"I can tell you're a Louisiana boy," says Senator Kennedy to Theo Von.

KENNEDY: You can have an AI assistant, and give them almost unfettered authority to book you a plane ticket or rent you a car or remind you to have your oil changed or, you know, buy some Fig Newtons at the grocery store.

THEO: Yeah. They're pretty, they're not bad.

KENNEDY: I love Fig Newtons.

Why not eat 11 doughnuts?

This is so insane

“Crumbl Cookies is now selling a cookie with the amount of sugar you would get, not in 1, not in 5, BUT 11 of these Krispy Kreme donuts”

This one cookie has 69 ingredients including one that crosses the blood brain barrier

How is this legal?? pic.twitter.com/ygUcmxo6n2

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) April 8, 2026

This made me think about the old expression "That's the way the cookie crumbles." The OED traces that expression to 1955, when a Cincinnati Enquirer columnist, Ollie M. James, wrote: "Well, as we say in the publishing business, sometimes that is the way the cookie crumbles." It was perceived at the time as a cute variation on "That's the way the ball bounces." I remember the late '50s excitement over "cookie crumbles" and other variations on the old "ball bounces." But the only other variation I can remember is "That's the way the grapefruit squirts."

Here's Tom Waits, "That's the Way." He remembers:

"A day into the silence, I felt like taking a nap, and the urge intensified into thorough exhaustion. I took a walk outside..."

"... and gobbled a few cookies in hopes of a sugar boost, to no avail. I fell asleep before dinner and, after rallying for the evening meditation session, was out for the night by 8:30 p.m. The instructor said she often sees this reaction. Some people experience an adrenaline crash as their stressed minds and bodies adjust to the calm. But it also turns out that suddenly shutting off external stimuli and turning attention inward can demand a startling amount of energy."

Writes Dana Milbank, in "I went into phone-free silence. Something disturbing happened. Suddenly shutting off external signals and focusing inward can demand a startling amount of energy" (WaPo)(free link).

I was surprised to see the cookies, especially the gobbling thereof. Even if cookies are available at a silent retreat, I would think slow, mindful nibbling would be seen as necessary. I mean, gobbling, it suggests obnoxious sounds coming from the mouth, and it is the word we use for the alarming awful sound made by turkeys. 

"Pamela Anderson and Liam Neeson had fans eating up their flirty press tour, but behind the scenes, it was all a PR 'bake-off'...."

TMZ reports, based on "sources with direct knowledge."

I had some trouble understanding the expression "bake-off," since there was no competition, only collusion, pretending to have found love together. But...

A big slice of the stunt involved Pamela claiming she was baking muffins and sourdough bread for Liam -- something he even played along with in interviews leading up to the premiere. It makes us now assume that was also part of the strategy ... pure role-play PR, not reality.

So some literal baking was involved, but there was no literal or figurative bake-off.

Actors promoting a movie are still acting. Why not act as if they'd fallen in love? 

If you go searching into the term "bake-off," you'll probably quickly arrive at something called the "First Lady Bake-Off." That's something that began in 1992, and it was an unwholesome alliance between the press — Family Circle Magazine — and the Clinton campaign. Wikipedia explains:

If you want to get up to speed on the official Nutter Butter page on TikTok...

... you can click on videos at the cookie's account — here — or you can read the NYT article "Nutter Butter, Are You Good? An Investigation. The cookie sandwich brand’s videos — funny, disturbing, fever-dreamlike — rack up tens of millions of views. The secret is lots of lore without much sense, the campaign’s strategists explain."

The NYT interviews the ad artists:

"Kamala Harris and Tim Walz were both born in 1964, the very last year of the Baby Boom."

"Yet many in that cohort feel no identification with baby boomers. But neither are they Gen Xers. They are people in-between. Perhaps in 2024, this status now enables public figures to be 'in between' in new ways, to wear their gender more lightly."

