"Will and Kate came over and I met her for the first time, for dinner, I remember I was in ripped jeans, I was barefoot."

"Like, I was a hugger. I’ve always been a hugger. I didn’t realize that is really jarring for a lot of Brits."

From "Harry and Meghan series, likely to anger British royals, drops on Netflix" (WaPo).

That quote is at the end of the article, which has just 2 more lines:

She described how the royals’ “formality on the outside carried on to the inside.”

This is a developing story.

It's breaking news? Presumably there will be updates. About what, you wonder? About other things to be found in this 6-part Netflix documentary that just — as they say — "dropped." 

ADDED: I don't believe for one minute that an American-based "hugger" doesn't understand that not everyone accepts being hugged on first meeting. It may be more disturbing for some "Brits," but she well knew that Kate and William weren't just random Brits. They are people who expect special deference. It you want to deny them that, that's your business, but don't expect us to believe you just didn't know, you're just brimming with hugginess, and that's American. Maybe that plays more believably to Brits, who might think we Americans are mindlessly casual. Maybe we are, but we're not ignoramuses.

"This sounds pretty terrifying to me. It's a country full of alienated people, broken communities, and estranged families. Instead of fixing the broken social fabric..."

"... we are further retreating into our anxious selves and the mental health crises will undoubtedly worsen. Except for the tiny minority of students who can truly benefit from this, the effects of a broad move to online learning on the socialization of young people would be profound and I'd rather not imagine them."

Says one highly rated comment at "Online Schools Are Here to Stay, Even After the Pandemic/Some families have come to prefer stand-alone virtual schools and districts are rushing to accommodate them — though questions about remote learning persist" (NYT). 

Another comment: "If this last year has taught me nothing else, it's that the 'digital world' is not a life worth living, and I am an introvert. I did not exactly have a successful social life in school, but I would still never trade the experience for being a hermit at home. People need to learn to get along with each other now more than ever before. Online school is an acceptable back up for times when in-person schooling is not possible such as when a student is sick, what would otherwise be a snow day, pandemics, travel demands and the like, all of these are better than the prior alternative of no school. But that's all it is, a mediocre substitute for the real thing and real people."

It's worth clicking through to see the photography at the top of the article. I really can't decide what feelings and ideas the NYT meant to highlight. It's a mother enveloping her 11-year-old son in a hug. The sun is on his face and he looks blissful. The text says he suffers from some sort of mental condition that makes him "apprehensive around other students" and that he's loved the on-line school program. But, we're told, he's going back to school, so I'm going to say that the NYT means to say all-encompassing motherly love cannot be the end point. That boy needs to get back into the real world of other kids. Which is what the commenters are saying.

Can we all just get along?

Dogs and cats together: The dog pets the cat and, in response, the cat stands up and hugs the dog:

Did my dog just pet my cat?? And did my cat just hug my dog?? pic.twitter.com/PuNWB1Ggzw

— Jordan Ireland (@jor_nicole4) December 28, 2018

"I could have hit him, I could have hurt him ... but something in me said, ‘You know what? He just needs love.'"

Said Aaron Courtney, a 31-year-old African-American high school football coach, about why he hugged a man who was wearing a swastika T-shirt. At the link is the viral video of the hug, with Courtney saying "Why don’t you like me, dog?"

“I had the opportunity to talk to someone who hates my guts and I wanted to know why. During our conversation, I asked him, ‘Why do you hate me? What is it about me? Is it my skin color? My history? My dreadlocks?’” he told the Daily News.

But the man simply looked off into the distance and brushed off his questions as Courtney pleaded with him and grew increasingly upset.

It should be noted that before this happened, the man, Randy Furniss, was "surrounded by a crowd of protesters who screamed, punched and spat on him."

“After beating around the bush, and avoiding my questions, I asked him, I pleaded with him, I almost broke out in tears, growing increasingly angry because I didn’t understand,” he said.... The crowd around them immediately reacted and when Courtney pressed him again, asking “Why do you hate me?” Furniss finally answered, “I don’t know.”

“I believe that was his sincere answer. He really doesn’t know,” Courtney said.

