"I’m cracking up just picturing the laughter around the Sunday dinner table if I had declared myself the family’s 'changemaker'!"

Texted Meade after I sent him a quote from the Psychology Today article "The Real Reason We Can Be So Different From Our Siblings":

Rather than compete directly with an identity another sibling is already known for, siblings proactively claim a unique perceptual psychological space in the minds of parents... In other words, if your brother was already seen as the “smart one,” you may have claimed the territory of the “funny one.” If your sister established her role as the “athlete,” you may have fashioned yourself the “artist.” And if your sister or brother was always praised for being the “good girl/boy,” you may have reveled in your role as the “rebel,” “free spirit,” or “changemaker.”

There's a reason why we have so many lawn mowers.

"It’s clear from this election that there are many voters, especially those hardest hit by rising prices, those who experienced the pandemic-era financial support slipping away, who voted primarily on the economy."

"We’ve seen in the United States and worldwide if you have to break pearls in half to be able to afford your groceries, that is going to be the top-of-mind issue when you go to the ballot box. Democrats win when voters know that we’re the ones fighting for them against those who will seek to rip them off to add an extra billion dollars to their bank account."

That's Ben Wikler, answering the question: "You have said for years that abortion rights is the issue that best motivates Democratic voters and best convinces Republicans to vote for Democrats. Did something change about that in this election, or did the Harris campaign not focus enough on abortion rights?"

From "Wisconsin Democratic Chair Says He Is the One to Revive a Distressed Party/Ben Wikler, who has led the Wisconsin Democratic Party since 2019, announced a bid to be national party chair with a platform to 'unite, fight, win'" (NYT)(free-access link).

I like Ben because I knew him quite well when he was a teenager. He's obviously got highly developed verbal skills. Not highly developed enough to keep me from noticing that he didn't confront the complexities of the Democrats' involvement with the abortion issue. They forefronted it, and he wanted them to forefront it.

Did something change about that in this election, or did the Harris campaign not focus enough on abortion rights? What's the answer? The question required him to pick. Either it's no longer true that abortion is the Democrats' best issue OR the Democrats needed to push even harder on the abortion issue. But maybe leaping past a reporter's well-structured question and saying "It's the economy, stupid" in elaborate, elegant language is a good demonstration of the skill Democrats want in their chair.

ADDED: I spent a lot of time trying to ascribe meaning to "break pearls in half." A commenter — wild chicken — asked if that's "a saying in Wisconsin." And I got all involved:

I googled it when I was writing the post, and I considered elaborating on this figure of speech. I couldn't find any example of "break pearls in half" as a figurative expression. I did find out that pearls are *cut* in half for some purposes, but these were real, not metaphorical, pearls. What did Ben mean? All I can think of is Mickey Mouse, starving, and cutting one bean into slices.

Then I got a text from Meade: "Pills/Bad transcription by NYT."

For more laughs, here's Mickey:

All this likening of Trump to Hitler has got me looking back to my 2011 posts, when Wisconsinites likened Governor Scott Walker to Hitler.

From March 19, 2011: "Scott Walker is like Hitler because 'he doesn't do nice things'" (the quote is from a young protester, in a video interview by Meade). 

From February 17, 2011: "Scott Walker compared to Hitler" (with video of Meade questioning a woman who is carrying a sign portraying showing Walker with a Hitler mustache).

Also from February 17, 2011: "I asked the woman if she thought Scott Walker was like Hitler, and she said 'Yes.' So I said, 'Are you saying that you think fascism could come to America,' and she said, 'It's what's happening.'" Here's the photo I took of the woman — hiding her face — and the Walker-as-Hitler poster:

The NYT creates a multicolored diagram of a Trump rally speech.

That's from "The 9 Elements of a Trump Rally" (free-access link). It should be "The 9 Elements of a Trump Rally Speech," because the article and diagram are only about Trump's speech, but there are, in fact, many elements to a Trump rally that are not Trump's speech.

