"An online debate has been simmering for years over what constitutes an acceptable date, especially if it’s your first as two singles."

"Some people embrace the idea of a cheap date, like a walk in the park or a chat over coffee, to build connection. For others, it’s dinner or nothing — preferably with a $200 minimum spend.... Riding bikes side by side through the city, [said Chester Martin, a 33-year-old musician in Brooklyn], is a 'slightly more elevated version' of going on a walk. And in case his date isn’t in the mood to ride her own bike, he doesn’t mind putting in extra work. 'The person I’m dating now is of the size where she can comfortably sit in the Citi Bike basket,' he said. 'I’ll just grab a bike, she’ll sit in the basket and we’ll go literally from, like, Brooklyn to Manhattan and just talk the whole way.'"

From "Would You Go on a Bike Date? Celebrities have recently been hitting the bike lane with their beaus, but the 'Bicycle Boy' was once branded a type to be avoided" (NYT). 

1. The Citi Bike rental agreement says "You may not exceed the maximum weight limit for the Bicycle (260 pounds) or the basket (17 pounds), and You may not otherwise use the basket improperly.... You understand the basket is not a child seat." But do you understand that it's not a woman seat? And how much does this teeny tiny woman weigh? More than 17 pounds I bet, but who knows?

2. "Once upon a time there was a woman who very much wanted to have a little tiny child.... so she went to an old witch.... 'Oh, we can manage that," said the witch, "there's a barleycorn for you!...'... [T]he woman... went home and planted the barleycorn; and very soon a fine large flower came up.... 'That's a charming flower,' said the woman, and gave it a kiss on its pretty red and yellow petals. But just as she kissed it the flower gave a loud crack and opened. You could see it was a real tulip, only right in the middle of it, on the green stool that is there, sat a tiny little girl, as delicate and pretty as could be. She was only a thumb-joint long, so she was called Thumbelina...."

3. Now, I don't know how well Thumbelina would do in Chester Martin's Citi Bike basket:

4. Be careful, Thumbelina! Shouldn't the musician take better care of you? Is this merely a "slightly more elevated version" of something else you shouldn't be doing? Don't you deserve a bigger "spend"?

5. Do you like "spend" as a noun?

"How can official orthodoxies persist for so long even when few people believe them?"

Megan McArdle asks, in "The transgender orthodoxy is cracking/Malpractice suit and shifting clinical guidelines show cracks in transgender orthodoxy" (WaPo)(referencing the book "Private Truths, Public Lies" by political scientist Timur Kuran).

Public orthodoxies that diverge from private opinion may be surprisingly stable, but they can also prove remarkably unstable, because they depend on private thoughts to stay private, giving doubters the illusion that they are lone deviants rather than members of a silent majority....

Why is this surprising? It's the familiar story of "The Emperor's New Clothes," which everyone has always easily understood.  

Starting around 2015, an orthodoxy on transgender issues crystallized, seemingly out of nowhere....

Once you've said "2015," you've got your answer staring you in the face! Why don't you see it? That was the year gay people won their great victory, a right to marry, in Obergefell v. Hodges. McArdle has "an orthodoxy... crystalliz[ing]" — as if a mysterious disembodied force emerged out of nothing — ex nihilo!

But real human beings were involved and their incentive to acquire a new cause is obvious. The activists had won, but they still needed to work, they still needed contributions, they still needed to push conventional people to move forward into challenging new territory. They couldn't just allow people to become decently accepting and empathetic to the gay people who, after all, are human beings who sometimes love each other and want a home and a family. Remember that moment?

That made too much sense. Ordinary people relaxed. Got comfortable.

By the time I went to the Ivy League swimming championships in 2022 to cover the controversy over a trans swimmer, people I talked to evinced a wariness that seemed more appropriate to a Cold War spy novel than to citizens of a free republic....

What happened?

"[Hans Christian] Andersen's manuscript was at the printer's when he was suddenly inspired to change the original climax of the tale from the emperor's subjects admiring his invisible clothes to that of the child's cry."

"There are many unconfirmed theories about why he made this change. Most scholars agree that from his earliest years in Copenhagen, Andersen presented himself to the Danish bourgeoisie as the naïvely precocious child not usually admitted to the adult salon. 'The Emperor's New Clothes' became his exposé of the hypocrisy and snobbery he found there when he finally gained admission. Andersen's decision to change the ending may have occurred after he read the manuscript tale to a child, or its inspiration may have been one of Andersen's own childhood incidents which was similar to that in the tale: he once recalled standing in a crowd with his mother, waiting to see King Frederick VI, and when the king made his appearance, Andersen cried out, 'Oh, he's nothing more than a human being!' His mother then tried to silence him saying, 'Have you gone mad, child?' Whatever the reason, Andersen thought the change would prove more satirical."