Those are the last few sentences of "Paying More Attention to His Appearance Than Hers/They’re the same age, but pundits and voters can’t stop talking about how much older Tim Walz looks than Kamala Harris. It’s not the only way her running mate seems to be absorbing some of the scrutiny usually heaped on female candidates" by Rhonda Garelick in the NYT.

That's from August 12th. I was looking for something else when I ran into that, and I got engrossed.

The idea of wearing one's gender lightly intrigues me.

What was I actually looking for? I was thinking about the time President Bill Clinton, running for reelection, wanted to use federal spending to incentivize public schools to require their students to wear uniforms.

My search terms — Clinton, school, and uniform — all came up in that Harris/Walz article:

... Hillary Clinton... came to prominence as first lady, as a “wife,” and was assailed for her hair and style, her presumed disrespect for “cookie baking” and for tolerating her husband’s transgressions.

... Elizabeth Warren, a former Harvard law professor, was called “a hectoring schoolmarm” for offering expert policy explanations, and advised to change her glasses and hair.

... Ms. Harris hews generally toward a sleek uniform of pantsuit, silk blouse, pearls and heels, which “suggest fashion without being too fashionable”...

Fear not, Andrew Sullivan. This must be satire, because some students have allergies, some are vegetarian, some have religious restrictions, etc.

I'm afraid this isn't fake. But it's the most honest explanation of "equity" I've yet heard. Redistribution pudding followed by a topping of racial revenge. https://t.co/ElhxYQ08py

— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) February 15, 2023

No teacher concerned with "equity" would just risk allergic reactions, feeding pork to Muslims and Jews, and meat to vegans.

ADDED: The Sullivan tweet has disappeared, so let me embed the video he was commenting on, because it is an amusing satire and Sullivan's mistake is interesting evidence of the blurring of real life and satire:

I started a COMMUNIST style lunch distribution in my 4th GRADE CLASS! It’s going great! #Communism #capitalismsucks pic.twitter.com/nQIyRw29Ch

— Kali Fontanilla (@KaliFontanilla) February 15, 2023

"Trust me, my grandparents, all four of them Italian, never ate avocados, let alone smashed them on toast for breakfast."

"You guys are falling into the romantic Italy trap—breakfast here typically consists of a few cookies dipped in caffè latte, or a brioche or cornetto at the local bar on the way to work. Here in Central Italy, people are seriously into pork and pork products. And no self-respecting Greek would eat low-fat yogurt. The overall message is good, but those details make me smile."

Writes Anthony Paonita of Perugia, commenting on the NYT article "The Mediterranean Diet Really Is That Good for You. Here’s Why. It has become the bedrock of virtuous eating. Experts answer common questions about how it leads to better health."

"If you’re allowing people to bake cookies and muffins and breads, why should they not be allowed to make cocoa bombs?"

"The first case said that the government can’t ban the sales of perfectly safe homemade baked goods. And so, since we already had that victory regarding baked goods, it definitely made things easier the second time around.... People shouldn’t need to buy or rent a commercial kitchen in order to sell fudge or candies...."

Said Justin Pearson of the Institute for Justice, which brought the 2 cases discussed in "Wisconsin residents can sell more than baked goods from home, judge rules" (Wisconsin State Journal).

Pearson asserted "the 49 other states... have better cottage food laws than Wisconsin."

I'd never noticed the expression "cottage food," though of course I know "cottage industry." "Cottage" makes the particular home sound unusually cozy and quaint. If you look back into the history of the word "cottage," you'll see that that originally it meant a small home for a poor laborer. The oldest use of "cottage industry," according to the OED, came from was in the Freeman's Journal (Dublin) in 1849: "Do you wish to make your labourers comfortable? Teach their children the use of the loom, and every kind of cottage industry."

 

That's "Children On A Path Outside A Thatched Cottage, West Horsley, Surrey" (late 1800s) by Helen Allingham. I found that at the Wikipedia article "Cottagecore." Did you know that some kids today romanticize the cottage and the styles and activities they imagine in and around it?

Which half of your employees would you keep? How would you weigh the sleeps-in-the-office factor? Not catnapping, but sleeping overnight on the floor?

 

Link. 