There are the hours spent in line waiting to get in, during which Trump fans interact with each other. There are the further hours spent inside and waiting for the show alongside fellow Trumpsters, listening to Trump's playlist and dancing or talking. These people are hanging out at Trump's party, having fun.

How do I know that? Have I been to a Trump rally? No. But my husband has been to 3 Trump rallies (and I've watched quite a few on YouTube).

Meade sends his first photo from the Trump rally today at the Dodge County Airport in Juneau, Wisconsin.

"Gays for Trump"/"Veterans for Trump."

Meade is waiting in line (and may join the comments):

Who wrote this headline?! What would taking it to 11 mean in this context?

Meade texts me this headline from a NYT op-ed: "Harris Is Good on Abortion Rights. Now She Needs to Take It to 11."

He comments: "Wouldn’t 'taking it to 11' be analogous to post-birth abortion?"

Cecile Richards is a former president of Planned Parenthood (and the daughter of Ann Richards, who was a memorable governor of Texas). The column asserts that Harris can win by "turning the volume up to 11 on abortion." That is, get louder, not more extreme in one's position, but the headline doesn't dictate that interpretation. It left room for Meade's grim retort.

As for Trump, he's been trying not to exhibit extremism about abortion. He says leave the legislating to the states, and he refuses to answer the question whether he'd sign legislation restricting abortion if he wins the election and gets a Congress inclined to act at the federal level. Why would we trust him? If the answer is no, say no. So what if it's hypothetical. Lots of questions asked of candidates rely on hypotheticals.

By the way — and I know I've linked to this twice before — Wikipedia has an entry for "Up to eleven." Excerpt:

The influence of the phrase "up to eleven" is such that it has been used outside of music; in 2016, for example, astronomer Krzysztof Stanek described the then brightest-known object in the universe, ASASSN-15lh, as being "as if nature took everything we know about magnetars and turned it up to 11".

"Democrats need a dad?"

Says Meade, when I read this headline out loud "Is Tim Walz the Midwestern Dad Democrats Need?" (NYT).

It's an episode of "The Ezra Klein Show." From the transcript, here's the "dad" part:

KLEIN: Let me ask you about political geography. There’s a sense of, particularly, the Midwest as “That’s where people are normal. Then they get weirder on the coast.” You’re a former Army guy, right? You’re a former football coach. You’ve got real good Midwestern dad vibes. And so you can talk about the weirdness of Trump and Vance in a way that I think a lot of Democrats would not feel they could and also in a way that they’re like, “Oh, right, maybe we’re not the weird ones.” But I always think this is a very unhealthy dimension of our politics, a sense that there are sort of “real” Americans here, not “real” Americans there, beyond the coast. I’m curious how you think about this, both from the perspective of what it’s allowed you to say — maybe that would not have landed coming from others — and also just, like, what you do about it.

The emphasis there is on the geography, the "Midwestern" part of "Midwestern dad." I wanted the "dad" part, but I'll soldier on: 

A Flag Day post, by Meade, on X.

pic.twitter.com/48qE4mMdnO

— Laurence Meade (@laurmeade) June 14, 2024

That photo was not taken today, but on January 13, 2024.

"So I don’t want to say anything off the cuff but I respect where you’re coming from."

Said Pete Buttigieg, quoted in "Climate protesters crash Buttigieg interview, chanting 'stop Petro Pete'" (The Hill).

Breaking: we just chased Secretary Pete Buttigieg off the stage at the Meyerhoff Symphony.

Petro Pete is a coward. As we write he is ramming down our throats the Sea Port and GulfLink oil terminals - each worse than Keystone.

We must resist him with all we've got. And we will. pic.twitter.com/aVKeCre5eH

— Climate Defiance (@ClimateDefiance) October 10, 2023

As I was playing that video out loud, Meade said, "Why doesn't a Cabinet Secretary have better security?" And that made me think perhaps the interruption was considered desirable — by Buttigieg, by the Biden administration/campaign. It isn't hard to generate ideas about why getting interrupted by extreme and rude climate activists might be advantageous.

