"My quest is to become the first person to cross Saudi Arabia north to south on foot, an expedition I’m completing in two parts..."

"It has really only just become possible for me to do this kind of trip, now that Saudi Arabia is opening up for tourism and welcoming non-Muslim tourists....  [A]t the border with Jordan... [w]e were planning to camp in the desert but when the farmer Abu Saqqar heard what we were doing he exclaimed, 'What God wills, what God wills, I must slaughter a sheep for you!'... This was my first taste of the Saudi hospitality that was such a delight on this journey. All the district notables were invited and we sat on the floor together to eat. I was the only woman so asked the men if they minded if I ate with them. They all politely invited me even though it may have been uncomfortable for them.... [T]he flat plains of pastel desert... were deeply soothing to the spirit.... The final stage will be a totally different experience as I head to the cool, misty mountains of the south, where the men wear flowers in their hair.... [T]he Saudis I have met on the way have been universally excited by the quest and desperate to show hospitality.... 'May God make you strong, may he bring you success, may you reach your goal if he wills it' are the words that will linger in my mind...."

Writes Alice Morrison, in "What I discovered on my journey to be the first to cross Saudi Arabia on foot/The explorer Alice Morrison describes the first stage of her 1,500 mile journey across volcanic fields and pastel deserts — and what she learnt along the way" (London Times).

ADDED: Here are some nice photos of those "Flower Men." The area is called the Asir province.

"Kamala can’t be thrilled that Obama, Pelosi and Schumer hesitated to endorse her because they wanted more moderate rivals to compete in an open mini-primary...."

"Biden still thinks he could have taken Trump, so how could he reconcile being shoved off the sled? On Wednesday, Ron Klain, Biden’s longtime adviser, expressed to Anderson Cooper Bidenworld’s feelings about the Jacquerie heard round the world. 'I think it was unfortunate because I think that the president had won the nomination fair and square,' Klain said. 'Fourteen million people had voted for him and the vice president as vice president.' He added: 'I do think, you know, the president was pushed by public calls from elected officials for him to drop out, from donors calling for him to drop out. And I think that was wrong.'"

Writes Maureen Dowd, in "After Biden Bloodletting, Dems Just Want to Have Fun!" (NYT).

1. "Shoved off the sled" — seems to refer to the notion that Biden was on a glide path to victory. There's no other mention of sledding.

2. "Jacquerie" — Wikipedia: "The Jacquerie was a popular revolt by peasants that took place in northern France in the early summer of 1358 during the Hundred Years' War.... This rebellion became known as 'the Jacquerie' because the nobles derided peasants as 'Jacques' or 'Jacques Bonhomme' for their padded surplice, called a 'jacque.'... The Jacquerie must be seen in the context of this period of internal instability. At a time of personal government, the absence of a charismatic king was detrimental to the still-feudal state."

3. "Bloodletting" — That word in the headline is supported by violent metaphor in the text of the essay: "It wasn’t exactly 'Julius Caesar' in Rehoboth Beach.... it was a jaw-dropping putsch.... [Pelosi] seemed sheepish about knifing her pal, and conflicted over whether to take credit. Et tu, Nancy? Biden must have thought."

ADDED: I wanted Grok to manufacture an image based on "seemed sheepish about knifing her pal" and asked for "Image of sheep stabbing a person with a knife."

Grok refused. It gave me a long answer, including: "Here's where I'd usually say, 'I could generate an image for you,' but considering the context and the nature of your request, let's not encourage the sheep to take up arms."

Defensively, I said "I find it distasteful too, but the image was created in words by Maureen Dowd in her New York Times column. She wrote that Nancy Pelosi 'seemed sheepish about knifing her pal.'"

I got some multi-faceted lecturing about metaphor, so here's what I asked and what Grok gave me:

UPDATE: The headline for the column has changed. We're no longer seeing the word "Bloodletting." It's "The Dems Are Delighted. But a Coup Is Still a Coup."

"But I’m fascinated by tradwife life... It’s less the campy, colour-saturated, submissive 50s-housewife cosplay...."

