Morning tablescape.

"I wish there were a single word for the smell of sawdust, motor oil and soil. That combination of 'manly' smells always makes me think of my father..."

"... who worked with his hands all his life. It is what I smell in his garage, 25 years after he has passed away. It makes me feel safe." 

Writes a 57-year-old Indianapolis woman, one of many individuals quoted in "Welcome to Our Museum of Smells" (NYT)("We asked New York Times readers what smells they would archive in their own smell museums, what scents are so alive for them that they have become part of them"). 

The best ones all seem to be older women talking about memories of men they loved. 

There's: "When I was growing up, my dad owned a concrete business. To this day, the smell of newly poured concrete at a construction site stops me in my tracks and I think he must be somewhere nearby." 

And: "My late husband had a particular scent, and it was strongest after he had been exercising, particularly under his left armpit. There was a smokiness to it, certainly, but also a pleasant tang, almost a citrus-like astringency, and I couldn’t get enough of it. My one word for it is 'raunchious,' which isn’t a real word, but I didn’t want to say 'raunchiness' as what I’m trying to get at is a combo of the words 'raunchy' and 'delicious.'"

IN THE COMMENTS: Eleanor said:

My grandfather died when I was two. I have no visual memories of him except from photos I've seen. One day as an adult, I was talking with my mother, and I said, "I don't know why but the smell of leather and peppermint make me feel safe." She started to cry. "When you were a baby, my father used to pretend to steal you by putting you inside his leather jacket. He always kept peppermint candies in the inside pocket."

"A socialist since college, Mr. Jacobs sees his family’s 'extreme, plutocratic wealth' as both a moral and economic failure."

"He wants to put his inheritance toward ending capitalism, and by that he means using his money to undo systems that accumulate money for those at the top, and that have played a large role in widening economic and racial inequality.... Any leftist trying to shake off an inheritance will, at some point, find their way to Resource Generation; all of the heirs in this article did. The organization, founded in 1998, is a politicization machine for wealthy 18- to 35-year-olds. The nonprofit offers programming that encourages members to see capitalism not as a market-based equalizer promising upward mobility, but as a damaging system predicated on, as Resource Generation puts it, 'stolen land, stolen labor and stolen lives.' In go young people knotted by tension between their progressive values and their wealth; out come determined campaigners with a plan to redistribute...."

From "The Rich Kids Who Want to Tear Down Capitalism/Socialist-minded millennial heirs are trying to live their values by getting rid of their money" (NYT).

"Carter Page sued fired FBI Director James Comey, fired FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, the FBI, and others involved in the improper Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act snooping..."

"... on the former Trump campaign associate that relied upon British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited dossier to obtain approval from the FISA court."

The Washington Examiner reports.

"The assassination of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh may not much have impact on the Iranian nuclear programme he helped build..."

"...but it will certainly make it harder to salvage the deal intended to restrict that programme, and that is – so far - the most plausible motive.... It would be a fair guess that Joe Biden would [like Obama] oppose such assassinations when he takes office on 20 January and tries to reconstitute the JCPOA – which has been left wounded but just about alive in the wake of Donald Trump’s withdrawal in 2018. If Mossad was indeed behind the assassination, Israel had a closing window of opportunity in which to carry it out with a green light from an American president, and there seems little doubt that Trump, seeking to play a spoiler role in his last weeks in office, would have given approval, if not active assistance.... Until now, Iran has been measured in its responses, both to Suleimani’s killing and to the waves of sanctions imposed by the Trump administration in the wake of the JCPOA withdrawal. But can Tehran continue to hold its nerve? A retaliatory strike could make it even harder for a Biden administration to negotiate the complex steps the US and Iran would have to take to return to compliance with the JCPOA, and open talks on other issues."

The Guardian reports.

"If there were a TV show that portrayed your family as a clueless bunch of snobs and philanderers who helped drive a mentally fragile young princess to despair, would you watch it?"

My answer is hell, yes. The question is posed in the first paragraph of a NYT article with a headline that also asks a question — "Royal Watchers Wonder: Do the Royals Watch ‘The Crown’?" 

So I assume the TV show in question is an extremely high-quality production with great writing and acting and cinematography that doesn't purport to tell a strictly accurate story but to dramatize everything for artistic purposes.

I'd love to watch. They're already using me and "I" am being consumed by the general public. That's going on anyway. On the other hand, I kind of stopped reading the question after "snobs." I think it would be great fun to watch a show that amped up the cluelessness and snobbery of me and everyone I cared most about. 

The linked article only has a few clues about whether the royals watch "The Crown" which I'll put below the fold. I think the question whether they would watch — that is, whether you'd watch, if it were you — is more interesting. 

At the Sunrise Café...

 

... you can talk about whatever you like. 

And please think of supporting this blog by doing your shopping through the Althouse portal to Amazon, which is always right there in the sidebar. Thanks!

The LORD is my Teleprompter and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and He helps me... except when He doesn't help me... and I'm sure He has His reasons....

Oh. My. Heavens.

This is Joe Biden’s Thanksgiving Day message.

He has no idea what the Psalms are.

He calls them the “Palmists” and then looks confused.

So humiliating pic.twitter.com/GMIbkbBWNj

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) November 26, 2020

"What do you do when the masses of minks that you hastily killed and buried because of covid-19 fears start rising up from the grave?..."

"The government had admitted that at least some of the minks killed improperly were also buried improperly. Two gravesites in Jutland, Denmark’s northern region and the home to most of its mink farm industry, have become points of concerns over risks that the decomposing animals could affect nearby water. Some dead minks have surfaced because the top soil above them was not heavy enough. The Danish press dubbed them 'Zombiemink.'... On Thursday, the Danish prime minister [Mette Frederikson] visited mink breeder Peter Hindbo at his now-empty mink farm near the city of Kolding. As she spoke to reporters at the farm, her voice wavered, and she fought back tears as she described the impact she had seen. Frederiksen said that the family of mink farmers had 'their life’s work shattered' in a very short period of time. 'It has been emotional for them, and … Sorry. It has for me too,' she told reporters." 

