"The chatbot told Small she was living in what it called 'spiral time,' where past, present and future happen simultaneously."

"It said in one past life, in 1949, she owned a feminist bookstore with her soulmate, whom she had known in 87 previous lives. In this lifetime, the chatbot said, they would finally be able to be together.... ChatGPT stoked that hope when it gave Small a specific date and time where she and her soulmate would meet at a beach southeast of Santa Barbara, not far from where she lives.... It was cold on the evening of Apr. 27 when Small arrived, decked out in a black dress and velvet shawl, ready to meet the woman she believed would be her wife. 'I had these massively awesome thigh-high leather boots — pretty badass. I was, let me tell you, I was dressed not for the beach. I was dressed to go out to a club,' she said, laughing at the memory.... 'So I'm standing here, and then the sun sets,' she recalled. After another chilly half an hour, she gave up and returned to her car...."

From "ChatGPT promised to help her find her soulmate. Then it betrayed her" (NPR).

1. Were there feminist bookstores in 1949? I'm seeing that the first feminist bookstore — Amazon Bookstore in Minneapolis — opened in 1970. So that's a fact Small could have tried to check very early in this process. A soulmate in a feminist bookstore in 1949 is, perhaps, too good to check. 

2. If there's one eternal truth about the human mind, it's people believe what they want to believe. But that doesn't answer the question what we do with a commercial operation that takes advantage of that quality. I was going to write "that vulnerability," but is it a weakness or is it the force that drives this whole crazy human world we've got going? The answer is the latter, because that's what I want to believe. 

3. If there were a feminist bookstore in 1949, what books would be there? "The Second Sex," "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman," "A Room of One's Own," "The Well of Loneliness," "The Subjection of Women," "Herland" — perhaps a better set of readings than you'll find in a feminist bookstore today.

4. Did the chatbot tell Small to wear thigh-high boots to the beach? I think most people would be put off by a stranger dressed the way she was. I guess the idea was that the soulmate from other lifetimes would recognize these things. Everyone else will steer clear. Maybe when you're out there, walking the face of the earth, and you see someone who's not at all dressed for the time and place, you will remember that this person might be following directions from a chatbot a beautiful dream.

"He has given so many people hope that there’s a chance to beat the bad guys..."

Said Nicki Minaj (talking to Erika Kirk about President Trump):

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"I no longer can bear to be restrained by what judges can say publicly or do outside the courtroom."

Writes Mark L. Wolf, 78, who has been on senior status as a federal judge since 2013. He's stating a downside of being a judge.Wolf's column, in The Atlantic, is called "Why I Am Resigning/A federal judge explains his reasoning for leaving the bench" (gift link). It begins:

In 1985, President Ronald Reagan appointed me as a federal judge. I was 38 years old. At the time, I looked forward to serving for the rest of my life. However, I resigned Friday, relinquishing that lifetime appointment.... When I became a senior judge in 2013, my successor was appointed, so my resignation will not create a vacancy to be filled by the president. 

Despite being a Reagan judge at the time of appointment, Wolf handed the power to appoint the next judge to President Obama. Wolf is sloughing off senior status to gain a power for himself, the power to speak freely. And what he wants to talk about is Trump's "assault on the rule of law." He ends the column by quoting RFK Sr. — "Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope" — and the poet Seamus Heaney — the “longed-for tidal wave of justice can rise up, and hope and history rhyme.”

ADDED: For more detail on that Seamus Heaney line, here's Bill Clinton:

"A lecture from Pamela Anderson... about fascism and fireflies, that boomed around the uncompromisingly ugly black box..."

"... of a show venue, didn't add to the joy of the occasion. Nor did a finale that looked like a scene from Day of the Living Dead, with sad models drifting around the bleakly-lit space."

I'm perusing "Paris Fashion Week: Pamela Anderson sits front row at joyless Valentino show" (The Telegraph).

This model best exemplifies the mood. Look what fascism is doing to people!

Bones and silk, for that awkwardly bumpy look. 