"That feels like fantasy or fetish, designed, I suspect, to appeal mainly to men.... But the other kind – families forging a wholesome, homesteading existence – taps into a longing for things it’s objectively reasonable to long for. It’s stuff I long for: a slower, simpler, more intentional way of life, making do and mending, a hands-on relationship with nature, the seasons and food production. The world is chaos, cruelty and despair, but in a peaceful corner of the internet, a woman in sprigged muslin is meditatively pickling beets in a shaft of sunlight or pouring raw milk into a pitcher. A knock-kneed lamb is warming by the Aga, there are freshly podded peas on the table and there is sourdough cooling. They make it look so lovely, this 19th-century drudgery...."

Writes Emma Beddington in "Sometimes I long for the life of a tradwife. Then I remember it’s a reactionary fantasy" (The Guardian).

We're told that it's possible to have a "pared-back life" that's not "trad" but "radical, diverse, engaged and outward-looking." Beddington points us to 3 Instagram accounts: @poppy.okotcha ("growing food ecologically"), and @Blackyardchickenz (a "hen-keeping experiment"), and  @farmlifeiceland ("a lesbian sheep-farming couple")...

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A post shared by Pálína Axelsdóttir Njarðvík (@farmlifeiceland)

"I’ve learnt that the stupider the thing I say, the more likely it is to get in. You’re asked to discuss every intimate part of your life."

"You feel like you’re just a specimen pinned on the board. It’s totally dehumanizing."

Said Nicholas Hitchon, quoted in "Nicholas Hitchon, Who Aged 7 Years at a Time in ‘Up’ Films, Dies at 65/He was one of the original children profiled in 'Seven Up!,' a 1964 British documentary, and reappeared in subsequent installments for more than a half-century" (NYT).

He also thought the filmmakers had a tendency to play up stereotypes of British society, something he said he felt even as a boy in the early installments, when crew members would chase sheep into the camera’s view while filming him. 

“These people thought that I was all about sheep,” he told The Chronicle of Higher Education in 2005. “I’m quite fond of sheep, but I was more interested in other things.” 

By its own account, "Cubik is 'a deeply human organization' that 'seeks personalities before skills" — "you don’t just work at Cubik, you 'Be Cubik.'"

"An online quiz prompts you to discover your Cubik profile: Reflection, Action, or Relation. 'Cubik’s V.I.P. drinks have hardly begun and you’ve already talked to all the guests,' the description for the last category reads. 'You now know at which sport Jean-Yves is unbeatable, where Joëlle will spend her vacations, and that Antoine has planned to cross Slovenia on a tandem bicycle.' Whew. Jean-Yves, Joëlle, and Antoine might be having the time of their lives. Or they might be frantically texting the babysitter or wishing they were at yoga class. Cubik boasts, 'Because we are proud of our culture, we have many rituals for getting together.' These include an annual corporate retreat just before the summer holidays, 'to celebrate the past season and take a step back from working.'"

From "The Right Not to Be Fun at Work/In a win for workplace dignity, a French high court recently decreed that businesses cannot force their employees to participate in supposedly enjoyable activities" (The New Yorker).

Can the capacity to have fun be made one of your professional responsibilities? It's one thing to be allowed to have fun or even encouraged to have fun or rewarded for bringing your delightful spirit of fun to the workplace. But it's quite another to fire you because you're no fun. But what is this "fun"? An employer's idea of fun can be distorted and burdensome. Isn't that what the TV show "The Office" is about? I don't know, I don't watch it, because I can't stand that sort of thing even vicariously.

I have 6 TikToks for you tonight. Let me know what you like best.

1. You may have mixed feelings about child labor.

2. The child's song: "Please Stop Bugging Me."

3. Harmonizing on "Creep."

4. The North Carolinian in experiences the weirdness of Wisconsin.

5. Saving a sheep.

6. That fevered email written in a Covid fervor.

Unlike Libs of TikTok, I select things from TikTok just to delight and amuse.

1. A little boy has learned to stop and smell the flowers.

2. Learning to speak with an American accent.

3. Just a really good looking sheep.

4. That trout can't believe it took the bait against... so tedious.

5. Can a schnauzer distinguish the "go" command from "o," "g," and "goat"?

6. Birds get mad.

7. The menu at the Amadeus Café has musical notation on it that some people can sing.

8. French is funny when literally translated.

9. Ingenious cabinetry.

I watch TikTok so you don't have to. Here are my 5 selections of the day.

