"And then there were this people who were sort of giving me these cute little jobs..."

Jennifer Coolidge delivers an epic #GoldenGlobes acceptance speech that makes #TheWhiteLotus creator Mike White cry. https://t.co/m069JEKekW pic.twitter.com/WBWx9H6BCj

— Variety (@Variety) January 11, 2023

AND:

"Althaus, who helped Germany win the mixed team event three times at the ski jumping world championships, was among the women disqualified Monday when FIS ruled that their suits were 'too big and offered an aerodynamic advantage.'"

"Bigger suits could increase the time ski jumpers are able to stay aloft, given the possibility of increased wind resistance... 'I have been checked so many times in 11 years of ski jumping, and I have never been disqualified once, I know my suit was compliant,” the German star [Katharina Althaus] said.... The sport is among the eight that go back to the original Winter Olympics program in 1924, but women weren’t allowed to participate until 2014, after a group of athletes filed a lawsuit in 2009, ahead of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. 'It’s like jumping down from, let’s say, about two meters above the ground about a thousand times a year, which seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view,' former FIS president Gian Franco Kasper infamously claimed in 2005. (Kaser, a Swiss native who held that position from 1998 to 2021, did not have a medical background.)... In an Instagram post, Althaus wrote in German: 'I have no words for the decisions that were made today. Our sport was damaged as a result. Athletes and their dreams were destroyed. … It was one of the most important competitions for us women, a premiere for the entire sport and then something like that!! I am so disappointed and angry.'" 

From "Five female Olympians disqualified because of suits in one of the ‘darker days’ for ski jumping" (WaPo). 

I love the name Althaus, but I must say, looking at the photograph, below, that the very long crotch on those pants seems to give something of a wingsuit — or flying-squirrel — effect. I can see why competitors would seek every advantage they can get from their gear, but if they are technically in violation, they take on the risk of disqualification. It also looks bad, and so — to paraphrase Kasper — it seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a fashion point of view. Do looks matter? Is the Olympics about getting us to watch?

"The early miner has never been truly painted. I protest against the flippant style and eccentric heroic of those writers who have made him a terror..."

"... or who, seizing upon a sporadic case of extreme oddity, some drunken, brawling wretch, have given a caricature to the world as a typical miner. The so-called literature that treats of the golden era is too extravagant in this direction. In all my personal experience in mining camps from 1849 to 1854 there was not a case of bloodshed, robbery, theft, or actual violence. I doubt if a more orderly society was ever known. How could it be otherwise? The pioneers were young, ardent, uncorrupted, most of them well educated and from the best families in the East. The early miner was ambitious, energetic and enterprising. No undertaking was too great to daunt him. The pluck and resources exhibited by him in attempting mighty projects with nothing but his courage and his brawny arms to carry them out were phenomenal. His generosity was profuse and his sympathy active, knowing no distinction of race. His sentiment that justice is sacred was never dulled. His services were at command to settle differences peacefully, or with pistol in hand to right a grievous wrong to a stranger. His capacity for self-government never has been surpassed. Of a glorious epoch, he was of a glorious race."

Wrote E. G. Waite, in the May Century Democratic Times, Jacksonville, May 8, 1891, from a collection of letters at "Life and Death on the Althouse." (The Althouse is a creek in Oregon.)

So what was the Christmas present from Kim Jong-Un? Was it, as Trump guessed, a beautiful vase?

I saw the news 2 days ago:

President Trump did not seem concerned Tuesday when asked about the threat of a "Christmas present" from North Korea if the U.S. doesn't roll back economic sanctions on the country by the end of the year.

"Maybe it's a nice present," Trump told reporters at an event at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. "Maybe it's a present where he sends me a beautiful vase, as opposed to a missile test."

Christmas has come and gone, so what was it? A beautiful vase?

"We'll find out what the surprise is, and we'll deal with it very successfully. Let's see what happens. Everybody's got surprises for me — but let's see what happens," Trump said. "I handle them as they come along."

In other Trump-and-Christmas news: "Psychiatry expert says Trump’s rambling Merry Christmas rant includes three signs of serious mental impairment."

Here's the rant in question:



Do you see the signs? Let me help you. The signs are:

– slurred speech
– semantic paraphasia (inserting wrong word)
– phonemic paraphasia (combining words to form a likely nonsense word)

The purported "phonemic paraphasia" is right at the beginning. He says "And let me begin by wishing you a beautiful" and switches, in the middle of "beautiful" to "look, do you remember this?" If you just clip out the "beautiful" to "look" segment, it sounds like silly nonsense — abyooteefyoowoodlook....



