would believe. 

"Last week, Dr. El-Sayed mused in a social media post about whether the vice president would take her 'back in time to meet Papaw' if he could..."

"... referring to Mr. Vance’s deceased grandfather and seeming to imply that he would not have approved of the Vances’ interracial marriage. 'Abdul, keep my wife’s name the hell out of your mouth because she’s way out of your league,' Mr. Vance said, prompting a roar from supporters. Ms. Vance is of Indian descent. In his first memoir, 'Hillbilly Elegy,' Vance wrote that it was 'one of the great regrets of my life that Mamaw and Papaw never met' her. It wasn’t Dr. El-Sayed’s first mention of Ms. Vance. In a podcast episode in April, he accused Mr. Vance of having made his career by 'hating people who are different' and suggested that the couple’s mixed-race children would have to reckon with that fact. He also suggested that Ms. Vance, who gave birth to the couple’s fourth child in July, was not physically attracted to her husband."

From "Vance Calls El-Sayed ‘Evil’ in No-Holds-Barred Michigan Speech/Vice President JD Vance also told Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee, to “keep my wife’s name the hell out of your mouth'" (NYT gift link).

I'll just add a little poll:

"In the life we lived that summer, we represented to ourselves what we wanted — and it was not the headlong pilgrimage after money and comfort and prestige."

Wrote Wendell Berry, in "The Long-Legged House," quoted in "Wendell Berry, Writer Who Extolled America’s Agrarian Past, Dies at 92/A Kentucky farmer, he railed against agribusiness and championed small family farms and the environment, winning widespread acclaim" (NYT gift link).

Returning to his home as a place to write for the rest of his life was a way to insure, to himself, that he would always be bound by the truth, Mr. Berry said in a phone interview in 2018 for this obituary. 

“It made a permanent connection between me and my native place, and with its landscape,” he said. “The landscape was there to check me if I was wrong. I could never go away and make up stuff at cocktail parties about the backwoods of Kentucky. I worked with people here in all walks of life and learned from them. It’s been a very rich experience.”

Sunrise.

JFK and the "lady of some note in Europe."

Chris — my son, the reader of presidential biographies — texts me another passage from "President Kennedy: Profile of Power" (commission earned):

"He told all the children who were present — about 900 of the school’s total 1,643 students — to run to higher ground."

"Only older pupils, ages 11 to 18, were at school when the floods hit.... 'They were old enough to run immediately... It would not have been possible to save everyone, had kindergarten and primary school students also been there. 'Pupils who had arrived at the school earlier by bus were told to get back on them, and Mr. Dawadi instructed the drivers to leave the area as quickly as possible. 'A couple of students became traumatized and fainted,' Mr. Dawadi said, adding that those children were transported to safety on teachers’ motorbikes. 'I thought that even if the warning turned out to be wrong, the worst it would cost us was one day of study,' Mr. Dawadi said.... Around 9:23 a.m., about 13 minutes after Mr. Dawadi heard the first warning, a deluge of water, mud and debris swept through the area. The school was destroyed in seconds...."

From "A Principal Saved 900 Students Before His School Was Washed Away in Nepal/Rajendra Dawadi had less than 15 minutes to act on a warning of approaching floodwaters. His swift evacuation plan saved hundreds of lives" (NYT gift link).

900 students with 13 minutes to run for higher ground, and they all made it. Or, really, less than 13 minutes, because Dawadi had needed to understand the warning, decide how seriously to take it, and convey the plan to all of the students, and the students needed to hear and understand and launch themselves into that run. Perhaps that could all be done in less than a minute. I don't know.

The ever-vigilant deer.

That's Meade's video in the morning twilight yesterday. I was walking up ahead of him and moving slowly and quietly. Because I thought they were tolerating me, I stopped. I thought maybe they would approach me, which was dumb, because it wouldn't be good for them or for me. Habituation is bad for them, and as for me, I don't want their ticks (or hooves). But it was my stopping that caused them to panic and spring off. I thought stopping was completely nonthreatening, but I thought about it from their point of view afterwards. I should have continued moving slowly and quietly, keeping in my lane on the path. To stop was to show interest in them, and that crossed the line. Too much! 

"No one thinks, at least not yet, that a robot should be able to compete for Olympic medals or be eligible for Nobel prizes."

"Protecting innovation by limiting awards to humans makes sense. But music charts are supposed to measure popularity among consumers. Perhaps AI bots could be assigned their own category. Labeling works as AI-assisted or -generated is a sensible nod to transparency. Beyond that, consumers should be left to decide what it is they want to listen to — even when, just like a dream, the music is not what it seems."

