"China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has diminished the role of women at work and in public office. There are no female members of Mr. Xi’s inner circle..."

"... or the Politburo, the executive policymaking body. He has invoked more traditional roles for women, as caretakers and mothers, in planning a new 'childbearing culture' to address a shrinking population. But groups of women around China are quietly reclaiming their own identities. Many are from a generation that grew up with more freedom than their mothers. Women in Shanghai, profoundly shaken by a two-month Covid lockdown in 2022, are being driven by a need to build community. 'I think everyone living in this city seems to have reached this stage that they want to explore more about the power of women,' said Du Wen, the founder of Her, a bar that hosts salon discussions.... At quietly advertised events, women question misogynistic tropes in Chinese culture. 'Why are lonely ghosts always female?' one woman recently asked, referring to Chinese literature’s depiction of homeless women after death...."

From "In China, Ruled by Men, Women Quietly Find a Powerful Voice/Women in Shanghai gather in bars, salons and bookstores to reclaim their identities as the country’s leader calls for China to adopt a 'childbearing culture'" (NYT).

What to Do if a Ghost Friends You.

Oh! I'm misreading!

It's just "What to Do if a Friend Ghosts You" (NYT).

Mundane advice for if a friend ghosts you: "Sometimes it’s obvious a friend is done with you... But often, friendships simply peter out.... [C]onsider the possibility that your friend isn’t deliberately ghosting you; life simply got in the way."

To extrapolate the advice to the question what to do if a ghost friends you: Sometimes it’s obvious a deceased person is not done with you. Often, friendships last forever. Consider the possibility that the ghost isn’t deliberately friending you; death simply got in the way.

"I don’t know if it’s going to be funny—it might be really shitty. We’re still going to put it up, because I don’t care! It’s literally throwing spaghetti at the wall. That’s the only thing that’s brought me any sort of success."

Says Petey, quoted in "Petey’s Earnest Songs and Absurd TikToks/He has become famous online for silly and sweet comedy videos. Now fans are discovering his music" (The New Yorker). 

Petey is a TikTok star, one that I've had served up to me many times as I scroll, mesmerized, on TikTok. I like a lot of people on TikTok, often more than I like Petey, so I was interested to see that — according to The New Yorker — Petey is extra special. 

Watch all the Petey you want at TikTok, here. And I'll just embed a few of his things in YouTube form so you who won't look at TikTok know what we're talking about:

"Musk, dressed in all black, began with an admission: 'I’m actually making history tonight as the first person with Asperger’s to host SNL—or at least the first to admit it.'"

"'So, I won’t make a lot of eye contact with the cast tonight. But don’t worry, I’m pretty good at running "human" in emulation mode.' (Though a brave admission, Musk is not the first person with Asperger’s to host SNL—Dan Aykroyd, a former cast member, also has Asperger’s and returned to host the show in 2003.)" 

From "Elon Musk’s Deceptive and Deeply Awkward SNL Monologue" (The Daily Beast)(video of the monologue at the link). 

Wow! That's some shocking disregard for Dan Aykroyd, but The Daily Beast seems to slough that off, even as it purports to show that the monologue was "deceptive and deeply awkward." 

The silly use of the word "deeply" was noted on this blog in 2014, in a post titled, "Deeply... it's such a poser word."

Here's the 2013 article in The Daily Mail: "'I have Asperger's - one of my symptoms included being obsessed with ghosts': Under the microscope with Dan Aykroyd." 

"Americans are split on whether children should be allowed to trick-or-treat on Halloween this year and whether they will hand out candy, given the coronavirus pandemic."

"According to a YouGov poll, 30 percent of Americans say they plan to hand out treats to trick-or-treaters, while 26 percent say they usually do but won’t this year. Another 35 percent, who I can only surmise are either unable to give out treats or just extremely grumpy, said they never give out treats.... Twenty percent of American adults say that ghosts definitely exist, according to a YouGov poll conducted last week. About a quarter say they probably exist, 39 percent say they probably or definitely do not exist, and 16 percent said they don’t know."

From the extra stuff at the bottom of a FiveThirtyEight page with the headline "Americans Say They’re Fired Up To Vote — Especially Democrats." 

I clicked on that headline because I thought it sounded dubious. A poll asked Republicans and Democrats whether they were "more fired up than usual" about voting. Do you vote because you get "fired up"? I think more conservative people vote because they have a civic duty and a standard practice of voting. So they might not "say" that they are "fired up" — that is, emotionally agitated — even though they're going to vote. 