From "Danish government may exhume hundreds of thousands of dead minks and burn them" (WaPo).

Burying minks "improperly";

MEAWHILE: "Parliamentarians in Taiwan have thrown pig guts at each other before coming to blows over plans to allow US meat imports" (Guardian):

"A gigantic spider and a car full of young ladies..."

A gigantic spider and a car full of young ladies... pic.twitter.com/F7seARbOXa

— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) November 27, 2020

There is a mountain.

 

Donovan's "There Is a Mountain" came up in my shuffled songs as I was running the other day, and I'd been thinking about it for a while. At the Genius annotation of the lyrics: 

“There Is A Mountain” by Donovan was released as a single in 1967. The lyrics reference a saying by Qingyuan Weixin. Here translated by D. T. Suzuki: "Before I had studied Chan (Zen) for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and rivers as rivers. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and rivers are not rivers. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it’s just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and rivers once again as rivers."

Searching for the song this morning, Google gave me that Donovan clip — I love his shirt — and Bob Ross — just threw in Bob Ross like that. He's got a mountain too. A steep mountain. Okay. 

"Behind the frustration with 'The Crown' is a recognition that, right or wrong, its version of the royal family is likely to serve as the go-to narrative for a generation of viewers..."

"... particularly young ones, who do not remember the 1980s, let alone the more distant events covered in earlier seasons. 'They’ll watch it and think this is the way it was,' said Dickie Arbiter, who served as a press secretary to the queen from 1988 to 2000. He took issue with parts of the plot, including a scene in which aides to Charles question Diana about whether she is mentally stable enough to travel alone to New York City. 'I was actually at that meeting,' Mr. Arbiter said. 'No courtier would ever say that in a million years.' The biggest problem, said Penny Junor, who has written biographies of Charles, Diana and Mrs. Thatcher, is that 'The Crown'... poses a particular threat to Charles, who arguably comes off worst in the series.... 'It is wonderful television.... It is beautifully acted — the mannerisms are perfect. But it is fiction, and it is very destructive.'"

From "‘The Crown’ Stokes an Uproar Over Fact vs. Entertainment Dramatic liberties in the latest season of the Netflix series, covering the turbulent 1980s, are annoying Britons who wrote of that period, even among those who disparage the royals" (NYT). 

I'd avoided "The Crown," but in the last 2 weeks, I've watched the first 7 episodes of Season 4. After seeing the first 3 episodes, I subscribed to Netflix, something I'd been avoiding for years. I'm now a Netflix person, and I find it quite mesmerizing. I'll finally be able to cancel the cable service — which is so much more expensive and which I wasn't watching at all.

Anyway... historical fiction. What do you expect? You've got to criticize the inaccuracies but also realize that this is the way it's done. It's a much bigger problem that journalism is inaccurate and unprofessional. But it's completely professional for television and movie dramas to twist characters and events to make things exciting and interesting. How else can you do it?

I liked Junor's statement — "the mannerisms are perfect. But it is fiction, and it is very destructive." The "perfect" mannerisms — how can the be "perfect" and yet fictional? — belong especially to the Charles character. Are they "destructive" because they are true or "destructive" because they are false?

"Democrats have been quick to dismiss any Trump supporter as a racist, homophobe or redneck, but they all shared a common trait with him..."

"... an unapologetic love of America. The Republican success down-ballot and in state legislatures shows the folly of this condescension and sends a clear message that a majority of Americans are not ready for the socialist agenda favored by the radical left. Not only were there more Trump voters in 2020, there were more Hispanic and African-American voters backing Trump. The supreme irony here is that gradually the Republicans are becoming the party of the working class.... [T]o the media:... Your ratings and circulation are about to tank.... [T]o Fox News: Your not-so-subtle shift leftward is a mistake.... Watching the quick abdication of Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum following the election (joining an already hostile Chris Wallace) was like finding out my wife was cheating.... Maybe now is the time for Trump to move on. There should not be a run in 2024. He can start a media empire to replace an increasingly disappointing Fox News...."

 Writes Maureen Dowd's brother Kevin, taking over her column space for Thanksgiving.

"You can press Trump and the vote goes to Biden. All you have to do is play with a chip, and it’s shown all the time. All you have to do is play with a chip..."

"... and they played with a chip, especially in Wayne County and Detroit. You take a look. In Philadelphia, you take a look. We’ve had excellent meetings with senators from Pennsylvania, Republican senators and others, and they’re seeing things. They knew it was dishonest, but they didn’t know it was this dishonest. You’ll see it all. You’ll see it also, so we’ll see."

Said Trump, in the second half of what began as the Thanksgiving call to the troops. Here's the transcript. Video:

Did the reporters change the subject from Thanksgiving to the election results? The question was cleverly framed so that it can be staunchly denied that the reporter brought up the election: "Mr. President, do you have any big plans for your last Thanksgiving in the White House?" But that word "last" was, quite obviously, a dagger.

Thanksgiving sunrise.

It's as good as it is — no better or worse. You can choose to think about: 1. how much better it could be or 2. how much worse it could be or 3. what it actually is. Which is more Thanksgiving-y? 

First impressions maahttter.

So which misspelling of "DISTRICT" in the caption do we prefer? https://t.co/0sZxxjnrXa pic.twitter.com/feeRhnEvmF

— George Conway (@gtconway3d) November 26, 2020