Esther Crawford's Twitter profile says: "early stage products @twitter. previously ceo @squad (acq'd by @twitter in 2020 which was acq’d by @elonmusk in 2022). raising 3 humans w/ @bobcowherd." 

Background: "Elon Musk to Lay Off About 3,700 Twitter Employees on Friday: Report" (Gizmodo):

Ah! It worked out to an even 10 this time. Enjoy my selection of TikToks, and let me know what you like best.

1. She's decided she's going to start gaslighting you.

2. Her problems are not relatable.

3. The Greeter.

4. After that short trip to France.

5. Boy instructs his daddy about the meting out of sweets.

6. The little girl will tell you clearly what she likes.

7. If you ask a 5-year-old boy what he thinks of your dress, you deserve the brutal truth.

8. The Cookie Incident.

9. The Greatest Love.

10. The Donkey Song.

"Is OREO in today’s #NYTXW?"

That's a Twitter account: Is OREO in today’s #NYTXW?

But: spoiler alert if you have done today's puzzle (and you care).

I got there from Rex Parker's write-up of today's puzzle.

I've picked out 6 TikTok selections for you this evening. Let me know what you like best.

1. Speed dating.

2. He feels like he's the yellow moon emoji.

3. A list of "cool things you can say."

4. Hey, what are you eating?

5. Watch this one if you want to be persuaded to do 60 squats a day.

6. Watch this one if you care about Harry Nilsson.

Feminist book cover from 1975.

This amused me:

Wikipedia tells us: 

The Female Man... was originally written in 1970 and first published in 1975 by Bantam Books. [Joanna] Russ was an avid feminist.... The novel follows the lives of four women living in parallel worlds that differ in time and place. When they cross over to each other's worlds, their different views on gender roles startle each other's preexisting notions of womanhood. In the end...

Spoiler alert!

... their encounters influence them to evaluate their lives and shape their ideas of what it means to be a woman. The character Joanna calls herself the “female man” because she believes that she must forget her identity as a woman in order to be respected (p. 5). She states that “there is one and only one way to possess that in which we are defective … Become it” (p. 139). Her metaphorical transformation refers to her decision to seek equality by rejecting women's dependence on men.

Metaphorical transformation. But the book cover seems to depict the physical peeling away of the female form. The browser is enticed to imagine something surgical.

Now, why was I reading that? I became interested in the word "munch" because I encountered an author who kept using the word "munch" as a replacement for "eat." I wondered if I had ever even once — in the entire 18-year history of this blog — used the word "munch." 

A search of my archive turned up 7 posts — 5 of which have "munch" in the sense of  the artist Edvard "The Scream" Munch. 

One is a stray reference to the Girl Scout cookie Thank U Berry Munch. (I'm imagining an Obama inner monologue, there's a reference to marijuana, and so there's a nudge to think about "the munchies.") 

The 7th post was part of my "Gatsby" project: "I know many of you don't like or don't get the 'Gatsby' project, in which we isolate and munch on a single, possibly turgid, sentence from 'The Great Gatsby,' more or less every day around here on the Althouse blog."

Why "munch" there? There's no actual eating. It's an eating metaphor, really a chewing metaphor. Indeed, the dictionary definition of "munch" stresses the the chewing — the mouth action — and not anything further along in the digestive process: "To eat (food) with a continuous and noticeable chewing action; to eat eagerly and audibly, or with evident enjoyment; to make a snack of." 

That's from the OED — where I go to get my definitions, mainly because I love the lists of historical examples and where I found one that ended with the title that got me to that book cover:

a1425 (▸c1385) G. Chaucer Troilus & Criseyde (1987) i. 914 Some wold monche [v.rr. muchche, mucche, muche, meche] her brede alon, lying in bed and make hem for to grone....

1600 W. Shakespeare Midsummer Night's Dream iv. i. 31 I could mounch your good dry Oates.

1905 Baroness Orczy Scarlet Pimpernel xviii. 172 She partook of this frugal breakfast with hearty appetite. Thoughts crowded thick and fast in her mind as she munched her grapes.