I'm reading "Who’s that bot? An AI cover of Madonna spurs industry changes. Instead of blocking AI-assisted songs from the charts, require disclosure and protect creators" by the Editorial Board of the Washington Post.

That's a gift link, so you can read about what it was about the artificiality of that one cover of "Like a Prayer" that stirred up serious opposition to artificiality in pop music. To my ear, things have been unlistenably artificial for decades. People have developed a taste for robotic singing, and the robots keep giving them more of what they like. The machine that is Spotify serves me music from the 1960s and the 1940s, because it can see that I respond to the human voice, but younger people do not, and it doesn't matter what happens with the various prizes. The algorithm will give them what touches them, even if we elders think they have bad taste.

Back in the 1960s, my father expressed the sincere opinion that the rock music I was listening to was not music because of the electric instruments and the voices processed through microphones.

"Iran is officially a Failed Nation. IT IS DEAD! They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, they have no currency, they are not paying their soldiers or police."

"Inflation is at 300%, and their leadership is in total disarray and incapable of properly representing the country. The only thing they have is FAKE NEWS from the USA, a willingness to kill their protesters (now over 100,000 people dead. They must be tried for war crimes against humanity!), and a good line of 'BULLSHIT.' Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J.TRUMP"

A Trump Truth Social post this morning.

The period in that parenthetical makes it hard to read, so let me just tweak the punctuation:

The only thing they have is: FAKE NEWS from the USA, a willingness to kill their protesters — now over 100,000 people dead (They must be tried for war crimes against humanity!) — and a good line of BULLSHIT.

Why was "BULLSHIT" in scare quotes when "FAKE NEWS" was not? Both should be in or both out. Since the words "bullshit" and "fake news" are both used to express an opinion that what you are hearing is false, don't put quotes around them as if you are undercutting your accusation of falsity. You want to say the news really is fake and what the Iranians are saying is really bullshit. So, no scare quotes.

Now, the question I have is whether Trump means to say that the false message conveyed by U.S. news media and the the message conveyed by what's left of the Iranian government is the same message. I think he is. In his view, both are saying the United States has lost the war.

Sunrise.

Open thread.

"The present looks more like Wolfe’s 1976 than we care to admit. The engine of the ’70s was the failure of the ’60s."

"Fast-forward: The years from roughly 2016 through the early 2020s were America’s most feverishly political stretch in generations. On one flank stood a populist insurgency; on the other, the Great Awokening. Both failed to build the transformed society their rhetoric advertised. What does thwarted revolutionary energy do when it has nowhere durable to go? As it did after 1968, it goes toward the one realm that still seems transformable: the self. It splinters into private quests for meaning.... On the left in the late ’70s, disillusion flowed into the New Age. Today, it flows into 'self-care'.... It flows into astrology... and into the witch with the imagined power to 'hex' President Donald Trump.... The right in the ’70s had the cult of fitness. MAHA, the manosphere and Silicon Valley have looksmaxxing and testosterone infusions, ice baths and the carnivore diet, along with the tech billionaire Bryan Johnson spending millions to reverse his own aging and streaming his bloodwork to the world. It is the body as a project to be perfected, but with the promise cranked up from fitness to immortality...."

Writes Ryan Zickgraf, in "Tom Wolfe’s ‘Me Decade’: Still going strong 50 years later/The peerless social critic skewered a culture of self-absorption much like today's" (WaPo gift link).

And here's the August 1976 New York Magazine essay by Tom Wolfe, "The 'Me' Decade and the Third Great Awakening."

"You have an ambassador that has cachet, and the Italians like that. They like that [they’re] important enough to us that you’re going to come into our town, on your big boat..."

"... and pay respect to us and have us in your home. That’s what I hear from people."

Tilman Fertitta, Trump's ambassador to Italy, quoted in "Trump’s ambassador to Italy is flaunting his wealth, and it’s dividing Italians/With a net worth of $11.1 billion, Tilman Fertitta, a great-grandson of Sicilian immigrants, is one of the wealthiest people ever to be a U.S. ambassador" (WaPo gift link). 

WaPo explains: "Italy has perhaps a different relationship with wealth than other European countries such as Britain, where aspiration can be viewed as a personality flaw. This is the land where Gucci and Versace helped define loud luxury, and where the political cult of billionaire playboy Silvio Berlusconi once reigned. But even here, the Italian elite can see American-style displays of wealth as violations of good taste. And while some on the political left have happily sipped champagne on his yacht, others have sharply criticized the tour."

