The word "mere" doesn't need to be dismissive. It can refer "to something pure, something without admixture, something foundational."

"There is... more than a hint here of the way in which C.S. Lewis spoke in his wartime BBC radio lectures of 'mere Christianity'.... ... William Butler Yeats wrote ominously of an approaching Second Coming in which the promise of redemption will be replaced by an onslaught of barbarity, and 'Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world'...  It doesn’t overpraise, it doesn’t underpraise, it merely tells the truth, and gets to the essence of the matter. Would it not be a vast improvement if we learned to calibrate our language so that it described merely the way things are, and appreciated them for that?"

From "Mere/Like a lover of endangered species, the lover of endangered words jumps for joy when he sees a word being rescued" by Wilfred M. McClay (in The Hedgehog Review), looking at a book titled "Mere Civility," by Teresa Bejan.

McClay goes off on the subtleties of "mere," but the book is about the subtleties of "civility" which endeavors to clarify civility:

Bejan’s understanding of civility is not the politeness sought by today’s self-appointed arbiters of public manners and speech... In fact, as Bejan acutely points out, the term civility is often used as a genteel-sounding pretext for the suppression of disfavored views.

My line is: Calls for civility are always bullshit. I don't have a problem conceding that the essential idea, separated from the people who call for it, is good, and Bejan's book might be a worthy meditation. McClay turns the spotlight on "mere." I like that.

IN THE COMMENTS: JAORE said: "Too early to think this through. I'll just sit here drinking coffee and petting my mere cat."

Sunrise, northern view.

Time: 7:53. Actual sunrise time: 7:28.

"3D Printing and the Murky Ethics of Replicating Bones."

At Real Clear Science.

Is it obvious to you what "murky ethics" are involved in the 3D printing of bone replicas? Click through to the article and see how long it takes to figure out the answer. The murkiness in getting to the point of what's murky in the ethics is evidence of what a sensitive problem it is.

Have you ever encountered something that is so much the sort of thing that you should be interested that...

... it's exactly why you can't get interested in it at all?

I just had that experience. All the elements made it exactly in my zone, and that almost seemed to be why I turned away. The universe can't serve things up to me made to order. I need more chaos or the balance is off. It's so wrong.

You know the old saying: It's so wrong, it's right.

For me, it was: It's so right, it's wrong.

"Here’s an ad targeted at voters who were deemed 'neurotic' by Cambridge Analytica’s methods."

From "These are the political ads Cambridge Analytica designed for you" (Quartz).

According to the OCEAN personality model, on which the company based its personality traits, “neuroticism” is a measurement of how much you tend to worry. Cambridge Analytica played to the anxious temperament of neurotic types in this ad by emphasizing the growing international risks and need for strong, stable leaders in the United States. The ad juxtaposed pictures of violent chaos, presumably overseas, with a picture of a young boy waving an American flag.

ADDED: How long before we targeted people see they think we're neurotic (or whatever) and hate them for it? (I'm neurotically afraid the answer is never.)

"Having a period already causes me a lot of [gender] dysphoria, but this dysphoria becomes heightened when I have to shop for a product that is labeled as ‘women’s health’ and in most cases, is pretty and pink."

Said transgender model and activist Kenny Ethan Jones, quoted in "For transgender men, pain of menstruation is more than just physical/Safety concerns and a lack of access to menstruation products are among the issues trans and gender-nonconforming people face during 'that time of the month'" (NBC News).

ADDED: I call bullshit on the assertion that the packaging is "pretty and pink." Tampon packages tend to be blue. The iconic tampon brand Tampax is packaged in blue and has been for decades. And it has not been distinctly "pretty." Rather, it looks serious and nondescript. Discretion is the idea!

A Washington Post juxtaposition: a grey seal and Tom Steyer wave hello (or is it good-bye?).

A screen grab from the front page of WaPo just now:



This is the sort of visual joke we often see on Drudge. I'm certain it's no accident. The seal is super-cute, and it was easy to find a photo of the politician waving and to put it just close enough to have an uplifting effect and not so close as to be ridiculous. Right next to the seal is a Playmobil toy holding up a flag. The flag raising is close to a wave, and the toy, the seal, and Steyer are all smiling.

Does this mean WaPo is nudging us to like Steyer? Okay, I'll read "Tom Steyer is surging in South Carolina and Nevada. Does it matter?"

Steyer’s ability to transform his personal wealth into a spot [in the next debate], while longtime elected officials such as Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) have been unable to qualify, is a source of growing friction in the party — especially at a time when income inequality is a heated topic among Democrats....