And yet Buttigieg's response was so weak.  As one protester proclaims — after Buttigieg is ushered out of the room — "He said he can't speak off the cuff!" 

If the interruption had been anticipated, Buttigieg should have been prepared with something like Ronald "I am paying for this microphone" Reagan. 

"Mrs. Clinton projects about projection."

Mrs. Clinton projects about projection.

— Laurence Meade (@laurmeade) September 25, 2023

"Clay is the opposite of the cellphone. This stuff is real, takes up space, it’s dirty. There’s just this physicality..."

"... that is very different from what we experience six or eight hours a day sitting in front of a computer."

Said  D. Wayne Higby, director of Ceramic Art Museum at Alfred University, quoted in "Get Lost in Clay, Even if It’s Just for the Weekend/Pottery workshops like those at the Watershed Center for Ceramic Arts in Maine are filling up with people who want to connect with others instead of screens" (NYT).

What are you doing these days to get your fair share of physicality"?

I know it's not very physicalistic of me, but I looked up "physicality" in the OED. The relevant meaning is #3: "The awareness of the body or of bodily sensation; a bodily function or experience." And: "the quality of being physically demanding; physical intensity; strong physical presence or appeal." Here are the quotes to orient you:

Meade and milkweed.

This morning, at 6:26.

The lanternfly and the unborn baby.

Meade texts me the link to this NYT article: "In the Lanternfly War, Some Take the Bug’s Side/Even as the invasive pest spreads across 11 states and threatens agriculture, lanternflies are winning sympathizers who resist kill-on-sight orders." 

He pulls this quote...

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals offered a less than full-throated defense of the lanternfly. The advocacy group did advise people, however, to carefully consider their actions if it involves “killing any living being, no matter how small or unfamiliar,” said Catie Cryar, a PETA spokeswoman.

... and says:

"Killing any living being, no matter how small or unfamiliar"

Like an unborn living human being? 

He quotes...

The bugs “didn’t ask to be invasive, they are just living their own life,” [said Catherine Bonner, 22, a Temple University student in Philadelphia]. “I would be bummed if I suddenly started existing somewhere I wasn’t supposed to exist and everyone started killing me for it.”

... and says: 

Like suddenly existing somewhere like your mother’s body?

"When manual transmissions were the norm... shifting gears became imbued with meaning."

"It represented the allure of the road, for all its good and ill, and stood in for the human control of a big, hot, dangerous machine screaming down the pavement. The manual transmission’s impending disappearance feels foreboding not (just) because shifting a car is fun and sensual, but also because the gearshift is—or was—a powerful cultural symbol of the human body working in unison with the engineered world.... [T]he coarse feedback that one gets while driving an all-electronic vehicle might be—or feel—too subtle for a brute human mind. Cars have, in a way, become too good. Human understanding slips off their surface, like ice off a hot hood...."

From "The End of Manual Transmission/Stick shifts are dying. When they go, something bigger than driving will be lost" by Ian Bogost (The Atlantic).

I love my 2005 Audi TT and can't imagine trading it in. For what?

Speaking of the feeling of oneness with tools... here's Meade sawing a fallen tree using a Katanaboy folding saw:

It's primary day in Wisconsin. What have the GOP candidates for Governor said about the raid on Mar-a-Lago?

Meade said he will vote for the first candidate who condemns it. Going solely by the candidates' Twitter accounts, we have this from Tim Michels, at 8:29 last night:

First 87,000 new IRS agents, now this? The FBI’s raid this afternoon seems more like a political witch hunt than anything else. Republicans in Wisconsin are far too familiar with overzealous prosecutors. Elections have consequences. Vote. https://t.co/PGNOHlCCL2

— Tim Michels (@michelsforgov) August 9, 2022

There's this at 10:58 from Timonthy Ramthun:

Why should any man becumber himself with a cucumber?

I wonder, reading...

 becumber  v.

