4 more looks at the misty morning.

I stopped to take a picture of the forest path:

 

The pale sun at 6:14:

 

A dash more sun at 6:18:

 

The long view, at 6:20:

 

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

"My subscriptions went up massively. That's what's crazy," said Joe Rogan. "During the height of it all, I gained 2 million subscribers...."

"They went for it.... It's fortunate that the people that went for it were CNN, and they're just so untrustworthy. People know how biased they are, and they know how socially weird their fucking anchors are — just these awkward, non-relatable people.... If there's someone on TV... — like Jon Stewart is a great, relatable person who I find to be a brilliant guy, a kind person — if Jon Stewart thinks you're a piece of shit, I'm going to listen. But if Brian Stelter doesn't like you — it doesn't mean anything to me.... [Stelter's] pattern of communication is so strange. It's like: Do you listen to other people? They talk very differently than you...."

From Joe Rogan's episode #1807 (with Douglas Murray), which went up on Spotify yesterday. 

"During the height of it all" refers to a boycott started by Neil Young and aimed at getting Rogan kicked off Spotify.

Misty panorama at sunrise — western view.

 

(Click and click again to enlarge.)

Shunning the neighbors when you see what they've written on Facebook about "Covid vaccine, various political figures and people with substance abuse issue."

The NYT has an advice column, Social Qs, written by Philip Galanes, that recently published a letter that states a problem I identify with and then frustratingly minimizes the scope of the problem.

Here's the letter:

My husband and I moved to a new city recently. Our next-door neighbors introduced themselves right away, and they were very friendly to us. We hung out a few times. They were fun! Then I added one of them as a friend on Facebook and saw that they spread misinformation about the Covid vaccine, various political figures and people with substance abuse issues. Oof! My husband and I decided we will be polite when we see them, but we won’t drink beers or watch movies with them anymore. Still, they keep inviting us to hang out. I feel awkward refusing their invitations while seeing them across the yard. Should I just explain to them why we don’t want to be friends? 

Okay. That is obviously about people who want to throw out a friendship that already exists because they've discovered on-line writings about politics and social issues that don't match their opinions.

"'The vibes just feel very off,' said Tré Easton, a progressive consultant. Others use words like 'horrible' and 'debacle' to describe a political environment..."

"... that has gone from bad to worse over the last three months. Many fault the White House for steering President Biden too far to the left as he sought to pass social spending legislation stuffed with progressive priorities. Some see the president as a wounded figure who has failed to establish himself as the unequivocal leader of his fractious party.... Some Democratic politicians have begun creating distance between themselves and the president. Senate candidates are stampeding to break with the administration’s immigration policies, for instance. Other moves are more subtle, such as those of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, who quietly removed the president’s name from news releases about federally funded infrastructure projects. 'What you’re seeing is people feeling like it’s time to head for the lifeboats rather than trying to steer the ship,' said Robert Gibbs, a former White House press secretary who worked under Barack Obama...."

From "'It’s Time to Head for the Lifeboats': Democratic Fatalism Intensifies/Strategists and pollsters are increasingly talking about limiting the party’s expected losses in November rather than how to gain new seats" by Blake Hounshell (NYT).

A makeup company uses TikTok to intrude into the Amber Heard/Johnny Depp trial.

@milanicosmetics You asked us… let the record show that our Correcting Kit launched in 2017!👀 #milanicosmetics ♬ International Super Spy - dylan

Here's the NY Post article, "Milani sets record straight on Amber Heard’s Johnny Depp bruises claims":

During opening statements this week, Heard’s attorney claimed that the “Aquaman” actress carried Milani Conceal + Perfect All-in-One Correcting Kit with her throughout her “entire relationship with Johnny Depp” — and suggested she’d used the makeup to cover injuries from Depp’s alleged physical abuse during their relationship.

We may never know if Depp hit Heard in those years, 2014 to 2016, but we do know that the Conceal + Perfect All-in-One Correcting Kit did not hit the market until December 2017.

"Bill Murray’s new film being shut down for an investigation into his alleged 'inappropriate behavior' is taking on a darker tone amid a resurfaced on-set horror story..."

"... that’s kept Hollywood whispering for decades. Disney was allegedly forced to hire bodyguards to protect the cast and crew of 1991’s 'What About Bob?' after the actor hurled a glass ashtray at co-star Richard Dreyfuss and threatened to 'throw' the film’s female producer 'across a parking lot.'... Despite his enduring status as a beloved Hollywood bad boy, Murray has repeatedly been accused of violently clashing with co-stars — from alleged head-butting to 'inexcusable and unacceptable' language — on numerous sets stretching all the way back to the 1970s."