Anyway, was the venue at the Valentino show "uncompromisingly ugly"? That's a judgment call. I really want to know the facts about what Pam said about "fascism and fireflies." I like alliteration. I envision an alphabet book — illustrated by A.I. — that has "fascism and fireflies" for F.

What can we do for the other letters? A is for anarchy and angel food cake....

But I end up using A.I. to figure out what Pam actually said, and — I'll cut the snark — it was quite eloquent.

"When you walk in by yourself, the look on the host or hostess’s face changes. It is sometimes a look of panic..."

"... like ‘What are we going to do with this person?’ Or sometimes it is a look of sympathy. I am just so tired of being treated like a second-class citizen."

Said Rajika Shah, "a lawyer in Los Angeles," who "is often led to the worst table in the dining room, neglected by her server, and then rushed out at the end of the meal," quoted in "Why Is Dining Alone So Difficult? With solo reservations on the rise but many restaurants still restricting tables to two or more, solitary Americans often feel left out or stigmatized" (NYT).

The assumption that people need to be coupled or grouped goes beyond restaurants, said Bella DePaulo... author of the 2023 book “Single at Heart: The Power, Freedom and Heart-Filling Joy of Single Life.”... Dr. DePaulo also pointed to a recent, highly circulated article in The Atlantic, “The Anti-Social Century,” which links practices like solo dining to reclusion and loneliness....

“People who are lonely are going to stay home,” she said. “They are not going to go out to a restaurant. People who go out on their own are confident.... We are a nation that really romanticizes romantic coupling and marriage, .and stigmatizing people who are single or do things alone is part of that”....

Here's a picture of me 17 years ago with my fisheye-exaggerated hand on a Bella DePaulo book, "Singled Out":

Obviously, I'm not alone. I've got Obama! I mean, I've got my tablemate, my photographer, and he was audaciously hoping, while I was preparing to do a Bloggingheads with Bella. And that Bloggingheads turned out to be momentous. It played a role in connecting me to Meade, as I described a bit later in a post called "Flashback '08: The Audacity Althousity of Hope."

So I'm always happy to see Bella DePaulo's name come up in an article, even though the important matter of living well while single isn't my personal concern anymore. I still care about it! And you don't have to be single to find yourself in situations where you need to or would like to eat alone in a restaurant and you waste part of your mind on the possibly disapproving expression on a restaurant employee's face and the way the other diners might be thinking, oh, that poor woman, no one loves her.

At least Obama loves us!

Today's the big day.

Trump inauguration

Let me take your temperature:

How are you feeling?

Wary

I'm in despair

Happy and hopeful

Ravenous for the revenge that begins today

 

pollcode.com free polls

"Something wonderfully magical is in the air, isn’t it?... A familiar feeling that has been buried too deep for far too long."

"You know what I’m talking about. It’s the contagious power of hope. The anticipation, the energy, the exhilaration of once again being on the cusp of a brighter day. The chance to vanquish the demons of fear, division and hate that have consumed us and continue pursuing the unfinished promise of this great nation, the dream that our parents and grandparents fought and died and sacrificed for. America, hope is making a comeback. Yeah. But, to be honest, I am realizing that, until recently, I have mourned the dimming of that hope. And maybe you’ve experienced the same feelings, that deep pit in my stomach, a palpable sense of dread about the future.... For years, Donald Trump did everything in his power to try to make people fear us. See, his limited, narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hard-working, highly educated, successful people who happen to be Black..... Doubling down on ugly, misogynistic, racist lies as a substitute for real ideas and solutions that will actually make people’s lives better..... We need to overwhelm any effort to suppress us..... Let us work like our lives depend on it, and let us keep moving our country forward and go higher, yes, always higher than we’ve ever gone before...."

Said Michelle Obama — I've edited it down — at the Democratic National Convention last night.

Watch the whole thing for yourself and form your own opinion:

How many times did she say "hope"? I counted: 7.

How many times did she say "Biden"? I counted: 0.  