Really emotional people might react with a quick "yes" to the question whether they're "fired up" but may have some other emotion going on when election day comes around, perhaps a peevish resistance to the damned candidate put up by that party they feel they're supposed to vote for. 

Shoes... ghosts....

mf’r just glued some pac man ghosts pic.twitter.com/XsmMYBb6BG

— Attorney@Law (@TheGlare_TM) August 9, 2020

For reference:



I have a Biblical theme this morning, but are there any shoes in the Bible? The closest I come is Ephesians 6:14-16:

Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.

It's because they were all wearing sandals. There are many references to sandals in the Bible. Matthew 3:11:

I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Trump's 6-page letter is — and he intended this — one of the prominent documents in the annals of American history.

I wanted to write that out precisely because I believe it is true and it is — for millions of people — enraging — enraging and flummoxing.

The letter ends by stepping away from the present and imagining the people 100 years from now, looking back and seeing things from their point of view:

There is far too much that needs to be done to improve the lives of our citizens. It is time for you and the highly partisan Democrats in Congress to immediately cease this impeachment fantasy and get back to work for the American People. While I have no expectation that you will do so, I write this letter to you for the purpose of history and to put my thoughts on a permanent and indelible record.

One hundred years from now, when people look back at this affair, I want them to understand it, and learn from it, so that it can never happen to another President again.

People of the Future, I am speaking to you.

That is, of course, a way to speak to people of the present. Conjure up the people of the future who are watching what we do now. Don't want them looking at us with horror or contempt, do we? The anti-Trumpers are doing the same thing. Join us or the People of the Future are condemning you.

(Greta Thunberg has soared to power and fame by convincingly embodying the People of the Future. She is Them, and she is scorning and excoriating you.)

So, we're hearing lots of statements using this rhetorical device of the People of the Future. Trump's contribution to the People of the Future genre is distinctive for 2 reasons:

1. It's not just one more statement in the voluminous back and forth about impeachment. It's a written compendium of everything the President of the United States wants to say on the subject of this important historical event. It is long in that it's 6 pages. (Anti-Trumpers have enough to be able to disparage it as rambling.) But it's also short. (The Mueller Report is 448 pages.) It will surely be preserved and read and studied and reflected upon far into the future. It is clearly a historical document, unlike virtually all the other statements bandied about in — to use Trump's term — "this impeachment fantasy."

2. The letter refrains from purporting to say what the People of the Future think. It speaks to them. It's modest in that regard: I'm thinking of you, and I want to talk to you, to "put my thoughts on a permanent and indelible record" for you. He wants you "to understand... and learn." There's a mellow, humble tone to that. It should be distinguished from People of the Future rhetoric that conjures up a crowd shouting: We hate you! You were horribly destructive and blind!

ADDED: The People of the Future genre is vast. Think of The Ghost of Christmas Future:



ALSO: I wanted to list some of the ephemeral writings diminishing Trump's contribution to the annals of American history: "It is hard to capture how bizarre and frightening Trump’s letter to Pelosi is" (Jennifer Rubin in WaPo), "Trump's most expansive defense against impeachment is just as lame and dishonest as his tweets" (LA Times), "Trump's wild letter to Pelosi is filled with false and misleading claims" (CNN), "President Sends Six-Page Letter of Randomly Capitalized Ranting to Speaker of the House" (Slate).

"Much better article than reading about Trump."

That's the top-rated comment — by far — on the NYT article, "'Dog Suicide Bridge': Why Do So Many Pets Keep Leaping Into a Scottish Gorge?"

From the article: "The bridge’s location, hushed, lush and sometimes still, fits the description of what the pagan Celts called a 'thin place,' a mesmerizing spot where heaven and earth overlap. 'People in Dumbarton are very superstitious,' said Alastair Dutton, a local taxi driver. 'We grew up playing in the Overtoun grounds, and we believe in ghosts here because we’ve all seen or felt spirits up here.'"

Consider that the NYT news about Trump also feeds our hunger for stories about the supernatural. It was a "witch hunt." Dogs in Scotland are jumping off a bridge because of a ghost — "The White Lady of Overtoun." We like getting caught up in that sort of thing — like it, though we feel we loathe it. That's the way we are. Oh, not you, dear reader. You are above that sort of thing. No ghosts, no witches. Carry on.

Somebody... or everybody... is lying.

"President Trump claimed last week that 'some' former presidents privately confided to him that they support his mission to build a border wall. As of Monday, every living president has said otherwise" (CBS News).