From "Sad tale of Bill Murray’s on-set violence surfaces amid ‘behavior’ investigation" (NY Post).

More stories here: "Bill Murray allegedly behaved inappropriately on his latest film. It’s not new territory" (L.A. Times). 

I'm looking back at my old posts with the "Bill Murray" tag:

In 2015, people were talking about "Living a Bill Murray Life." Murray had composed 7 rules to help you live like him, which was presumably something quite a few of us thought of as a cool thing to do.

In 2016, I featured this Bill Murray quote: "What stops us from looking at ourselves and seeing ourselves is that we’re kind of ugly, if we really, if we look really hard. We’re not who we think we are. We’re not, uh we’re not as wonderful as we think we are."

In 2018, I quoted something Harvey Weinstein had said in 2014: "Being a Murray-ite is a religion, where you can behave as badly as you want to people, and they still love you. I used to feel guilty about behaving badly, and then I met Bill, and it feels so much better."

"I was raised on Proverbs and pushups... I subscribe to Judeo-Christian beliefs... I have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ."

"I think if you think about my political ideology, where it really stems from, you know, my ethics and my morals and what I think is right and wrong, you look to ancient Jerusalem, you got ancient Judeo-Christian values. So right and wrong... I also cling to a lot of traditional values and a lot of traditional ideas, because they’ve worked in the past."

"I think that we have bred a generation of soft men and that generation has created a lot of problems in our society and our culture... designed to reclaim and restore masculinity in a society that is ever more dismissive of what it means to be a man."

Those are quotes from Madison Cawthorn, from 2020 and 2021, presented by Politico in an effort to shame him over 2 photographs that show him in what looks like a party setting and wearing women's lingerie, in "Exclusive: Madison Cawthorn photos reveal him wearing women’s lingerie in public setting/The embattled congressman has outraged Republican colleagues with accusations of orgies and drug use." 

Cawthorn is running for reelection and has a lot of rivals. After Politico published this exposé, Cawthorn responded the photos are from some game show on a cruise ship: "I guess the left thinks goofy vacation photos during a game on a cruise (taken waaay before I ran for Congress) is going to somehow hurt me? They’re running out of things to throw at me... Share your most embarrassing vacay pics in the replies."

Cawthorn asks to be treated the same as any other politician with an embarrassing old photograph. But if he's made the masculinity of men a core political value, a photo of him in women's clothes is a different problem for him than it would be for a politician who eagerly embraces an ideology of gender fluidity. 

But I would say that within the tradition of distinct gender roles, there has long been playful cross-dressing. It's perceived as comical precisely because you believe in the immutability of the 2 sexes. That's what's going on in the great movie comedy "Some Like It Hot" — with Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis trying to pass as female in the presence of Marilyn Monroe. Old-time television with Milton Berle and Flip Wilson in drag isn't  hilarious because they were displaying any inner femininity but because people saw them as obvious men wearing women's clothes.

"Vulnerable children are wrongly being given gender hormone treatment by the NHS, Sajid Javid believes, as he prepares to launch an urgent inquiry."

"The health secretary thinks the system is 'failing children' and... is understood to have likened political sensitivities over gender dysphoria to the fears of racism in Rotherham over grooming gangs.... Javid is said to be particularly alarmed by her finding that some non-specialist staff felt 'under pressure to adopt an unquestioning affirmative approach' to transitioning and that other mental health issues were 'overshadowed' when gender was raised.... Referrals have increased 50-fold in the past decade, with far more female-born children now coming forward in a reversal of previous trends.... 'The review has already come across a number of adults that were given these life-changing drugs as children and are now saying, "Why did you do that? Because that wasn’t my problem. I was sexually abused. I was being bullied,"' a health source said.... A senior government source said Javid believes 'far too many public figures have been avoiding [gender issues] for too long' but argued: 'There is a militant lobby that doesn’t want a debate.'... Some around him say the question has been likened to concerns he raised while home secretary about the failure to tackle child exploitation by gangs of predominantly British-Pakistani men in Rotherham. The senior government source said: 'There is the same theme of not being afraid to tackle issues that others might prefer not to talk about.'"

The London Times reports.

At the Friday Night Café...

 ... you can talk about whatever you want.

Today's list of TikTok selections goes up to 11. Let me know which ones — which I chose for delightfulness — are your favorite.