Furniss was surrounded and in a physically dangerous situation. What could he do? And that hug was a big physical encroachment on him. Even loving hugs should be consented to, but it's not clear — I've seen the video — that the hug expresses love. I think if I were in that situation — not that I'd wear a swastika T-shirt...

... I would experience the question "Why don’t you like me, dog?" as threatening.

I am not so naive as to believe that a distinct line exists between love and hate.

You can't just hug Jerry Seinfeld. In fact, you can't even assume he knows who you are when you're a celebrity.

In fact, you can't even assume that if he knew which celebrity you are he'd want to hug you.

LAST NIGHT @KeshaRose found out @JerrySeinfeld is not a #Hugger -- Is it hard to be a non-hugger in 2017? pic.twitter.com/92OoMFCNkd

— Tommy McFLY (@TommyMcFLY) June 6, 2017

And isn't he absolutely correct? Look at how Kesha embodies precisely what Donald Trump was talking about when he (very famously) said:

"I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything."

It didn't work for Kesha, because Seinfeld didn't know who she was. Within her world, she's a star and when she wants to hug, apparently, she gets her hugs. They let her do it.

And maybe Jerry would have rebuffed the hug even if he did recognize her. Here he is, talking about the incident after the video went viral:

"In my reality… I don’t hug a total stranger. I have to meet someone, say hello. I gotta start somewhere. Hug isn’t first moment of a human, two humans. I never did that."

"I got a borderline harassment case here!"

The assumption that men always want physical contact with attractive/youngish women might be as bad as the atTrumption that when a man's a star the women let him do anything. (And I know, I'm not a man, and I expect you to school me about how men feel, but it doesn't matter if 90% of men want women — young, attractive women — to fling themselves into the man's arms and hug and kiss him. The 10% matter. And the 90% deserve to be asked for an indication of consent before the desired thing is transformed into a reality.)

ADDED: No means no. Jerry gives Kesha a no and she doesn't accept the no. She pressures him before finally giving up. Men get to say no too. Kesha displays the classic double standard, that the male no doesn't matter, that the much-reviled "no means yes" idea lives on.

"This museum tells the truth that a country founded on the principles of liberty held thousands in chains."

"Even today, the journey towards justice is not compete. But this museum will inspire us to go farther and get there faster."

Said George W. Bush, appearing today, along with President Obama and Chief Justice Roberts, at the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Nice picture at the link of Michelle Obama warmly hugging Bush.

Here's Time Magazine's transcription of what Obama said. Excerpt:

This is the place to understand how protests and love of country don’t merely coexist, but inform each other. How men can probably win the gold for their country, but still insist on raising a black-gloved fist. How we can wear an I Can’t Breathe T-shirt, and still grieve for fallen police officers. Here, the American wear the razor-sharp uniform of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, belongs alongside the cape of the Godfather of Soul.

We have shown the world we can float like butterflies, and sting like bees, that we can rocket into space like Mae Jemison, steal home like Jackie, rock like Jimmy [sic!], stir the pot like Richard Pryor. And we can be sick and tired of being sick and tired like Fannie Lou Hamer, and still rock steady like Aretha Franklin....

I, too, am America. It is a glorious story, the one that’s told here. It is complicated, and it is messy, and it is full of contradictions, as all great stories are, as Shakespeare is, as Scripture is. And it’s a story that perhaps needs to be told now more than ever.

Obama doesn't mention Donald Trump, but last week, Obama said:

"You may have heard Hillary's opponent in this election say that there's never been a worse time to be a black person. I mean, he missed that whole civics lesson about slavery or Jim Crow.... But we've got a museum for him to visit, so he can tune in. We will educate him."

It would, in fact, be a good idea for Trump to visit the museum, but I've got to say that Obama distorted Trump's statement. Trump did not say "there's never been a worse time to be a black person." That's Obama's paraphrase. Trump said:

"We're going to rebuild our inner cities because our African-American communities are absolutely in the worst shape that they've ever been in before. Ever. Ever. Ever... You take a look at the inner cities, you get no education, you get no jobs, you get shot walking down the street. They're worse -- I mean, honestly, places like Afghanistan are safer than some of our inner cities."

