Oh, my! I've got 14 tonight! Let me know which TikTok videos won you over this time.

1. The mouse is going to eat your food, so why not embrace reality and construct a cheeseboard for the little darling.

2. Painting the one who says "I am too ugly to be painted."

3. So you say girls don't have hobbies?

4. The awesome high dive.

5. "Michigan is the Texas of the Midwest," etc.

6. How to deflect passive aggression.

7. The Jesus miracle nobody talks about.

8. The little girl has serious problems with the family dog and the family decor.

9. Sticker review suddenly becomes a phone-camera review.

10. The scar experiment.

11. Stand in awe of your ability to retain fat.

12. When you're in the mood to eat a wicker chair, what should you eat?

13. How exactly did kale become a thing?

14. Instant Karma Karen.

"We appreciate any help, but everyone should understand that these are not charitable contributions that Ukraine should ask for or remind of."

"These are not noble gestures for which Ukraine should bow low. This is your contribution to the security of Europe and the world. Where Ukraine has been a reliable shield for eight years. And for eight years it has been rebuffing one of the world’s biggest armies. Which stands along our borders, not the borders of the EU.... And I hope no one thinks of Ukraine as a convenient and eternal buffer zone between the West and Russia. This will never happen. Nobody will allow that. Otherwise – who’s next? Will NATO countries have to defend each other?... I thank all the states that supported Ukraine today. In words, in declarations, in concrete help. Those who are on our side today. On the side of truth and international law. I’m not calling you by name – I don’t want some other countries to be ashamed. But this is their business, this is their karma."

Said Volodymyr Zelenskiy, quoted in "Ukrainian President Makes Historic Speech in Munich (English Translation)" (Kyiv Post).

We have nothing to fear but... Be afraid!! Be very afraid!!!

I'm completely jaded about the highly polarized blabbing about Trump's "Don't let it dominate you, don't be afraid of it" speech:



I don't think people actually disagree about anything here. The virus is dangerous, and we need to do what we can to navigate the risks but we also must balance other considerations — such as the mental and economic wellbeing of the nation and the need for children to play and learn. We should be smart and rational and make good decisions given the information and expertise that is currently available.

But the election is breathing heavily down our neck, breathing more heavily than sick/not sick Donald Trump having gamely climbed a big flight of stairs and positioned himself on the balcony to tell us he's doing just fine. So the various commentators are acting as though we're at polar opposites.

Trump's opponents had to counter his "Don't let it dominate you, don't be afraid of it" with accusations that he was saying the virus isn't even a problem at all and you shouldn't take any precautions. But are they saying be very afraid and let it dominate you? No, they are not. The disagreement is bullshit. There's just some variation in how cautious you need to be or how much you ought to display cautiousness.

You know, a lot of people are talking about karma — because Trump didn't take enough care, he was sanguine, and then he got what was coming. So let me quote you a line from John Lennon's "Instant Karma": "Why in the world are we here?/Surely not to live in pain and fear?"

"You can trust me. Because I believe in science. And karma. Now, just imagine if science... and karma... could somehow... team up... to send us all a message about how dangerous this virus can be. I'm not sayin' I want it to happen. But just imagine."

Said Jim Carrey as Joe Biden in the debate spoof on "Saturday Night Live" last night:



Science and karma. A good comic concept, delivered well by Carrey.

But let's actually think about it... beyond comedy. Science and karma. My first reaction is you show you don't really believe in science if you also believe in karma. But I see there has been some serious examination of the science of karma. I'll just select one thing I found googling the 2 words: "The Scientific Explanation for Karma" by David Amerland (Medium). Excerpt:

The general consensus about behaving in a Karma-aware way (let’s call it Karma-friendly) requires that we engage in actions that are not considered socially bad and have no adverse consequences for others. So, really, when we talk about Karma we talk about engaging in pro-social behavior.

Social and behavioral psychologists define pro-social behavior as behavior that involves a cost for those who engage in it and a benefit for others.... Our actions, in other words, create the primary layer of data that generates culture which then affects the secondary layer of data that is internalized in order for us to create our values, morals, identity, purpose, goals and mission in life....