... but it's rank dishonesty to view that as the kind of mental deficiency where a person is saying nonwords as if they were words.

I did enjoy looking up the word "paraphasia" in Wikipedia, because I learned:

The term was apparently introduced in 1877 by the German-English physician Julius Althaus in his book on Diseases of the Nervous System, in a sentence reading, "In some cases there is a perfect chorea or delirium of words, which may be called paraphasia".

I'm always happy to encounter another Althouse/Althaus.

Stop talking about my heart.

Does Buzzfeed have a rule about the frequency of appealing to our heart? I was curious, after writing the last post and highlighting a Buzzfeed post-with-plagiarism called "7 Miracle Babies To Warm Your Heart Today."

Searching the Buzzfeed site for "heartbreaking," I'm guessed there is a rule against more than one usage per day. How many times can reader be expected to jump at the promise of a metaphorical collapse of a most vital organ?

I happened to click on "28 Men With Eating Disorders Confess Their Heartbreaking Secrets" and was pleased to see the author's name was Althouse... Spencer Althouse. Anyway, there was really only one secret: These men were anorexic and male.

Is your heart broken because these males had the additional pain of a problem usually associated with females? Maybe men should feel some special pain when they stoop to using a metaphor associated with females. Eh, Mr. Althouse?

Searching Buzzfeed for "heartwarming," I can see more than one on a single day, e.g., "Get Ready To Wipe Your Tears After You Watch This Heartwarming Short Film." I refused to get ready. Or to watch the short film. Leave my heart alone. And leave my eyes alone.

Can we get a moratorium on heart metaphors? It's not just Buzzfeed. It's everywhere. In a single short article at the NYT this month, I'm seeing: "That scene where the black girls were all talking just like old times in the bunk was heartwarming... 'My Taystee girl, you break my heart'... It’s heartbreaking, but having finally realized that Vee can’t be her mommy, she also looks more sane...." That's not sane.

"'Claudine must have lost her bearings.' Althouse said."

"'Chase must have stayed with her about 30 hours. He was barking to try and attract attention, and if it wouldn’t have been for him, they might not have found her for weeks. She rescued him, and then he tried to rescue her. And now he is without a home.'"

I wasn't going to blog "18 Ways To Eat Hummus All Day Long"...

... as I idly scanned Buzzfeed headlines, but I see it's written by a "Buzzfeed fellow" named Spencer Althouse, and I'm always looking for new posts in the storied line collected under my "other Althouses" tag.

I'm 22, an identical twin, and I don't trust men who shave their armpits. Comedy writer, aspiring screenwriter, Academy Awards enthusiast.

So... there are 2 other Althouses.

Here's Spencer's collection of "The 31 Most Sinfully Sexy Nuns In Movie History." As the countdown continues, you become more and more sure that #1 is Audrey Hepburn in "The Nun's Story," but she's not.

Althouse Street.

A Google Street view screen grab, mailed to me by a reader. It's in Woodmere, New York.

"Mrs. Helen Althouse, the well-known mysterious Attica sleeper..."

"... had a narrow escaped from death from poisoning this week."

Two men visited Mrs. Althouse Thursday evening, and it is said one of them, while in the sick room, was seen to handle a cup of coffee and milk from which the patient drank occasionally.... The men were unknown to the family, but Mrs. Althouse seemed to know who they were, although she declined to talk about them. Vague talk about money and Mrs. Althouse's husband adds to the mystery. The men are said to be from Syracuse...."

An article published in the NYT on June 24, 1888. If it was mysterious at the time, it's even more mysterious now. How does one become "well-known" for being a "mysterious... sleeper"? Presumably — given that the men were said to be from Syracuse — Attica is Attica, New York... which you probably associate with the prison, the one with the riot and the Al Pacino... but the prison was not built until 1930.

ADDED: Several commenters are piecing together the story. Apparently, the woman's first name was not Helen but Emma. Edutcher found this old newspaper article, which includes some efforts at understanding the woman's condition (falling asleep for 25 days or more). One doctor said: "It is simply a condition of hysteria. The subjects are almost invariably women and of a particular temperament. There must be this temperament. I don to wish to be  understood as ascribing it to outside hypnotic influences." (The doctor was interested in hypnosis as a treatment for hysteria.)

