"But it is all the relentless smiling, the desperate upbeatness of this high-spec, lavish production, that jars."

"At least I suspect it will with a more cynical British audience. Americans may feel differently. Meghan must have had face-ache with all that grinning. It is a world where people use superlatives about a cherry tomato and in Californian accents say, 'That’s so funny!' but then don’t actually laugh from their bellies. There is no authentic humour. Meghan says we aren’t 'in pursuit of perfection … we are in the pursuit of joy' — and yet we all know she told Oprah Winfrey that Kate made her cry over a difference of opinion about flower girl dresses. This is a series that entreats you to fill every moment of life 'with wonder'...."

Writes Carol Midgley, in "With Love, Meghan review — smug, syrupy and endlessly spoofable/The new Netflix series from Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, is full of immaculately tasteful domestic tips from Montecito and relentless smiling, but it is a performative kind of joy" (London Times).

We could do a little dollop of yogurt as our clouds.

"People want to regain their agency, their sense of control, and do something to match their fears to their actions."

Said Chris Ellis, a U.S. Army colonel who researches the prepper movement, quoted in "US 'prepper' culture diversifies amid fear of disaster and political unrest" (Reuters).

Researchers say the number of preppers has doubled in size to about 20 million since 2017. Much of that growth is from minorities and people considered left-of-center politically, whose sense of insecurity was heightened by Donald Trump's 2016 election, the COVID-19 pandemic, more frequent extreme weather and the 2020 racial justice protests following the murder of George Floyd.... 

Why aren't there so many songs about rainbows?

I see "Wisconsin teacher fired after criticizing district’s ‘Rainbowland’ ban/Administrators in Waukesha, Wis., had banned Melissa Tempel’s first-graders from singing the song by Dolly Parton and Miley Cyrus" (WaPo).

At Wednesday’s hearing, Tempel and her attorney, Summer Murshid... argued, the teacher’s tweets after school hours fall outside the scope of her employment and constitute "the type of speech that falls squarely within the protection afforded by the First Amendment," Murshid said. 

"I thought that the fact that the tweet that I made, that 'Rainbowland' wasn’t going to be allowed, was something that the public would be really concerned about and that they would be interested in knowing about it," said Tempel, whose supervisor deemed her a “master teacher” who was “magical with children” in her last employment review. 

"Disney has never endorsed Gay Days... Nor has it tried to rein it in. There isn’t much the company could do anyway."

"For red shirt days, attendees buy tickets like anyone else. The planning is handled by private companies like One Magical Weekend, Gay Days Inc., and the lesbian-focused Girls in Wonderland.... Would the anti-L.G.B.T.Q. vitriol that has surrounded Disney in recent months spill over to Gay Days?...  On Saturday morning... Gay Days participants streamed into Disney World. Many of them wore red shirts with the words 'SAY GAY' on the back....  [Disney's] Parks & Resorts division celebrates Pride month with a barrage of rainbow merchandise in its shops, including a button featuring Mickey Mouse and a rainbow along with the slogan 'Belong, Believe, Be Proud.' There were also rainbow-themed desserts... [and] Pride-themed photo backdrops.... There were no protesters. There were no cautionary signs. The only tension I saw came from a gay man who was cranky that a Disney manager had told him that his shirt could be viewed as inappropriate. It featured Pluto in leather gear and the phrase 'I like it wruff.'"

From "After a Political Storm, Gay Days Return to Disney/An L.G.B.T.Q. tradition at Disney World took on new significance this year, when Disney was ensnared in a heated cultural debate" (NYT).

"Biden’s overall approval rating fell from 50 percent to 44 percent from June, also dragged down by 2-to-1 disapproval for..."

"... his handling of Afghanistan following a chaotic withdrawal. Biden’s ratings for handling the economy also have declined, from 52 percent positive in April to 45 percent in the latest survey."

WaPo reports. 

But elsewhere in WaPo, we have "Opinion: The Supreme Court rides to Biden’s rescue" by Kathleen Parker. 

That's got to be the most predictable column of the week. Yes, Biden's doing horribly, and yes, it's awful the way the Supreme Court couldn't stop that Texas abortion law, but isn't it good for Biden and the Democrats that the threat to abortion rights is suddenly powerfully grabbing the everybody's attention? 

That's my paraphrase. Here's a bit of Parker's pep talk:

President Biden’s personal hell month featured...  Hurricane Ida... Afghanistan... covid-19’s delta variant... a dragging economy... and uncontrollable fires out west.... 

The president has been bouncing all over the four Horses of the Apocalypse....

It's not "four Horses of the Apocalypse." It's Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. And I can't picture bouncing all over them. Is he supposed to be the rider of all 4 horses, like he is all 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse? I don't think the Biblical reference is properly understood here.

Back to the column:

The president has been bouncing all over the four Horses of the Apocalypse, a reluctant gladiator trying to rein in the ruin of his presidency when...

So a gladiator is bouncing on the horses, trying to rein them in? Here's a nice painting of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1887):

"As part of the park’s redesign, roughly an acre of concrete slab will be covered with a thermoplastic mural printed with rainbow stripes and planted with eight-foot-tall sculptural flowers as a tribute to [Black trans activist Marsha P.] Johnson..."