The brain... is wired to preserve energy in order for us to survive long term. Energy, therefore, is primarily used when there is an accumulation of discomfort that is experienced at a physical level.... In order to engage in an action that will require a considerable amount of energy to be used up it has to change the way it activates itself and establish some efficiencies in its operation. To do this it strengthens the connections between neurons creating pathways that require significantly less energy to transmit information along their pathways....

You see where that's going. Science and karma don't need to "team up." Karma is in the perception of what has happened, and science can explain it all.

"Well, we all shine on/Like the moon and the stars and the sun."

The first words that crossed my mind when the DJ on the Beatles channel on the car radio asked — on the occasion of John Lennon's 79th birthday — what did John Lennon mean to you?



Who on earth do you think you are? A superstar? Well, right you are!

ADDED: Yoko is actually crocheting, but I have a tag for knitting, and I'm interpreting knitting as a form of crocheting, whether it really is or not.

From Wikipedia: "The salient difference between crochet and knitting, beyond the implements used for their production, is that each stitch in crochet is completed before the next one is begun, while knitting keeps many stitches open at a time."

That is a fantastic metaphor. Think of life like that. There are 2 kinds of people in the world: crocheter and knitters. The crocheters complete one thing before they begin the next, and the knitters keep many endeavors open at the same time.

Yoko is crocheting blindfolded. What does that mean — especially related to karma? I'm thinking that the blindfold depicts a lack of awareness of the karmic consequences of ones actions. At no point in the performance does she remove the blindfold. Karma — even instant karma — never knocks her right in the head. But we can all see that she's blindly fixed on a discrete, inoffensive task, and maybe we're invited to see ourselves in that and to see our own inattention to the larger forces of the universe, which will — suddenly some time — knock us right in the head. So "You better get yourself together, darling/Pretty soon you're going to be dead."

The first time we hear about instant karma, it is indeed going to kick you right in the head (and you're reminded, rhymingly, that pretty soon, you're going to be dead). But the second time we hear about instant karma, it's "going to look you right in the face." That won't work too well if you are blindfolded, so you might want to take off the blindfold and — rhyming with "race" — "Join the human race."

That made me think, John was talking about other people as subhuman. These days, you could get canceled if you talk like that. But John quickly escapes the accusation that he's looking down as he leaps to the declaration that other people are not merely human but superstars, shining "like the moon and the stars and the sun."

Then we hear for the third and last time about how instant karma is going to "get" us. First was kick you right the head. Second was look you right in the face. Third is, "going to knock you off your feet." The rhyming line is "Better recognize your brothers/Everyone you meet."  Your brothers, they're all superstars too. They shine on like the moon and the stars and the sun.

In 2 places in the song, John objects to laughing: 1. "What in the world you thinking of/Laughing in the face of love?" and 2. "How in the world you gonna see/Laughing at fools like me?" Laughing corresponds to Yoko's blindfolded crocheting. You don't see what you are doing. Stop laughing and see that we all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun.

"Don’t be a stranger, okay? 'Even chance meetings'... how does the rest of that go?"

"'Are the result of karma.'"/"Right, right... But what does it mean?"/"That things in life are fated by our previous lives. That even in the smallest events there’s no such thing as coincidence."

From "Kafka on the Shore" by Haruki Murakami, which I just started reading this morning, after I'd blogged "Karma is an unkind mistress," so it felt like a coincidence, hearing "karma" come up again, and even in the smallest events there’s no such thing as coincidence.

"Karma is an unkind mistress. However, suffering couldn't be better visited on any other group than they who sought to impose suffering upon others to enrich themselves."

"Enjoy, Islamic State crazies. Let's talk when you're ready to permanently give up trying to kill and oppress others."

That's the top-rated comment on the Washington Post article "The Islamic State’s refugees are facing a humanitarian calamity." To the commenter who pushes back with "these are people. women and children caught in the middle of something you'll never understand," he comes back with, "I understand far better than your crude mind that these folks were part of the extremist clan who sought to rob, kill, and enslave everyone they thought they could get away with robbing, killing, and enslaving. Go on over and offer them your assistance if you believe otherwise. Meanwhile, leave the purported 'thinking' to adults."