Fertitta offers advice about how to deal with Trump: "What I’ve said is, 'You don’t want to get in a verbal volleyball match with Donald Trump; because he’s relentless, and he’s going to win." And: "If he’s not giving you a hard time, then you’re not worth the time of day."

"As we see a rise in fascism, there is a direct correlation with thinness to make women take up less space."

So said the actress Hannah Einbinder:

Hollywood actress Hannah Einbinder blames “fascism” for women wanting to be slim.

“As we see a rise in fascism, there is a direct correlation with thinness to make women take up less space.” pic.twitter.com/0VTlRFqe2e

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) August 30, 2026

Of course, she's getting trashed on X. She's "trending." That's why I saw it. I don't really know her, but I see she's highly praised for her role in "Hacks," and also that she's the daughter of Laraine Newman.

Anyway, it's cheap and easy to go after an actress who expresses any opinion that seems to require intelligence and background knowledge. I would prefer to isolate what she said and explore the various issues there:

1. There's a broad, casual use of the word "fascism" that's like the way Seinfeld used "Nazi" in "The Soup Nazi." You can argue that the word should be used more precisely, but it doesn't mean the person who's using it broadly is a fool.

2.  Correlation is not causation, and she only said "correlation." She intensified it with "direct" — "There is a direct correlation" — but Einbinder was clever enough to protect herself with the first-rate weasel word "correlation."

3. Did the actual historical fascists idealize female thinness? I don't think so. 

"For prospects rising through the Milwaukee Brewers’ farm system, and even established veterans on a rehab assignment, wearing lederhosen is a rite of passage."

"No, this isn’t some elaborate rookie hazing prank... it’s the result of Friday’s theme night at High-A Wisconsin, one in which the team normally known as the Timber Rattlers becomes the Brats as part of Bratoberfest, a play on Germany’s iconic Oktoberfest, while also paying homage to the state that’s home to one of the highest concentrations of residents with German ancestry. It just so happened that Abner Uribe, the Brewers’ flame-throwing reliever who is working his way back from a flexor strain, was in town on his rehab assignment...."

The NYT picks up the best Milwaukee Brewers story of the day: "Brewers’ Abner Uribe delights fans in ‘Brats’ lederhosen uniform during minor-league rehab."

Humiliating? Or is it wonderful... bratoberfestive!

I could watch the Green Bay Packers exhibition game, women’s college volleyball, the team with the best record in baseball the Milwaukee Brewers, the Winn-Dixie 250, high school football, WWE SmackDown, or…Abner Uribe in lederhosen. You tell me… pic.twitter.com/lZWfgdxMLi

— Steve Palec (@stevepalec) August 29, 2026

ADDED: I have a bit of a tags quandary for this post. I don't like tag proliferation, but this isn't the first appearance of lederhosen on this blog. It's the fourth. See them all here. But all the other times, I was able to use my well-loved tag "men in shorts." But this baseball take on lederhosen avoids the baseball travesty of shorts — White Sox, 1976 — and sticks with traditional knickers. As I've said before, I like the knickers and wish all the players would wear them and not those pajama-looking long pants, but I'm still not making a tag for knickers. But if I did, I'd have 12 "knickers" posts now. 

Let me highlight the best of those old "knickers" posts. I remembered that the Young Rascals wore knickers. I found this 1926 song with the lyric: "Knickers and trousers, baggy and wide/Nobody knows who's walking inside!" I said that David Brooks: "expatiated about the good old days when men like George Washington displayed their thighs in tight silk knickers."

And, in 2008, before I got together with Meade and started watching baseball again, there were TVs outside State Street Brats just as The Backstreet Boys were singing the national anthem to open the World Series. I blogged: "The players look like hell! When did they stop wearing stockings and knickers? Those long pants look like pajamas."

And there was Meade, the first commenter: "I must be smoking too much blog. I hallucinated." Because the video looked like this:



Key word linking the end of this post to the beginning: brats.

"Greg began cautiously. His first video was just him reading out loud a newspaper article about a Florida woman..."

"... who had accidentally burned down America’s fifth‑oldest tree by smoking meth underneath it. After he read it, he said to the camera, 'Isn’t that crazy?' 'The video got 10 or 12 views,' Greg told me, 'and a comment: "You look like you’ve been smoking meth."'"

I'm reading "He Was a Top Lawn Care Influencer on YouTube. Then Everything Went Haywire. Many people think Greg Chism is a freak — or worse. He says he was just following the incentives of the platform" (NYT gift link).

Read the whole amazing story of a man ruined by YouTube. It's adapted from a new book called "The Castle: Adventures in a World of Unraveling Men" (commission earned). The author is Jon Ronson.