Having a hundred thousand beers in Milwaukee.

one of the best moments in wisconsin sports history pic.twitter.com/C70YmB5dCZ

— Nick Whalen (@wha1en) October 30, 2026

This interview alone cements Jake Bauers and Sal Frelick as Milwaukee Legends 🚬🍻🍾#ThisIsMyCrew #WonOurWay pic.twitter.com/FCHFddXcWz

— Connor (@DTownCnnrBrown) October 31, 2026

Things got weird. https://t.co/e2SmSOvtIW

— John Egan (@BrewersRaptor) October 30, 2026

No one should drink what they don't want to drink. It's not funny to watch someone — even a billionaire — enduring pressure to consume alcohol.

I’m not a huge fan of Guinness (basically liquified pumpernickel), so i get it. But I’d like to think one of the best parts of being worth a quarter trillion dollars is not having to drink stuff you don’t like to be accepted by the bros.

— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) October 13, 2026

What was this coercive setup? It's this, the "Cheeky Pint" podcast:

The host of the podcast, John Collison, is Irish, and he seems to have arranged for his guests to join him in what the audience may enjoy believing is the Irishman's natural environment. 

In real life, does Zuckerberg drink at all? He seems like more of a health-focused guy. Look at this, fast year, on Theo Von's podcast:

"Man, that Fanta tastes fantastic."

Don't think it gets better than #Brewers rookie Cooper Pratt celebrating with soda.

"They didn't have sparkling cider, so I got some Fanta... tastes special after that one, frick!"@lanceallan | @CBS58 pic.twitter.com/Nnw8UWTkq0

— Cameron Ezeir (@camezeir) October 8, 2026

That non-drinking is not because he's underage. He's young but not that young. 22. 

Pratt says he couldn't find "sparkling cider" — that's the classic Mormon substitute for champagne. 

A view from the Sober Monitor.

@stasiakatherine intimidation goes further than you can imagine #cornell #alumni #greeklife ♬ original sound - stasiakatherine

"Headlines like 'Are Shirt Buttons Sexist?' are why the New York Times has lost credibility with the broad center of American politics."

"To we [sic] moderates, it sounds like something that would be mocked on the satirical website, 'The Babylon Bee.'"

That's the 3rd-highest-rated comment at the NYT article "Are Shirt Buttons Sexist?/A reader questions the point of having men’s and women’s shirt buttons on different sides." 

The highest-rated comment is "Sometimes I really do wonder what life is like for people who are constantly scanning the world in search of something to gripe about."

I didn't pick that for the post title because it's too gripe-y — it gripes about griping — and I don't think the article is griping. It's puzzling over a quirk of clothing construction.

The author of the article, Vanessa Friedman, is addressing a question from a reader. She goes through the various theories of how this right/left difference might have happened — one is most common and perhaps you're sure it is the explanation — and observes that none of those reasons apply today. Tradition has its hold. We could change but we don't.

Only the headline writer uses the word "sexist" — and only to ask a question.

But the commenters — NYT commenters! — come for Friedman. They don't say what an amusing light-hearted jaunt through history, thanks for the fun. She's not perceived as having fun at all. She's seen as a grim, angry feminist. Things are changing.

Writing that made me think of this video clip I saw yesterday:

"The View" host Sunny Hostin stands up for accused Cornell gang rape defendants.

🎥: ABC pic.twitter.com/4wo46PXsQU

— TMZ (@TMZ) September 29, 2026

"That humans have long been aware of the corrosive danger from kowtowing, toadying, sucking up, piling it on thick, apple-polishing and otherwise bootlicking..."

"... is shown by the extensive array of synonyms and expressions for sycophancy. Despite humanity’s historic distaste for the phenomenon, autocratic rulers and the vainglorious who aspire to such power remain addicted to it. Donald Trump, with his Cabinet meetings turned into spectacles of public groveling, is just the latest example, if an especially flagrant one. The more cocooned in sycophancy Trump is, it seems, the more vindictive he is toward those not inclined toward Uriah Heepishness, witness the president’s recent effort to bar from the White House those news organizations whose coverage he finds intolerable. Trump can’t resist a temptation known since the fall of man...."