Another highly rated comment is: "Zero sympathy for these terrorists. The atrocities that they committed should not be overlooked. My friends Uncle was a Syrian man living a quiet life. As my friend tells it he was tortured and forced to dig his own grave. No sympathy for terrorists." And: "ISIS brought calamity to every town, village or city it conquered. Mass graves of victims are still being uncovered. The survivors of their savagery deserve help...but these, these are the perps. Foreign women who joined the caliphate were active participants in this evil...and they had no mercy towards anyone else's children. They went to Syria voluntarily... this is the world they wanted. I hope they stay there."

Why is Hillary doubling down on her old, unfortunate "deplorables" theory?

Quoted here and in many other places where I'm seeing her criticized as clueless about why she lost, but I want to say something else.

First, the quote:

If you look at the map of the United States, there is all that red in the middle where Trump won. I won in the coasts, I win, you know, Illinois, Minnesota, places like that. But what the map doesn’t show you is that I won the places that represent two thirds of America’s gross domestic product. So I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward, and his whole campaign, “make America great again,” was looking backwards. You know you didn’t like black people getting rights, you don’t like women getting jobs, you don’t want to see that Indian American succeeding more than you are. Whatever your problem is, I’m going to solve it.

I don't think she is in any way deluded about why red-state Americans rejected her. They sensed her contempt and lack of concern for their predicament. It wasn't hard. She had contempt during the campaign even when she was under pressure to act like she cared, and it's no surprise that she has it when she's free of that pressure. To express her contempt and lack of empathy now is simply to revel in the freedom of not having to appeal to the people for their votes.

And isn't it refreshing to hear her straightforward pride in having the support of the economically successful people?  She "won the places that represent two thirds of America’s gross domestic product." And she equates having the money with being "optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward." The rich are not just different because they have more money.* They are also better people all the way down.

Are they rich because they're better, or are they better because they're rich? I don't know, but hooray for the well-off, and maybe those poor people are poor for good reason — that's what I hear from Hillary, exulting in India, where I don't know how well that sort of attitude plays.

In a really terribly stratified society, it may help to indulge in a philosophy that says you have what you rightfully deserve, and we don't have to worry too much about the dispossessed, because their own failings have got them where they belong.**

And isn't it lovely to have Hillary Clinton swan over from the United States to bestow such convenient wisdom — convenient for the best people, of course. For the losers, you are even bigger losers if you listen to someone who tells you he's going to solve your problems. That's beneath Hillary Clinton. And she's free to say so even more clearly now.

And here's the video, which conveys a truly queenly imperiousness:



_________________________

* I'm reminded of the mythical exchange between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway: "The rich are different from you and me"/"Yes, they have more money." Hillary seems to be on the F. Scott side of that debate.

** I'm thinking of Social Darwinism and karma.

"A trainload of Republicans on their way to a pricey retreat hit a garbage truck. My friend Russ calls that karma...."

"Of COURSE sorry the truck driver died.... A rather thoughtless tweet from me concerning the train-truck crash, for which I apologize (if one is necessary). It should be pointed out, too, that those Republican politicians, who can be heartless when they vote, immediately got out to help."

Stephen King tweets and then tries to right himself with an apology "if one is necessary," which perhaps it's not, since word is the truck driver did not die, but is merely injured.

Drudge attributes superhuman powers to Trump.

Too mean? How hurt is she? Not that hurt:

Looks like i have an acute facet (spinal joint) dysfunction. I got compressed on the 6th gate and my back seized up. Rested and had a lot of therapy tonight. We will see how I feel tomorrow and then decide if I will race....

What did she say about Trump? Asked if she'd do the traditional visit to the White House after the Olympic, she'd said "absolutely not." Later, she clarified: "I was asked my opinion and I gave it. I mean, it's not necessarily my place to be sticking my nose in politics, but as an athlete I do have a voice." She also said that at the Olympics she would "represent the people of the United States, not the president." She didn't mention Trump, but she did say she admired Colin Kaepernick, which the linked article (to Fox News) connects to Trump, in that Trump has tweeted about Kaepernick. But Kaepernick's protest wasn't about Trump. If I remember correctly, Kaepernick protest is about race and the police (something we don't hear much about anymore).

