"Chance, fate—these are abstract ideas that usually raise abstract questions. Do people have story-like fates..."

"... or are they just subject to concatenations of occurrences? Do things happen 'for a reason,' or do we just make up stories after the fact to tie events together? Broadly speaking, there’s an ancient antagonism between the notion that life must make sense and the observation that it often doesn’t.... And yet, at times when fate is actually 'happening,' such questions recede. Instead, what stands out are the physical particulars of the here and now. In the hospital, after the accident, you know your life is changing; you sense your proximity to what the novelist Karl Ove Knausgaard calls 'the deep, slow-shifting layers of reality where fate is at work.' Somehow this abstract understanding exists alongside, or by means of, the objects in the waiting room—a paper cup from the water cooler, or a copy of People magazine."

Writes Joshua Rothman, in "Should You Believe in Fate? We’d be happier, perhaps, if we found meaning not through abstractions but through the physical things around us" (The New Yorker).

The hotness.

Magazine array at my hairdresser's.

I was struck by People's limited vocabulary. Is "hot" all they can come up with anymore? Does does word connote sexiness anymore? Or just popularity. Also, that Wisconsin bride is so glum. Aren't brides suppose to glow with happiness? I don't think a bride's magazine would ever do a cover story on forced marriage or even grim golddigging. Too bad she didn't find that "hottest billionaire." And, in case you are curious, I did not arrange the magazines to emblazon "Charles Manson Was My Grandfather" across her chest.

"Trump Makes Risqué Joke About Antonin Scalia's Widow Having 9 Kids During Medal of Freedom Ceremony."

That's how People puts it, because why not take what shots you can at Trump, even if unsettles the good feelings of honoring a deceased hero?

"I always knew I liked him" - Trump commends the late Antonin Scalia for his prowess in bed. DECORUM! pic.twitter.com/Dbq25Nrnyt

— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) November 16, 2018

Why not take shots?

1. How else are people going to notice how much sex there is in the remarks "You were very busy, wow. Wow" and "I always knew I liked him" (spoken to a woman who gave birth to 9 children)?

2. It's Scalia. Like Trump, he's someone you're supposed to take shots at whenever you can.

3. Because calls for civility, like Silberman's "DECORUM!" are always bullshit. Silberman's not going for DECORUM! himself as he yells DECORUM! at Trump.

By the way, who is Steve Silberman? I clicked through to his Twitter page and saw that he's the author of "NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity." That made me wonder what NeuroTribe Trump belongs to.

Here's the NYT review of "NeuroTribes." It seems to be only about autism, not some notion that there's a neurotribe for each of us. Too bad!

Liberal websites absorb/process the Al Franken news, part 3: Good.

The news about Al Franken has not yet arrived for processing at Good (which really is one of my bookmarks). The front page looks like this right now:



(Click to enlarge.)

Good is... oh, what the hell is Good Magazine? I've forgotten. Here's a 2007 NPR piece "Magazine Makes 'Good'" ("So it's actually pretty nervy for a group of 20-somethings with a vision to create a magazine about social, political and environmental issues to name their magazine Good.")

Could you bring yourself to click on "9 Other Men And Assorted Objects Who Would Make A Better ‘Sexiest Man Alive’ Than Blake Shelton"? There must be somebody who's ripe for that style of humor, but it's not me, yet I clicked there so you wouldn't have to. Here's an example of the comedy you can hope to get from "good" men:

5. Your coworker, probably a guy named Brett or something



Brett is deputy VP of sales at the company where you work. He's a little dismissive and kind of a mansplainer, but he's reasonably cute and also would never yell at an airport shuttle bus driver for not being able to speak a “FUCKING word of English.” (Shelton, at a minimum, really, really wanted to do this once.)

Am I the last person in the world to read Good? I do realize that — despite reading the news continually — I am out of the loop on a lot of things. For example, I haven't a clue who Blake Shelton is, other than that he's someone who agreed to submit to People's sexiest man posing session. Good thing People didn't ask Al Franken.

And just so I don't have to do a separate post on how People is absorbing/processing Al Franken, here's a quick glimpse of all they've got:



(Click to enlarge and see how elegantly "Donald Trump’s Sexual Assault Accusers Demand Justice" offsets "Al Franken Accuser Leeann Tweeden Does Not Want Him Driven From Office." Listen to the women: Kick out Donald Trump and leave Al Franken alone.)