1. Nurse Melissa channels Nancy Pelosi. 

2. Tiny toddler tastes a Peep and reaches a new level of consciousness. 

3. How to interact with a crackhead. 

4. Have you encountered the "Be a man" man yet? Well, here's one example. Lots more here.

5. A sheep burdened with 40kg of extra wool is saved.

"A 73-year-old volunteer died on Saturday after she was repeatedly rammed by a sheep while working at a Massachusetts farm that uses animals in mental health therapy...."

The NYT reports. 

She was "rammed by a sheep," and we're informed that male sheep are "known as rams."

The farm — Cultivate Care Farms — has a website that "states that it is committed to improving the lives of children through 'farm-based therapy,' describing itself as a pioneer in the model, which it hopes to establish as a form of mental health treatment comparable to other models like cognitive behavioral therapy."

People do want to do volunteer work, and working with therapy animals must seem, to some people, to be the ideal form of charity. But farm animals are what they are, and they may be quite unfamiliar to the kindly people who volunteer. Obviously, the animals themselves have no idea that they are intended to do charitable work.

A man in shorts and his wonky ram.

 I approve of this one:

"Missing Dog Launched from Vehicle During Car Accident, Found on a Farm Herding Sheep."

 People reports. 

[Tilly, t]he 2-year-old border collie was ejected from the rear of his owner's GMC Yukon during a car accident on Sunday in Rathdrum, Idaho. Tilly fled the scene of the collision after being launched from the vehicle....

On Tuesday, siblings Tyler and Travis Potter noticed something weird about their Australian shepherd Hooey while watching the dog on their family farm... [U]pon closer inspection, Tyler and Travis figured out why. The dog out there wasn't Hooey at all, but Tilly, who managed to find his way to the Potter Farm, 1.5 miles from the crash site...

"I think that dog was trying to herd," Travis Potter told The Spokesman-Review. Tilly's owner, Linda Oswald, told the outlet that tracks based on her dog's usual behavior. "He'll herd anything," Oswald said. "When I go to the dog park, he tries to herd the people into one group."

Thus, we learn that a border collie, kicked out of his familiar home base, will look for work on his own and find it.

"Some fun fact about these little creatures: In Vietnam we eat them"/"How dare you come here and say that. Oh nonooooooo."

"those were delicacies in someplace in VN,some are just plain street food,some are expensive high class dishes, I’m sadly have to announce to you that." 

 From "A Little Vietnamese Mossy Frog" (Reddit).

ADD: There's a truly adorable photo at the link, which is the reason I'm blogging this. Please don't think I'm blogging this to attack the animal-eating choices of people in a foreign country. Unless we're vegetarians, we eat the animals we're used to eating, and we don't give a reprieve for cuteness. We eat lambs if we like lamb. 

Here's video of a lamb dreaming, presumably not of becoming a chop.

"Strange branding. I don't associate him with the feeling of getting a good night's sleep."

"Maybe some slogan playing on the idea of 'woke,' like 'Now, the woke can sleep.' Or 'How the woke sleep.'" 

I write, over at Facebook, commenting at a post linking to an NBC news article, "David Hogg launching pillow company to 'put MyPillow out of business'/Hogg tweeted a list of goals for the future company, which included supporting progressive causes and hiring formerly incarcerated Americans."

In the photo NBC chose to illustrate its news flash, Hogg looks sleep deprived:

Why would anyone want political meaning in their pillow? Have you ever used politics to try to fall asleep? There's a reason the cliché falling-asleep method is counting sheep — not counting Senators. Though Senators are dull. But they not dull in the right way. 

ADDED: We're told that Hogg's company will sell pillows that are "American-made by union workers," and I see at least one commenter mocking him as stupid — "Can you imagine the cost of a unionized pillow?" That made me think of the old "Look for the union label" ad campaign, which urged Americans to buy American-made clothing and to feel good about paying the extra cost. I rewatched those commercials, and they might make you laugh, but they actually made me cry, and I was trying not to cry. 