Write Matthew Gwyther — producer of the BBC documentary, "Sucking Up: A Guide to Sycophancy Through the Ages" — in "From the Garden of Eden to the president's Cabinet meetings, apple-polishing has a sorry history" (WaPo).

Yes, I know this is one more example of kicking Trump around over an oft-noted character flaw, but the essay is well-written, it refers not only to Dickens but also to Milton, Shakespeare, and Machiavelli, and I'm interested in this theory that the numerosity of synonyms signifies the importance of the concept.

In that light, here's an excerpt from Geoffrey K. Pullum's 1991 book "The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax":

The driver may be drunk, but it's the cop whose speech is slurred.

Oregon court throws out the charges:

"Global spritz mania means that tourists demand the drinks even in formerly spritzless regions like Sicily..."

"... which is a bit like expecting a Creole restaurant in the French Quarter to make you a Rochester garbage plate. In Venice, where the spritz was invented and long seen as a working-class drink, it has been repositioned as a glamorous society accouterment. This historical revisionism irks some locals. 'It was drunk by gondoliers and prostitutes,' said Marco Salvadori, a Venice native who made drinks at Harry’s Bar for years. Mr. Salvadori is pro-spritz, but remembers when Harry’s and other elite bars and hotels would not deign to make them. They’ve since surrendered...."

From "What the Bartender Really Thinks About Your Spritz/You might expect the fizzy summer drinks to be a downer for the people who make them by the hundreds. But think again" (NYT gift link).

Are tourists hoping to emulate the social elite of the places they visit? Take Venice. I'd imagine the vibe of the old gondoliers and prostitutes would suit them just as well. I don't know. I don't travel too much, but when I do, I don't indulge in fantasies of oneness with the locals. So much mental work involved in that, and what does it get you? Or do you think that if you drink the right drink the fantasy will open itself up to you. But it's not the right drink, the article tells you. The bartender is laughing at you (but happy to take your money for a drink made in 2 seconds). Well, then, everyone wins. Everyone is happy, more than happy, including me, standoffish me, just writing a post about tourists who order spritzes in Sicily and Venice. 

"Is this piece seriously arguing that we should continue to consume (another!) known carcinogen so that people can have low-paying jobs?"

Says the top-rated comment on the NYT article "What Else Do We Lose When People Give Up Booze? Yes, there are many benefits of cutting back. But bars are closing. Jobs are going away. And a way of being together can feel harder to find" (gift link).

Related news: "More Americans now use weed every day than drink or smoke cigarettes" (NY Post).

How to eat like Babe Ruth.

"Maybe such freaks should come to power — those who aren’t afraid of anything, who just do things — at least there are visible changes."

Said Svetlana Popova-Znamenskaya, who "stayed in Vologda to establish an architecture practice where she restores wooden houses and builds furniture" and has "a showroom with a specialty coffee shop opposite the local Kremlin and the new monument to Ivan the Terrible."

Quoted in "He Shut Liquor Stores and Banned Abortion, All for the Glory of Russia/A firebrand governor aims to transform his region into a laboratory for the Kremlin’s reactionary ideals" (NYT)(gift like).

"He" = Georgy Y. Filimonov, "the governor of the northern region of Vologda," who has "vigorously embraced the sort of 'traditional Russian values' espoused by the Kremlin, asserting Vologda as an undistilled bastion of 'Russianness.'"

And here's a quote from Misha Priyemyshev, "a designer who worked on branding for the city before Mr. Filimonov’s arrival": "Everything is very slow here, like in a true swamp. That swamp has a lot of power — the more you move in it, the more it sucks you in."

"I felt like the whole time [the jury] saw right through what the defense was trying to do, how they tried to defame my character..."

"... things they brought up that had nothing do with the case. They were just trying to criminalize, bully me and make me look like a bad human being."