Quaestor suggests Kleine-Levin syndrome — AKA "Sleeping Beauty Syndrome" — which has a Wikipedia page here. There doesn't seem to be much understanding of the cause or the treatment even today. But it's not true that the subjects are mostly women. They are 3 males to 1 female.

It's such an odd thing that we fall asleep and then wake up. We assume that will just happen. We've all had trouble sleeping, I assume, and when that happens we may observe the mystery of sleep. We seem to know how to do it but not how to do it. We don't so much worry that we won't know how to wake up. Outside of the unique problem of dying in one's sleep, we take it for granted that we will wake up. We have the knack. Who knows why?

Medical marijuana that doesn't get you high.

This tests the good faith of those who favor access to marijuana for medicinal purposes.

I particularly like the horticulturalist's name: Bill Althouse.

McAhren and Althouse started trying to breed up the CBD and breed down the THC, hoping to find a sweet spot that would provide a plant that offered optimal medicinal value with no high.

A few weeks ago, they hit the jackpot. McAhren and Althouse proudly showed me two tall, gangly plants of the new marijuana strain they call A Todo Madre – “perfect” – their miracle plant....

Althouse, who was abused as a child and was diagnosed with PTSD, is a licensed medical marijuana user as well as a producer. He tried the new plant and found it relieved his anxiety but didn’t make him feel high. “It’s a sense of well-being rather than a sense of euphoria or a high,” he said. Smoking the CBD strain didn’t bring any big “aha” moment, Althouse said. “It’s like, ‘I had a great day today.’ ”

The Althouse that won $100,000 at the Big Ten championship game last night.

Yes, the University of Wisconsin football team eked out a win against Michigan State last night, and we were thrilled and amazed. But I was stunned to see the name Althouse pop up in the context of a football-throwing competition:

Kaitlyn Althouse, an Eastern York High School graduate and Lancaster General College student, won the grand prize scholarship of $100,000 during a halftime competition at the Big Ten championship game Saturday night in Indianapolis.

Althouse won the tuition giveaway, sponsored by Dr Pepper, by throwing the most footballs into a two-foot-wide target five yards away in 30 seconds. Althouse made 10 of the throws, while her competitor, Antron McCullough of Ocklawaha, Fla., made nine.

Click through to see the video showing why she was given a chance. Here's McCullough's video. Good luck to both Althouse and McCullough in the future. One of them had to lose, and Michigan State had to lose. So... onward to the Rose Bowl, where it will be Badgers and Ducks.

"Althouse wows audiences with her bee knowledge."

"She has a passion for informing the public about bees and encourages everyone to consider setting up a hive on their property if they can.... Althouse helps folks get started with their own hives: ordering the bees, purchasing materials and setting up the hive.... In January, Althouse ran for American Honey Queen of the American Beekeeping Federation and was first runner up. The five other state honey queen contestants voted her Miss Congeniality, and anyone who knows her would not be surprised at this. She’s modest to the degree that she didn’t mention this honor in the interview."

The modest and adorable Maya Althouse, of Rebersburg, Pennsylvania.

"'Put your hand on it, you can feel the heat they make. They're all in a big mound right now on top,' said Althouse."

"A sheet of newspaper separated Maya Althouse's hand from 3 pounds of bees — totaling somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 stingers.... In November, the Pennsylvania State Beekeepers Association named her the 2009 Pennsylvania State Honey Queen."

"We, the miners of Waldo and Althouse in Oregon Territory, being in convention assembled..."

"... for the purpose of making rules to regulate our rights as miners, do hereby on the first day of April, 1852, ordain and adopt the following rules and regulations to govern this camp":

That 50 cubic yards shall constitute a claim on the bed of the creek extending to high water on each side.

That 40 feet shall constitute a bank or bar claim on the face extending back to the hill or mountain.

That all claims not worked when workable, after five days, be forfeited or jumpable.

That all disputes arising from mining claims shall be settled by arbitration, and the decision shall be final.

Mary Elizabeth Althouse, a 12-year-old girl in 1917.