1975 J. Russ Female Man 175 Munched chips, crackers, saltsticks, what-not.

"'Peanut butter Oreos are the best,' said Jim Webster, Rat Trap Distribution’s director of operations, while installing the contraption outside of Casa La Femme."

"The scent of the cookies, crumbled and placed in the top compartment of the two-part trap, along with sunflower seeds, acts as a lure. For a week or so, rodents will be free to crawl through the device’s holes and snack as much as they want. Once the rats become regulars and 'get comfortable,' Mr. Webster said, the device will be turned on, and a platform will drop them into the lower part of the contraption, which serves as a catch basin not unlike a dunking tank at a carnival booth. Mr. Webster emptied four jugs of a mysterious blue 'proprietary' formula into the bottom part of the machine. He said the formula was mostly alcohol and had vapors that 'knock the rat unconscious.' He topped the solution off with sunflower oil to 'eliminate odor' from decomposition."

From "Could Oreo Cookies Solve New York’s Rat Problem?/They are being used in new high-tech rat traps, which have been spotted around the city" (NYT).

I'm blogging this because I think it's absurd that the city and the NYT imagine this is some brilliant new "high-tech" machine. We're told that Mayor-elect Eric Adams has declared the traps "amazing."

There's nothing new about the idea of drowning small animals.... whatever the "proprietary' formula" might be.  And you've got rats running in and out of the thing for "a week or so" before you do anything but feed them. Maybe the NYT is laughing at Webster, but this is about tormenting living creatures, so think about how you'd feel suddenly — at your favorite restaurant — dumped into some "proprietary" liquid.

Credit to the NYT for getting me to click by using the word "Oreo." I became irascibly skeptical when I saw that the drowning machines didn't use Oreos at all but peanut butter Oreos.

The comments over there are all about feral cats! There's your better rattrap, they're all saying.

Why do supporters of Kamala Harris portray her as faceless?!

There's some discussion this week of a ridiculous cookie Harris's people handed out:

Some people are referring to that as a cookie "with her face on" it, but it's quite distinctly a cookie depicting her with no face.

Last October, I showed you this really bad sign, which we'd seen in our neighborhood:

Why would you show a politician you support as having no face? One horrible answer would be: Oh, but it does show her face. It shows the facial trait that matters: The color of the skin of her face.

In action, Kamala Harris uses her face. She's not a blank face. She's a smiling face. Like Obama, she deploys a big smile and laughs as much as possible. Like Hillary Clinton, she seems to laugh too much and not because she's genuinely delighted. 

Perhaps her supporters default to a blank face because efforts to replicate the smile in a drawing or in cookie icing don't work. And how could they? To look like her, the smile would need to look off. So you just can't do it right.

Another idea is that people are uneasy about any sort of a caricature of a black person. Anything you do might be criticized as racist. Facelessness is the graphic design equivalent of if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all... in a world where the standards of what counts as "nice" are so high and so confusing that you feel anything you say may be used against you. So let me revise: The choice of facelessness is the graphic design equivalent of taking the 5th.

IN THE EMAIL: Omaha 1 writes: "I know it's awful but someone on FB said it looks like she has a turkey on her face. I can't un-see it now! You can see the drumsticks sticking out on both sides." That's got to be a reference to "Friends":

AND: Tubal writes: "The shadow of the metal stakes makes Biden and, more so Harris, resemble Mr. and Mrs. Thompson from South Park": 

"I thought it was delicious. Is that because I love McDonald’s too deeply? Or is something wrong with my taste?"

Wrote someone identified as Feifei Mao Enthusiast on the Sina Weibo microblog service, quoted in "In China, McDonald’s serving Spam burger topped with Oreo crumbs...." 

In the Chicago Tribune, which observes, "Global brands from restaurants to automakers sometimes roll out offbeat products to appeal to Chinese tastes in the populous and intensely competitive market."

How deep is your love for McDonalds?