“Tom Steyer is doing what everybody should be doing,” said Johnnie Cordero, chairman of the Democratic Black Caucus of South Carolina, who has not endorsed a presidential candidate. “He is in the black community. He’s dealing with the people who you need to carry the state, at least for the African American vote.”

Black voters, who make up most of the state’s Democratic electorate, still back former vice president Joe Biden by large margins. But in the latest South Carolina poll, Steyer jumped to second place among that demographic, garnering 16 percent support — though Biden still commands 43 percent support.

Oh, well, there you have it. He's garnering.

At the Saturday Night Cafe...

... you can talk about whatever you want.

"Trump won because he was willing to say loudly what his supporters believed deeply; because, in his disdain for what politicians are supposed to be and do, he exuded authenticity; because he was hated..."

"... by the people his base found hateful; because he had an opponent who, in the minds of his supporters, epitomized corruption and self-dealing; and because he offered radical cures for a country he diagnosed as desperately ill. Despite being the oldest man ever elected president, he seemed (to his voters) fresh, true, bold, and sorely needed. So it is, and would be, with Sanders. Depth of conviction? Check. Contempt for conventional norms? Check. Opposed by all the right people? Check. Running against a 'crooked' opponent? Check. Commitment to drastic change? Check. Like Trump, too, he isn’t so much campaigning for office as he is leading a movement. People who join movements aren’t persuaded. They’re converted. Their depth of belief is motivating and infectious."

From "Of Course Bernie Can Win/To say Sanders is unelectable is indefensible" by Bret Stephens (NYT).

I'm giving this post my "the Sanders and Trump phenomenon" tag, and now, I've got to remind myself what got me started with that. Oh! I see I used it once. It was March 14, 2016:

Trump and Sanders represent a single phenomenon, no? It's a phenomenon that Hillary and the GOP establishment have a motivation to minimize, and portraying Trump as toxic (and Sanders a nice, but unrealistic old man) is a minimization device.

"So while Biden’s in a reasonably strong and perhaps even slightly underrated position, it’s slightly more likely than not that Biden won’t be the nominee."

"Sen. Bernie Sanders has the next-best shot, with a 22 percent chance at a majority, followed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren at 12 percent and former Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 10 percent. There’s also a 14 percent chance — about 1 in 7 — that no one will win a majority of pledged delegates by June 6, which could lead to a contested convention. The model works by simulating the nomination race thousands of times, accounting for the bounces that candidates may receive by winning or losing states, along with other contingencies — such as candidates dropping out and polls moving in response to debates and news events. Like all of our models, it’s empirically driven, built using data from the 15 competitive nomination races since 1980. Since the primaries themselves are fairly complex process, the model is fairly complex also — which we mean as a warning as much as a brag. Models with more complexity are easier to screw up and can be more sensitive to initial assumptions — so we’d encourage you to read more about how our model works."

Nate Silver explains, using his amazing science.

ADDED: I had to publish this post to click on my "over-complication" tag, which I probably could have used a few more times if I'd kept it in mind. It's the kind of tag I love, specific but abstract, so it collects things from scattered topics that resonate. Today's post is only the 6th time I've used it since I created it in 2009 to observe that I'd "crossed the over-complication line" with a post that had a strange set of tags ("abortion, Althouse + Meade, Beccah Beushausen, beer, blogging, dolls, fake, James Frey, Meade, Oprah, Orson Welles, prayer, writing"). It took me a year to use it again, with this great quote from Gertrude Stein: "She always says she dislikes the abnormal, it is so obvious. She says the normal is so much more simply complicated and interesting." Didn't use it again until 2011 — "A Very Simple Venn Diagram of Where the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street Agree" — and then once in 2017 (a labyrinthine sentence about feminism) and once in 2019 (a New Yorker critic bothered by the complexity of the movie "Joker").

"40 People Are Sharing True Stories About Themselves That Sound Completely Made Up."

Bored Panda collects stories.

Be sure to read #3!

ADDED: In the first post of the day, I complained about an AP headline that said Iran "acknowledged that it accidentally shot down the Ukrainian jetliner." "Acknowledged" is wrong in the same way that "True" in this Bored Panda headline is wrong.

It's one thing to blithely opine "Why America Needs a Royal Family/Yes, this is the conclusion I have drawn from Megxit."

I've seen that proposal a thousand times, and here we are again, this time with Jennifer Weiner in the NYT. But it's quite another matter to figure out who would be the royal family.