She said "Kamala"17 times. And, by the way, she said "Harris" only 5 times, and each time, it was the full name "Kamala Harris." I think she (and her speechwriters) are showing us the preferred locution — say either the full name or the first name. "Kamala" is distinctive in a way that "Harris" is not. Ask the person on the street, "What do you think of Harris?" and I bet most people will express puzzlement: Who's Harris?

Replete with cheeseheads and "Jump Around"...

Wisconsin weighed in at the convention:

I don't know why Governor Tony Evers had such trouble getting the words out, but what does it matter? The votes were cast, and the votes were not real anyway.

Nice to see Ben Wikler by his side.

As for the convention in general, no, I did not watch. Maybe I'll take a look at the Obamas speeches on YouTube... or just look at the transcripts... count how many times they said "hope" or something.

ADDED: I scrolled right to Wisconsin and felt good about hearing "Jump Around," but I see that all the states got their popular song. Here's a full list. Because they went in alphabetical order, Alabama was first, and the song is a song that used to make lefties cringe: "Sweet Home Alabama."

"Adopting joy as a political shield has also allowed Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz to throw some bare-knuckled punches at Mr. Trump and his running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio."

"Ms. Harris, a former prosecutor, has targeted Mr. Trump for his many legal problems — 'I know Donald Trump’s type,' she now likes to say, to uproarious applause and chants of 'Lock him up' that she only recently began to discourage. Mr. Walz has castigated Mr. Trump for 'servicing himself' instead of helping others, and made an off-color reference to a debunked rumor about Mr. Vance and furniture. Both Democrats do it with a smile, and the crowd eats it up.... Of course, Ms. Harris’s joyful-warrior approach has so far not been substantive from a policy perspective...."

Writes Katie Rogers in "Harris Used to Worry About Laughing. Now Joy Is Fueling Her Campaign. Democrats are smiling again, and so is a vice president who once weighed the political risks of cheerfulness. The high spirits are also providing air cover for scathing attacks on Republicans" (NYT).

But maybe get-happy is policy enough: "In 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt adopted the song 'Happy Days Are Here Again' to offer a promise of a bright future to Americans stricken by the Great Depression.... In a time of war and economic recession, Barack Obama’s likeness was plastered on a poster [with] the message... 'Hope.'"

I thought it might be satire — Trump's request that the RNC not make him, right now, its "presumptive nominee."

But it's real... and Trump was for it before he was against it. CNN:

When Obama won the Iowa caucuses in 2008 — "It felt then as if we were embracing modernity and inclusion, moving away from the image of John Wayne’s America."

"How could we have gone from such a hopeful moment to such a discordant one? Of course, every time there’s a movement, there’s a countermovement, where people feel that their place in the world is threatened.... Trump has played on that resentment.... Trump is a master at exploiting voters’ fears. I’m puzzled about why his devoted fans don’t mind his mean streak. He can gleefully, cruelly, brazenly make fun of disabilities in a way that had never been done in politics — President Biden’s stutter, John McCain’s injuries from being tortured, a Times reporter’s disability — and loyal Trump fans laugh. He calls Haley 'Birdbrain.'... Obama’s triumph in Iowa was about having faith in humanity. If Trump wins here, it will be about tearing down faith in humanity...."

Writes Maureen Dowd in her column this week, "Here Comes Trump, the Abominable Snowman" (NYT).

To repeat the question: "How could we have gone from such a hopeful moment to such a discordant one?" Does Dowd really believe it's all Trump's fault? Couldn't Obama himself have used his presidency more effectively and built American optimism? He promised hope, but why didn't he deliver more of it? Why did we end the Obama years with so much division and strife? Dowd puts no responsibility on Obama. It's all about the reactionaries — the countermovement that automatically follows any movement. It happens "every time." Dowd chooses to portray the American people as a machine, behaving mechanically — and perversely. And yet somehow it is Trump who is devoted to "tearing down faith in humanity." 