Said Diana Sanders, quoted in "Woman Who Took 15 Tequila Shots on Carnival Cruise Gets $300,000 in Damages/The woman, who fell and injured herself, said in a lawsuit that bartenders had been negligent for serving her while she was visibly intoxicated" (NYT).

Before you judge, consider that Sanders had paid extra for what Carnival called the “Cheers!” drink package, which pays for as many as 15 alcoholic drinks per day. Sanders was drinking up the amount she'd paid for, and Carnival had structured its commerce in a way that created that incentive. The cruise ship business — what can you say? It's tawdry, isn't it?

"I believe that I was born an addict and that I'm hardwired to drink and drug myself to death."

"And in order to overcome that kind of biological drive, you need a spiritual fire."

RFK Jr: “I believe that I was born an addict and that I'm hardwired to drink and drug myself to death.”

“And in order to overcome that kind of biological drive, you need a spiritual fire.”@CPAC pic.twitter.com/nD3TdFTkUP

— MAHA Action (@MAHA_Action) March 28, 2026

“When it came time for us to ask for a urinalysis test, he refused, and so he’s been charged with DUI, with property damage and refusal to submit to a lawful test in the crash."

Said Sheriff John Budensiek, quoted in "Tiger Woods’ mugshot released after his arrest/Golf player charged with driving under the influence after a crash near his home in Florida. Police said he appeared to be on 'some type of medication or drug'" (London Times).

That also shows Woods's mugshot from his 2017 arrest "after he was found asleep in his car blocking a stationary line of traffic with his engine running."

This time around, we're told, "Woods was not injured but was 'lethargic' on the scene and was alone in the car before he crawled out of the passenger door." And: "Under Florida law, he had to remain in jail for at least eight hours before being released on bond." That's harsh for such an eminent man. 8 hours!

Why does he go out driving alone? It must be very important to him to keep taking an obvious and known risk. Those who are failing to stop him share responsibility.

"Holy f---, how about people just take some responsibility for themselves and not get so f---ed up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to?"

So wrote Graham Platner, the man who's leading in the polls to become the Democratic Party candidate to run against Susan Collins for the Senate seat for Maine.

I'm reading "Janet Mills and Graham Platner battle for female voters in Maine's key Senate race" (NBC News).

Platner’s online Reddit posts, which resurfaced last fall, included a slew of controversial comments, including calling himself a communist; saying white, rural Americans were racist and stupid; and writing that “all” police officers are “bastards” after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd in 2020.

"The idea is that our ancestors evolved to associate the scent of alcohol with ripe, energy-rich fruit."

"In ancestral forests, faint whiffs of fermentation would have been a useful signal of easy calories. A taste for ethanol, at low concentrations, would therefore have given these early primates an evolutionary advantage. If the hypothesis is true, this helps explain our own fondness for the stuff. During years where fermented fruit is abundant, the chimpanzees of Ngogo, in the north of the national park, spend more time travelling to distant areas of their home territories than usual. It is tempting to think that the booze is making them more adventurous. However, Maro believes it is more to do with the sugar providing a burst of energy...."

From "Wild chimpanzees 'would fail human sobriety tests'/Chimps love naturally fermented fruit — so much so, they register alcohol levels that would get a human banned from operating heavy machinery" (London Times).

Extremely humbled.

For the very concerned media - yes, I love America and was extremely humbled when my friends, the newly minted Gold Medal winners on Team USA, invited me into the locker room to celebrate this historic moment with the boys- Greatest country on earth and greatest sport on earth.…

— Kash Patel (@Kash_Patel) February 23, 2026

Background: "FBI Director Kash Patel defends partying with U.S. Olympic ice hockey team/Videos of Patel celebrating in Italy went viral Sunday night, prompting criticism and questions about his judgment during a critical time for the FBI" (WaPo)(gift link).

The video:

A source sent me this video of FBI Director Kash Patel partying with the US Men's Olympic Hockey team. pic.twitter.com/egjmdhOAF6

— William Turton (@WilliamTurton) February 22, 2026

Meanwhile: "U.S. women’s hockey team declines Trump’s State of the Union invitation/The players 'were honored to be included and are grateful for the acknowledgement,' according to a team statement that cited previously scheduled commitments" (WaPo).