ADDED: A comment by sdharms makes me see how it could be that no one is lying. The comment is "so? HRC talked to Eleanor Roosevelt and no one had a problem with that." It could be that none of the living presidents have confided to Trump that they support building the wall, but some of the dead presidents have communicated with him. It's possible that George H.W. Bush, while still alive, spoke to Trump about the wall, but Trump said "some," so it must be more than one, and so something supernatural is needed for it to be true that no one is lying.



OH, WAIT: I'm working my way further into the CBS article, because I wanted to see exactly what Trump said and to think about whether there's weaseling over the question of what it means to "support his mission to build a border wall." The quote you see there is CBS's paraphrase of whatever it was that Trump said. Trump might mean that he's spoken to former Presidents who support some sort of physical barrier at the border, and the former Presidents who want distance from Trump are denying support because they don't support exactly the kind of wall that Trump has been talking about. But as I read the article, I was astounded — because I'd relied on "every living president has said otherwise" — to find this:

Mr. Obama is the only living president who has not explicitly denied having this conversation, and his office did not return a request for comment from CBS News. But Mr. Obama has repeatedly spoken out against Trump administration immigration policies and made clear since the 2016 campaign that he does not support a proposed wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. Politico also pointed out that Mr. Obama and his successor have not had any extensive conversation since the 2017 inauguration.

"How is that a haunting question? Of course they would."

Said Freeman Hunt, reacting to the headline "Neil deGrasse Tyson Has A Haunting Question About Bears,"* blogged here yesterday.

I said, "The word 'haunt' is way overused. I should do a post about that." So this is that post.

The first thing I see is that 14 years ago, in the early months of this blog, I wrote a substantial post about the word "haunted" and the way it is overused.**

Next, I see that the verb "to haunt" did not begin as a powerful, ghost-related word. It simply referred to frequency and habit, such as going to a particular place. The OED has very old quotes — as old as the 13th century — that speak of ships haunting harbors and people haunting taverns.

In the 16th century, there was talk of thoughts, memories, and feelings that frequently occurred and thus "haunted" a person. Shakespeare wrote: "Your beauty which did haunt me in my sleepe: To vndertake the death of all the world" ("Richard III" 1597). And Shakespeare used the word to speak of the habitual visits of ghosts:

1597 Shakespeare Richard II iii. ii. 154 Some haunted by the ghosts they haue deposed.
1600 Shakespeare Midsummer Night's Dream iii. i. 99 O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted. Pray masters: fly masters: helpe.

Reading the OED makes the word feel much weaker to me. A "haunting question" is nothing more than a question that keeps coming back to you, not necessarily anything spooky. Is it no different from a "nagging question"?

But I see ghosts in "haunting." Are there horses in "nagging"? No, "nag" (the verb) comes from Scandinavia — "nagga" — to gnaw, irritate, grumble. "Nag" the horse comes from Dutch — "negge" —  a small horse. Oh! And I see that in this horse lineage, "nag" was once a slang word for "penis":

1598 J. Marston Scourge of Villanie B2 Hence lewd nags away, Goe read each poast,..Then to Priapus gardens.
1655 Mercurius Fumigosus xxxvi. 284 He by his Eloquence Converted her Gleab into pasture, and put his Nagg to grasse in her Coppice.
1707 in H. Playford Wit & Mirth (new ed.) III. 56 What is this so stiff and warm... 'Tis Ball my Nag he will do you no harm.

Goe read each poast... that's what I always say.
__________________

* Freeman Hunt continued, riffing on deGrasse Tyson's tweet, "If Bears were in charge, after they hunted us to near-extinction, I wonder if they’d invent a candy called Gummy Human":

I intentionally wrote 2 posts about Salvador Dali today, and — surrealistically — he made a random appearance in a third post.

The 2 posts that are intentionally about him are "What could be more surrealistic than exhuming the surrealist?" and "His moustache is still intact, [like clock hands at] 10 past 10, just as he liked it. It’s a miracle."

Those 2 posts happened today as a result of a real-world event: The corpse of Salvador Dali was exhumed to cut out some body parts to test to determine whether he was the father of a woman who's seeking a chunk of his estate.

In between those 2 posts, there was a post that came into being solely because the word "instigator" popped up in conversation. (And it wasn't a conversation about Salvador Dali.) The word makes me want to hear the old song "Something in the Air," which begins with the line "Call out the instigators," which is the name of the post where I embedded the video. I had not watched the video all the way through, so I hadn't noticed what a commenter — Kassaar — pointed out: "Dali is in the Thunderclap Newman video... Coincidence?"

