"If this happened here there would be uproar, quite rightly. Yet Trump and his cronies can do whatever they like with total impunity, and indifference from the public. What is wrong with Americans?"

A comment on the London Times article "Kristi Noem spent $20,000 on horses for advert that got her fired/The contract for the Department of Homeland Security’s one-minute advert was worth $220 million — more than the budget for this year’s best picture Oscar winner."

King meets President... and the ladies who carry pocketbooks meet the lady who carries only herself.

The wind kicks up as the King steps forward and all the many ladies' hats threaten to undercut the extreme dignity. The First Lady waits until she's duly shaken hands with the King before she reaches up — at 16:57 — to steady her headgear.

Stick around until 18:35, and you won't be sorry, unless you hate horses, white horses, arrayed in fairy-tale style.

It's the King's very best carriage, lavishly festooned with gold leaf, the very frippery Trump's haters deplore in the Oval Office. Their slogan plays in my head: No Kings!

At 23:13, I get the answer to the question that's been puzzling me: How do they keep the horses from shitting? (They don't.)

I had thought there was no music, that somehow silence was the soundscape for the event, but at 24:07 I see musicians and notice faint music. Perhaps there was music all along and a telephoto lens on the camera is creating the illusion that it is much closer than it seems. The faint music informs us of our great distance from these illustrious characters.

At 25:00, the music is (or seems) louder. It's "The Star-Spangled Banner." A song about fighting the British. 

"I gave the zoo my daughter’s beloved pony to be fed to the lions."

Headline at the London Times. Subheadline: "Aalborg Zoo in Denmark caused outrage by asking for animals to be donated for meat. One mother says she has no regrets."

From the text:

"I gave Angelina the various options and she chose the one with the zoo, because it made the most sense.... She had previously watched one of my horses being taken away by the vet to be euthanised, and it was a bad experience for her. She said that this time she wanted to follow the food chain. She wanted Chicago 57 to benefit other animals.”

Sohl was present when the pony was humanely killed with a bolt gun. “There was a zookeeper standing there cuddling and kissing him — as if it was me standing with him,” she said. “I got to say a final goodbye.” She was told afterwards that his carcass had been fed to the zoo’s lions.

And here's our discussion from last week about the Aalborg Zoo eating-the-pets program.

ADDED: "I hate anyone that ever had a pony when they were growing up."

"why does the horse have three ears"/"So he likes 7 foot tall women? Or is he riding a pony?"

X users rain on Musk's boyish dream.

In a romantic pre-Raphaelite style, a tender moment unfolds between a handsome knight in gleaming silver armor and a beautiful woman in a flowing white gown adorned with flowers.

The knight, with a sword at his side, sits astride a brown horse with a red-gold draped saddle,… pic.twitter.com/0w32szTD9D

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 9, 2025

"Felix Baumgartner, the Austrian extreme adventurer who hurtled to earth from more than 24 miles high in 2012 and became the first human to break the sound barrier while free-falling..."

"... died on Thursday in a paragliding accident along the Adriatic coast in Italy. He was 56....Mr. Baumgartner crashed to the ground a few yards from a swimming pool in the town of Porto Sant’Elpidio, the mayor, Massimiliano Ciarpella, said on Friday. He said that Mr. Baumgartner had become ill during his flight and had lost consciousness by the time of impact in a part of town popular among tourists. An autopsy was to be performed, he said...."

From "Felix Baumgartner, 56, Professional Daredevil, Dies While Paragliding/Nicknamed 'Fearless Felix,' he jumped from the edge of space in 2012" (NYT).

The death-defying dive into a swimming pool — with tourists watching — called to mind the diving horses at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City:

 

"I travel to see nursing homes to meet people, go to schools, I do my show and tell, this is a horse. You know, a lot of people have never seen a horse."

Said Lee Crafton, quoted in "Montana man, 63, who has no family spends his life traveling back and forth across US on horse-drawn carriage at 3mph and has just started his fifth trip" (Daily Mail).

"I wouldn’t trust her farther than I can spit. She’ll say whatever..."

"... she’ll say something to you, and something else to you, in the same day — if she thinks it’s going to help her, whether it be money, whether it be fame or power."

