"Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2023 is authentic.... A high-volume lookup most years, authentic saw a substantial increase in 2023..."

"... driven by stories and conversations about AI, celebrity culture, identity, and social media.... Although clearly a desirable quality, authentic is hard to define and subject to debate—two reasons it sends many people to the dictionary."

Announces Merriam-Webster.

They call attention to a headline I hadn't noticed and don't feel I even need to understand: "Three Ways To Tap Into Taylor Swift’s Authenticity And Build An Eras-Like Workplace."

That article came out a month ago in Forbes, which tells us: "Swift’s events brim with energy, carried by the thunderous voices – some melodious, others less in tune – of thousands: the opposite of how work feels today. According to recent data, 60% of employees are emotionally detached, and one in five is miserable."

Why would anyone want the workplace to feel like a pop concert? Why would the answer involve the concept of "authenticity"?

Take Hannah Shirley, a 23-year-old tech worker who recently went viral for pointing out that her job was “like a full-time acting gig.” She tik-toked one consequence of this: feeling “drained — especially mentally, sometimes even physically — from the character that …we play at work.”...

A Taylor Swift lyric is quoted: “Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism? Like some kind of congressman?”

Forbes goes on:

What happens during an Eras event that makes it so engaging? There is realness, empathy, kindness, listening, a narrative (or journey-like) space big enough for all to partake and feel whole with oneself and others. The whole experience is devoid of pretension. Take this recipe and break it into three precepts – avoid alienation, increase authentic living and balance external pressure – and you have a roadmap for creating an Eras-like workplace culture....

I don't see how merger with a huge crowd is a feeling that you could — or would want — to take into the workplace. Even if I did, I wouldn't think of it as "authenticity." 

***

I've written about the word "authentic" many times on this blog. A few examples.... (and the first thing I see, strangely enough, has Taylor Swift in it):

On March 20, 2010, I quoted John Hinderaker saying "Much as Bob Dylan was the most authentic spokesman for his generation, Taylor Swift is the most authentic spokesman for hers." I say: "that's a trick assertion, since Bob Dylan was never about authenticity." I quoted Sean Wilentz:

During the first half of the concert, after singing "Gates of Eden," Dylan got into a little riff about how the song shouldn't scare anybody, that it was only Halloween, and that he had his Bob Dylan mask on. "I'm masquerading!" he joked, elongating the second word into a laugh. The joke was serious. Bob Dylan, né Zimmerman, brilliantly cultivated his celebrity, but he was really an artist and entertainer, a man behind a mask, a great entertainer, maybe, but basically just that—someone who threw words together, astounding as they were. The burden of being something else — a guru, a political theorist, "the voice of a generation," as he facetiously put it in an interview a few years ago — was too much to ask of anyone.

On June 17, 2015, I talked about a Slate writer's advice to Hillary Clinton that she should "offer voters her authentic, geeky self. I said "We've been seeing the word 'authentic' a lot lately — what with Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal. There's this idea we seem to like that everyone has a real identity inside and that if we've got an inconsistent outward presentation of ourselves it would be wonderful for the inner being to cast off that phony shell. But 'authenticity' can be another phony shell...."

On December 19, 2017, I wrote about Facebook's purported goal of "authentic engagement." I said:

Facebook wants you to engage... with Facebook. They want the direct interface with the authentic person, not for some other operation to leverage itself through Facebook. And it makes sense to say that the exclusion of these interposers makes the experience better for the authentic people who use Facebook.... 

On a more metaphysical level: What is authentic anymore? What is the authentic/artificial distinction that Facebook claims — authentically/artificially — to be the police of? Is there an authentic authentic/artificial distinction or is the authentic/artificial distinction artificial?

AND: I'm reading a book that I think has a lot to say about the authentic/artificial distinction. You can tell by the title: "Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself" (Subtitle: "A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace"). But the word "authentic" never appears in the book, and the word "artificial" only appears in the context of "artificial spit" ("it’s called Zero-Lube. It’s an actual pharmaceutical product").

On March 9, 2018, I blogged about something Nancy Pelosi said about "RuPaul's Drag Race." According to The Hollywood Reporter, she "suggested that politicians could learn a thing or two from Ru's girls: 'Authenticity. Taking pride in who you are. Knowing your power....'" Reading the comments on my post, I added:

Everyone jumps on that word "authenticity." "I mean, I'm all for people doing what they want -- except for misusing words like 'authenticity'" (fivewheels); "Authenticity? A man dressed as an over-the-top woman is authentic?" (Annie C); and the inevitable "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means" (Ignorance is Bliss). Yeah? Well, when a person putting on a show is in costume and makeup, you could say he's an authentic showperson. And, anyway, what makes you think you're so authentic? 

My mind drifted back to this 1967 song by Jake Holmes, "Genuine Imitation Life": 

chameleons changing colors while a crocodile cries
people rubbing elbows but never touching eyes
taking off their masks revealing still another guise
genuine imitation life
people buying happiness and manufactured fun
everybody doing everybody done
people count on people who can only count to one
genuine imitation life

"Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was in the Oval Office, pleading with President Biden... to end Trump-era restrictions on immigration..."

"... and to allow tens of thousands of desperate refugees fleeing war, poverty and natural disasters into the United States... The attitude of the president during the meeting, according to one person to whom the conversation was later described, was, essentially: Why are you bothering me with this? What had been an easy promise on the campaign trail — to reverse what Democrats called President Donald J. Trump’s “racist” limits on accepting refugees — has become a test of what is truly important to the new occupant of the White House... Now, a decision to raise the refugee limit to 62,500 — as Mr. Biden had promised only weeks earlier to members of Congress — would invite from Republicans new attacks of hypocrisy and open borders even as the president was calling for bipartisanship. It was terrible timing, he told officials.... Biden’s staff came up with a compromise.... The backlash was immediate.... Within hours, the president backtracked...."

