"Is this an example of a type of journalism where you confront someone with a rumor and get a denial which is then the printable story, that X denied the rumor?"

I ask Grok, after getting it to summarize a Daily Beast article titled "White House Insists Stephen Miller Does Not Play With Dolls" (which I won't link to because it's behind a pay wall and even if it weren't, I don't think you should go there).

Grok: "Yes, this article is an example of a journalistic practice sometimes referred to as 'rumor-based reporting' or 'denial-driven journalism.'..."

Another prompt: "What are some examples of famous people who have been defined by rumors — the rumors stick as meaning something even when they are not proved or even regarded as likely?"

I expected Richard Gere and I got him... along with Walt Disney's frozen head.

There's no better interior decoration than Amy Sedaris interior decoration.

"Because women are doing it and women are the principal actors in this, it’s been stigmatized differently.... just another way to regulate women’s lives."

Said Camila Infanger, a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of São Paulo, quoted in "Extremely Lifelike Dolls Cause a Frenzy in Brazil/To some, the dolls, known as reborn dolls, provide comfort, escape or just plain fun. But politicians across Brazil have tried to pass bills banning the dolls from public spaces" (NYT).

What's the "frenzy" supposedly in need of a legislative solution?

We were talking about Trump not being "polished or smooth" and about a place called "Creatable World."

The first post of the day, here, quoted a NYT writer who said: Trump "wasn’t polished or smooth. His appearance was shoddy, strange, lacking all polish." Trump has tarted up the Oval Office with gold, but he's still rough, lumbering, and orange.

And here's the post this morning about Mattel's line of "gender-neutral" dolls called "Creatable World." But somehow the kids did not flow into the world that Big Toy had envisioned for them.

So this NBC headline caught my eye: "Obama world loses its shine in a changing, hurting Democratic Party."

You see the resonance.

There was once a place called "Obama World" and it was shiny.

Don't let it be forgot that once there was a spot/For one brief shining moment that was known as... Obama World!

A brief shiny glimpse at the NBC News article:

Speaking of dolls, whatever happened to "Creatable World" dolls?

Dolls came up in the previous post when a NYT author located Trump's "level of aesthetic consideration" to that which a child gives "her doll’s face before covering it in nail polish."

That took me down the rathole that is the "dolls" tag in my archive, and I was surprised to encounter this 2019 post: "That’s why I applaud Mattel’s Creatable World, a new collection of gender-neutral dolls, which allow kids to customize their Barbie and Ken in ways they never could before."

That's not me applauding Creatable World. I was quoting something. I can't think of a time when I applauded a toy, and, though I like the idea of children creating little imaginary worlds with their toys, I'm wary of Big Toy's packaging of a particular world to capture the creative energy of the child. Was Creatable World — i.e., gender-neutral world — offered as the antidote to the excessive genderizing of Barbie?

But what happened to Creatable World? I don't think Mattel ever announced that it was withdrawing the product. How much of a fiasco was it?

Did kids just not like it? Did the adults who liked that sort of thing simply fail to have children?

Who even remembers Creatable World? It surprised me to run across it this morning. Is it in the junkpile of things people like to forget ever happened? Have we created a world in which Creatable World never existed?

"Lately the American president has been spending quite a bit of time redecorating the Oval Office. The results can only be called a gilded rococo hellscape."

I'm reading "All Hail Our Rococo President!" —  "an installment of Visual Studies, a series that explores how images move through and shape culture" — by Emily Keegin, in The New York Times. That's a free-access link.

There is a parade of golden objects that march across the mantel, relegating the traditional Swedish ivy to a greenhouse. Gilded Rococo wall appliqués, nearly identical to the ones at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, are stuck to the fireplace and office walls with the same level of aesthetic consideration a child gives her doll’s face before covering it in nail polish....