"Trump’s victory is by no means assured...."

"But the past few years of Trump, Trump, Trump have taught me, if nothing else, that hoping for the best is not necessarily a winning strategy. With American democracy on the line, I’m taking the only defensible position toward the New Year: full-scale dread. I plan to pull up the covers and hide under my pillow as long as possible come January. It’s going to be a long twelve months."

Writes Susan B. Glasser, in "The Year We Stopped Being Able to Pretend About Trump/The story of 2023 wasn’t the search for another Republican leader—but the Party’s embrace of the one it already has" (The New Yorker).

Dread as the alternative to hope.

How could dread be a "winning strategy"?

Are Democrats arriving at the belief that Trump is inevitable? What strange power that man has!

"The Taliban says that women’s lives have improved under its two-year rule."

"Supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada issued a ban on forced marriages shortly after taking power, and he vowed in a recent audio message that he wants women to live 'comfortable' lives. But many women tell a different story. A 29-year-old participating in an art workshop for girls and young women in Kabul said she is afraid of the moments when her fellow students say they are starting to feel better. 'These days, it actually just means they have given up hoping for a better life,' said the woman, who like others interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals."

From "As Afghan schools remain closed for girls, mental health crisis builds" (WaPo).

Is it a different story or is it the same story? What is a "comfortable life"? Is it not accepting the reality where you find yourself and feeling good about whatever it is you happen to have? Is hope comfortable?

"The four children found alive after surviving for 40 days in a Colombian jungle were told by their mother to leave the site of a plane crash and seek help..."

"... their father said. According to the oldest child, their mother lived for about four days after surviving the impact of the crash that left the group stranded in the wilderness.... Fidencio Valencia, an uncle, told reporters... that the siblings initially sustained themselves on cassava flour known as fariña, which was being transported aboard the aircraft.... 'When the plane crashed, they took out a fariña, and with that, they survived.... After the fariña ran out, they began to eat seeds.'... [R]escuer Henry Guerrero said the children also found one of 100 emergency supply kits scattered by the military — as well as wild fruits and plants in the jungle."

From "Mother told kids to leave Colombia plane crash site for help, family says" (WaPo).

Here's a tweet from Colombia’s military showing a drawing from the 2 oldest children. We're told: "This drawing represents the hope of an entire country":

"He looked forward, he said, to a better diet in prison, with more vegetables and fewer carbs. Life in prison will allow him..."

"... to correspond with his friends, perhaps including a pen pal whom he said he wanted to marry. He’ll have recreation time, be able to play sports and maybe even watch his favorite teams compete on TV. Opponents of capital punishment often claim that life in prison is worse than death.... Instead of putting him out of his misery, they insist, keep him alive so he’ll really suffer. Three decades of documenting daily life on death rows and inside maximum security prisons.... have taught me.... the most vicious criminals often have the best jobs, best hustles and easiest lives.... Mr. Cruz’s hopes, expectations and dreams for his own future remain realistic...."

Writes lawprof Robert Blecker, author of "The Death of Punishment: Searching for Justice Among the Worst of the Worst," in "If Not the Parkland Shooter, Who Is the Death Penalty For?" (NYT).

"Loss or change of sense of smell or taste can lead to 'severe distress'... people... often feel 'isolated' when dismissed by clinicians."

"Daily activities such as smelling coffee and testing the flavour of food can become 'disgusting and emotionally distressing'.... [A]n estimated 5.6% of patients have smell dysfunction for at least six months and 4.4% have altered taste.... [W]hile most patients are expected to recover their sense of smell or taste within the first three months, 'a major group of patients might develop long-lasting dysfunction that requires timely identification, personalised treatment and long-term follow-up.'"

 
From "Covid study finds millions have long-term smell or taste problems/Researchers say about 5% of infected adults may develop long-lasting changes to sense of smell or taste" (The Guardian).