Writes Maggie Haberman in the NYT. 

Isn't that awfully mean? One person interprets the President's attitude, and it gets published in the NYT:  

Why are you bothering me with this?

As if the man — touted for his empathy — has no empathy. What really happened? Obviously, Biden understands the human experience of the refugees. He doesn't need Blinken acting out the suffering to him at great length. I'm imagining Biden wanting to solve the problems pragmatically, taking all the considerations into account, not just caving in to gushing empathy for the desperate people at the border. 

Now, the NYT is portraying Biden as weak and wavering this way and that as he's criticized for anything he does, over a problem for which there is no satisfying solution.

IN THE EMAIL: Lloyd writes:

"Which post had that comment?" I ask after checking for the comment in last night's café...

... which begins with a photograph of flowers.

The line has become a running joke around here at Meadhouse: "The world is falling apart, and YOU'RE GARDENING?!?"

Where was that if not in the post that shows Meade's garden?

But it wasn't a comment, Meade tells me. In just one day, I'd lost track of the source and imagined we were talking about one of my trolls. And that demonstrates the perfection of this cartoon (in The New Yorker) by the great Roz Chast:



IN THE COMMENTS: Ignorance is Bliss said:

I made an on-topic comment about the garden, noting that any real gardener could tell how bad a gardener Trump is.
Then the zinnia started obsessively attacking me.
I sent you a private email requesting that you rip out all the zinnia, but of course you did not.
Your new weeding policy is a joke...

"The song wasn’t identified, but 'gang signs soon led to 95 percent of the room' hitting each other...."

From "Song prompts 200 teens to explode into massive fight at skating rink, witnesses say."

IN THE COMMENTS: You can tell I want to know what the song is. Fortunately, Ignorance Is Bliss helped me out — "I'm guessing this was the song":



AND: If you can skate the hell out of that hitting-everyone-in-the-rink scene, here's music to skate on home by:

Indulge me for a moment with this separate post that pulls together something from the previous 2 posts (or don't indulge me, just move on!).

In the comments to the post about the word "editrix," Ignorance is Bliss excerpts something from the excerpt I'd provided as I was continuing my reading of Mary McCarthy's 1950 essay, "Up the Ladder from Charm to Vogue":

...there appears to be some periodic feminine compulsion on the editresses’ part to strike a suffragette attitude...

That excerpt sets up IIB's quip: "I'm guessing the period is approximately every 28 days..."

First, I need to say I think Mary McCarthy meant to make you think that, because the very next paragraph is:

And as one descends to a lower level of the fashion structure, to Glamour (Condé Nast) and Charm (Street and Smith), one finds a more genuine solicitude for the reader and her problems. The pain of being a BG (Business Girl), the envy of superiors, self-consciousness, consciousness, awkwardness, loneliness, sexual fears, timid friendliness to the Boss, endless evenings with the mirror and the tweezers, desperate Saturday social strivings (“Give a party and ask everyone you know”), the struggle to achieve any identity in the dead cubbyhole of office life, this mass misery, as of a perpetual humiliating menstrual period, is patently present to the editors, who strive against it with good advice, cheeriness, forced volubility, a psychiatric nurse’s briskness, so that the reiterated “Be natural,” “Be yourself,” “Smile,” “Your good points are you too” (Mademoiselle), have a therapeutic justification.

And that description of the "BG (Business Girl)" is exactly what I was talking about at the end of the previous post, the one about "Nomadland" (a book that describes the RV life as "dark and depressing"). I said:

Perhaps all jobs could be described in words that would move readers to say oh, those poor, desperate people. A journalist can, in words, find what she wants to find. 

And look at those words McCarthy came up with! Office life is like "a perpetual humiliating menstrual period." McCarthy set herself above the women who were writing the magazines for women. She saw the office workers as living dark and depressing lives, and the editors had their own dark and depressing lives, forced to churn out prose to con the BG (Business Girl) into buying another magazine to ease "the pain of... envy of superiors, self-consciousness, consciousness, awkwardness, loneliness, sexual fears, timid friendliness to the Boss, endless evenings with the mirror and the tweezers, desperate Saturday social strivings [and] the struggle to achieve any identity in the dead cubbyhole of office life."

When Maureen Dowd used the word "editrix"...

I asked:

By the way, do you find "editrix" jaunty and amusing, annoying and groan-worthy, or evidence that Dowd isn't doing feminism right?

It doesn't really matter who the "editrix" in question was, but it was some former editor of Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire.

I got a lot of interesting answers. Robert Cook went for what I see as the traditional feminist answer:

"Editrix" is anachronistic, as are terms such as "waitress" and "actress," etc. The terms "editor," "waiter," (now "server"), and "actor" are not innately masculine in their connotations, and so are suitable--preferable--when referring to females working at these jobs.

"Editrix" is anachronistic, as are terms such as "waitress" and "actress," etc. The terms "editor," "waiter," (now "server"), and "actor" are not innately masculine in their connotations, and so are suitable--preferable--when referring to females working at these jobs.

Mary Beth did the research:

Yeah, like early 20th Century, when the word was first used. Google Ngram shows it becoming popular in 1911, except for one fluke blip in the graph in 1838. It actually looks like it's becoming more popular.

We don't need gendered nouns in a non-gendered language so the use of one seems like an affectation. It was still the most interesting thing in what I read.

Though rhhardin joked us in a childish direction — "Editrix is for kids" — quite a few minds went straight from "-trix" to "dominatrix." Owen said:

"Editrix" should be "editrice." Sounds less like black leather and fishnet stockings, more classy.

And Ignorance is Bliss said:

I find a sudden urge to check if PornHub has and editrix category, just to see what that might involve.