Jake Tapper encounters Anthony Scaramucci.

2 freeze frames I took watching "State of the Union" this morning:





Here's the whole thing. It was very lively. Scaramucci is very much like Trump, so I was picturing Trump watching this and loving it:



Scaramucci is there to fight for the President. That's plain to see. And Jake Tapper was there to fight too.

Here's the transcript. I made a note to tell you about 3 things, which are in no way the most important things:

1. Asked whether the President believes he has the power to pardon himself, Scaramucci said he didn't know, but he's talked to Jay Sekulow, who's a scholar, and he "took constitutional law from Larry Tribe." And then he spoke directly to Professor Tribe: "And if professor Tribe is listening, I know he doesn't like the president, but I did get an A-minus in your course."

2. Scaramucci was asked whether he was going to be appearing in more press briefings, he said "Sarah Huckabee" is the press secretary. And he kept jabbering...

I think Sarah does a great job. She's an incredibly warm person. She's incredibly authentic. And what I told Sarah on Friday, you get the big office. I will take the small communications office. You deserve the big office because you're taking the hits from the press. And bring the press into the office. Let's soften up our relationship with the press. They're tough on us. But let's be tough on them. I have no problem with. And my job, as I see it, Jake, is that these people work with me, and I'm there to serve them. If you think about the American military, the leaders eat last. If you think about the American military, the leaders' job is to serve the people that are working alongside of them. And so, me, for Sarah Huckabee, I want to do everything I can to make her better at that podium. I think she is phenomenal there now. But like every athlete that is training for the Olympics, every day, we have got to make ourselves incrementally better. The only thing I ask Sarah -- Sarah, if you're watching, I loved the hair and makeup person that we had on Friday. So, I would like to continue to use the hair and makeup person. 

I couldn't believe he ended that by talking about hair and makeup! She's a woman, so, you know, she's an incredibly warm person and we can get her fixed up to look the way women need to look. Tapper swooped in to change the tone with:

"All right, Anthony, you can always swing by CNN. We have hair and makeup here, if you ever need it. Thanks." 

Reading the transcript, I see that Scaramucci could have been referring to his own need for hair and makeup. He said "I loved the hair and makeup person that we had on Friday. So, I would like to continue to use the hair and makeup person." So maybe it was not another weird Trump-related comment by a male about a female. Maybe Scaramucci is looking out for his own appearance and liked that person they had on Friday, the one who stuck big, thick fake eyelashes on Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

3. You see in that "jabbering" quote above, Scaramucci said: "Like every athlete that is training for the Olympics, every day, we have got to make ourselves incrementally better." That reminded me of something he'd said earlier. This was in response to a question about Trump's NYT interview, in which he, as Tapper put it, "attacked the attorney general, the deputy attorney general, the special counsel, the former FBI director, the acting FBI director." Scaramucci used the athletics metaphor, and Trump is the coach:

Listen, I don't want to be a career guidance counselor for those people that [Trump is] talking about. But let me give some advice to those people on your show. That's the president. The president likes speaking from the heart. He likes telling what he likes and he dislikes. He's the type of coach that I worked very well with in high school football. It's OK with me if the president doesn't like certain things that I'm doing. We're all on the same team. I would prefer that direct and immediate feedback, as opposed to anything else. What I don't like about Washington, if we say one syllable or one sentence, or this guy said something bad about me, then, all of a sudden, they have to be my mortal enemy. I don't think that's how it works in American business. I can sit across the table from somebody that worked with me and my company that I founded and say, here are five things I don't like about what you're doing, and we have to fix it. And, by the way, tomorrow, I'm going to be having a meeting with the communications staff and say, hey, I don't like these leaks. And so we're going to stop the leaks. And, if we don't stop the leaks, I'm going to stop you. It's just really that simple.