Lots of photos, analysis, and historical background, so go to the free link. I'll just quote one more thing:

Right before the 2016 election, Fran Lebowitz called Mr. Trump “a poor person’s idea of a rich person.” On the campaign trail, he didn’t look or sound like the rest of the new American billionaires. He wasn’t polished or smooth. His appearance was shoddy, strange, lacking all polish. And all that gold in his house? Well, yes, it looked fake. It was Rococo. He was a normal guy self-consciously performing wealth, something Americans had been doing for the previous 20 years. Not to mention the past 240....

Would America be less of a hellscape if it were polished and smooth? 

Odd that we got that metaphor out of nowhere — the little girl covering her doll's face in nail polish — and then the word "polish" became the essence of the way educated, intelligent people "perform wealth": "He wasn’t polished or smooth." And then the author doubled down about polish: "His appearance was shoddy, strange, lacking all polish."

What are these annoying insects that were swarming like mad by Lake Mendota at sunrise today?

Answer: Midges!

These things are annoying. They're messing up photographs and you might get one in your eye, mouth, or nose, but they don't bite, and they don't last long. It's just crazy time for midges.

"Midge" is a word that goes back to early Old English, where it was spelled "mygg." It just meant this tiny insect. By the 1700s, it was sometimes used, chiefly in Scotland, to refer to "A small or insignificant person, esp. a small child."

So "midge" already meant something small, yet the word "midget" came into being by adding the ending "-et" and that ending means small. I guess when something is small, something draws you toward repetition — often in the much more exaggerated style called "reduplication." You know what I mean? Teeny tiny, teeny weeny, itty bitty. I'm thinking it's because of the way we talk to babies: We're babbling and we're talking about the baby and the baby is small.

Midge is also a name. I think of Midge, the friend of Barbie, and Midge, the secondary female character in the movie "Vertigo."

Who wants to be a Midge?

No, you don't need 2 dolls. You don't need an extra doll — a homely one, with freckles — to be a friend to the beautiful doll you already have. You be Barbie's friend. No one wanted Midge. Obviously undesirable. She's just making me feel bad about my freckles.

We don't need no stinking midges!

IN THE COMMENTS: minnesota farm guy said, "I would be willing to bet that these are Mayflies. They are much too big to be midges which make fruit flies look big."

I'm saying midges because that's what Grok told me after I uploaded that photo. I enjoyed writing this post about midges — the insect, the word, the doll, the "Vertigo" character, so I don't want to be wrong. As some have noted, it's hard to judge the size of these insects from the photograph, of course, and I was there seeing them in "person." So here are 2 more photographs — one I took of them resting on my leg and the other Meade took of the ones in my hair:

"Until now, arguments for limiting consumption have tended to come from the left rather than the right."

"They date back at least to the economist Thorstein Veblen, who, at the start of the twentieth century, wrote acidly about the 'conspicuous consumption' engaged in by grandees of the Gilded Age. More recently, a 'degrowth' movement has emerged, which aims to decrease consumption and to de-prioritize G.D.P. growth on the grounds that they are harmful to the environment and that, in any case, accumulating more 'stuff' doesn’t really increase the well-being of people.This argument depends on two concepts familiar to economists: the diminishing marginal utility of consumption, which is, roughly speaking, the notion that if you already own nineteen dolls, buying a twentieth won’t give you much pleasure, and competitive consumption, or the idea that many people are trapped in an endless cycle of trying to outshine their friends and neighbors with their purchases.... 'Trump, degrowther,' the leftist journalist Doug Henwood commented online last week.... 'What he is doing is fairly unprecedented: explicitly saying that he is willing to pay an economic price in terms of growth in order to protect something else that he thinks is valuable and important,' Daniel Susskind, an economics professor at King’s College London who is the author of the 2024 book 'Growth: A History and a Reckoning' told me...."

Writes John Cassidy, in "Donald Trump Versus Barbie/Can the Administration retain public support for a trade policy that could force Americans to buy less stuff?" (The New Yorker).

Why don't the anti-consumption lefties embrace Trump? 

My first reaction to Trump's "Maybe the children will have 2 dolls instead of 30" was: "This reminds me of what those on the left used to say to us

Maybe you have enough toys.