And I think that's something of what's going on in the mind of tim in vermont:

As a man, I can only say "editrix" communicates female power and competence. But we men know nothing, we think that the sexes are different in many ways not visually obvious.

Similarly, FIDO:

["Editrix"] is perfect for a controlling female authority figure, adding a little panache to an otherwise dreary field.

I'm front-paging all that because I thought this was quite a coincidence yesterday: I was continuing my reading of Mary McCarthy's "Up the Ladder from Charm to Vogue" (in the essay collection "On the Contrary: Articles of Belief"), first blogged about in this post on April 3d (which I was reading because I'd done the research and discovered that it is the first published appearance of the word "Orwellian" (in 1950)). And I encountered the word "editress."

Unlike the older magazines, whose editresses were matrons who wore (and still wear) their hats at their desks as though at a committee meeting at the Colony Club, Mademoiselle was staffed by young women of no social pretensions, college graduates and business types, live wires and prom queens, middle-class girls peppy or sultry, fond of fun and phonograph records....

But beyond the attempt [by Vogue] to push quality goods during a buying recession like the recent one, or to dodge responsibility for an unpopular mode (this year’s sheaths and cloches are widely unbecoming), there appears to be some periodic feminine compulsion on the editresses’ part to strike a suffragette attitude toward the merchants whose products are their livelihood, to ally themselves in a gush with their readers, who are seen temporarily as their “real” friends.

There are 2 other appearances of "editress" in the essay, including one, I realize now, that was in the excerpt I put up on April 3rd:

As an instrument of mass snobbery, this remarkable magazine [Flair], dedicated simply to the personal cult of its editress, to the fetichism of the flower (Fleur Cowles, Flair, a single rose), outdistances all its competitors in the audacity of its conception. It is a leap into the Orwellian future, a magazine without contest or point of view beyond its proclamation of itself, one hundred and twenty pages of sheer presentation, a journalistic mirage....

I'm not going to insist that Maureen Dowd read my blog post, but if it's more than coincidence that her next column uses a feminine form of "editor," I wonder if she considered the word "editress" and opted instead for "editrix" and, if so, why? I think the answer is up there in what various commenters said: "editrix" sounds more exciting and dominating and "editress" is condescending. Mary McCarthy certainly meant to sound condescending as hell.

The OED says the "-trix" ending began in English with some words adopted from the Latin — administratrix, executrix, persecutrix, etc. And: "The suffix has occasionally been loosely used to form nonce-feminines to agent-nouns in -ter, as paintrix n. instead of the regular paintress. The commoner suffix in English is -tress suffix...." That is, when you go for "-trix" rather than "-tress" to goof around with feminizing one of those nouns about things people do, you're being weirder, and therefore going for an effect, like making us laugh or get excited, which is what Dowd did.

Did you see Nancy Pelosi on "RuPaul's Drag Race" last night?

I did. (I watch the show because Tom & Lorenzo talk about it on their podcast, and I like listening to them.)

Here's the Newsweek article:

"Nancy Pelosi? I'm dying. I just want to say thank you to her, I want to hug her, I wanna be like, 'Kick their ass.' [She] is spear-heading the way through," Morgan McMichaels, the drag persona of Thomas White, said.

"For 30 years, she's been a champion for LGBT rights," RuPaul added, and Pelosi raised a fist to reveal a rainbow bracelet on her wrist. Pelosi also got a customary "Halleloo!" greeting from Shangela.

But the queen most enamored with her appearance was Trixie Mattel, who visibly teared up while the politician was speaking. "Every time you get into drag, you make a political statement," Trixie explained in her confessional segment. "We live in a world where a high power politician will walk in the workroom, and it makes me feel hopeful."

"The workroom" = a set on the show.

Pelosi, for her part, told The Hollywood Reporter that she admires queens like Trixie deeply. She even suggested that politicians could learn a thing or two from Ru's girls: "Authenticity. Taking pride in who you are. Knowing your power—that’s what I talk about on my brief segment on the show."

IN THE COMMENTS: Everyone jumps on that word "authenticity." "I mean, I'm all for people doing what they want -- except for misusing words like "authenticity'" (fivewheels); "Authenticity? A man dressed as an over-the-top woman is authentic?" (Annie C); and the inevitable "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means" (Ignorance is Bliss). Yeah? Well, when a person putting on a show is in costume and makeup, you could say he's an authentic showperson. And, anyway, what makes you think you're so authentic?

My mind drifted back to this 1967 song by Jake Holmes, "Genuine Imitation Life."

chameleons changing colors while a crocodile cries
people rubbing elbows but never touching eyes
taking off their masks revealing still another guise
genuine imitation life
people buying happiness and manufactured fun
everybody doing everybody done
people count on people who can only count to one
genuine imitation life

Covered by Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons — listen here.

"CBS This Morning" may have fired Charlie Rose, but it used to revel in his sexual creepiness.

It's been a running joke on John Oliver's show for years:





Charlie Rose's "CBS This Morning" co-host Gayle King just happened to be a guest on Stephen Colbert's show last night. We're told she was already scheduled and, when the Rose story broke, she considered canceling, but Colbert's show is on CBS, and I assume I'm looking at CBS trying to extricate itself from the Charlie Rose story. And Gayle King isn't just committed to CBS, she's got her own reputation to keep clean. Watch the mind-numbing performance of Gayle King who plays dumb and cloyingly emotional:



1. In Colbert's introduction of King, he says she "delivers the hard news as co-anchor of 'CBS This Morning' and delivers the good news as the editor-at-large of O, the Oprah Magazine." Was "hard news" an intentional reference to Charlie Rose, whose penis is in the news? If innuendo was not intended, I believe it would have been noticed after it was written and edited out, so I say it was intended. Deniable, of course. Everything's deniable, like King's I-knew-nothing! routine.