Scaramucci also used that Trump-as-coach idea on "Face the Nation":

Okay. So from the business world... what I would say about that and from my experience with the president, the president's a pretty wear-his-heart-on-the-sleeve sort of a guy. If people are very, very thin skinned, I think it's going to be super tough to work for this president. The president has said things to me in a tough, and honest, direct way. I think he's a very good athletic coach, if you will. And so what I would recommend to all of my-my colleagues in Washington and know the president very well, if he's saying stuff about you that you don't like, call him up. Go see him. Go get in the Oval Office or the study.

4. One more thing Scaramucci said on "Face the Nation": Tweeting about everything is "the crystal essence of the president." The crystal essence!

5. One more from "Face the Nation": "What I know about President Trump is... he's got very, very good karma."

Looking for the war protest. Part 2: The video.

Meade and I approach the Capitol, here in Madison, Wisconsin, on a Saturday morning, thinking if there's going to be action, it will be here. This is before Obama emerged to say that he was going to ask permission from Congress. This is a 10 minute video, but it's edited and moves quickly, I think. Look at the tags below to get an idea of what's in store:

So that's why Hollywood has been subjecting us to such horrible trash!

They thought the Chinese would love it!

Hollywood’s global business strategy, which counts on huge ticket sales in China for high-budget fantasies in 3-D and large-screen Imax formats, is coming unhinged....

[E]xecutives and China watchers... suspect... a rapid evolution in the tastes of Chinese audiences, which are quickly turning away from the spectacles American companies have assumed they crave.

“I know what they don’t seem to want,” said Rob Cain, who runs Chinafilmbiz.com and is a consultant to producers and others doing business in China. “They don’t want the same old thing, over and over again, the action blockbusters with lots of explosions.”

These Hollywood bastards shortchanged Americans and catered to a foreign audience that they looked down on as unsophisticated. And now the scheme has gone kablooey, like a predictable plot twist in movie aimed at dummies.

Two big thumbs up for poetic justice!

"Karma's a bitch."/"But I still love her, because she's always there for me."

Said bagoh20 (responding to me) in comments in to "This is where I will employ the term 'Althousenfreude.'"

That made me say out loud, "I bet there are a lot of girls named 'Karma' now."

I found the old Name Voyager too, and here's Karma — a name that peaked in 2009 with 89 per 1 million babies.

Who would name their child Karma? For insight, consider the the brother and sister names from families with a girl named Karma:

Camron Carmelo Jaxson Kelvin Mauel Memphis Noah Orion Phillip Regulo Roanin Robert Sean Zavior

Graciela Honey Jerry Juniper Katrina Kirra Na'yzia Narida Sophia Voj Zia

Peaked in 2009... goes with the sister name Katrina... ?!! And here are the twins: Karma and Katrina. They look like trouble!

Personal experiences with the name Karma:

Karma is my first name, and in my experience, no one says it right, no on spells it right and everyone feels the need to comment on it - which gets VERY annoying VERY quickly.

Try one of the nicknames: Karms, Kaz, Tarmie, Kar-Kar....

Car car...

"The best punishment for a man who would take your wife is to let him have her."

A tl;dr summary to something that was actually not too long responding to a call for "instant karma" stories.

"I bet Barack Obama yearns for the days when he was only *running* for President."

"That's what he was good at. He'll have to reach much deeper into himself to find leadership, if it's there, and not just the idea, the mirage of it. It's scary and funny to see him so shaken by trying to ride the jackass bronc of Congressional Democrats and the mad bull elephant of House Republicans. Now we're getting somewhere. I don't think he'll completely fail, but it will be an unnerving while until he finds his seat."

***

Obama is giving soooooo much raw material to his opponents, who have — from Day 1 — been trying to frame him as a miserable failure — which exactly what Bush's opponents did to Bush.

You know what's really funny? That term — "miserable failure" — that was pinned on Bush so relentlessly? Do you remember who started that meme?

Tom Daschle!

Karma.

ADDED: Upon the suggestion, in the comments, that Richard Gephardt called Bush a "miserable failure" before Tom Daschle, I did a methodical search and found this from December 9th 2002:

"Their trickle-down economic theories have been a miserable failure, and this is an admission of that miserable failure," Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle told CNN.