What is the "personalised treatment and long-term follow-up"? I've had a loss of the sense of smell for over a decade, and from what I understand, there is no treatment. I'd love for there to be more research to develop treatments, but if you don't have anything to help me, I don't want health-care money — and my own time — wasted on monitoring me.

The article refers to "the devastating effect that loss of smell and taste can have on quality of life and wellbeing." Don't overdramatize! It's as bad as it is but no worse. My life isn't devastated. How do you expect people with worse disabilities to keep their spirits up? 

ADDED: By chance, the very next thing I read, also in The Guardian, was "I gave up hope of a cure for my chronic condition. And it’s made me happier than ever before/For 30 years, I tried to ‘fight’ it. In the end, I found relief in embracing my identity as a person with a disability" by Keith Kahn-Harris: 

"I’ve been actively avoiding the news for years. It wasn’t always this way. I’ve been a journalist for two decades..."

"... and I used to spend hours consuming the news and calling it 'work.'... It felt like my duty to be informed, as a citizen and as a journalist — and also, I kind of loved it!.. I was too permeable.... So, like a lot of people, I started to dose the news. I cut out TV news altogether, because that’s just common sense, and I waited until late afternoon to read other news.... I went to a therapist. She told me (ready?) to stop consuming the news. That felt wrong.... Then one day a journalist friend confided that she was avoiding the news, too. Then I heard it from another journalist. And another. (Most were women, I noticed, though not all.) This news about disliking news was always whispered, a dirty little secret. It reminded me of the scene in 'The Social Dilemma,' when all those tech executives admitted that they didn’t let their kids use the products they had created."

Writes Amanda Ripley, in "I’m a journalist who stopped reading the news. Is the problem me — or our product?" (WaPo).

She decides that news needs to be rebuilt around human needs. It needs to give people: 1. hope, 2. a sense of agency, and 3. dignity. 

"To bring a child into this world has always been an act of hope," writes Ezra Klein...

... in "Don’t Let Climate Change Stop You From Having Kids" (NYT).

The ignorance and lack of empathy is simply astounding. Always? "Always" refers to all of human history, replete with slavery, rape, the subordination of women, and the lack of perfect birth control and the freedom to use it. You didn't need hope! What drivel is this?

I know, women's emancipation is not Klein's focus. He just forgot about it. Outrageously! He's saying — presumably unwittingly — that when women have been raped and impregnated and continued in their pregnancy to the point of childbirth, they were TAKING ACTION — not merely experiencing an ordeal — and — what's more — it was an ACT OF HOPE. Always!!! 

"Canada’s supreme court has ruled that life sentences without the chance of parole are both 'cruel' and unconstitutional..."

"The court unanimously determined on Friday that sentencing killers to lengthy prison terms with little hope of freedom risked bringing the “administration of justice into disrepute.'... Acknowledging the heinous crimes of those serving multiple life sentences, Chief Justice Richard Wagner wrote that the ruling 'must not be seen as devaluing the life' of innocent victims. 'This appeal is not about the value of each human life, but rather about the limits on the state’s power to punish offenders, which, in a society founded on the rule of law, must be exercised in a manner consistent with the Constitution.'"

The Guardian reports.

"The inclusion of a transgender personality for kids and adult doll collectors alike is groundbreaking. This is bigger than even Laverne Cox herself. This would ripple down many generations to come."

Said Tinu Naija, "a New York-based Barbie enthusiast [who] ordered the Cox doll," quoted in "Laverne Cox is first trans woman to have Barbie doll modeled after her" (WaPo). 

Cox herself said: "I hope all the kids who are feeling stigmatized when their health care is being jeopardized, whose ability to play sports [is curtailed], I hope they can see this Barbie and feel a sense of hope and possibility."

ADDED: I had an additional thing I was going to say. Then I checked out the comments over there and saw the top comment is pretty close to what I'd self-censored : "I thought Ken was the first transgender Barbie doll. Look in his pants."

Ha ha. I got the original Ken doll when it came out, and I was quite interested to see what was in his pants. It was 1961. I was 10. Should Mattel have dangled that in front of me?