That's just Spam, mayonnaise, and crumbled Oreos, on a hamburger bun, so it would be easy to make that at home. No need to go to China!

"That’s the way the cookie crumbles and that’s the way the ball bounces are... the two commonest of a score of variant [catchphrases] for That’s fate–that’s the way things go..."

According to Eric Partridge's "Dictionary of Catch Phrases":

that’s the way (or that’s how) the cookie crumbles ... It has been a frequent c.p. in the US since the 1950s and in UK since the middle 1960s... in 1975, Prof. Emeritus F.E.L. Priestley spoke of ‘the now happily obsolete “that’s the way the cookie crumbles”’ and referred to ‘the lovely take-off line in the movie The Apartment [1960] when Jack Lemmon says, “That’s the way it crumbles cookiewise” ’–when he is also deriding ‘the horrible “-wise” jargon of about ten years ago’ (F.E.L.P.).  

Continuing with the catchphrase dictionary:

In The Zoo Story, prod. in Berlin 1959, in New York 1960, and pub’d in 1960, Edward Albee employs the more usual form thus:

"Polls show Mr. Biden leading by five to 13 points, but I grew up around here and am dubious. This place — the land of hoagies and Bradley Cooper and Rocky Balboa worship..."

"... and Tina Fey’s 'Cousin Karen' accent — has transmogrified into Trumplandia. 'He has so much more support than in 2016, because it’s been four years of accomplishments,' said Darinna Thompson, 49, a homemaker who was talking with a group of women outside the Trump Store. They were part of a caravan that had just encircled the Democrats’ rally 'to say bye-bye to Biden' and let his supporters know they were outnumbered.... Pollsters say that suburban women are President Trump’s kryptonite, that they’ve turned on him.... 'I feel like that’s wrong — we’re the majority,' said Jennifer Girard, 41, a single mother working in consumer goods.... My mom says many of her girlfriends will go for Mr. Trump, and she hasn’t been able to match with any man on Bumble who isn’t a Trump voter.... The front yards of the houses flanking my mom’s, the one across the street and three more on the block feature Trump signs. There is one Biden sign on the street. One of my mom’s acquaintances recently held a Trump-themed birthday party for her child. Icing on each cookie read, 'Make ninth birthdays great again.'... Lochel’s bakery in Hatboro has become an overnight Oracle of (Phila) Delphi, selling red 'Trump 2020” and blue 'Biden 2020' sugar cookies. Whichever cookie sells the most will predict how this area, and thus the state, and therefore the election, will turn. Supposedly.... So far, the count stands at 3,367 blue cookies, 18,241 red. 'I do think that Trump supporters are more competitive,' said Dan Rutledge, standing in line outside of the bakery in the spitting rain on Sunday."

From "Can We Trust Pennsylvania’s Polls?/They show Joe Biden clinching crucial counties. So why does it feel so different on the ground here?" by Shawn McCreesh (NYT).

ADDED: At FiveThirtyEight: "Is Joe Biden Toast If He Loses Pennsylvania?" Answer to the question: "No, not quite. It is close to being a must-win for Trump, who has only a 2 percent chance of winning the Electoral College if he loses Pennsylvania. Biden, however, has a bit more margin for error. He’d have a 30 percent chance if he lost Pennsylvania.... The reason losing Pennsylvania wouldn’t necessarily doom Biden is because he could still hold those other Midwestern/Rust Belt states. Pennsylvania is fairly similar to Michigan and Wisconsin, but not that similar."

Talking back to fortune cookies.

Fortune Cookie #1: "Suffering is caused by attachment to impermanent things."

Althouse response: "So is pleasure."

Fortune Cookie #2: "Kind words cost nothing."

Althouse response: "Kind words are worth nothing."

General comment: The fortune cookies did not contain fortunes.

Fortune Cookie #1: "Suffering is caused by attachment to impermanent things."

Translation into a fortune: "You will attach yourself to impermanent things and suffer for it."

Fortune Cookie #2: "Kind words cost nothing."

Translation into a fortune: "Without expending a single dollar, you will achieve your goals through flattery."