It's a statement about "African-American communities." A slave was not living in an "African-American community." And Jim Crow was an evil system of exclusion, but to say that is not to understand what life was like in the communities where black people did live. I understand the political motivation for paraphrasing Trump's remark the way Obama did, but that paraphrase pretends not to see what Trump was saying. It's much harder — and much more important — to try to refute Trump's inflammatory statement if you're precise about what he said. And even if you did amass the historical and present-day journalistic record to refute it, why would you be smug?

"Helicopters made an emergency delivery of flares and dogs to the station on Wednesday morning in a bid to help scientists on Troynoy..."

"... an island in the Kara Sea north of the Siberian coast, fend off the [dozen polar] bears, according to Vassiliy Shevchenko, the head of the Sevgidromet State Monitoring Network...."

[T]he five-strong team of researchers had not left the station since [August 31], and that the delivery of flares had been urgently needed as the next cargo vessel was not due to arrive for another month.

“A female bear has been sleeping under the station’s windows since Saturday night. It’s dangerous to go out as we have run short of any means to scare off the predators. We had to stop some of the meteorological observations,” Plotkinov added on Monday.

However, Shevchenko said that “three puppies and pyrotechnical devices” had successfully been delivered to the station, which helped the researchers to scare some of the bears away, and allowed observations to resume on Wednesday.

Puppies!

It's hard for me to have an opinion here. I'm pro-science, but I've been conditioned to empathize with polar bears. It's their island, isn't it? Why are these people, who are not built to survive in the extreme  north, encroaching on their territory?

I note that this is Russia, so I'm wondering if Putin can help. I heard he's a strong leader. Putin has boldly confronted the polar bear. Back in 2010:

He has sunk to the bottom of the world's deepest lake, skied down volcanoes and fished in Siberian rivers. Now, Russia's action-man prime minister, Vladimir Putin, has gone one better – coming face to snout with a giant (if slumbering) polar bear during a trip to Russia's remote Arctic north....

... Russian scientists captured the bear ahead of Putin's visit and kept it captive for 10 days. After hugging the male animal round the neck, Putin fitted it with an electronic collar. Asked by a female journalist about the bear's massive paws, he said: "They're heavy. He's the real master of the Arctic."

"Please clap" in the previous post caused me to uncover "The 17 saddest moments of Jeb Bush’s very sad campaign."

In Vox. To me, the saddest — if by, sad, we mean funny-sad — is: "15) The moment when Jeb was so excited to hear that he might have won a guy's vote that he ran over to hug him (February 4)."

Man compels John Kasich to hug him.

What choice did Kasich have?

“Over a year ago, a man who was like my second dad, he killed himself,” Smith said, breaking up. “And then a few months later, my parents got a divorce, and then a few months later, my dad lost his job. I was in a really dark place for a long time, I was pretty depressed. I found hope in the Lord and in my friends and now I’ve found it in my presidential candidate that I support. And I would really appreciate one of those hugs you’ve been talking about.”

There's so much touching involved in presidential campaigning. It's weird, in these days of scrupulous protection of each individual's physical integrity — did she affirmatively consent? — that bodily touch, including the full body contact of hugging, is expected and lauded. And by contrast, the instinct to keep other people from grabbing and groping you is viewed as evidence that you are rather despicably cold and snooty:



I think these expectations and perspectives have a different impact, generally, on males and females. It's really amazing that Hillary — if not Huma — has walked smiling through crowds of touching, touch-needy people and we have not seen one viral video clip of her recoiling in aversion and disgust. How many miles is that long walk through the handsy mob before one can reach the presidency? It must be hundreds of miles. Quite the gantlet.

Rush Limbaugh calls my name... and calls out Obama for woman-kissing and other possible sexism.

Here's the transcript of a segment of today's show, where there was discussion of 2 related incidents: 1. The "don't touch my girlfriend" scene in Chicago where Obama, demonstrating how to vote, ordered a woman to kiss him, and 2. Obama's description of an ebola-related appearance at Emory University hospital: "I shook hands with, hugged, and kissed, not the doctors, but a couple of the nurses at Emory because of the valiant work that they did in treating one of the patients."

A woman had called in about that ebola incident, and — as Rush put it:

"[W]hat she thought was that since he made a big deal out of not kissing the doctors, that he wanted to make everybody aware that he wasn't gay. And her point was, what's wrong with being gay? 