"Now [Hillary Clinton] can add 'fashion muse' and 'footwear model' to the list [of important titles], thanks to Katy Perry, who designed a pair of pumps in her honor, dubbing them The Hillary."

"And when Clinton got her hands on a pair of the baby pink pumps, she was more than happy to show them off to their best effect for Perry’s Instagram."

Effuses People Magazine's "Style" section.

Speaking of style, what atrocious writing style! When I hear "got her hands on a pair of baby pink pumps," I'm the kind of person who immediately wants to say: and got her feet on a pair of adult blue gloves. And when I hear "more than happy," I go looking for the George Carlin clip:



ADDED: I got to that link via Drudge, who follows it with what I think is a non-accidental line-up of links:



Thanks to Fernandinande (commenting in the café post below) for prompting me to acknowledge Drudge and to perceive intentional drudgtaposition. Notice how the word "pump" appears twice. Well, what do you think? Intentional comic juxtaposition? Here's another way to frame the screenshot. What do you think of this?



You've got the 2 images of something normally unseen. We peer in utero at unborn babies. (What are they doing?) And we gawk endlessly at a belly a man had dressed to cover. Bracketing these 2 images of human beings who did not choose self-exposure are 2 women who dearly want and demand our attention, who pose with forthright willingness for the camera: 1. Hillary Clinton, positioning herself like a cute-girl marionette, displays pop-star-branded candy-colored shoes, and 2. Ayn Rand stares at us in utterly serious black and white, imposing her imperious will that says we must see her as both distinctly beautiful and absolutely devoid of girlishness.

"I swear to you, I think she's totally beautiful and great," says Trump about the Hispanic lady who screams "I love you!"

It's important to establish that Hispanic people love him, but what Trump really wants to talk about is his nose. People Magazine totally screwed around with his nose.

"I said to her – and she completely agreed – 'Can we love each other without that?'"

"If you can love somebody without that, then you can really love somebody."

Said Russell Wilson, the Seattle Seahawks quarterback, in an interview with the pastor of Rock Church, referring to his relationship with Ciara.

The link goes to People, which reads that quote as  "news that the couple is abstaining from sex for religious reasons." But the quote does not say that. Let's talk about what the words mean, and let's assume that Wilson: 1. doesn't lie, and 2. chooses his words accurately.

First, Wilson is telling us about a conversation in which he posed the question whether it's possible to love without having sex. The woman agreed with the proposition embedded in his question: Yes, it is. There's a second level to the proposition: Refraining from having sex is a test of love. If you have the capacity to love without having sex, then your capacity for love is truly great. At the time of the conversation, the couple expressed a shared belief in this proposition.

That's lovely and quite appropriate for an interview in a church, but if privacy-invading probing questions were in order, I'd ask: After agreeing about the possibility of love without sex, did there come a time when you, in fact, had sex? I'm only pointing out the gap between the quote and the People paraphrase. Wilson didn't state that the couple is — People's word — "abstaining."

Second, Wilson didn't state that the couple is abstaining — as People put it — for religious reasons. One might seek a sex-free relationship with a person of the opposite sex for reasons other than religion. Maybe that's the only reason People can think of or maybe People is influenced by the church setting or maybe People is pandering to the tastes of its readers, but religion is not a necessary foundation for Wilson's statement. It could be philosophy (as in Plato's "Symposium"). And it could be sexual preference. I would not infer from a woman's beauty that a particular man feels sexual desire for her.

They're a beautiful couple, and I wish them happiness. My motivation here is to reveal the soppiness and the sloppiness of People Magazine.

"Nobody in el mundo will believe that I am not still and forever the most beautiful person who ever straddled the floor..."

"... so I have to help out the people at People by looking less beautiful all the time, and then also when they pick me again in two years people will be like, 'Ay, yes, and she has put those weird fangs away!' And second, lovers, I won American Idol week. Mariah who? Nicki Minwhat? ME. So do not feel sad for me, lovers, and do not feel sad for the person on my team who got fired for this or for the people at People who I tried to get fired before I understood that this was my destiny."

The Sexiest Man Alive.

According to People Magazine. I agree about the top choice — even though he'd be even better if he shaved.

Also, Adam Lambert gets an honorable mention, which is pretty ridiculous.