2. Less than half-way through this clip, I was pausing and researching signs of lying. King is looking down and to her right (as if she had notes down there she needed to read) and scratching her cheek (at 2:02 (I've seen myself on video many times touching my cheek when I know I'm saying something that's has an element of deceit)). And look at her fist at 2:55.

3. "This is very difficult for me" — King's tactic is to make this a story of her emotional journey. Colbert plays a supporting role, with softball questions like: "Are you angry?" To which King answers: "I am a variety of emotions. There's certain some anger. There's some sadness. There's compassion. There's concern." It's so complex! "You can hold a variety of emotions around one particular incident."

4. At 3:52, she repositions and goes back to "what these women are going through." But what I want to know is what she knew and might have done to help "these women" before the news story broke and had an impact on her career. We have to start listening to women. King has been a professional in woman-oriented media for a long time. She didn't just recently get a clue about these issues. But the Colbert audience gives her a massive cheer (as she interlaces her fingers and works her hands back and forth).

5. Women will continue to speak up, King tells us in an impassioned tone, because "they're now being believed." She has to say "they," though she's a woman, because if she said "we," it would seem as though she had a story to tell.

6. King says that men need to "join the conversation." How? Men have to condemn sexual harassment and not make fine distinctions. They have to say that "it's all bad." So... not really a conversation. "All of it is really unacceptable." There's nothing to debate. Oh, but then she says, "By the same token, I want to be able to joke and laugh with friends without thinking I'm going to be called into human resources. But we all know the difference. What that is. We do." We do? Is it that talking is different and you can joke? But look at the most famous joke on the subject: "And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything, grab them by the pussy, you can do anything." That has plainly been dumped into the all-of-it-is-really-unacceptable category. (No wonder Siri is telling me, "Ann, I don't really know any good jokes. None, in fact." It is the Era of That's Not Funny.") [AND: As Ignorance is Bliss asks in the comments: "So who put a pubic hair on my Coke?"]

And here's Gayle King talking about the Rose story with Norah O'Donnell on their show, "CBS This Morning" yesterday:



That's very stiff and stilted. The 2 women are scripted to say what's been decided as the correct way to save their show. It goes on and on, and I'm saying that after stopping the clip at 2:12. There's no way, no matter how much longer they talk — the clip goes on for another minute — they are not going to get to the topic I want to hear discussed: What did you know? If you didn't know, why didn't you know? What good are you in your women-helping-women role on morning TV if you didn't recognize the monster who sat next to you for 5 years?

About those 2 women (with their 2 dogs) lost at sea for 5 months, buffeted by storms and sharks and rescued by the Navy.

You were skeptical of their story when we talk about it a while ago, and here's a new WaPo story about how people are doubting them:

On Monday, a spokesman from the Coast Guard told the AP there was an emergency beacon on board the sailboat that was never activated. Initially, the women said they were equipped with communications devices, including six different kinds that all died....

“We asked why during this course of time they did not activate the EPIRB,” a Coast Guard spokeswoman, Petty Officer 2nd Class Tara Molle, told the AP. “She had stated they never felt like they were truly in distress, like in a 24-hour period they were going to die.”...

They said so in spite of the fact that upon being rescued, the women said they were doubtful they could survive another day and that they endured a shark attack lasting six hours.

That shark attack — in which the women described 20-foot sharks ramming the boat in a coordinated attack — is also being questioned by scientists who study sharks and their behavior. Kim Holland, a professor at the University of Hawaii and a shark researcher, told the AP that he has never heard of the kind of prolonged, coordinated attack described by the sailors. Sharks might home in on a single food source, but there would be nothing attracting them to a boat hull, Holland said....

Maligning sharks... that's particularly insidious. 

IN THE COMMENTS: Ignorance is Bliss said:

They're gonna need a bigger lie...

The horror of communicating with North Korea when its language translation is as wretched as the new statement from Kim Jong-Un shows it is.

I'm seeing a lot of focus on Kim Jong-Un's use of the word "dotard" to insult Donald Trump,* and it is indeed a powerfully distracting word. But what's really important here is the entire statement and how much it says about the quality of the translation between Korean and English within Kim's regime and what that might mean about how he hears what our government is saying to him.

Here's the full text, "released on Friday by KCNA, the North Korean state news agency." According to the NYT is "the first time a North Korean leader directly issued a statement to the world under his name."

I'm going to go through it line by line, because I want you to see the crudeness of the translation and try to imagine what was in the original that a more skilled translation might have revealed. I'll boldface egregious translation problems and put my own suggestion in brackets:

The speech made by the U.S. president in his maiden address on [in] the U.N. arena in the prevailing serious circumstances, in which the situation on the Korean Peninsula has been rendered tense as never before and is inching closer to a touch-and-go state, is arousing worldwide concern.

I suspect this tracks the word order in Korean, but it sounds very awkward in English. The huge distance between the subject ("speech") and the verb ("is") comes across as bizarre.

Shaping the general idea of [Imagining] what he would say, I expected he would make stereotyped [scripted], prepared remarks a little different from what he used to utter in his office [the way he tends to speak from the White House] on the spur of the moment as he had to speak [because he was speaking] on the world’s biggest official diplomatic stage.

But, far from making remarks of any persuasive power that can be viewed to be [as] helpful to defusing tension, he made unprecedented rude nonsense one has never heard from any of his predecessors [spoke rude nonsense of a sort that the world has never before heard from a U.S. President].

A frightened dog barks louder.

I’d like to advise Trump to exercise prudence in selecting words and to be considerate of whom he speaks to [of those to whom he speaks] when making a speech in front of the world.