That's putting it very politely.

This is also polite, articulate silence:

"What's the original version of the adage 'Friends don't let friends [blank]'? Is it about drunk driving? is it 'vote Republican'? What's the first one and where did it go from there?"

Just a random A.I. prompt of mine. That came up this morning.

Yesterday's equivalent was: "What was that hippie poster that was mostly text and included something like and if we find each other it will be beautiful?"

On Thursday, my idle musings got me to: "What is the old waltz most associated with ice skating?"

Without A.I., things like this would float along, fermenting, festering, and maybe one day you'd happen to run into the answer and think aha! I've been wondering about that for the longest time. Now, you can get the answer immediately, and it doesn't amount to much other than that I've destroyed the groundwork for what might have been a delightful aha moment somewhere done the road.

"No, she meant that I’m — you see, I don’t drink alcohol. So everybody knows that — but I’ve often said..."

"... that if I did, I’d have a very good chance of being an alcoholic. I have said that many times about myself, I do. It’s a very possessive personality. I’ve said that many times about myself. I’m fortunate I’m not a drinker. If I did, I could very well, because I’ve said that — what’s the word? Not possessive — possessive and addictive type personality. Oh, I’ve said it many times, many times before."

Said Trump, responding to the report in Vanity Fair that his Chief of Staff Susie Wiles had said he has an "alcoholic’s personality," quoted in "Trump brushes off Wiles' 'alcoholic’s personality' nick as allies torch Vanity Fair piece/Cabinet members and Trump himself have dismissed the unflattering quotes, claiming they were taken out of context" (Fox News).

I wonder why he said "possessive" — twice — before changing to "addictive." I think the word he was looking for was "obsessive." 

I like that he's supporting her, and it's probably in his interest to support her and provide explanation that makes her remark into something almost positive, rather than part of a dark and devastating bombshell that Vanity Fair must have thought it had put together.

What is the "alcoholic's personality" anyway? Is that just folk belief or is it supported by respectable research? Perhaps it doesn't matter as much as what Susie Wiles was attempting to describe seeing in Trump. She had an alcoholic father, and presumably something makes her see Trump as that father figure, and Trump initially included her in his inner circle because of her famous father. That's a very specific and personal story that stands apart from whatever this concept of "alcoholic's personality" is taken to mean by the general public that harbors folk beliefs and little familiarity with the scholarly literature.

"I saw people who were downcast, who can take no more, who are at the end of their tether. Even a revolt is beyond them."

Said Joël Boueilh, chairman of the winemaking co-operative federation, commenting on protesters who want the French government to help the wine industry.

Quoted in "French wine industry is withering on the vine as drinkers go dry/A collapse in demand — particularly for the heavy reds produced across southern France — coupled with climate change means the end of a way of life for many" (London Times).

Boueilh adds: "France was the land of the good life where people spent a lot of time drinking and eating. But today society is changing. People may have a drink in a bar but they don’t open a bottle of wine when they sit down to eat at the table."

Is it necessarily a loss in devotion to "the good life" or did people change their conception of the good? But he didn't say "good," did he? He would have said "douceur": "« La France était le pays de la douceur de vivre, celui où l’on prenait son temps pour manger et boire ensemble autour d’une table. »

There might be other ways of being "good," but are there other ways of being "sweet"? And more important, there is a tradition of experiencing the sweetness in a particular way, with a bottle of wine on the table at meals. 

Ah! That's for France to decide! Boueilh represents the wine industry. Of course, he's going to dramatize the centrality of wine. If I buy into that, I'm just an American accepting the most easily available stereotype.

That is, it's the stuff that belongs in the new Dictionary of Received Ideas: The French: They think the good life is sitting around drinking wine all day. 

ADDED: I wanted more depth of meaning for the word "douceur," and got excellent help from Grok.