Brit. Hear pronunciation/bᵻˈkʌmbə/

, 

U.S. Hear pronunciation/bəˈkəmbər/

, 

Hear pronunciation/biˈkəmbər/

1550    M. Coverdale tr. O. Werdmueller Spyrytuall & Precyouse Pearle xxi. sig. Hvjv   Why shulde any man..becomber hym selfe about that thing?

I'm reading the Oxford English Dictionary, specifically the entries under the second definition of the prefix "be-," which is used "Forming intensive verbs, with sense of 'thoroughly..., soundly, much, conspicuously, to excess, ridiculously,'" and which arose this morning — as these things do — in the context of "bepenised."

I had blogged a quote that referred to "the spectacle of bepenised straight heterosexual males." Quite aside from the context — go back to that post if you care about context — there was some clamor over the word "bepenised."

My dear husband Meade commented:

To bepenised or not to bepenised… 

Bespectacled. Bepenised. Bemused.

And now, I'm very proud and happy to present one of my newest and nicest friends:

I'm trying to read this Slate article about Greg Gutfeld, but I can't get past the performative garnering.

There's one word I've been following ever since Jeb Bush low-energied his way to defeat, and that word is "garner." There's an upstart word on my radar. I've been talking about it since last Saturday. That word is "performative."

This morning Meade sends me the link to "A Fox News Host’s Strange Backstory Shows How Liberals Lost Comedy/Conservatives now have one of the most popular shows in late night" — and I run into this:

Gutfeld has long demonstrated an obvious knack for garnering attention through what would now be described as trolling. Developing a highly performative, occasionally over-the-top style of comedic presentation....

Speaking of trolling... I don't want to be paranoid... but I feel... summoned. Who does a garner/performative one-two like that?

Anyway, here's a passage from the article, in case you're hankering for the substantive:

What's this bird?

Photographed yesterday by Lake Mendota (in Madison, Wisconsin). I tried various "What is this bird?" websites, but I couldn't figure it out. I asked Meade, and he said "A penguin."

IN THE COMMENTS: The most frequent suggestion is Eastern Kingbird, which was one of the options I saw, using bird identification websites, but I saw some differences. One reader, Bart, sent a picture of an Eastern Kingbird, the head of which I will juxtapose to my bird. I think the head shape is different (or maybe Bart's bird is ruffling its feathers and mine is a cooler character):

ADDED: With my photo cut off at the chest, Meade's "penguin" ID becomes entrancingly apt!

"New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay's comments on MSNBC have been irresponsibly taken out of context."

"Her argument was that Trump and many of his supporters have politicized the American flag. The attacks on her today are ill-informed and grounded in bad-faith."

Tweets NYTimes Communications/@NYTimesPR.

That's about the controversy we were talking about yesterday, here. I said: "I think this is an honest revelation: American flags really do disturb Mara Gay." And: "This is a pretty standard aversion to the flag. It made me think of Katha Pollitt's famous reaction to flag displays after the 9/11 attacks...." 

The NYT tweet came out yesterday, so I guess what I wrote is within the category "attacks on her today" and my circumspect and considered remarks have been denounced as "ill-informed and grounded in bad-faith."

So I'm going to say that tweet is ill-informed and grounded in bad-faith! What a ridiculous blanket statement with no regard for the individuals who listened to Gay and made our own interpretations and expressed our opinions.

It's so hypocritical to obsessively protect her while attacking all her critics with broad-brush insults!

IN THE COMMENTS: You can see email, along with responses from me, on the subject of whether the American left has an aversion to displays of the American flag. I am reminded of this photograph of mine that I posted on the 4th of July in 2005:

At the time, I wrote: "In my family, this is known as my 'most right wing photo' and jokes have been made along the lines of: 'What if you put that on your office door? What would people think? What would they say?'"

There were a lot of comments at the time, including one from a colleague who said: "I quite like the photo and resist the idea that the right owns the flag. " I was motivated to post what I called "my most left-wing flag photo, from the Kerry rally here in Madison last fall":