Said Ellen Doughty, about Stormy Daniels, quoted in "The horse wars of Stormy Daniels/As she tangles with a former president, the adult-film actress also plays a starring role in a drama that has rocked the world of competitive English riding" (WaPo)(long article, free access link).

Before Stormy Daniels came forward to attack Donald Trump, she attacked Ellen Doughty. Doughty is suing Daniels for defamation after Daniels accused Doughty, a horse trainer, of mistreating horses.

"The horse appears to be digitally composed because its front and hind legs do not represent any phase of natural movement at the walk, trot, canter, or gallop."

"Based on its leg position the horse appears to be trotting with his hind legs and cantering with his front!"

So says a commenter at the NYT Style piece, "Dissecting the ‘Cowboy Carter’ Cover: Beyoncé’s Yeehaw Agenda/On Tuesday, the pop star revealed her new album’s cover, a constellation of country signifiers reminding fans of her Texas roots."

The "Style Desk" writers are saying things like "I love how she and the horse have matching hair," "she’s clearly been trying to reinscribe images of Black women into the history of the cowboys and the West," and "Beyoncé is looking directly into the camera with her face forward and it really feels like a reclaiming" and "Beyoncé seems to believe she has to position herself as a cowgirl on a horse, wearing red, white and blue, holding the American flag on an album cover to drill it into people’s heads that her interest in country isn’t a fad."

Here's the photo/illustration under discussion:

How high is your horse?

I'd have thought the expression "up on your high horse" had gone out of style. Who's riding horses these days? We may feel irked when other people seem to be looking down on us, but — in the metaphor in our head — is a horse part of the picture?

But yesterday, I encountered — and blogged about — a NYT column by Nicholas Kristof, "On Their High Horse, Too Many Liberals Disdain Oliver Anthony" (NYT).

And now, this morning, I stumble into another high horse. I'm reading "Disqualify Trump in 2024? It’s clear what the NC Supreme Court would say" by North Carolina lawprof Gene Nichol, who takes the position that everyone knows the North Carolina Supreme Court won't go along with this theory about Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

Because we all know they’re politicians first and judges, at best, an exceedingly distant second. We know it. They know it. They just swear otherwise. And they swear from a very high, very hypocritical, horse. You would think the words would turn to ashes in their mouths. They wear cool black robes, no doubt. But as the patriarch of TV’s “Succession” puts it, they “are not serious people.”

"[O]ur mother shattered the protocols of stuffy Washington decorum. 'People were uptight and too concerned about how they appeared'..."

"... my mother remembers. To cure this contagion, she coaxed notables of different backgrounds into unfamiliar situations. A wizard at peer pressure, she compelled her guests to play charades, freeze tag, and capture the flag, and join in rope climbing and push-up competitions. She had Cabinet members fence with bamboo sticks on gangplanks spanning the pool....When Robert Frost visited Hickory Hill after Uncle Jack’s inauguration, she made him judge a poetry-writing contest among government officials and celebrity guests. At a party for Averell Harriman’s birthday the guests came dressed as the Harrimans during some episode of their eventful lives. My mother borrowed life-size wax figures from Madame Tussauds of Harriman, FDR, Churchill, and Stalin at Yalta, and placed them unobtrusively around the living room to mingle with the crowd...."

Writes Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in "American Values/Lessons I Learned From My Family."

"... just a funny cover the inside is a bunch of random bs that has nothing to do with falling in love with a horse..."

From a 1-star review of "But... You're a Horse" — at Amazon, where it's quite clear that you're basically buying a hilarious book-shaped object that looks like this:

 

That came out in 2014, so why am I running across it today? I googled the line "You did it for a horse." I had my reason!

The morning ritual — in Mongolia.

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.

I've got 11 TikToks for you tonight, and it's quite possible you will love them all.

1. Detailed calligraphic artwork.

2. Gifting the Italian husband with Italian snack foods. 

3. How to style your hair. (For men with hair.)

4. "Going for a hoon in the Austrian Alps." (I had to look up "hoon.")

5. Now that's a wetsuit.

6. Crossing a difficult footbridge with a goat. 

7. "She's a rat girl, and you just fell in love."