Let me clip out the precise point:



Either that's a coincidence or the awakened spirit of Salvador Dali is haunting me.

(Interesting lorgnette, by the way, with the handle in the center like a slingshot.)

The "Simpsons" take on Trump.

The most fascinatingly specific topic of research I've encountered in a good long while.

"Zeppo's Marion Benda and Valentino's Marion Benda: A Legacy of Confusion," by Mallory Curley.

"Donald J. Trump has repeatedly promised a 'pivot' toward a softer, gentler, more refined version of his candidacy since he emerged as the presumptive Republican nominee."

"But on Monday, Mr. Trump’s television interviews and speeches made clear that such a pivot would never come," writes Maggie Haberman in The NYT, and I am trying to remember exactly how and what Trump promised. I have closely followed every single day of his campaign, and I don't have the sense of a promise.

I've heard a lot of people talk about the conventional notion of The Pivot to and around this most unconventional candidate, but if you want to pin him down as having promised to pivot — and promised to be softer, gentler, more refined — you need to lay out specific text.

Haberman does not do that. She merely presents the purported promise as a frame for her story about Trump's very strong rhetoric this week.

I did some searching on my own and found this June 7th piece in Real Clear Politics, with the word "promises" in the title (but not in Trump's mouth): "Toned-Down Trump Promises to Make GOP Proud."

“Tonight we close one chapter in history and begin another,” the presumptive GOP nominee said....  “I understand the responsibility of carrying the mantle, and I will never ever let you down... I will make you proud of our party and our movement.”

I understand characterizing that as a promise, but there's wiggle room in "make you proud." One can arrive at feelings of pride many ways, and he may think that his whole campaign — with its central promise to Make America Great Again — is a march toward pride. His words accept the interpretation that he's going to keep going in a strong, tough manner and he expects the GOP will grow to like it. Someone who wants a softer, gentler candidate might hope that's his plan to "make you proud," but it's not a good bet and there's no basis to say that he's promised to go that route.

I'm adding tags to this post and see that I have one for "nice Trump." I'll have to publish this post so I can click on it and see if perhaps it turns up the elusive promise to pivot into something like soft gentleness.

ADDED: The "nice Trump" tag appears on 2 earlier posts. The first was on May 11th, when Trump said his call for a ban on Muslims coming into the country was "just a suggestion." I said,

I suspect all of his policy notions are subject to softening like that. If softening is called for. Hardening... he can do that too. As circumstances call for it.

That was no promise from him to be softer and nicer, just an observation from me that he's showing he's left room to become softer and gentler and he's not too locked into his toughness to do it if he chooses.

The other one came the next day, "When Trump met Ryan." The 2 men met and issued a joint statement, which you can read at the link. It doesn't contain any promises by Trump to pivot or become softer and gentler. The closest it comes is in saying "we are totally committed to working together" to unify the GOP and win the election. Maybe GOP insiders felt that he'd have to do it their way and their way is softer and gentler, but he's the one who's been winning and he's done it not only without their help, but in the face of their ungentle, unsoft, unrefined attacks.

IN THE COMMENTS: John Tuffnell said:

The photo they use is interesting. Trump is in the distance but unidentifiable because the focus is on another video feed that makes Trump appear as a blue ghost.

So the internets tell me that colors mean things in the paranormal world. Here's what blue ghosts are supposed to mean:

Blue Orbs
Blue is spiritually associated with psychic energy and truth. It is a very calming color, and many people associate it with spiritual guidance. Some people feel blue orbs are are sign of a calming presence or energy, while others feel they indicate the presence of a spirit guide in that location.

Whupped them again, didn't we Josey.

I reckon so!

Fan reaction to the news that Hillary Clinton will appear on the same Ellen DeGeneres episode as the actresses from the new "Ghostbusters."

@TheEllenShow @HillaryClinton @Ghostbusters pic.twitter.com/mqKpaqTwcf

— Jayson Evans (@JaysonEvans1971) May 17, 2016

I found that via the NYT, which reports that Sony Pictures is unhappy that Hillary is horning in on their long-scheduled publicity for a movie that it really needs men not to hate:

“Get your Woman Cards ready,” Ms. DeGeneres wrote on Twitter to her 60 million followers, a reference to the Republican contender Donald J. Trump’s criticism that Mrs. Clinton had relied on playing “the woman’s card.” The show’s website added, “This Wednesday, Ellen’s sitting down with some powerful women!”