"... who often wore flowers in her hair. Locals are livid that the redesign doesn’t include a major expansion of green space or real flower beds. They also say that local residents never had a chance to offer meaningful feedback.... The new design was announced last August, but state officials waited until a few days before the park was set to close for construction in January to present it to Brooklyn Community Board 1....  'It’s almost stereotypical at this point. People just think, Oh, it’s queer people so we’re going to make a gay flag as a park,' said Mihalis Petrou, a horticulturist who has worked on North Brooklyn parks and who identifies as gay. 'It’s just redundant and uninventive and it’s going to have an impact on the local wildlife. We could have a nuanced tribute that honors marginalized people by celebrating nature. It’s a missed opportunity.' 'Olmsted must be rolling in his grave,' said Katie Naplatarski, a North Brooklyn parks advocate and longtime Greenpoint resident. 'To coat a park in plastic? Are you kidding me? That is so fundamentally wrong.'"

From "North Brooklyn Locals Do Not Like the Plastic Mural Proposed For Their Park" (New York Magazine).

Plastic, flowers, rainbows — when is inclusivity insulting? Is there ever a point when those who are designated for governmental uplifting rebel and say this is trite, childish, and just plain bad design?

At the Rainbow Panorama Café...

... you can write about whatever you like.

Click image to enlarge.

With a big spot of dawn sun shining on my hair, I point at a rainbow.

Photo by Meade:



Photo by me, seconds later:

"Several Madison alders are sponsoring the resolution creating the LGBTQ+ Rainbow Murals and Crossings Art Pilot Program, which would install LGBTQ+ inclusive rainbow flag markings..."

"... at pedestrian crossings on the Capital City Trail and near the Capitol Square.... 'It would be a reminder to residents who see it that the LGBTQ community is an important part of the fabric of Madison, especially given that we have a lesbian mayor and many other queer people in positions of power'" (Capital Times).

Why should the street be painted to remind us of who's in a position of power? I would not paint anything political on the street. Let the street be a street. It doesn't need to talk to us, especially not to nudge us about what we should believe or value.

I clicked on "I watched the debate with suburban white women from a key swing district. It got heated when they talked Warren" at WaPo...

... and I got:



I'll take the rainbow!

At the Rainbow Café...

... you can talk all night.

At the Garden-Hose-Rainbows Café...

... you can pursue your heart's delight or spritz on somebody else's.

And another thing to do is shop through The Althouse Amazon Portal.

Backyard sprinkler rainbow with a complete arch.

Created and captured by Meade.

At the Death Valley Rainbow Café...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

(And please think of shopping through The Althouse Amazon Portal.)

Enough of fake news, time for fake moods.

"So if you can’t yet muster the positive mind-set to take on the new year, fake it with your wardrobe," says the NYT, suggesting that readers adopt "the mood-altering benefits of dressing like a sunbeam." The specific ideas are to wear rainbows — "to get in touch with your inner child (or aging hippie)" — shirts emblazoned with the words like "good times" or "good life" — "feel-good affirmations" — big smiley-face patches — "smiles are contagious" — and hats with big pompoms on top — making it "hard to take yourself too seriously."

Are we back to denial or have we made it to resignation?

By the way, is it really hard to take yourself seriously when your wearing a hat with a pompom?



Pompoms on hats have a serious tradition:

Pom-poms form a conspicuous part of the uniform of French naval personnel, being sewn onto the crown of their round cap. Belgian sailors wear a light blue version....

Roman Catholic clergy wear the biretta. The colour of its pom-pom denotes the wearer's rank....

In reference to Scottish Highland dress and Scottish military uniforms, the small pom-pon on the crown of such hats as the Balmoral, the Glengarry, and the Tam o' Shanter is called a "toorie."

Here's a man in a Barlmoral hat. I am taking him totally seriously:



That man in a hat had me so seriously mesmerized that I said to myself: Does Trump ever wear a hat? I am not kidding. I had to Google it... and then say "OH!" out loud, to the point where Meade, in the next room, said "What?"



We've elected a man in a hat. A rich man with weird hair put a working-class hat on his head and now readers of the NYT are freaking out and looking to fake a better mood with rainbows and smileys and hats with pompoms.

A baseball cap doesn't have a pompom, of course. It has a squatchee... or is it a squatcho?

For any youth out there who want to follow my lead, if you open a door, any door, there’s a little slot there in the doorway, and if you just stick the squatchee in there — or squatcho — and then if you pull, the button will come off. And then you have to reach inside the hat and take out the little metal piece that held the button in place. Once you got that out of the way, foul tips off the squatcho were no longer a problem. I mean, they still hit you on the head, but they didn’t drive that button down into your skull.

So says Bob Brenly, the former baseball player, who seems to be the expert.

Smokestack rainbow.

Meade sent me that from out on his campaign (mountain biking).

Made me think of this song that mesmerized me in my youth:

The rainbow at 4:46 p.m.

Over Centennial Gardens in Madison today.

"But [Sean Penn's] earnest efforts were mocked in comedies like 'Team America: World Police'..."

"... in which a puppet depiction of Mr. Penn boasts that he recently traveled to Iraq, which he describes as 'a happy place — they had flowery meadows and rainbow skies, and rivers made of chocolate where the children danced and laughed and played with gumdrop smiles.'"



From "Sean Penn’s Excursions Into Writing Often Mix Activism With Journalism," by Dave Itzkoff in the NYT.

Someday you'll find it, the rainbow disconnection...

"Dogs Pose Majestically Beneath A Double Rainbow, Prompt Thoughts About Love, Nature, And Politicians."

HuffPo's Arin Greenwood notices Althouse.