The mentally deranged behavior of the U.S. president openly expressing on [in] the U.N. arena the unethical will to “totally destroy” a sovereign state, beyond the boundary of threats of regime change or overturn of social system [which goes beyond threats of regime change or threats to overturn the social system], makes even those with normal thinking faculty [those of us who are sane] think about [begin to lose our] discretion and composure.

Here's another wide separation of subject ("behavior") and verb ("makes"). I think he's saying Trump's behavior is so crazy that normal people are about to lose our minds.

His remarks remind me of such words as “political layman” and “political heretic” which were in vogue in reference to Trump during his presidential election campaign.

The quoted phrases were not in vogue in English. I think we're getting a translation back into English of something that began in English. I'm not sure exactly what. "Heretic" is an especially vivid word in English. What was the original word in English? What is the Korean word, and what does it mean? How does the idea expressed in Korean relate to the way the North Korean leader understands politics? That's a complete mystery to me, and I wonder how much of a mystery it is to Trump (who, I suspect, gets very quickly to a simple understanding of other people).

After taking office Trump has rendered the world restless through [destabilized the world with]  threats and blackmail against all countries in the world. He is unfit to hold the prerogative of supreme command [leadership] of a country, and he is surely a rogue and a gangster fond of playing with fire, rather than a politician.

"Gangster" — what does that mean to him?

His remarks which described the U.S. option through straightforward expression of his [straightforward remarks about what the U.S. may do] will have [have]** convinced me, rather than frightening or stopping me, that the path I chose is correct [the path I have chosen is correct] and that it is the one I have to follow to the last [it is the path I must follow to the end].

Now that Trump has denied the existence of [denied the legitimacy of] and insulted me and my country in front of the eyes of the world and made the most ferocious declaration of a war in history that he would destroy [and threatened to destroy] the D.P.R.K. [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea], we will consider with seriousness [seriously consider] exercising of a corresponding, highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history [an equally high-level, hard-line response].

Action is the best option in treating the dotard who, hard of hearing, is uttering only what he wants to say.

"Dotard" is, actually, fine. It's a simple, memorable word that is less childish than "old man" or "geezer." I'm interested in the idea that a person who is hard of hearing says only what he wants to say, but I think he means: The old man doesn't listen, he just keeps talking, so there's little point in trying to talk to him, and our best option is to act.

As a man representing the D.P.R.K. and on behalf of the dignity and honor of my state and people and on my own, I will make the man holding the prerogative of the supreme command in the U.S. pay dearly for his speech calling for totally destroying the D.P.R.K.

That sentence works in English. It's a clear threat. More subtle are the hints of how he sees himself: he represents his "state and people" and he also acts "on my own."

This is not a rhetorical expression loved by Trump [I know this is not what Trump is hoping to hear].

I'm not going to tamper with the last 3 sentences. They come across as clear and very effective in English (thought obviously I hope he's bluffing).

I am now thinking hard about what response he could have expected when he allowed such eccentric words to trip off his tongue.

Whatever Trump might have expected, he will face results beyond his expectation.

I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire.

___________________

* To give one example, the NYT has an entire article "Kim Jong-un Called Trump a ‘Dotard.’ How Harsh Is That Burn?"

** In the comments to this post, Ignorance is Bliss says (correctly): " I think you are mistaken about the word will. It is used as a noun (his will), not as part of a verb (will have)." A good word editor would see ambiguity like that and rearrange the sentence to eliminate it.

"What he had expected was something more like the din of 'driving through Iowa in a hailstorm'...."

That's how dust particles would have sounded as Cassini passed through the plane of Saturn's rings.

To be clear; Cassini did not actually hear any sounds. It is, after all, flying through space where there is no air and thus no vibrating air molecules to convey sound waves. But space is full of radio waves, recorded by Dr. Kurth’s instrument, and those waves... can be converted into audible sounds.

Dr. Kurth said the background patter was likely oscillations of charged particles in the upper part of Saturn’s ionosphere where atoms are broken apart by solar and cosmic radiation. The louder tones were almost certainly “whistler mode emissions” when the charged particles oscillate in unison.

The link goes to the NYT, which I tried to improve by putting in that ellipsis, but now I want you to share my pain by showing you what I took out there: "just like the ones bouncing through the Earth’s atmosphere to broadcast the songs of Bruno Mars, Beyoncé and Taylor Swift."

IN THE COMMENTS: Ignorance is Bliss said: "So close. If they had gone with the songs of Freddie Mercury and Bruno Mars it would have at least played on the planetary theme."

"Jackie" — who told the discredited fraternity gang rape story published in Rolling Stone — is forced to testify in the defamation lawsuit.

The federal judge Glen E.Conrad has rejected the argument — made by "Jackie"'s lawyers — that testimony will "re-victimize" her and psychologically damage her.

The judge’s order stems from a lawsuit brought by UVA associate dean of students Nicole Eramo, who alleges that Rolling Stone’s Nov. 2014 article cast her as the callous villain of its tale and falsely asserted that she discouraged a student identified only as “Jackie” from taking her rape allegations to the police. Rolling Stone, which apologized to readers for the story, strongly denies that it defamed the university official and declined to comment on Tuesday’s ruling....

Ms. Eramo, in court papers, alleges that Jackie is “a serial liar” who fabricated her claims and served as “Rolling Stone’s sole source for the false tale of rape that it recklessly published.” That makes Jackie’s testimony “highly relevant” to the defamation claims, her lawyers say.

IN THE COMMENTS: Ignorance is Bliss said...

re-victimize

Assumes facts not in evidence.

That made me think of what Patricia J. Williams wrote in her book "The Alchemy of Race and Rights" about Tawana Brawley: Brawley "has been the victim of some unspeakable crime. No matter how she got there. No matter who did it to her and even if she did it to herself."

Let's take closer look at those Clerihews.