But Sony's "marketing team has been fighting to tamp down what it sees as a misogynistic, Internet-based assault on the movie."

In the best of circumstances, film studios are reluctant to let a big-budget film — “Ghostbusters” cost more than $150 million to make — become identified with a political candidate. Mr. Trump, who must overcome major weaknesses among female voters, has also shown a willingness to fuel the unwanted “Ghostbusters” gender debate:

A video posted by Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) on Jan 28, 2015 at 9:28am PST

I don't think too many men watch Ellen DeGeneres, so what's the real problem for Sony? The NYT is trying to weave this into the usual gender politics, but I think the real problem for Sony is that it wants to sell the movie to women — that's the point of going on Ellen DeGeneres — and putting Hillary on the same show saps the fun out of something that absolutely needs to be very, very fun.

Anyway, for Donald Trump, this looks like more evidence that everything ends up working for him. I hadn't seen that Instagram before. It's from last January, and now it's getting a boost. Some people may argue that it's sexist, but he's only asking a question: "What’s going on?" He has a way of stirring up your thoughts, not exactly telling you what to think, but making your mind feel activated. The thoughts that result feel like your own.

That image at the top of this post casts Trump as the villain and Hillary as the hero, but damned if he doesn't come out ahead again. She of the eternal pantsuit has been reenvisioned in the worst pantsuit ever — a beige jumpsuit. And he's looking cute as a little green monster — with the Ellen show logo looking like a halo. So unfair! But everything bounces to his favor, it seems. How does he do that?

Did you know the Ghostbusters logo and the "If You Don’t Buy This Magazine, We’ll Kill This Dog" National Lampoon cover were designed by the same person?

It was Michael C. Gross, something I learned reading, unfortunately, the obituaries.

"I ghosted my fiancé when I had definitive proof he had been running around on me with multiple people for years. My youthful years!"

"I moved out when he went away on a study excursion for a week. I emotionally and financially supported him through four years of university and then some. He had no idea why I left and I have never told him that I had discovered his deceptive ways. I had nothing to say but wanted to mess with him. I was told by a mutual friend he was utterly perplexed by the situation. I wish I could have seen his face when the penny dropped. I regret nothing and would do the same if I were cheated on again in such a fashion."

From "Readers Respond to... 'Exes Explain Ghosting, the Ultimate Silent Treatment.'"

This fits with my old aphorism "Better than nothing is a high standard." Sometimes, especially when there are a lot of things you could say, the best thing to say is nothing. Ghosting is going big on nothing.

"The sensation of an otherworldly presence... actually derives from garbled sensorimotor brain signals..."

"... in which a person's self awareness of their own body is projected into a seemingly disconnected space. In such cases... the brain mis-assigns its own life signals as belonging to someone or something else."

In other words: It's not a ghost. It's not an angel. It's just you.

"Man calls police to say he's being haunted by the Ghost of Christmas Past."

"For some reason, the South West has been deluged with spooky happenings over Christmas."

Police investigated a "zombie" attack in Redruth, which turned out to be two friends off their faces on hooch and foaming at the mouths. A woman in Exeter said her horse's mane was been platted by an unseen being (check yer hands, love – it's probably you) and a frightened woman in Ilfracombe rang 999 to report finding a stick "which she can only describe as something maybe used in witchcraft." Or maybe just a stick.

Strange ideas of the paranormal.

My Google alert on "roadside memorial" turned up this item at examiner.com:



I've already blogged about the underlying story (as another in my long series of posts about makeshift death-site memorials). This post is about the mistake of putting the story under the already stupid "astrology & paranormal" tag. Did somebody at the Examiner think actual ghosts — to the extent that makes any sense — were involved? Like, maybe it was some college town variation on the old "Ghost Riders in the Sky" legend:

"(Ghost) Riders in the Sky: A Cowboy Legend" is a country and cowboy-style song [that] tells a folk tale of a cowboy who has a vision of red-eyed, steel-hooved cattle thundering across the sky, being chased by the spirits of damned cowboys. One warns him that if he does not change his ways, he will be doomed to join them, forever "trying to catch the Devil's herd across these endless skies."

Here's Marty Robbins singing the song. Or if you prefer: Johnny Cash. Or here it is by the singer who possesses the voice that is the first singing voice that I ever heard and thought: This is the greatest voice ever. I must have been about 4 years old at the time, considering the year that the greatest recording ever — as I saw it — came out (1955).

But back to "Ghost Riders." Here are the lyrics. I'd love parody lyrics applicable to apparitions of college-town bike riders.