Senator Hirono schooled Amy Coney Barrett for saying "sexual preference." It's an offensive term... as many people just learned yesterday.

Here's a good clip showing Hirono's earnest, mildly contemptuous attitude toward the Supreme Court nominee and editing in the use of "sexual preference" by a few notables, including Joe Biden and Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who Mazie Hirono called "our champion" on Monday, used the term "sexual preference" in 2017. Hirono jumped on Amy Coney Barrett for saying it Tuesday, calling it "offensive and outdated." pic.twitter.com/8bHIQTSVFk https://t.co/JlcRA35g59

— David Rutz (@DavidRutz) October 14, 2020

I was surprised to hear that "sexual preference" has become — at least in some circles — a politically incorrect term. I could immediately see the reason for objecting to it: It vaguely suggests that sexual orientation is a choice, even though I don't think it's true that we choose our preferences. It might suggest that who we love — and who we feel sexually attracted to — is lightweight, more like which flavor ice cream we like better than another. Yes, you prefer to have sex with a blonde, but if you can't have the blonde, the brunette will do just as well. 

Why not get bent out of shape about "sexual orientation" then? Orientation suggests pointing east or west on a landscape. All you have to do is turn around and you'll have a different orientation. 

And why the focus on immutability anyway? I think even if sexual attraction is a matter of choice,  your choice is worth of respect. Choices are important and a good foundation for rights in a free society. Think of freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, freedom to have political opinions and to speak about them. These things matter in part because they can change and you do have a choice. 

Indeed, the right to have an abortion is referred to as the right to choose. It's about individual autonomy. Let me quote the 3-Justice opinion that determined the outcome in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (the case that partially overruled Roe v. Wade in 1992):

These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.

But I took Hirono's scolding to heart. Even though what I've just said is what I genuinely think upon reflection, my first reaction was: Oh! I didn't know this was offensive! Have I offended?! I knew I could look in my 17-year blog archive and in my classnotes from conlaw2 to see if I'd used the offending phrase.

Oh, the ordeal of being a Senator coerced to sit silent all day without coffee, without iPads!

I'm reading "Senators are out and about rather than in their seats" in WaPo's "What happened in Wednesday’s Senate trial, in 5 minutes."

I'm beyond bored by the trial, but this is what interests me, because I would go mad stuck in the position the Senators have gotten themselves into. Their theater, their rules:

Senators are supposed to sit down and stay in their seats for the entire trial, except when they all agree to take breaks. And yet at one point, our congressional colleagues watching the hearing from above the Senate chamber counted about 20 Republican senators not in their seats, walking outside the Senate floor or hanging out in private rooms just off it....

Why that matters: It’s another reminder there are no repercussions for not following the rules — which technically warn everyone to be silent “upon pain of imprisonment.”

When are these characters going to start throwing themselves in prison? Rules are rules! Well, once the ironclad rule-following breaks down — and it looks as though it already has — what's to stop them from openly sipping coffee and scrolling on iPads? What's to stop them from milling around right there in the chamber? What's to stop them from laughing out loud? From heckling?

After all these years, the Lamb of God is looking at you.

That's a closeup of the central figure in the Ghent Altarpiece, before and after restoration. The great masterpiece by Hubert and Jan Van Eyck (1432) had been painted over in the 16th century, and people had gotten used to the eyes way off to the side. But the image on the right puts the eyes back where Hu and Jan had them.

I'm reading "Ghent Altarpiece: Lamb's 'alarmingly humanoid' face surprises art world" (BBC). Smithsonian Magazine is quoted saying "These features are 'eye-catching, if not alarmingly anthropomorphic.'" There's also a lot of reaction in social media.

The new image is the original painting, with layers of "overpaint" removed. The Belgium's Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (RICH) defends its work:

The Van Eyck brothers chose to "represent the Lamb of God with human-like staring eyes", which was a common style in the Middle Ages, it said. "The choice for removing the overpaint was carefully weighed out, and it was fully supported by all involved," the institute said. "The results of the restoration have been praised by experts, the public and St Bavo's Cathedral."