My point would be that he used the stereotype that doctors are male and nurses are female. But, yeah, on top of that, what's wrong — within his world view — with men kissing men?

Well, he is married. If he was gay, that would be a problem....

Wait! If he's distinguishing kissing males and females, he's specifying that kissing is sexual, and kissing the women should be a problem for a man married to a woman. If it's not sexual, he should kiss both sexes indiscriminately (which would work to deny the sexuality of kissing unless he's bisexual).

... so he's going out of his way to say he's not gay. That's her interpretation. 

If that's correct, then Obama made a homophobia faux pas.  Rush connects that incident to the "don't touch my girlfriend" scene that I wrote about — here — yesterday. Rush describes what happened and says that some people think the scene was scripted. His theory — which is nothing like mine — is that it was supposed to make Obama seem attractive and supportive to women, to counteract Tina Brown's recent statement: "I don't think [Obama] makes [women] feel safe." Whether the Chicago incident was scripted or not, I didn't read it as a demonstration of making women feel safe. I thought it was an intrusion on the woman. But Rush proceeds to quote me:

Like Ann Althouse on her blog said, "Wait a second, I thought men weren't supposed to --" You know, you have to get consent to do this now on every college campus. You can't just kiss a woman without her permission, and you can't approach her and put your arm around without her permission, without her consent. Obama just forced his way on that woman. And she looked like she wanted it, by the way. She looked like she didn't mind, honored to be given a hug and a smooch by the president, cocksman A. 

In my book, it doesn't matter how she acted. He didn't know in advance how she would feel. Even if she loved it, he assumed he was welcome to impose on her body. And her reaction doesn't convince me that she loved it. She was on camera, overwhelmed by the most powerful man in the world, and forced to think quickly about what might be in her interest. How was rejecting him or acting offended even an option?

Rush continues:

So that happens, and everybody's laughing and Obama walks out around her and he's looking like he's pulled off some major score here. Talks about this guy, why would a brother want to embarrass me like this and so forth. So people are wondering if the whole thing was scripted since it followed, by one day, Tina Brown saying that Obama makes women feel unsafe.

Clearly this woman was not feeling unsafe. She's laughing. She's all excited. 

I don't think that's clear. She was put on the spot... by the President of the United States. She might be laughing out of sheer emotional overload, confusion, and the weirdness of it all. Are you allowed to fight off the advances of The Leader? Droit du seigneur?? Is there some core of personal autonomy and rectitude that I can voice right now? The safe bet is to let it all roll over you. Pretend you're into it. Safe bet. Women want to be safe. Tina says. Safety is one way to play the game of life. But the other players should not assume that your silence means consent. If they do, they don't really care about women. Yes mean yes. Silence does not mean yes. Silence may mean: I am subordinated.

Rush finishing the segment, trying — I think — to pick up on what I'd said:

But it's very clear that she did not sign a consent form before he embraced her. It wasn't an embrace. He put his arm around her shoulder. But there was no consent form. She didn't sign a consent form before he embraced her and kissed her. And that's illegal in many places in America now and on college campi. Just did it.

I thought only "yes" means yes: Did Obama get true, verbalized consent from that woman before he kissed her?

No. He did not. People are focusing on Obama's interplay with a man who said "Don't touch my girlfriend" as Obama was voting in Chicago, demonstrating how to vote.

But let's talk about the woman. Obama orders her to kiss him: "You're gonna kiss me. Give him something to talk about. Now, he's really jealous." As you see in the video, he makes that declarative statement and immediately grabs her and kisses and hugs her.

Why is that acceptable? He's using her in an effort to regain dignity and to humiliate the man who humiliated him. It might all be dismissed as play humiliation and play counter-humiliation. But the woman's body was used as an object of that play, a means of communication between men.

"Secretary Clinton has at every step of the way touted the significant achievements of his presidency, which she is honored to have been part of as his secretary of state."

"While they’ve had honest differences on some issues, including aspects of the wicked challenge Syria presents, she has explained those differences in her book and at many points since then. Some are now choosing to hype those differences but they do not eclipse their broad agreement on most issues. Like any two friends who have to deal with the public eye, she looks forward to hugging it out when ... they see each other tomorrow night."