I'm trying to read "Trump, on Tariffs, Says ‘Maybe the Children Will Have 2 Dolls Instead of 30’/At the end of a cabinet meeting, the president allowed for the possibility that trade war could disrupt supply chains" (NYT).

This reminds me of what those on the left used to say to us around the theme of global warming: We have too much stuff already. We should think small. Less plastic. Consume less. Lighten your carbon footprint. 

The NYT writer, Shawn McCreesh, is offended that ordinary people are asked to do with less by "the billionaire, crypto-salesman, golf-club-operating, Palm Beach-by-way-of-Fifth Avenue president with the golden office and the golden triplex apartment."

Reminds me of how righties would criticize the experts and celebrities for living in mansions and flying halfway around the world in private jets to hobnob at climate change conventions.

In the land of LBJ.

We drove out into the hill country to see the birthplace of President Lyndon Johnson:

 

"So a couple of years ago, when I was doing some late-summer decluttering of my daughter’s bedroom..."

"... and had to figure out what to do with the dolls she’d outgrown, the answer came to me like a disembodied whisper: 'October’s almost here. Place them out on the lawn.'... Doll decor can be as uncomplicated as dumping a pile of tattered and disfigured dolls on your lawn, because few things are weirder than an unexplained pile of dolls... I suggest letting your own twisted whims serve as your guide. This year, for example, I’ve toyed with sticking several dolls in my shrubbery, limbs akimbo...."

From "The Cheapest, Easiest, Freakiest Halloween Decor Is a Bunch of Old Dolls" (NY Magazine).

Your old trash + your twisted whims = Halloween.

"My husband and I are white. I bought our daughter several dolls of different races with skin colors..."

"... that reflect the diversity of our community. Her absolute favorite is a Black baby doll. She carries him everywhere. My partner feels uncomfortable with this when we are in public, though. He worries that her doll seems like appropriation or virtue signaling. Your thoughts?"

A question asked of the NYT "Social Q's" adviser, Philip Galanes.

The question got my attention because I had a black baby doll back when I was a little girl in the 1950s. But I didn't have it because my mother (or father) chose it for diversity purposes. I had it because I saw it in the store and enthusiastically requested it. I doubt if "diversity," "appropriation," or "virtue signaling" was anything my parents thought about back then, and it certainly had nothing to do with my request. I didn't even understand who this doll was supposed to represent. It was just something amazing because I'd never seen anything like that before. I've always appreciated that my parents never said anything like, "That's not for you" or "Don't you want a little doll who looks more like you?"

But about this girl whose mother chose the doll and composes the letter? She's displaying pride in her own choice and in her success conveying her message of diversity to the little girl, and she wants her husband to bolster her pride, not be embarrassed. But virtue signaling is embarrassing. Let the poor man be embarrassed. And, of course, let the little girl keep her doll. Too late now! You can't take it away. It's her "absolute favorite." 

"Who are these dolls for? Little girls, but really, their mothers, who took their dolls to the American Girl 'hospital' for repairs, who lovingly brushed their hair..."

"... who still read think pieces on the Samantha aesthetic, or Molly’s potential sexuality or what their choice of girlhood doll foretold for their adult personality. (This author, past owner of a Felicity, was indeed a Horse Girl who 'grew up to have an affinity for lovely things [and] a possibly inflated sense of your own uniqueness,' as [the article at that third link] predicted.) Her daughter is getting a little old for dolls, says [one mother]. But she might get Isabel and Nicki anyway. 'I think I’m going to buy them because I want them for myself,' she says. 'Having those dolls would kind of just give me a piece of my childhood back.'"

From a WaPo article about the new American Girl dolls —  Isabel and Nicki — that supposedly represent the historical era known as 1999.

Did you ever buy your child a toy that was really more about you reliving — or idealizing — your own childhood?

"When you operate, especially if the operation is dangerous, you live very intensely. You live entirely in the present..."