Here's the Wikipedia article "Lamb of God":

Lamb of God ... is a title for Jesus that appears in the Gospel of John. It appears at John 1:29, where John the Baptist sees Jesus and exclaims, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."...

The Lamb imagery in Revelation is counterintuitive. In Rev. 5:5, John hears from an elder about the lion of Judah who conquers, but in 5:6, what he sees is a lamb....

[I]n 375 Saint Augustine wrote: "Why a lamb in his passion? Because he underwent death without being guilty of any iniquity. Why a lion in his passion? Because in being slain, he slew death. Why a lamb in his resurrection? Because his innocence is everlasting. Why a lion in his resurrection? Because everlasting also is his might."

If you want to talk about what's "alarmingly anthropomorphic," begin with Jesus.

ADDED: The oldest usage of the word "anthropomorphic" is about God. It "ascribes human form, character, or attributes to God or a god" (OED). The first appearance of the word is this:

1802 S. T. Coleridge Coll. Lett. (1956) II. 893 Even the worship of one God becomes Idolatry..when instead of the Eternal & Omnipresent..we set up a distinct Jehovah tricked out in the anthropomorphic Attributes of Time & Successive Thoughts—& think of him as a Person.

"I do always listen to myself, discuss with myself... I do like to go in the mountains when it's very rough, to feel the nature scratching you. It's good, I think."

"An early video sketch of 'Doggie Hamlet,' a site-specific work by the choreographer and performance artist Ann Carlson, has recently become fodder for conservatives intent on eliminating federal funding of the National Endowment for the Arts."

"I can’t defend this strangely chopped together video, which undercuts the scope and mysterious splendor of Ms. Carlson’s vision. But as a dance critic, I will fight for Ms. Carlson, a multidisciplinary artist whose work poignantly explores social issues through the lens of performance. Art is subjective to be sure, but judging a three-minute promo without context does no one any favors...."*

Oh, well... why do favors? Here's the video. Judge away!


Ann Carlson - DOGGIE HAMLET, excerpts from Peter W Richards on Vimeo.

It's certainly not mean or unfair to judge an edited version that was made available as a promo. A promo invites judgment in the hope of favorable judgment. I'm not going to assume that more "context" would make it better. As long as the artist controlled the edit, I'm going to presume that what was stripped out was worse.

_______________________

* The quoted article is "But Is It Art? In the Case of ‘Doggie Hamlet,’ Yes" by Gia Kourlas (in the NYT).

"Eleven people who slaughtered a sheep, stripped naked and chained themselves together outside the gates of Auschwitz last week were... not neo-Nazi extremists..."

They were pacifists.

According to prosecutors.

"I just googled 'mutton busting,' which was a new topic for many of us yesterday, when one of the Republican senators asked Gorsuch about taking his clerks to the Denver rodeo."

"Now I really want to see it in action," wrote Amy Howe, at SCOTUSblog, where they were doing something I just can't bring myself to do, live-blogging the Neil Gorsuch confirmation hearing.

But how can you not know about mutton busting?!



You'd think these eastern elite types would at least have seen it on PBS. What's the point of funding PBS if you're not even up to speed on mutton busting? I think this relates to why people don't understand how Trump won the election.

The NYT also made much of the mention of mutton busting:

Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, wanted to hear about the Denver rodeo. And Judge Gorsuch, elusive all week as Democrats have strained to pinpoint his judicial leanings, turned instantly expansive.

“Mutton busting, as you know, comes sort of like bronco busting for adults,” he began on Tuesday. “You take a poor little kid, you find a sheep and you attach the one to the other and see how long they can hold on.”

He went on.

“…You know, it usually works fine when the sheep has got a lot of wool and you tell them to hold on — I tell my kids hold on monkey-style, you know? Really get in there, right? Get around it…”

The Democrats stared blankly.

“…Because if you sit upright, you go flying right off, right? So, you want to get in. But the problem when you get in is that you’re so locked in that you don’t want to let go, right? And so, then the poor clown has to come and knock you off the sheep.”

Key line:  The Democrats stared blankly. 

In real life, the rich clown has come and knocked you off the sheep.