Donald J. Trump,
Like him or lump,
Wants to build a huge wall;
We'll find out this fall.

— Clyde

Okay. Nice! That's from the comments to last night's "A clerihew is a whimsical, four-line biographical poem invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley."

Clyde
Tried
To follow the rules
Unlike some of those fools.

So did Curious George:

Professor Ann Althouse
Larry’s her spouse.
He helps her with blogging
And the sink when clogging.

Good! First line is the name of a ((famous)) person and nothing more. Second line rhymes, then 2 more lines that rhyme with each other. There's no rule about meter or number of syllables, but keep it amusing and delightful.

Curious George
Knew how to forge
A Clerihew about me, Meade
And the clogging he freed.

Now, Cath did one about me before Curious George, and she followed the rules:

Professor Ann Althouse
Allows us all t' grouse
In this welcoming forum
With varying decorum.

Cath
Hath
Written a Clerihew
For the literary few.

Another appropriately rule-following Clerihewer is mccullough:

John Kasich
Pronounced like basic
Wants to get along
But is getting schlonged

McCullough
Could cull a
Great word from the pile
And make us all smile.

IN THE COMMENTS: Ignorance is Bliss said:

Ignorance is Bliss
Is seriously piss
'd, to Let's take a closer look he alluded
Yet his poem was excluded

Ah! Yes:

Ann Althouse, Professor
And Meade, who impress'd her
Con-Law she unmuddies
Plus Critical Breast Studies

"Some women... are 'tetrachromat.'"

"Thanks to two different mutations on each of the X chromosomes, they have four cones – increasing the combination of colours they should be able to see. The mutation isn’t very rare (estimates of the prevalence vary and depend on your heritage, but it could be as high as 47% among women of European descent)...."

Given that many women may be carrying the mutation, why do so few people prove to have such astonishing vision, for instance? “One possibility is that you need early training to capitalise on the signal,” says Kimberly Jameson at the University of California, Irvine, who has tested Antico extensively. Antico is an artist, who has paid close attention to subtle variations in colour for almost all of her life. “I was fairly manic,” Antico says today. “I always wanted to represent everything I could see.” Perhaps this kind of intense experience was crucial to rewire the brain so it could cash in the extra signals her eyes were receiving....

IN THE COMMENTS: Ignorance is Bliss said...

Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly...

ADDED: The subject of whether an artist with abnormal eyes can make a painting that lets ordinary people see what the artist sees came up in the context of El Greco in this well-reasoned letter to the NYT which I read 25 years ago and never forgot:

''Studying Art With the Eye of a Physician'' discusses the debunking of the theory that El Greco painted elongated figures because of astigmatism, a disorder in which the eyeball is more elongated than round. The proof that astigmatism did not cause El Greco to draw elongated figures is relatively simple:

If he chose to draw a life-size man six feet tall, the man and his drawn image side by side would be the same length with or without astigmatism. An astigmatic person would perceive the length of the man and his life-size image as equivalent. Any perceived distortion in length would apply to both the object and the drawn image.

I have noticed also that El Greco's elongation applied to vertical torsos, not to horizontal ones. If he were consistent, the hips of a reclining, horizontal figure would be 15 percent to 25 percent wider in the vertical direction. But I have not seen this in his paintings.

Oh! This portrait of Donald Trump!

It hangs in his Mar-a-Lago estate:



I cut that to show only the portrait, so go here to see it in its ornate frame and the wood-paneled setting. It was photographed at an angle (visible at the top left of my crop), so there's some distortion not attributable to the artist. But how rich do you need to be to hire an artist that can paint hands? Ah, but who's going to look at the hand — other than me — when the head is glowing and ascending to the heavens? Or are you looking at the stretched folds of fabric straining over the crotch?

The photo of the portrait goes with a NYT article titled "A King in His Castle: How Donald Trump Lives, From His Longtime Butler." About the painting, the butler, Anthony Senecal, said: "I’ve been in other homes in Palm Beach — same exact painting. Just a different head."

Also from the article, how Trump likes his steak: "It would rock on the plate, it was so well done." And information that explains a lot: "Mr. Trump insists — despite the hair salon on the premises — on doing his own hair."

And there's the 20,000-square-foot Donald J. Trump Ballroom, where, in 2005, Trump married Melania (whom Senecal "described as exceptionally compassionate"). Hillary Clinton attended the wedding and Senecal "offered a profane description for Mrs. Clinton." The ballroom was later the scene for the Oprah Winfrey party for Maya Angelou's 80th birthday. Senecal says it was a "religious ceremony with the hooting and the hollering" and "Mr. Trump was right on into it. It was so great. He was clapping."

IN THE COMMENTS: Ignorance is Bliss said, "That is certainly a more inspiring picture of him than this one":



MORE IN THE COMMENTS: Brando says:

That portrait supports my theory that he's a poor man's idea of what he would be like if he were rich. A big majestic portrait of himself! Maybe Trump has a secret sense of humor about this — it seems like a gag I'd do if I were rich.

Exactly. It looked that way to me too. The question is whether he's having fun with it and making it fun for other people or whether he's really serious, psychologically needy, and oppressing other people. If it were the latter, the NYT would have told us.

I wonder about the "profane" description of Hillary — what did she do when she arrived? Was she nasty to the help? I've heard she could be very cold and mean to secret service agents.

Well, that's another thing the NYT didn't tell us. Here, we know the NYT had information, and we can see that it was suppressed. What was it?

I'm playing "Canyons Of Your Mind" by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band.

And Meade says: "What's that? Elvis?"

Me: "That's the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. I'm researching the origin of the phrase 'canyons of your mind.' What do you think is the first appearance of that phrase?"

Meade: "I don't know. Glenn Campbell?"

Me: "That's 'Gentle on My Mind.'"