The earliest Gephardt example was from January 21, 2003. To be accurate, I did find this earlier quote:

The absolutely miserable failure of this administration on economics is what brings us to this point.

That's from November 7, 1991. It's about Bush all right. Bush I.

The son says: "I got a feeling that when I have kids, I'm going to have a little girl, and she's going to be completely sensible."

The father says: "I do believe in karma, and if you think for one minute that there would be anything karmically correct for you to have a well-behaved little girl, you're dreaming."

Justin Townes Earle and Steve Earle.

***

That made me think of the old Cat Stevens song "Father & Son." The 2 points of view. The son seeing himself as different from the father, and the father believing the son really will be just about the same as he was.

Here's Cat, as a young man, singing the great song beautifully, powerfully. And here's old Cat -- "look at me, I am old" -- singing the song again, in his Yusef Islam self-re-invention. The voice is the same, slightly mellowed.

Who knows if the young man and the old man are different or the same?

"I'm a man without conviction."

Sang Boy George in "Karma Chameleon." As Sonicfrog notes, Boy George is not a man without conviction anymore.

"His priorities were cigarettes, Dr Pepper, hot Cheetos and, once a week, he would buy C batteries."

"He never asked for money, but people gave him money... Poor man, may he rest in peace."

"He was Mr. John," [an old woman] cried out in Spanish. "I don't even speak English, but I would say, 'Hi, Mr. John, happy today?' "...

"Karma is coming," [one man] said. "Karma is going to come and get whoever did this."

Would you trust a law professor to be President?

Okay, this annoys me, because Steve H. asserts that I was annoyed by something, which I wasn't — I was just making fun of him — but I'm going to talk about it anyway, not to demonstrate that I'm nowhere near as irascible as you may think, but because it looks somewhat interesting.

Titled "The Dalai Obama v. Karma/Pedal Your Tricycle Back to the Faculty Lounge," it begins with an assertion that Steve has the "wonderful feeling" that Obama has "royally shafted himself over the last month," a time period which, I note, includes the "fortnight" Andrew Sullivan has termed "objectively miraculous" for Obama. (Actually, it would be objectively miraculous if Obama could royally shaft himself.)

But Steve's idea of the self-shafting consists Obama's failure to admit that he was wrong about the surge, his waffling on offshore drilling, and his increasingly apparent egotism. He connects egotism to law professing and says he's "horrified by the prospect of a law professor running the country" (the point he's supposedly made before that supposedly annoyed me).

What's so bad about lawprofs? Steve thinks they are the "idiot-savants of the profession," who couldn't "hack it" in legal practice, and took "asylum" in the cushy world of law school where we are paid too much — he estimates the salary at $100,000 — and work very little — he estimates 15 hours a week. In Steve's view, most lawprofs are "pathetic," "socialist nutwads," who act "brave and rebellious, while working tenured jobs with outstanding benefits, and while toeing the administration line with a scrupulousness worthy of OCD." We "rebel by doing exactly what people in authority tell" us to do. Protected from the demands of the real world we ran away from, lawprofs spend our lives concocting phony theories that would self-destruct on contact with the real world.

That's Steve's theory anyway.

So let's see.

1. Of course, it's fun to attack lawprofs, and many of us have retreated from the demands of clients, billable hours, and the practical application of legal knowledge. It's fun to attack lawyers too, and not being the lawyer type could be seen as a good thing. A lawyer must work in the client's interest — which is why everyone else is rightly suspicious of him — but a law professor wants to take a wider view and be free to look at problems from different perspectives.

2. Obama did not retreat from the world to become a law professor. He even turned down the job of full-time, tenured lawprof. He was always pursuing his political career, working as a legislator, or doing "community organizing," while putting in extra hours hashing through the constitutional law cases with students. He was only attracted to the teaching side of the lawprof job, the part that puts you in a lively room full of demanding, competitive individuals. He entirely eschewed scholarship, so it's irrelevant that a lot of lawprofs while away their time with unworkable theories or sucking up to other academics.

3. You certainly wouldn't want a typical lawprof to be President, but Obama was a lawprof the way Bill and Hillary Clinton were lawprofs. That is, he's a politician. Basically, we always get a politician for President.