Obama hugs Sebelius.

But check out the look on his face.

Snuggle House finally opens.

"Lonnie Johnson, one of four staff members at the touch-therapy business... said staff were relieved to see the business get past the city paperwork problems and regulatory issues that had prevented the business from opening as planned on Oct. 15."

"Top 10 signs you've gone native in Spain."

"You've gone all touchy-feely...."

You've started yelling at waiters....

You've lost all political correctness....

You've stopped being so polite. Countless blank stares have made you realize that being excessively apologetic or thankful doesn't get you places in Spain. So no more "muchas gracias" (thank you very much) or "lo siento" (sorry) unless you really, really mean it.....

"Therapeutic cuddling is cuddling designed as a non-sexual way to stimulate oxytocin, the love hormone, which makes you feel safe and connected to others."

"These people are really lonely... There's a lot of need for touch," said the proprietor of Madison's Snuggle House, Matthew Hurtado. The City of Madison seems to be dragging its heels, fretting over the possibility of prostitution, and the place has had to delay opening.

According to Hurtado, there are 300 clients waiting for cuddling sessions, and that if the Madison sugglery is like NY's Snuggery, the clients are likely to be old people who — as the article paraphrases it — have "lost their spouses."

Lost their spouses? That sounds like carelessness. You know how old people are. Yes, they are old, so their spouses are more likely to die than the spouses of younger folk. But it's not the use of loss for death that bothers me. It's "spouse." What's the sex balance in that New York clientele? Are we talking about women and men or mostly (or nearly all or all) men?

Anyway, I note that "The Snuggle House occupies former law offices." Make a list of ways in which snuggling is not like lawyering and, next to it, a list of ways in which they are the same. On which list do you put "raises fear of prostitution"?

ADDED: Comment at the link: "I just know I'm going to get Snuggle House and Waffle House mixed up."

"Lonnie Johnson is the only male snuggler. He's previously held 9-to-5 jobs..."

"... but he said he wanted to answer the call so that he could help people."

"I was thinking to myself, 'man that is such a good idea,'" said Johnson. "Whether they admit to it or not, every human being needs love, needs to be cared about, needs physical contact as well."

Snuggling and snookering.

Was the CapTimes snookered by some web pages about "Snuggle House"? This seems absurd:

According to a recently created website and Facebook page, a new business called "The Snuggle House" is coming to Madison's east side on Oct. 1....

The Snuggle House promotes "touch therapy." Similar businesses and "cuddle parties" have promoted group and professional snuggling because of the increase in oxytocin released during the activity which can lead to a feeling of well-being and happiness....

The Snuggle House does not list an address or phone number. A Facebook message seeking additional information on where, when, why and how the Snuggle House will work was not returned on Tuesday.

If it's a real place, we could have fun mocking it, but come on. I'm stopping at critiquing the journalism on display here. Why are you promoting a (possible) business that doesn't respond to a press contact? It's lame and empty titillation, even as the purported business disclaims any sexual aspect to the services it would sell (if it were real) for $60 an hour.

Young Cory Booker — groping women or appeasing women?

The Daily Caller, apparently hungry to make Cory Booker look bad, has an article with the headline "In college column, Cory Booker revealed time he groped friend, and she resisted." I think we're supposed to find it significant that when he was 15 and making out with a willing partner, on a bed, he put his hand on her breast and she rejected the move. This is nothing, of course, but it's something not because he "groped" a girl, but because he used the incident, years later, to score with women.

He was at Stanford, in peak feminist times — post-Anita Hill, pre-Monica Lewinsky — and the column was titled "So Much for Stealing Second." In the manner of the time, he told his "own personal story" to "make a point" and "make people think":

“When grandiose statements entrenched in politically correct terminology are made, many may listen but few will hear,” Booker continued. “When I hesitated in writing this column, I realized I was basking in hypocrisy. So instead I chose to write and risk.”

Booker the 15-year-old may have been awkward, but Booker the college student is slick, speaking to his female peers the way they wanted. Eschew abstractions and grandiosity. Confess your male transgressions. Within the 1992 feminist environment, getting personal — "risking" — was the inroad to favor. He expresses regret about his susceptibility to "messages that sex was a game, a competition," and he'd seen getting the hand onto the breast as reaching "second base." Ironically, he was still trying to score with women, this time the college women, and admitting that he thought of sex as a game was a way to compete in the new game.

The Daily Caller writer, Charles C. Johnson, was probably a child when Booker wrote that column. Johnson doesn't seem to understand the context at all. Or maybe he understands and he's just shamelessly appropriating this material to launch the rumor that Booker is a sex offender. Is Johnson dumb or malicious? The result is malicious, but I suspect Johnson is dumb, because look at this:

"After having my hand pushed away once, I reached my ‘mark,’” Booker wrote.

Booker didn’t elaborate on what his “mark” was, but whatever happened, it was enough to haunt him for years to come.

His "mark" was obviously the breast. The column is titled "So Much for Stealing Second." I know these kids today have relabeled the bases, but how can you not understand what "mark" means in that context? Or does Johnson understand but maliciously intend to insinuate that Booker reached some other part of the woman? Clue to Johnson: Third base was fondling the genitals, and to get the penis into the vagina was to reach home.

I got to Johnson's nonsense via Instapundit who teased it with "Reverse the sexes and there's no story here." But there is no story here! Instapundit quotes 2 sentences of Johnson's and repeats the words "groped" and "grabbed" to refer to what the 15-year-old did to the girl's breast. But Booker writes of a very slow and gentle move of a hand toward the breast of a female who had intruded on him with "an overwhelming kiss" when he'd offered her a hug at midnight on New Year's Eve. So actually, the sexes were reversed, and Instapundit — in the midst of his sarcasm about how we overlook female sexual aggression — overlooked female sexual aggression.

If anyone was assaulted, it was Booker: "As the ball dropped, I leaned over to hug a friend and she met me instead with an overwhelming kiss." Then: "As we fumbled upon the bed, I remember debating my next 'move' as if it were a chess game." He was 15, fumbling, and thinking about chess. How old was she? How did they get to that bed? Booker was using what he had to make his feminist points to Stanford women in 1992. He had nothing, but he made something out of nothing for rhetorical purposes to lecture college men about how they ought to behave toward women.

If he did anything wrong, it's that he sought so earnestly to please women, adapting to the preferences they seemed to express, first, by trying to perform appropriately for the woman who imposed "an overwhelming kiss" on him and, then, by trying to talk the talk of the college feminists.

"One of the few advantages of dying from Grade 3, Stage IIIC endometrial cancer, recurrent and metastasized to the liver and abdomen..."

"... is that you have time to write your own obituary. (The other advantages are no longer bothering with sunscreen and no longer worrying about your cholesterol.)"

It was a paid obituary, but The New York Times noticed and ran a story about Jane Lotter. That was enough — along with the adorable photo booth pictures of her and the man she married — to make me begin this blog post. As I go along — you have to get to the last third — I see what I think is the real goal of the article: presenting a postcard picture of suicide.

Ms. Lotter took advantage of [Washington state's] Death With Dignity Act.... On July 18, the couple and their two children gathered in the parents’ bedroom. Ms. Lotter asked to keep in her contact lenses, in case a hummingbird came to the feeder [her husband] had hung outside their window.

The last song she heard before pouring powdered barbiturates, provided by hospice officials, into a glass of grape juice was George Gershwin’s “Lullaby.” Then she hugged and kissed them all goodbye, swallowed the drink and, within minutes, lapsed into a coma and died.

Does this picture make you more likely to take the barbiturate way out if you knew you were dying? Would you dissolve the powder in grape juice or some other liquid? Would you play Gershwin's "Lullaby" or something else? Would you be in your own bedroom, hoping to see a hummingbird one last time? Would you include only your closest family — hugging them in a planned sequence — only your most loved one, or would you go alone? As you imagine the theater of a controlled departure — with details corresponding to Lotter's details — are you more favorably disposed to the "Death With Dignity" approach or not? Are you still thinking about yourself, or did you, at some point in reading this paragraph, shift to picturing other people getting enthusiastic about early check-out time and thinking of yourself as one of the taxpayers and insurance buyers — us the living —  who stand to benefit?