"... and the world outside the operating theatre simply disappears. You are never bored. You cannot afford to make any mistakes. And making a mistake with your hands – your instruments slipping, for instance, or your hands shaking – is incredibly rare.... Working on the doll’s house in my workshop is a very different experience. My mind wanders and I often struggle against boredom, especially if the work is very repetitive, such as making multiple bannisters for a miniature staircase. I often get things wrong and have to saw up a new piece of wood and, cursing myself furiously, start all over again – not a luxury you have when operating."

Writes Henry Marsh in "After a long career in brain surgery, I’m trying my hand at making doll’s houses/To my surprise I don’t miss neurosurgery now I’ve retired, but still find joy in making things for my grandchildren" (The Guardian).

"“From all sour faced saints, deliver me O’ Lord. I don’t want to be with a grouch, a crab, a crocodile in a moat...."

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More about the priest, Father Bill Holt, here. We're told "He’s famous for his 'Holt-isms' (little pieces of friendly priestly advice) and for sending thoughtful notes to encourage the brothers in their work."

Here are 6 TikToks for you. Some people love them.

1. Not at all lonely, singing about loneliness.

2. Paul McCartney, busking.

3. You don't have to sing in your "Happy Birthday" voice.

4. Every particle of feminism evaporated.

5. A coat of doll heads.

6. The notion that a "non-hottie" cannot write from the point of view of a beautiful woman.

Here are 10 TikToks to amuse you for a few precious moments. Some people love them.

1. Painting invisibility.

2. What the hell is the internet?

3. One by one, he's eliminating the least popular state and merging it with a neighboring state.

4. One by one, they're replacing family photos with photos of Danny DeVito until Mom notices.

5. The man deserves a medal for all the years he's patiently listened to his wife tell stories like this.

6. Chef Reactions judges the French grandfather's making of lunch.

7. "Have you ever wondered what items in your place just give men 'ick'?"

8. "We're going to go look at wedding dresses."

9. My favorite music-and-the-child video of all time.

10. Finally, the dolls.

Here are 9 TikToks, carefully curated for you. Some people love them.

1. Réttir — sorting out the sheep in Iceland.

2. The woonerf — a type of street.

3. The Finnish way to live through winter — on Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

4. If Arabic were English.

5. Choosing the boring life.

6. Overnight evolution.

7. White friend training.

8. Talking to the salad.

9. Hello, darkness, my old friend....

Here are 7 TikToks I've chosen to launch you into the long weekend. Let me know what you like best

 1. Alice in Wonderland and autism acceptance.

2. The crocheted pregnant doll.

3. Interior design for the solo woman.

4. Abbey (from "Love on the Spectrum") felt the allure of the SpaghettiOs can, but the actual SpaghettiOs are a different matter.

5. Now, what to wear to the beach?

6. Do celebrities like it when you impersonate them while standing right beside them?

7. Don't watch this one unless you have breasts and they are bothering you. Note: It's an ad! Some people love it. I'm seeing commenters who say it's the best ad they've ever seen.

"For there are mystically in our faces certain Characters that carry in them the motto of our Souls, wherein he that cannot read A.B.C. may read our natures."

Wrote the physician-philosopher Sir Thomas Browne in Religio Medici (1643), quoted in the Wikipedia article "Physiognomy." And in his Christian Morals (circa 1675):

Since the Brow speaks often true, since Eyes and Noses have Tongues, and the countenance proclaims the heart and inclinations; let observation so far instruct thee in Physiognomical lines ... we often observe that Men do most act those Creatures, whose constitution, parts, and complexion do most predominate in their mixtures. This is a corner-stone in Physiognomy ... there are therefore Provincial Faces, National Lips and Noses, which testify not only the Natures of those Countries, but of those which have them elsewhere.

For a modern example of physiognomy as a science, Wikipedia points to "Kim Jong-Un: The Face Tells All" (preserved in the Wayback Machine)("So as soon as Kim Jong-un's photo was revealed, South Korean physiognomists got right down to business analyzing every feature to gauge his personality and character").