From "The Emperor's New Clothes" (Wikipedia), which I'm reading about because it came up in a conversation about the previous post, which discusses public exposure and embarrassment.

Here's that "nothing more than a human being" Frederick VI:

Isn't it interesting that the figure at the center of mass delusion is named Sandmann?

Wikipedia tells us:

The Sandman is a mythical character in Western and Northern European folklore who puts people to sleep and brings good dreams by sprinkling magical sand onto the eyes of people while they sleep at night, i.e. rheum....

Hans Christian Andersen's 1841 folk tale Ole Lukøje introduced the Sandman, named Ole Lukøje....

There is nobody in the world who knows so many stories as Ole-Luk-Oie, or who can relate them so nicely. In the evening, while the children are seated at the table or in their little chairs, he comes up the stairs very softly, for he walks in his socks, then he opens the doors without the slightest noise, and throws a small quantity of very fine dust in their eyes, just enough to prevent them from keeping them open, and so they do not see him. Then he creeps behind them, and blows softly upon their necks, till their heads begin to droop. But Ole-Luk-Oie does not wish to hurt them, for he is very fond of children, and only wants them to be quiet that he may relate to them pretty stories, and they never are quiet until they are in bed and asleep. As soon as they are asleep, Ole-Luk-Oie seats himself upon the bed. He is nicely dressed; his coat is made of silken fabric; it is impossible to say of what color, for it changes from green to red, and from red to blue as he turns from side to side. Under each arm he carries an umbrella; one of them, with pictures on the inside, he spreads over the good children, and then they dream the most beautiful stories the whole night. But the other umbrella has no pictures, and this he holds over the naughty children so that they sleep heavily, and wake in the morning without having dreams at all.

ADDED: Yes, yes, I know, and I knew when I wrote the post.... A hundred people are nudging me to include the candy-colored clown (which by the way sounds like another sobriquet for Trump):

"It turns out that the characters in your favorite TV shows and the like are actually dead, dreaming, dying or don't exist."

I enjoyed this episode of Stuff You Should Know, "Some Nutso Fan Theories."

I was not previously aware of the Tommy Westphall Universe. Nor had I heard the detailed evidence that "The Flintstones" and "The Jetsons" actually take place at the same time. (Why do the Flintstones celebrate Christmas when Jesus was born after the Stone Age?)

And I was motivated to go in search of Dark Garfield and found "The Scariest Comic Of All Time Is A ‘Garfield’ Story From 1989." Did you know that story led some people to theorize that the comics character Garfield is alone and starving and all those strips about him being fat and eating lot were hallucinations*? For the record, the artist (Jim Davis) has laughed at the theory, but you could theorize that's exactly what he'd do if the theory were true and he wanted to keep it secret.

I love things like this, playing with theories without needing them to be true. It's like a game I invented for my sons when they were little, What If You Had To Argue. The point to be argued wasn't true. It was just fun to think of evidence and explain why it would support the proposition.

____________________

* Reminds me of "The Little Match Girl."

"Frozen" Elsa ousts Barbie as role-model toy for little girls.

I don't know enough about the movie to know what this might mean for the new generation. "Frozen" sounds like an antidote to hotness, but presumably the girls who are embracing the ice queen archetype have seen the movie, and I've got to assume that the story has an narrative arc that ends in warmth.

From the linked article, a bit of a plot summary:

Without going into too many spoilers, let’s just say that Frozen's climax does not involve a man coming to the rescue of a starry-eyed princess. The princesses at the center of this story—sisters Elsa and Anna—are defined by their unique upbringing and estranged relationship to one another, not by the men in their lives. They are fully fleshed out characters with a wide spectrum of human qualities including love, fear, loneliness, anger, frustration, bravery, and vulnerability. What drives the film is Anna’s longing to connect with her sister and Elsa’s struggle to protect Anna by keeping her distance. The stakes couldn’t be higher for them. Romantic love is an aside, a subplot; the men are supporting players in this love story between two sisters. I have no problem with them being role models for my daughters.

Meanwhile, in the background, there's the original Hans Christian Andersen story "The Snow Queen," which I haven't read in a long time. Its ending is distinctly religious:

... Kay and Gerda...  both had forgotten the cold empty splendor of the Snow Queen, as though it had been a dream. The grandmother sat in the bright sunshine, and read aloud from the Bible: "Unless ye become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven."

And Kay and Gerda looked in each other's eyes, and all at once they understood the old hymn:

"The rose in the valley is blooming so sweet,
And angels descend there the children to greet."

There sat the two grown-up persons; grown-up, and yet children; children at least in heart; and it was summer-time; summer, glorious summer!

Unless ye become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Here's my idea for a novel I won't write: A dumb but saintly American adult encounters that challenging advice — which is a weird combination of charming and dire — and dedicates himself to following it, using the anachronistic example of modern American children.