8. A funny use of "Jump Around" (with a red scarf and a freckly horse).

9. "Are there dating sites out there for people that just don't...."

10. "... a new attitude towards life...."

11. The kid that just wanted to hear the same three U2 songs over and over in the car.

"A 14-year-old boy who fell to his death from a Florida amusement park ride... stood more than 6 feet tall and weighed 383 pounds... The maximum passenger weight for the ride is 287 pounds..."

"Tyre’s parents have filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against ICON Park and the ride’s operator and manufacturer.... 'The autopsy report also confirms that Tyre was almost 100 pounds over the limit of passenger weight allowed.... The negligence in this case is unrebuttable.'.... The lawsuit alleges that no weight restrictions were posted at the ticket counter and that no employee advised the teen that he may have exceeded them. It states that during the ride, Tyre was 'ejected' from his seat and fell 'a hundred feet to his death.'"

WaPo reports.

"The lawsuit alleges that no weight restrictions were posted at the ticket counter" — were weight restrictions posted anywhere else? Perhaps he bought the ticket, then saw a sign. And yet, even if he did and chose to ignore it, the ride operators need something better than an honor code about weight.

[T]he Orlando Free Fall... drops nearly 400 feet at speeds of more than 75 mph and is advertised as the “world’s tallest free-standing drop tower.”

It's awkward to enforce weight limits though. See "TikTok star Remi Bader says she was mocked for her weight after being turned away from horse ranch" (NBC News).

I have 9 TikTok selections for your amusement tonight. I think they're all just exactly right, but you can tell me what you like best.

1. A strange device for popping popcorn.

2. A father's amazing skill at earthquake detection.

3. Hospice Nurse Julie went on a terrible date.

4. The self-dramatizing horse.

5. Son House sings "Death Letter Blues."

6. The first guy who comes up with the idea of going to the beach as an activity.

7. The cat on the Fancy Feast catfood can isn't fancy enough. (Later: Purina expresses thanks for the new design.)

8. Getting your hair braided in Ghana.

9. The rosy maple moth.

Today's list of TikTok selections goes up to 11. Let me know which ones — which I chose for delightfulness — are your favorite.

1. Ants methodically receive goldfish crackers.

2. Horses make it hard to deliver a political message.

3. Men who love sticks.

4. To annoy her brothers is this girl's career.

5. Did this dog go in the trash?

6. A college degree in theater is absolutely not absolutely useless.

7. A brilliant 3-D portrait of Nikola Tesla.

8. A comedian does impressions of iPhones.

9. Affirming brain differences.

10. Recoating the warehouse floor.

11. Waiting for the statue to throw the ball.

I bring you 8 TikTok selections in the hope that you'll say which one(s) you like and why.

1. A song about cooking salmon in your studio apartment.

2. Scary stories for horses.

3. Dolly Parton and Patti LaBelle use their acrylic fingernails for percussion.

4. A freaky optical illusion.

5. A Tasmanian devil yawns.

6. How to live with a boy and still have a cute apartment.

7. Thatched roof skills.

8. Ukrainians before the war and now.

My TikTok selections of the day. I've got 6 for you today.

1. An impressive demonstration of the difficulty of speaking Chinese.

2. Charming sidewalk chalkings that take advantage of real cracks and other anomalies.

3. The father doesn't remember, but the daughter does.

4. She found the right rock for her mermaid pose.

5. From a series of self-defense moves learned from horses.

6. The easiest way to fold a towel is to think of the towel as a Facebook group.

"Once M.I.T. starts choosing speakers based on their public stances, it becomes responsible for every stance of every speaker it does invite. Isn’t that a bigger risk for M.I.T. than a stance-neutral policy?"

A tersely brilliant question framed by Ilya Shlyakhter, published in "Letters: Canceled by M.I.T.: The Professor’s Talk" (NYT).

It could become impossible to invite anyone anywhere, because something could turn up post-invitation and you'd need to pull off the awkward, conspicuous act of revoking the invitation. It could become impossible to accept an invitation, because you're asking for anyone to search through whatever there might be out there that could be used against you, throwing your life into total disarray.

ADDED: I'm searching the NYT and finding a lot of letters to the editor from Ilya Shlyakhter. I'll highlight a few: