"But on the fourth day, Berg somehow veered off what he described as a poorly marked trail and ended up in a swamp."

"He fell, drenching his clothes, bag and food. His hiking boots fell off, but he was able to recover them. His phone, however, disappeared. 'It was like quicksand,' he said. Berg would spend the next 11 days frantically trying to find help, surviving on his small supply of freeze-dried food and drinking 'the most disgusting water that you could imagine.' Back home, his wife, Debbie, grew increasingly frightened as the days passed without word. 'Am I going to be a widow now?' she recalled thinking as her mind wandered to all the possible dangers on the island, including wolves and moose."

From "For 11 days, a lost hiker shouted for help. Then two kayakers appeared" (WaPo gift link).

The island was Isle Royale.

Berg — Craig Berg — was a 70-year-old man who thought that, with his phone and its mapping app, he was properly equipped. If you're trusting your phone for everything, it should not be possible for it to "disappear."

"Other people may have other ideas, and I don’t think there’s necessarily an institution position. But I think it’s compelling. It’s very clear."

Said Richard Kurin, a Smithsonian scholar, quoted in "Two Centuries On, Smithsonian Connects Jefferson’s Hair to Hemings’s Children/A new book describes how cutting-edge genomics techniques yielded 'extraordinary proof' that Thomas Jefferson fathered children with Sally Hemings" (NYT gift link).

Kurin — a cultural anthropologist — worked with "a team of researchers" who "used cutting-edge techniques." The "team" involved "archaeologists, genealogists, molecular geneticists and historians, stretching across multiple changes in Smithsonian leadership." 

The publication isn't a scholarly article or academic book. It's a book for the general audience, "History By a Hair," published by Crown. And we're told that "one Hemings descendant who had given a sample in 2015 asked to withdraw her participation, saying she was dismayed that the book was appearing before a related article had been published in a scientific journal."

"Evolution shaped humans to rest—and to run only when absolutely necessary."

I'm reading "Born to Rest: Why Exercise is Hard" (Harvard Magazine, August 9, 2016).

[Daniel] Lieberman, Lerner professor of biological sciences, says that humans have... been selected to exercise only as much as they must to survive. The ancestors of modern humans lived as hunter-gatherers. In this subsistence lifestyle, food was often scarce, so resting was key to conserving energy for survival and reproduction. In other words, humans were born to run— but as little as possible.

“No hunter-gatherer goes out for a jog, just for the sake of it, I can tell you from personal experience,” says Lieberman. “They go out to forage, they go out to work, but anything else would be unwise, not to mention maladaptive” in calorie-restricted environments.

So I am thinking that if you are idle and thinking of yourself as lazy, lethargic, sedentary, or even deserving of a diagnosis of pathological demand avoidance, think again. You may be the most authentically human of human beings, closer to what nature designed. 

"On a beach next to the border, hundreds of people who had crossed over gathered under the scorching sun."

"But Soufiane ez Znafry, 26, said that many were turning back because they were hungry. 'We have not eaten in two days,' he said, adding that all the supermarkets in the area had closed and that his stomach was 'growling.' He had rushed from Tangier on Thursday after friends told him they were heading to Spain. He said he barely scrapes by in Morocco working as a sous-chef. In the rush, carrying only a bag containing some clothes and a few possessions, he did not tell his parents that he was leaving. 'I did not want to worry them,' he said...."

From "Live Updates: Tens of Thousands Crossed Into Spanish Territory, Officials Say/As many as 60,000 people were estimated to have surged from Morocco into Ceuta, creating a crisis for Spain’s pro-immigration government. At least 34 people died, officials said" (NYT gift link).

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson empowers Trump to continue withholding food money.

The NYT reports: "Supreme Court Temporarily Allows Trump to Curtail Food Stamp Funding/The temporary ruling by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, blocking a lower court order to fully fund the aid, added to the uncertainty around the nation’s largest anti-hunger program."

See? It's not all about empathy.

Justice Jackson, a member of the court’s three-justice liberal bloc who has spoken forcefully against many of the Trump administration’s policies, issued a decision on the stay because she is responsible for emergency applications from that region of the country. She said in the order that she expected the appeals court to evaluate the matter and issue a more complete ruling swiftly.

Still, many Democrats around the country erupted in anger on Friday night, with some accusing President Trump of trying to turn nutrition assistance — a program on which one in eight Americans rely — into a bargaining chip while the government remains closed.

“Trump fought for this,” Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, a Democrat, said in a post on social media. “He doesn’t care if millions of Americans go hungry.”

Did Hochul say that before or after Jackson showed she "doesn't care"?

"There are implications for the wider culture in derogating our appetites. We are effectively telling people... not to trust their bodies..."

"... in ways that smack of gaslighting. Imagine a world where we could override our need to sleep with a medication far more powerful and long-lasting than caffeine: a new class of amphetamines, say, that could suppress the need to sleep for days if not weeks. And so we come to pronounce ourselves afflicted with 

'sleep noise,' rather than simple human tiredness — thereby depicting normal bodily need as weakness and the drugs to treat such weariness as a solution to this non-problem. The idea of billing our body’s pleas for rest as mere noise — and hence as something that ought not be listened to — borders on dystopian...."

Writes Kate Manne, in "What if 'Food Noise' Is Just … Hunger?" (NYT). 

"Food noise" is current slang for thinking about food — for "hearing" food calling out to you.

"I knew that if they are hungry, they are angry.... I told him I had to inject insulin, trying to distract them from the fact I have children who are police officers … I offered them drinks: Coke Zero, water."

Said Rachel Edri, quoted in "Chilling new image shows terrorist with Israeli woman who cooked for them to escape hostage nightmare" (NY Post).

"While the runways featured many palettes, there were far fewer body types. Aside from at the Nina Ricci show in Paris, where people of different sizes walked the runway..."

"... models were as skinny as I’ve seen them in the more than 10 years I’ve been documenting fashion weeks." 

Writes Simbarashe Cha, in "Shades of Gray, and Then Some/During Paris Fashion Week, almost every color could be spotted on the streets and the runways" (NYT).

Look at these models. They all look famished and 5 out of 6 seem deeply depressed about it:

That's just part of the photo. I wanted to stress the evident starvation.

The whole photo — at the link — is something that deserves its caption: "Miu Miu’s latest collection included Speedo-style briefs in several colors. Only time will tell if they become as ubiquitous as its miniskirt."

The captions, by the way, are excellent. For example: "Feathers also appeared on the runway at Nina Ricci, where they protruded from this gown like acupuncture needle." And: "Walking with purpose can make a good outfit look even better." And: "Her crouched posture made the tiny bag seem that much bigger"... which I like to think of as small bag the size of a large bag.

Or... minuscule bag the size of a ludicrously capacious bag.

"People threatened employees with guns, knives and sticks. They flung food, screamed, fought and tried to defecate on the floor..."

"... according to records of 568 emergency calls over 13 months, many depicting scenes of mayhem. 'Male w/machete is back,' the report on one 911 call states.... A man with a four-inch knife attacked several security guards, then sprayed store employees with foam from a fire extinguisher, according to a third...." 

I'm reading "In San Francisco, a Troubled Year at a Whole Foods Market Reflects a City’s Woes" (WNYUZ).

"Afghanistan was rocked by its deadliest earthquake in decades on Wednesday when a magnitude 5.9 earthquake struck the country's east, killing more than 1,000 people..."

"... and wounding many more, according to a regional official.... This comes as almost half the country's population -- 20 million people -- are experiencing acute hunger, according to a United Nations-backed report in May. It is a situation compounded by the Taliban seizing power in August 2021, which led the United States and its allies freezing about $7 billion of the country's foreign reserves and cutting off international funding."

 CNN reports.

"Remember, the Emirate had not promised you the provision of food. The Emirate has kept its promises. It is God who has promised his creatures the provision of food."

Said Mullah Muhammad Hassan, the head of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, quoted in "If Joe Biden Doesn’t Change Course, This Will Be His Worst Failure" (NYT). 

95% of the people "don't have enough to eat" and "nearly 9 million are at risk of starvation." That's because there's a drought, the Taliban aren't really trying to manage the economy, and:

The Afghan economy was built around our support. Roughly 45 percent of the G.D.P. and 75 percent of government spending was foreign aid. When we abruptly cut off that cash, we sent it into a tailspin. Then we went further. We froze more than $9 billion that belonged to the Afghan government — the vast majority of its foreign reserves.

"If you are black and hold elected office in America, coming to Atlanta is like coming back to the womb."

Said Kamala Harris, yesterday in Atlanta. Transcript.  

[Donald Trump] had the gall... to suggest that he keeps a ledger, and you’re on one side of his ledger if you don’t wear a mask, you’re on another side of his ledger if you wear a mask. And now look where we are. Now look where we are.… 

Even before he was running for office when he questioned the legitimacy of the birthplace of the first black president of the United States, has been so weirdly obsessed with trying to get rid of whatever Barack Obama created. Think about that. We don’t need presidents who have weird obsessions. What is that about?... 

We don’t need presidents who have weird obsessions — that's a striking line, but a devious insinuation. What is that about? The Atlantans — who make black politicians feel like they're in a womb — are expected to complete the thought: It's about Donald Trump being a racist.

We are looking at families that are getting up at the crack of dawn, to drive to sit in their car in a food line for hours. Praying that they can get to the end of the line before the food runs out. One in five mothers in America is describing her children under the age of 12 as being hungry. We’re in the midst of a hunger crisis in America.... 

There is support for that factual assertion here.  Back to the transcript:

[Donald Trump] measures how well the economy is doing based on the stock market. Who measures how well the economy is doing based on how rich people are doing. Who as one of his first orders of business, passed a tax bill benefiting the top 1% and the biggest corporations of America. I will tell you, Joe Biden and I will make it one of our highest priorities to get rid of that tax bill, and do what we know needs to be done to invest that money in working families....

 [Donald Trump] refuses and will never say, “Black lives matter.” And then have the gall to stand on that debate stage at the last debate in front of 70 million Americans, and would not condemn white supremacists.

She means the first debate, and of course, he did condemn white supremacists when asked, though he's been criticized for failing to say it strongly enough. 

And people have asked me, they say, “Well, Senator Harris… ” By the way senator is not on my birth certificate. It’s Kamala. 

Harris's predecessor in that Senate seat, Barbara Boxer, famously rankled when she was not addressed as Senator Boxer. Presumably, Boxer realized afterward that her prickly haughtiness looked ridiculous, and clearly Kamala believes she needs to present herself as warm and folksy. It can seem phony, but it's a standard approach for male politicians, so don't give the female politician any less tolerance. But that's just a quick aside as she cues up the familiar Trump-is-a-racist litany:

And they say, “Well, do you think… Are you saying? Do you think he’s a racist?” Yes, yes. Because you see, it’s not like it’s some random one off. We’ve seen that pattern going back to him questioning the legitimacy of Barack Obama, going back to Charlottesville. When people were peacefully protesting racial injustice in America, a woman was killed. And on the other side, you had a bunch of neo-Nazis wearing swastikas, carrying Tiki torches, slurring, throwing out anti-Semitic and racist slurs, and Donald Trump said, “Well, there are fine people on both sides.” A president of the United States who referred to Mexicans as rapists and criminals. A president of the United States who made as one of his first policy initiatives, a ban on Muslims entering our country. And then stood on that stage and would not condemn known white supremacist, and then double down and said, “Well, they should stand back and stand by.” This is not reflective of who we believe we are as a nation. We need a president who acknowledges systemic racism, who acknowledges the history of America, and uses that bully pulpit and that microphone, in a way that speaks truth with an intention to address the inequities and bring our country together. And that is Joe Biden. 

Have you ever heard of the street refrigerators of the United States?

The Guardian would like the world to think the United States is a place where there are refrigerators out on the sidewalk where people put their leftover food and from which the less fortunate can scavenge a meal: "'No one should go hungry': street fridges of free food help Americans survive Covid pandemic." This is a long article with photos. Excerpt:

[There's] a fridge set up on a street corner... in the Bronx. Neighbors and local businesses could donate food – homemade, store-bought, or leftover from a day’s sales – and anyone who needed food could take some..... At least 15 other community fridges have been set up in the five New York boroughs and New Jersey. Los Angeles and Oakland both have networks of community fridges up and running, and grassroots efforts to start community fridges in Houston, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Miami are taking off....

A hot pink fridge with bright blue trim now sits outside [the home of a doula and software product designer named Tatiana Smith], with the words “FREE FOOD” and “COMIDA GRATIS” along the top. Neighbors help her watch the fridge, and people come looking for food at all hours of the day. “If you’re getting off work at 3am, that’s when you can have a meal,” Smith says, noting many Black and brown people may work multiple jobs with odd hours....

Smith says she never turns away donations unless they’re going bad, but she asks people to think about the fridge as an extension of their own. “If you wouldn’t eat that, what makes you think that other people would?”...

How do you know when the food is "going bad"? This just doesn't seem wholesome to me. A refrigerator?!

I'm reading "Are There Benefits to Intermittent Fasting?" in The New York Times.

Subtitle: "The best diet is the one where you are healthy, hydrated and living your best life. If you want to fast, it offers similar weight-loss benefits to just cutting calories." And I'm not at all impressed by the science — quotes from a couple nutrition professors who say that fasting is nothing more than another way to restrict total calories. But I do love this comment, from someone who adopts the old Marcel Duchamp pseudonym "R. Mutt"* and says he's in Timbuktu (aren't we all?):

Interesting article but as others have stated it focuses more on the weight loss benefits and not on the many other aspects of fasting. Our bodies and metabolisms have evolved to deal with a continuous cycle of feast or famine ... if it is all one or the other we will have problems. Living in an age where near unlimited access to an abundant supplies of food (both good and bad) encourages overeating and unfortunately if you live in a neighbourhood with limited access to a good grocery store you will be forced to eat mostly processed foods. The quality of what you are eating while doing an intermittent fast is a crucial component. I am lucky to have access to healthy food and have for most of my life incorporated different approaches to fasting into my day and have come to realize that as we age our metabolism slows and we must adjust our diet accordingly. I am only eating one nice healthy meal a day and feel great; have lost weight, more energy and clarity of mind, skin is feeling and looking better, senses mental clarity have been heightened, less aches and pains ... that's good medicine. I am also physically active which is another important component in the overall feeling of well-being. A fasting couch potato in my opinion would probably not reap the same benefits. It's not rocket science ... whether intermittent fasting or not, listen to your body and adjust your eating habits accordingly. And please remember to "stop eating all the time" guys ;-)

Hey! I'm writing about fasting on Thanksgiving! Why not fast for Thanksgiving? I see — also in The New York Times — "The Horrible History of Thanksgiving/Before you fill your plate, please remember why we mark this day," by Charles Blow, who says:

I spent most of my life believing a gauzy, kindergarten version of Thanksgiving, thinking only of feasts and family, turkey and dressing.

I was blind, willfully ignorant, I suppose, to the bloodier side of the Thanksgiving story, to the more honest side of it.

But I’ve come to believe that is how America would have it if it had its druthers: We would be blissfully blind, living in a soft world bleached of hard truth. I can no longer abide that.

Well, hell, how can you feel that bad and have it just be step 1, before step 2, "fill your plate"? No plate for you! How can you be all "I can no longer abide" and proceed to the piles of turkey and high-carb side dishes? It reminds me of Lewis Carroll's walrus:

"I weep for you," the Walrus said:
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

Whether we can expiate all of America's sins by fasting on the feasting day, I don't know. I doubt it.

"If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose," the Walrus said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear...

The Walrus was weeping over the great quantities of sand on the beach. He cared! He mused, and he went about his way, doing everything he wanted. But he still cried all the while. Wasn't that good of him?

How about fasting for Thanksgiving? Will you join me? If R. Mutt is right, we may get some "clarity of mind" and an "overall feeling of well-being." Ah, that sounds to good for us! Better to cry and simultaneously stuff your face. That's the new American tradition.
_____________________

* It's the famous signature that made a urinal art:



Duchamp explained:

Mutt comes from Mott Works, the name of a large sanitary equipment manufacturer. But Mott was too close so I altered it to Mutt, after the daily cartoon strip "Mutt and Jeff" which appeared at the time, and with which everyone was familiar. Thus, from the start, there was an interplay of Mutt: a fat little funny man, and Jeff: a tall thin man... I wanted any old name. And I added Richard [French slang for money-bags]. That's not a bad name for a pissotière. Get it? The opposite of poverty. But not even that much, just R. MUTT.

You remember "Mutt and Jeff":

"What's the benefit of being hungry?"

"Twitter founder and CEO and billionaire Jack Dorsey... says he eats only one meal a day in the week and doesn't let any foodstuff pass his lips at the weekend."

"He also starts every day with an ice bath. 'Nothing has given me more mental confidence than being able to go straight from room temperature into the cold,' he says. And, rain or shine, he walks the five miles from his home to his office.... Dorsey's wellness-hacking habits are extrapolated from the ancient Greek and Roman philosophy of Stoicism.... [Dorsey has] created a platform that has allowed populists, alt-right types, and Russian bots to spread their messages to vast new audiences.... Twitter undeniably helped make Donald Trump president and gave Britain's Brexiteers a stage.... Dorsey has experienced how easy it is to create global pandemonium with a laptop and a smidgen of chutzpah. So for the Twitter CEO and his kind, trying to control biology with low-grade torture, plus a disinterest in traditional rich-people trappings, may be a kind of self-imposed penance for having built platforms and technology that have unleashed some pretty bad things on the world...."

From "Why are Silicon Valley billionaires starving themselves?" by Susan Margolis in The Week.

I don't believe there's any true penance here other than a desire for good PR (in that it makes him look serious, hard-working, and lofty — almost saintly). But I don't believe he's doing these things because he thinks he's done wrong — only that he wants to defend his company's reputation and freedom from regulation. I would guess that he's genuinely motivated by the desire for good health and long life and fascinated by extreme and challenging ideas about how to get that. Some people are drawn to stringent routines, and there's a sort of magical thinking about rituals.

And I don't think the philosophy of the Stoics had to do with penance. It's not about the sense that you've done something wrong and need to make up for it.

"One of the worst things to happen in America in the last two years is, surely, the birth and spread of the phrase 'nothing burger.'"

"It is used by President Trump’s supporters whenever Robert Mueller issues anything, including the many times he’s issued things that are, quite clearly, something burgers, with lots of shocking and damaging information that implicates people close to the President in something that seems like potential collusion with Russia or other possibly related crimes. [The Paul Manafort sentencing memo], Mueller’s longest, can be seen, by avid followers of his investigation, as not only an exquisitely built nothing burger but a commentary on our age and our expectations—at least, as it relates to the question of collusion during the 2016 election. Andy Kaufman could have hardly done so good a job at tweaking our deepest hunger."

Writes Adam Davidson in The New Yorker in "Robert Mueller’s Nothing-Burger Sentencing Memo on Paul Manafort."

Help me understand what Davidson was picturing when he wrote "Andy Kaufman could have hardly done so good a job at tweaking our deepest hunger." Presumably, he thinks Andy Kaufman did a really good job of tweaking our deep hungers, but which hungers? When? Can you dig up any clips of Kaufman that show him excelling at tweaking deep hungers? Outstripping Andy Kaufman — in Davidson's idea is Robert Mueller — right? — not the "avid followers" of the investigation. The "avid followers" are the audience for Mueller, and Mueller, like Kaufman, is seen as putting on a show for aficionados.

We, the audience, sit expectantly, wanting something from the showman, but he  withholds, even as he maintains our rapt attention. We keep watching, because he's captured our attention, but Mueller has captured our attention because we hope/fear he's got something devastating on Trump. The "deepest hunger" Davidson is thinking about is for the destruction of Trump. How is that like what Andy Kaufman did when — to name 2 examples of Kaufman playing with audience expectations — he did a show that consisted of nothing but singing all the verses of "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" or he stood on stage and read the entire text of "The Great Gatsby"?

There was no "deep hunger" that Kaufman was tweaking. He was tweaking the shallow hunger — borne of ticket-buying and seat-sitting — that there will be a show. When will this get funny? The joke is that it will never get funny. It will just go on like this. It's the nothing. The joke's on you for expecting something conventional and the only way to squirm out of your predicament is to realize it before the other people sitting around you not understanding that I'm never going to give you what you're dumb enough to want.

Am I approaching the enigma of the Mueller/Kaufman comparison?



ADDED: Davidson is surely wrong that the term "nothingburger" was born in the last 2 years! The OED traces the term all the way back to 1953. The official definition is: "A person or thing of no importance, value, or substance. Now esp.: something which, contrary to expectations, turns out to be insignificant or unremarkable."

Maybe Davidson — a fan of Kaufman's? — really is doing comedy. I must admit I laughed a lot while reading it out loud last night. He can't really mean that the phrase "nothing burger" is "One of the worst things to happen in America," so that's the tip-off, right? I'm overthinking this. I know!

But he could be serious. Aside from the mistake of believing the term got born during the Trump administration, he could genuinely believe it's one of the worst things to happen in America in the last 2 years. All he'd need is a long "worst things" list. You could have a list of "The 1 Million Worst Things to Happen in the Last 2 Years," and then some irritating word could be on it.

"She was very well prepared. Since '... Baby One More Time' was the first song, we really didn’t know where to take it. We just kept on recording."

"We tried a couple of different styles. After a while, I could hear her stomach growl in the microphone. I asked if she was hungry. We’d been going for eight hours. She said, 'No, I’m fine.' I said, 'Let’s take a break,' and she had three burgers."

From "'Britney Spears wanted to be a star': An oral history of '...Baby One More Time'" (Entertainment Weekly).

"The woman at first seems angry that she is being filmed but as a shocked crowd gathers around her, she ignores them and carries on eating."

"She painstakingly skins the cat and then slices off pieces of its body before popping them in her mouth."

Starving in Venezuela (Daily Mail).

Before the play: A view from the second row.

Meade and I drove out to Spring Green last night to see the American Players Theater production of "A View From the Bridge." Here's what the Wall Street Journal theater critic, Terry Teachout, wrote about it a few days ago. Teachout called APT "America's finest classical theater festival, unrivaled for the unfailing excellence of its productions." Teachout hated a 2015 Broadway production of "A View From the Bridge." He called it a "flatulent exercise in Eurotrashy gimmickry." He called this APT production "a masterpiece of sustained tension" and "of the two best Miller revivals I've ever seen."*

Every aspect of [Tim] Ocel's production is distinguished, not least Takeshi Kata's set, a near-abstract assemblage of wooden warehouse pallets that is appropriately stark and austere. But it is [Jim DeVita, a 23-year company veteran,] who catapults it into the stratosphere. Unless you frequent Spring Green, you probably aren't aware that he is one of America's leading classical actors. Until now, though, I'd never seen him in a purely naturalistic role, and I confess to being just a bit surprised to discover that he can change hats with complete ease. His performance as Eddie Carbone, the hardworking, easy-to-anger Brooklyn longshoreman who harbors an illicit passion for his innocent young niece (Melisa Pereyra), is replete with the same force and focus that he brings to Shakespeare. Had Robert DeNiro chosen to be a classical stage actor instead of a movie star, he might well have given a performance as good as this one.

My picture shows the set before the audience was completely seated. The resonance between the stacks of pallets and the woman's dress is serendipity. We loved the whole cast. I wish APT would put out video clips. I wish I could show you a few random delightful things so you could see that it's not the great fall of the ordinary man Eddie Carbone. If there were clips available, I'd show you Will Mobley (as Rodolpho, one of the 2 newly arrived illegal immigrants who stir the plot) singing "Paper Doll" and entrancing the young niece while giving Eddie the "heebie-jeebies." The play isn't just about Eddie's sexual attraction to his niece (Catherine). It's also about Eddie's intense homophobia toward Rodolpho. As Eddie puts it, "he ain't right."

And I'd like a clip of the discussion of sardines (which the immigrants, Rodolpho and Marco had fished for, back in Italy (the year is 1955)):