Paintdancer reads an old diary -- "the daily writings of 12 year old Mary Elizabeth Althouse, daughter of Elmer and Margaret Althouse of Sellersville, Pa." -- her husband bought for 50¢ at a garage sale:

I found it utterly amazing that she invariably ended up in bed at around 11:30PM or 12 AM every night after a day that was chock full of activities that didn’t include TV, the Internet, movies, organized team sports for girls, or visits to the King of Prussia mall! I’d certainly have thought that kids back then were in bed by 8 o’clock out of sheer boredom!

Mary warmed my heart because she seemed to have been an old-fashioned girl much like another Mary I knew all too well- very studious, musical and creative.

Her time was totally filled with school, studies, music lessons, church activities, tatting, embroidering, painting, drawing, a scrapbook, a stamp collection, crocheting, making a pocketbook for mama, candy for friends and playing rook with her brother Sam when he came home from his college (Cornell?) in Ithaca....

This child was obviously from a somewhat privileged family, since the family’s frequent jaunts to the theatre in Philadelphia and shopping outings to Allentown were unusual in an era where auto trips were likely a luxury. Yet, beyond those hints of a refined lifestyle, there was much within the scope of her daily activities that painted a picture of a child who was not merely cultured and well-educated, but who also had to contribute to household chores that included lawn mowing, flower planting, ironing clothes and baking goodies for the preacher’s new tenants, as well as going with mama to visit the sick and elderly.

This demonstrated to me that a privileged child need not be just an entitled child, as much of today’s affluent kids seem to be.

I also observed that Mary wrote almost nothing about her own feelings, thoughts and opinions. Her entry on Thursday, January 4th, 1917 surprised me:

Fair weather today. Went to school. Took my music lesson after school. Mrs. Krug was here for supper. Cousin Helen’s baby suffocated. Spent the evening at home, crocheting and studying. Retired at half past ten.

How strange that she didn’t comment about her feelings regarding the death of the baby! Was it because a woman’s thoughts and opinions meant so little in those days? She recorded the ritualistic performance of her daily mundane feminine tasks of sewing, tatting, baking, etc. with a conscientiousness that would be unusual in a twelve-year-old today. Yet she failed to express one iota of sadness or concern about her second cousin’s untimely death! Why???????????

ADDED: Playing rook? Ah!

Rook is a trick-taking game, usually played with a specialized deck of cards. Sometimes referred to as "Christian cards" or "missionary poker," Rook playing cards were introduced sometime in the 20th century....

The Rook deck consists of 57 cards: a blue Rook Bird card, similar to a joker, and 56 cards divided into four suits, or colors. Each suit—black, red, yellow, and green—is made up of cards numbered 1 through 14.

AND: The brief entry about the smothered baby reminds me of this passage in Sarah Vowell's "The Wordy Shipmates" (which, btw, I highly recommend -- especially the audio version):

[John Winthrop's] earliest American journal entries are understandably brief. "Monday we kept a court," reads one. "My son, Henry Winthrop, was drowned at Salem," says another.

Zen, hula, and Althouse.

You may be thinking: It's always Ann Althouse. Why can we hear something about the other Althouses around the country? Okay! Let's start here, on a blog called The Dude Abides (subtitle: "An Existential Crossing Guard at the Intersection of Spirituality and Pop Culture"). The blogger, Cathleen Falsani, attends a hula class at the Zen Community of Oak Park, which was founded by Abbot Robert Joshin Althouse and his wife June Kaililani Ryushin Tanoue.

Over the summer, the Oak Park Zen Community consecrated a vast hula mound Althouse built in the back yard — two large, enjoined grassy knolls that together form the shape of a yin-yang symbol....

"Hawaiian spirituality is in some ways opposite of Zen because there are in excess of 40,000 gods and goddesses" in its pantheon, [Tanoue] explained....

There is a spirit in the dance, she said, that complements, rather than competes with, her Zen practice. "The sacred is how we treat our experiences, how we're open to them," Althouse said. "We don't create something sacred. We find it right where we are by the way we deal with experiences. I think hula is very much an expression of that, and obviously, I also think that Zen is a way to access that.

"Hula's operating on a lot of different levels, metaphorically and psychologically. It's very hard to pin these things down, but when you see it, you recognize it," he said....

"Like now, for example," she said, referring to the tense climate we're all living in right now, with economic, political, societal and spiritual uncertainty all around.

"It's a good example of transforming something by approaching it with a lightness of heart," Althouse added. "Having joy in the midst of chaos."

All right, then. Althouse says, have some joy in the midst of chaos.