I'm not interested in reviewing the pro-royalty argument. You know what it is. I'm only interested in the question of how — if we were to restructure America with a royal family akin to Britain's — we would pick the actual hereditary family.

I can't find the old post, but I believe I once blogged about who would be king/queen of the U.S.A. now if George Washington had become king. Wherever that post is, I'm sure it included this video:



My archive search did turn up this video about George Washington (which I just watched twice)(warning: some questionable factual assertions):



Anyway, here's how Jennifer Weiner addresses the question who'd be king/queen of America:

We could keep it simple and give the gig to Miss America, who’s already been chosen and already has a tiara. Or we could have a televised reality contest (a roy-ality contest — see what I did there?) to elect our king and queen. We could recruit the glittering couples we think would be best suited for the job of representing America on the world stage (Beyoncé and Jay-Z! Jennifer Lopez and A-Rod! George and Amal Clooney! Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman! Ina Garten and Jeffrey!)...

Oh! She's utterly giving up the hereditary angle. No, you have to commit. You have to believe in royal blood. No elections. That would debase. You've got to have magic.

But isn't it funny that Weiner pictures an election, homes in on entertainment couples — all heterosexual, by the way (tsk tsk) — and doesn't think to offer up the most obvious entertainment couple: Donald and Melania Trump? Well, Donald is already President, and the point is to separate the head-of-state functions, but he'll have served his term(s) by the time the election for king/queen happens. And once you recognize that, you ought to see that the final nominees for the position could be Donald and Melania — or should it be Ivanka and Jared? — against Barack and Michelle. I'd watch those debates.

Barack and Michelle would win, of course, if for no other reason that that they're far more successful at getting top-level entertainers to perform in the White House (yes, under, Weiner's plan, the king and queen live in the White House, and the boring President of the United States is relocated "to more modest digs").

"Iran’s Revolutionary Guard on Saturday acknowledged that it accidentally shot down the Ukrainian jetliner..."

"Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the Guard’s aerospace division, said his unit accepts 'full responsibility' for the shootdown. In an address broadcast by state TV, he said that when he learned about the downing of the plane, 'I wished I was dead.' He said Guard forces ringing the capital had beefed up their air defenses and were at the 'highest level of readiness,' fearing that the U.S. would retaliate. He said an officer made the 'bad decision' to open fire on the plane after mistaking it for a cruise missile....  The majority of the plane crash victims were Iranians or Iranian-Canadians.... Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani blamed the shootdown of the plane in part on 'threats and bullying' by the United States after the killing of Soleimani.... 'A sad day,' Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted. 'Human error at time of crisis caused by US adventurism led to disaster....' Iran’s acknowledgement of responsibility was likely to renew questions of why authorities did not shut down the country’s main international airport and its airspace after the ballistic missile attack, when they feared U.S. reprisals.... '"

AP reports.

ADDED: I object to the language "Iran’s Revolutionary Guard on Saturday acknowledged that it accidentally shot down the Ukrainian jetliner...." The word "acknowledged" assumes that we know the truth and Iran is coming into alignment with that truth. But we don't know for certain. I understand the sloppiness of thinking that causes ordinary people to jump to "acknowledged" when they feel they know the truth, but journalism demands rigor. The New York Times headline for this story is properly done: "Iran Says It Unintentionally Shot Down Ukrainian Airliner."

BUT: I have to complain about the NYT headline. Iran does not deny that it intentionally shot at what it shot at. So there was intent. It needs to be reworded to isolate the part of the action that is claimed to have been unintentional. The NYT was better than AP, but if I were working on writing the headline, I would not stop where the NYT did. Iran's assertion is that it intentionally shot at something it wrongly believed was a cruise missile.

At the Friday Night Café...

... you can talk about anything you like.

"I said that we have to have 'Where's Hunter?' as a witness. They said what do you mean 'Where's Hunter?' I said that's his first name. I have now made his first name 'Where's?' Where's Hunter?"

Said Trump last night at his rally in Cleveland.

Marianne Williamson drops out because, she says, she "will not be able to garner enough votes in the election to elevate our conversation any more than it is now."

Full statement here.

She was a delightful presence in the race, and I have a special delight in her leaving, because she said that word, "garner."

Did her message also include the word "love"?... which, speaking of words, I associate with her because of this epic debate moment...



Answer: Yes. It's the last thing she says: "A politics of conscience is still yet possible. And yes….love will prevail."