Now, I believe the answer to my question is "Elusive Butterfly," which was a hit in 1965 by the man who wrote the song, Bob Lind. It's rolling through the canyons of my mind this morning a propos of Florence Henderson saying that 1960s NY Mayor John Lindsay gave her the crabs. "Gentle on My Mind" was written by John Hartford in 1967.

This idea of the brain as a landscape — it's such a standard hippie trope — is it there in "Gentle on My Mind"? Yes. This singer sings of traveling alone but seeing his girlfriend "walkin' on the backroads/By the rivers flowing gentle on my mind." The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band is mocking "canyons of your mind" in 1968, but Bob Lind was serious in 1965: "You might have heard my footsteps/Echo softly in the distance through the canyons of your mind."

Also mocking the phrase was Frank Zappa in "We're Turning Again" (at 3:25):



"We can turn it around/We can do it again/We can go back in time/Through the canyons of your mind On the Eve of Destruction/We can act like we are something really special/We'll just jump in the bathtub/With that other guy Jim/And make him be more careful/We can visit Big Mama/And whap her on the back/When she eats her sandwich/We can take care of Janis..."

That's got to be much later than 1965, because Jim Morrison died in the bathtub in 1971. Yes, it's the opening track on the 1985 album "Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention." "Mothers of Prevention" referred, of course, to The Parents Music Resource Center — you know, that Tipper Gore warning-label business, against which Zappa testified before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, saying, among other things: "A couple of blowjobs here and there and — bingo! — you get a hearing."

Who knew then that in the next decade — the next canyon of the nation's mind — Tipper's husband would be Vice President, and everyone would be talking about blowjobs?

Stray fact encountered chasing the bright elusive butterfly of canyons of your mind: A movie inspired John Hartford to write "Gentle on My Mind": It was, oddly enough, "Dr. Zhivago."



ADDED: In the comments to the earlier post — the one with the Florence Henderson and the crabs — Roughcoat brought up another song, one I'd consigned to an unreachable canyon of my mind:

Summer breeze, makes me feel fine
Blowing through the canyons of my miiiiiiiind.

That came quite late in the development of hippie tropes — in 1972. How lame, but there were takers for that kind of lameness that year. The original artists were the very douche-y Seals & Croft. And that song has been covered by many artists over the years, including by Jason Mraz (who seems perfectly Seals & Croft-y) and Type O Negative (which is odd). Also odd: I once saw Type O Negative in concert! I must say that of all the bands I saw in my days of chauffeuring teenagers to concerts, there was only one band that I couldn't find it in myself to appreciate, and that was Type O Negative. So hail, Type O Negative! And listen to the Type O Negative "Summer Breeze," here. If you need to air out your mind canyons after that, here's that nice young man Jason Mraz.

Mraz lives a health-conscious lifestyle and has said that he eats mostly raw vegan foods. His vegan diet has also influenced his music. He owns a five-and-a-half acre avocado farm in Bonsall, California. He is an investor at Café Gratitude, a vegan restaurant in Los Angeles.... His hobbies include surfing, yoga and photography.

IN THE COMMENTS: Ignorance is Bliss said:

Summer breeze, makes me feel fine
Blowing through the canyons of my miiiiiiiind.

Maybe it was unreachable because that is not how it goes!

Summer breeze, makes me feel fine
Blowing through the jasmine in my mind

Roughcoat:

Oh crap, I can't believe I got it wrong--"canyons" instead of "jasmine."

The 70s was a confusing time for me. Still is, obviously.

Me:

Jasmine... Windmills...

Oh, hell....

"Lawyers for Reed College have fired back at a former student who has accused the school of wrongly kicking him out and falsely labeling him a sex offender."

"The school alleges that even before 'John Doe'... filed his lawsuit last month, he admitted that he used cocaine, violated Reed's honor principle, provided alcohol, Xanax and ecstasy to other students (to be the 'cool friend who facilitates a fun night'), made vile statements to his ex-girlfriend accuser and retained a sexually explicit video of her on his cellphone until Reed ordered him to delete it...."

Doe accuses [another student, "Jane Roe"] of lying to school officials about their consensual relationship and he alleges that The Reed Institute - better known as Reed College - railroaded him through a disciplinary process intended only to expel him.

He maintains that he and Roe dated and later engaged in group sex with other young women, sometimes under the influence of ecstasy, a psychoactive drug better known as "Molly." But, he alleges, things blew up when he broke up with Roe and she later punched him in the face and went to school officials, telling them she didn't consent to one of their evenings of group sex.

Reed takes the position that "ingesting impairing substances renders consent void."

IN THE COMMENTS: Ignorance is Bliss said: "So did John Doe ingest impairing substances? If so, is the school treating Jane Roe as a rapist too?"

"We want our young ladies to be dressed beautifully; we want them to be dressed with class and dignity."

"But we are going to draw the line relative to attire that would be deemed overexposing oneself," said Freeman Burr, the superintendent of a Connecticut school that managed to get a NYT article written about its prom-dress policy, apparently because some mothers are aggrieved that their daughters' dresses have been nixed.

Students and parents signed permission slips that outlined rules and regulations for the prom. Students say the rules were vague, calling for “appropriate formal dress” and warning that students dressed “inappropriately” would be sent home without a refund.

The article has a picture of a student who was told her backless dress wasn't appropriate (unless she wore it with a camisole). Her mother, Tonny Montalvo, is making an issue out of it: “They say it’s in the student handbook...There’s no specifics anywhere.”

If "appropriate" doesn't cut it, I guess "class" and "dignity" won't help either.

IN THE COMMENTS:  Ignorance is Bliss says:

Would it have been too much trouble to include a picture of the student who was told her backless dress wasn't appropriate while she is actually wearing the dress in question? Maybe so we could see for ourselves if it was appropriate? And would it have been too much trouble to get a copy of the text of the permission slip, and the text of the student handbook?