1. Ants methodically receive goldfish crackers.

2. Horses make it hard to deliver a political message.

3. Men who love sticks.

4. To annoy her brothers is this girl's career.

5. Did this dog go in the trash?

6. A college degree in theater is absolutely not absolutely useless.

7. A brilliant 3-D portrait of Nikola Tesla.

8. A comedian does impressions of iPhones.

9. Affirming brain differences.

10. Recoating the warehouse floor.

11. Waiting for the statue to throw the ball.

"I'm surprised this story didn't mention that Black women have been wearing their hair shaved to the scalp for decades."

"I'm African American and first cut my hair super short in the mid-1980s and quickly went to peach fuzz. I wore it like that until 5 years ago. Back in the 80s I got occasional stares, but also a lot of compliments, especially from men. By the 90s, I was just one in the crowd. This look is nothing new." 

That's the second-highest-rated comment at "Shaved Heads Have People Buzzing/A shaved head still has the power to shock" (NYT).

Third-highest-rated — though a search of the page for "Jada" turns up nothing: "G.I. Jane 2, can’t wait to see it!" 

Top-rated: "Bald and balding people need to resist this egregious form of appropriation."

"I should've worked in a pie factory. I knew I missed my calling."

 

It's only just now that I found a way to fit it on this blog — a goodbye to Gilbert Gottfried.

***

"I'm here to supervise balloons!" 

***

"Thank you, mein Führer"/"Only Gilbert can get away with that."

***

"You know, I can't fire you for being inappropriate, because I'm inappropriate. I do many things that are totally inappropriate."

"Although Piketty favors much higher income tax rates ('virtually confiscatory tax rates have been an immense historical success'), policies that redistribute property rather than income are the heart of his program."

"These would include reparations for descendants of enslaved and colonized people, encouraging countries in the global south to tax the fortunes of nonresidents who do business there, cancellation of debts and a program he calls 'inheritance for all,' in which wealth taxes would reduce large fortunes and provide everyone with a financial cushion. He would also take a large measure of control over corporations away from their managers and shareholders and give it to employees, and create 'a system of egalitarian funding for political campaigns, the media and think tanks.'... He is well aware that changes on the scale he is proposing never happen incrementally.... Piketty doesn’t make predictions, but he treats the current system of 'hypercapitalism' as being obviously doomed. Other than socialism, the only real alternatives are authoritarianism, Chinese-style Communism or 'reactionary projects' like ISIS. ... Absent disaster, it seems possible, or even likely, that [incremental adjustments] will move economic policy in the direction Piketty would want... though to an extent that he would consider pathetically inadequate."

From Nicholas Lemann's NYT review of Thomas Piketty's new book "A Brief History of Equality."

"To instill an understanding of consent and body autonomy, we should also let our kids make their own decisions about who they touch (and are touched by)."

"Avoid instructing children to give their friends hugs at the end of each play date, for example, and make sure they understand that they don’t have to be embraced if they don’t want to be, said Emily Rothman, a community health scientist at the Boston University School of Public Health. It’s also wise to talk to kids about pornography from a young age — even as young as kindergarten, Dr. Rothman suggested. You can frame these early discussions as being more about nakedness than about sex, though. 'You can say, "Sometimes grown-ups like to look at naked photos or movies of other grown-ups, and they do it because it’s fun for them and makes them feel good, but we don’t think it’s that good for kids’ brains,"' she said."

From "'Sex Talks' Should Start Earlier Than You Think/Some parents feel awkward and reluctant to discuss bodies, consent and sexuality; their kids pay the price." That's written by Melinda Wenner Moyer, who is "a science journalist and the author of 'How To Raise Kids Who Aren’t Assholes.'"

If because it’s fun and it feels good is the reason to do something, why wouldn't the kid proceed to do whatever seems fun or as if it might feel good?! A silly answer would be: Because it might not be "good for [my] brain." What kid could possibly think: My brain is still developing, so I need to avoid doing the things that adults do for fun and pleasure. They'd have to think it with their incomplete brain. How is that supposed to work?

As for pornography, I should disclose once again that in my childhood home, in the 1950s and 1960s, the new issue of Playboy Magazine was always on the living room coffee table — alongside Life and Look — and we kids, at any age, were completely free to look at it as much as we wanted.

"If you’ll notice, my right hand is in my pocket, so I wasn’t participating in the festival of ice cream."

Said Johnny Depp, quoted in "Photos of Johnny Depp ‘passed out,’ cocaine shown in Amber Heard trial" (NY Post). 

Depp was testifying about photograph that showed him "'passed out' on a couch in Boston with his lap covered in ice cream. "He claimed Heard gave him the pint of ice cream because she 'knew' he would fall asleep with it.... 'That was a wonderful picture for her to take.'"