I know. And the NYT also declines to make the comments function available for this one. This has a real feeling of bias to it — giving ear to these mothers and depriving readers of what we need to judge the facts and a forum to point out these shortcomings.

Finally, some cake other than same-sex wedding cake is in the news...

... in this NYT interview with Senator Tom Cotton:

Do you have any guilty pleasures? I run a lot every morning.

That sounds neither guilty nor pleasurable. But I do it so I can indulge in the guilty pleasure of eating birthday cake.

Every day? Most days, with ice cream. Early on, when my wife and I were dating, we went to the grocery store, and I told her that sometimes I just buy birthday cakes, and I eat them. And she said: “Really? I do, too.”

IN THE COMMENTS: Ignorance is Bliss asks: "Is a cake a birthday cake if it wasn't bought for someone's birthday?"

I think the best answer to that is that Tom Cotton and his wife like to eat a kind of cake that they think of as "birthday cake." Either they like the idea of calling it "birthday cake" or they go stores where it is labeled birthday cake or has "Happy Birthday" written in the icing. What kind of people are they that they enjoy that kind of cake — light, spongy cake with thick, sugary white icing— or they get a kick out of a birthday feeling when it's not anyone's birthday?

I think of 2 things:

1. The Beatles "You say it's your birthday/It's my birthday too." When that song came out, it was generally understood — as I remember it — to refer to something other than one's actual birthday. Both Paul McCartney and John Lennon said later that they just set out to write a birthday song. Paul said it wasn't anyone's birthday, but birthday songs get played. And John said "It was a piece of garbage." If I remember correctly, we hippies of the time thought The Beatles were offering the theory that every day is your birthday or every day that you achieve heightened awareness of your existence is a birthday.

2. The idea of an "un-birthday" in the Humpty Dumpty chapter of Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking-Glass," which is combined with Carroll's Mad Hatter's Tea Party (from "Alice In Wonderland") in the Disney movie "Alice in Wonderland." In the movie, Alice arrives at the party as the Hatter and others are singing "A Very Merry Unbirthday to You." In the book, Humpty Dumpty explains that "there are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents... And only one for birthday presents, you know. There's glory for you!" Alice doesn't understand his use of the word "glory," which leads Humpty Dumpty to utter his most famous line (beloved of lawyers): "When I use a word... it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less." (In this view, "glory" means "a nice knock-down argument.") I'm thinking that when Tom Cotton eats cake, it's birthday cake if he chooses to think of it as birthday cake.

Why should Ron Klain be the Ebola czar?

Seriously, what are the qualifications for this job... and what exactly does the job consist of?

Klain is highly regarded at the White House as a good manager with excellent relationships both in the administration and on Capitol Hill. His supervision of the allocation of funds in the stimulus act -- at the time and incredible and complicated government undertaking -- is respected in Washington. He does not have any extensive background in health care but the job is regarded as a managerial challenge...

A former chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden and also to then-Vice President Al Gore, Klain is currently President of Case Holdings and General Counsel of Revolution, an investment group. He has clerked for the U.S. Supreme Court and headed up Gore's effort during the 2000 Florida recount and was portrayed in the HBO movie Recount by Kevin Spacey.

Oh, well, then, that makes perfect sense. Which Supreme Court Justice did he clerk for? And why not hire Kevin Spacey? I'm sure he'd do a convincing job of assuring us that everything is under control. He was excellent delivering lines like "The plural of 'chad' is 'chad'?" and Chad — coincidence?! — is a country in Africa.

And by the way, I thought we'd stopped using the job title "czar." We're back to the retrograde messaging implicit in the title of a long-ago Russian autocrat?

ADDED: It seems that Klain is called a "czar" because Republicans were calling out for a "czar." From The Daily Kos a few days ago:

Thus McCain, as usual, follows in the footsteps of the House crazy person caucus, but now the Republicans demand that Obama institute an "Ebola czar" even after those selfsame Republicans were muttering about abuse of power and tyranny and impeachment over the "czars" the gubbermint already had has been catapulted into the Sunday show orbits of Serious Debate, by mere virtue of Sunday John saying it. We don't have enough czars. We demand more czars! Why isn't Obama leading by appointing czars?

And now, here comes Obama, leading by following, appointing a czar. Or a guy to do whatever it is Ron Klain is good at doing who will be titled "czar." What the hell does a czar do? We'll find out when we see what Klain does. He's certainly good for something, like the way he allocated the funds of the stimulus act. We'll find out how that kind of expertise and orientation plays out in the ebola context.

AND:  The (unlinkable) OED defines "czar" only as: 1. "The title of the autocrat or emperor of Russia; historically, borne also by Serbian rulers of the 14th c." and 2. "transf. A person having great authority or absolute power; a tyrant, 'boss.'’" But there is a "Draft addition," lingering in "draft" status since 2001: "orig. U.S. A person appointed by a government to recommend and coordinate policy in a particular area and to oversee its implementation." The oldest use is, interestingly enough, beer czar:

1933   S. Walker Night Club Era 167   There are several versions of why Mulrooney quit the job to become the state beer 'Czar.'

The most prominent use of "czar" — where the term really took off — was "Drug Czar," applied to Bill Bennett in early 1989, as George H.W. Bush was about to take over the presidency. But it wasn't Bush the Elder who created the position. Congress did that, over the objections of President Reagan. As for the choice of Bennett, the biggest critic, amusingly enough, was Joe Biden:

''What concerns me most is his total lack of background in law enforcement,'' said Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., a Delaware Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

IN THE COMMENTS: Ignorance is Bliss says the Kevin we need to assure us that everything is under control, that all is well, is not Kevin Spacey but Kevin Bacon: