"Ask me my pronouns" Oreos.

We’re proud to celebrate inclusivity for all gender identities and expressions. In partnership with NCTE, we’re giving away special edition Pronoun Packs and encouraging everybody to share their pronouns with #Pride today and every day. pic.twitter.com/z91M2ubQ3k

— OREO Cookie (@Oreo) June 30, 2019

ADDED: The #1 thing you know about Oreos is that they are objects given to children that will cause children to discover how to transcend convention and proceed in that direction and to prefer it and never go back. They twist the chocolate discs, break the bond between them, and go right at the sweet cream center. They lick the broken apart cookie and thereafter resist the constrained biting the intact 3-tiered arrangement. This has been known and observed for decades. This is and has always been The Story of Oreo. As such, this new development is consistent with a long-term narrative.

WHICH MEANS WHAT?

"Scarcely a week has gone by without the Americans transgressing some theoretical, and often invisible, boundary; there has been little outright hostility, but..."

"... over the last month it has been impossible not to notice an undercurrent of something approaching opprobrium, a sense that while the United States must be praised for winning, it can be condemned for not winning, somehow, in the right way.... Individually, all of these incidents fall somewhere on the border between trivial and laughable. Taken together, though, they indicate a pattern; their frequency suggests a trend toward the policing of the behavior — and particularly the joy — of the American players. There is no question that this United States team is revered for its efficacy, its talent, its history; nobody would deny its claim to be the best in the world. It does not, though, seem to be especially well-liked.... This United States is the dominant force in women’s soccer.... That comes with the inevitable consequence that rivals and challengers and usurpers tend to want to see it fall, to take pleasure in its perceived failings, to start to feel resentment alongside their reverence. Perhaps, then, there is a compliment hidden in the criticism...."

From "With No Argument on Substance, Critics Take Aim at U.S.’s Style/Attempts to police the joy the United States has taken in rampaging through the Women’s World Cup only confirm what should be clear: the team is different from everyone else" (NYT).

I read that shortly after reading this, from Equipment Maintenance in the comments to one of yesterday's posts: "I didn't root for Spassky but I will be rooting for The Netherlands today."

Who are you rooting for in today's World Cup title match between the U.S. and the Netherlands?

The U.S., because I love my country's team.

The U.S., because it's the U.S. and I'm an American. Don't like these women, but I'm loyal.

The Netherlands, because I feel opposed to my own country's team.

The Netherlands, because I'm not an American.

The U.S., because I like them even though I'm not an American.

No preference. I don't care about soccer.

No preference. I don't care about women's sports.

pollcode.com free polls

UPDATE: Poll results:

At the Saturday Night Café...

... you can talk about anything.

With all the talk about The Russians!!!! these last few years, it was fun to watch "The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!"...

... the 1966 entry in my "imaginary movie project." (As you may have noticed already, I watch a movie for each year, beginning in 1960, that I saw in the theater at the time it came out.)

This is a big long sprawling comedy, with a lot of people getting crazy and driving around, so it's an awful lot like "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World," my 1963 movie, blogged here, where I observed that the theme was:

Order or chaos. Society or a raw state of nature. Driving according to the rules of the road or speeding and veering and sailing off a cliff. They must decide!

It's a comedy, so they keep choosing chaos. They only come back to order — let's work together — now and then to create a new opportunity for crazy chaos.

Well, "The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!" is also a comedy, and there's also a struggle between order and chaos, but though the people do keep freaking out and running amok — because they think the Russians are invading — they keep coming back to order. They even find harmony with the Russians — who are climbing onto an American island because their submarine ran aground — simply by experiencing their common humanity. It's sort of like in that 1985 Sting song...

"... real deep color. And I kinda go in here at the bottom..."

Didn't see that one coming... from r/youseeingthisshit

ADDED: The debunking.

AND: What gives it away as fake is how badly she strokes the lipstick on the lower lip before the shaking begins. You put lipstick on more carefully than that. But she knows the shaking is about to occur and she's already putting the lipstick on badly when the shaking begins. This may be in part because she can't act normal knowing the abnormality is about to hit, but I think it's more because she knows she needs to be pressing the lipstick hard against her mouth so she'll produce the comical smear across the cheek (and not have her hand shake loose and not leave a mark).

"I think we need to get under the desk."

Why I'm not convinced by Scott Adams's reasons for thinking Trump is not considering dropping Mike Pence as VP.

Two words: Nikki Haley.

Trump didn't choose Pence in 2016 because he'd make the best Vice President. He chose him because he was the best help in winning. The question is who will be the best help in 2020. And we know Trump loves political theater.

Adams goes on about how Pence has "subjugated" his own ambition. Subjugation lends itself to more subjugation. If Trump wants Pence to gracefully withdraw, he will. Don't you think? There doesn't need to be anything "wrong" with Pence for Trump to move him aside. Adams says Pence has "earned it" and asks his viewers don't they all agree that Pence has "earned it." I don't think that's the test!

I forgot to take note of the 30-year anniversary of the premiere of "Seinfeld."

That was yesterday.

I see my son John blogged the occasion by identifying his 20 favorite Seinfeld episodes. His #1 is the one I've always thought of as my favorite.

He cross-posted at Facebook here, where he says (responding to people who were surprised "The Contest" didn't make his top 10):

I wrote the list after watching each episode and thinking about the whole thing, including the weak points, which every episode has. The weakness of “The Contest” is it’s all focused on the same theme for all 4 characters, which can get boring. I mean, is Elaine crushing on John F. Kennedy Jr. one of the best things in the series? I don’t think so. While it’s one of the best episodes, I think there are at least 10 that are most consistently great overall (not just the most memorable moments)....

Also, it’s my personal reaction to the episodes, and some of them like “The Contest” have gotten a little less exciting just because they’re so famous. Some of the more obscure or off-beat ones are especially fun to watch precisely because they’re *not* quoted all the time.

So... a preference for the off-beat over the beat off.

"Forgive your worst enemies... The moment I forgave the Nazis, I felt free from Auschwitz and from all the tragedy that had occurred to me."

Said Ewa Kor, quoted in "Eva Kor, survivor of Mengele, dies during annual trip to Auschwitz/Forgiveness advocate who dedicated her life to Holocaust awareness testified in 2015 trial of SS officer Oskar Groening" (The Guardian).

During the trial, Kor described her experiences at the hands of Mengele, who had a fascination for twins. She and her twin sister, Miriam, were 10 years old and managed to survive the regular mystery injections from Mengele, who was dubbed the “Angel of Death”.

Kor recalled how, suffering a high fever, she saw Mengele at her bedside, “laugh sarcastically”. “Too bad, she’s so young. She has only two weeks to live,” she recalled him saying.

Crawling on the floor because she was unable to walk, Kor said she went on to find her sister who had been injected with a substance to freeze the growth of her kidneys. “If I had died, Miriam would have been killed with an injection in the heart. Mengele would have performed comparative autopsy,” she said.

"I will set out a vision for Britain as the greatest place on Earth. The greatest place to be, the greatest place to live, to raise a family. The greatest place to send your kids to school, the greatest place to breathe clean air."

Said Boris Johnson.

Trump only proposed making America "great" (and only "again," that is, only as great as it was in the past). Boris goes for the superlative, "greatest," but he ties greatness to aspects of ordinary life — just living and having kids and breathing fresh air. That's not the mode greatness that characterized Britain's past. There's a smallness to the greatness.

"I believe that we were created to birth without invention and that women possess the God-given wisdom and intuition to birth their babies free from regulation."

Wrote Angela Hock, on her website advertising midwife services, quoted in "Unlicensed Nebraska Midwife Is Arrested in Newborn’s Death After Home Delivery/Angela Hock could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of negligent child abuse resulting in the death of a baby" (NYT).

Her lawyer says, "She is not a medical provider. She makes that clear with respect to her clientele. My client is an old school midwife, in that she’s not certified. Midwife is in the Old Testament, if you will.... They wanted to have a birth in their bedroom. Didn’t want to go to the hospital."

"Midwife" is, indeed, in the Old Testament...

Genesis 35:16-18:

While they were still some distance from Ephrath, Rachel began to give birth and had great difficulty. And as she was having great difficulty in childbirth, the midwife said to her, “Don’t despair, for you have another son.” As she breathed her last—for she was dying—she named her son Ben-Oni. But his father named him Benjamin.

Genesis 38:27-30:

When the time came for [Tamar] to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. As she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand; so the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his wrist and said, “This one came out first.” But when he drew back his hand, his brother came out, and she said, “So this is how you have broken out!” And he was named Perez. Then his brother, who had the scarlet thread on his wrist, came out. And he was named Zerah.

"You'd have to do a Vlad the Impaler fezznailing move to get a MAGA cap on my head. But Helmstetter is a self-righteous jerk who got what he deserved."

"And was lucky he didn't get his clock cleaned in the process. Good call by the restaurant."

A comment on "After confronting a diner in a MAGA hat, customer gets tossed from Hill Country Barbecue" (WaPo).

From the article:

A public relations contractor who previously worked for the Democratic National Committee said that he was kicked out of Hill Country Barbecue Market after he confronted a diner wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat on the Fourth of July....

“We had just walked in when I saw the guy sitting by the bar with the MAGA hat,” Helmstetter wrote. “I said, ‘Hey, are you from D. C.?’ ” The man said no, and Helmstetter said he responded, “We don’t tolerate racism in this city.”...

On Twitter, Helmstetter said that Hill Country “chose to protect the Nazi’s right but not mine” to dine at the restaurant...

In the cold accounting of Twitter, Helmstetter’s comment was getting “ratioed,” meaning his tweet had received more negative replies than likes. By Friday afternoon, before Helmstetter made his account private, his tweet had garnered nearly 2,300 likes compared with nearly 5,000 comments, many of them negative....

He didn't just get negative comments, he garnered them.

Example of a negative comment:

You didn't stand up to a Nazi. You harassed a guy for wearing a hat you don't like and called him a Nazi because he doesn't agree with your politics.

You threw a hissy fit, made a scene and got asked to leave as a result.

Did you know that Alan Arkin co-wrote "The Banana Boat Song"?

Before he was an actor, he was a member of the folksinging group "The Tarriers," and before Harry Belafonte had a big hit the the song, it belonged to The Tarriers:



From Arkin's IMDB biography:

He was born Alan Wolf Arkin on March 26, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York. His family were Jewish emigrants from Russia and Germany. In 1946, the Arkins moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, California. His father, David I. Arkin, was an artist and writer, who worked as a teacher, and lost his job for merely refusing to answer questions about his political affiliation during the 1950s Red Scare. His father challenged the politically biased dismissal and eventually prevailed, but unfortunately it was after his death....

[Alan Arkin] sang in a college folk-band, and was involved in a drama class. He dropped out of college to form the folk music group The Tarriers, in which Arkin was the lead singer and played guitar. He co-wrote the 1956 hit "The Banana Boat Song"...

Marianne Williamson edits herself into the Vogue photoshoot of female Democratic candidates.

Via "Marianne Williamson was left out of a photo shoot of the women running for president. So she posted an edited version" (CNN).

At the Hollyhock Café...

... you can talk all you like.

In "Dr. Zhivago," one line stands out — starkly — and reveals the meaning of the long, stately sequence of images.

Ah, I know I could not understand it in 1965 when I was 14, and I could barely understand movies at all. I hadn't yet accustomed myself to cinematic storytelling. I was continually confused. Why are they going there? Is that the same guy? It took me a while to face the fact that it was my job to pick up the clues and put things together. If you're drifting along waiting for things to make sense, wondering what you're looking at that and why are they doing that, a 3-hour-and-39-minute movie is an awful slog.

And it was a slog the second time around too. Even with better understanding of the grammar of film, I wasn't patient with the filmmaker's approach to storytelling, the long lingering on images — branches of trees waving in the wind, a corpse inside a grave, the gray sky, the balalaika, the expanses of snow, the frosted-up windows, the lovers' eyes. It was only thinking about it the next day that it occurred to me that all those shots represented the poetry that formed inside the head of Dr. Zhivago. We were told time and again that he was a great poet, but not one word of his poetry was ever heard. Instead, we got the poetry of the filmmaker (David Lean). I don't believe his shots were wonderful enough to stand in for great poetry, but then, if we'd heard the words, they probably wouldn't have sounded so great either. So let the big brown gazing eyes of Omar Sharif represent ART!

The line that reveals the meaning of the movie is: "The personal life is dead in Russia. History has killed it." The revolution has taken place and Zhivago is confronted by the Bolshevik commander Strelnikov (Pasha Antipov):

Pasha: I used to admire your poetry.
Zhivago: Thank you.
Pasha: I shouldn't admire it now. I should find it absurdly personal. Don't you agree? Feelings, insights, affections... it's suddenly trivial now. You don't agree; you're wrong. The personal life is dead in Russia. History has killed it. 

I had trouble in 1965 — and I had trouble in 2019 — understanding why I should care about Dr. Zhivago's romantic life. He has a wife, and she's perfectly fine (Tonya, played by Geraldine Chaplin), but he's fixated on another woman (Lara, played by Julie Christie), and we're supposed to root for Lara, apparently because her eyes are fakely lighted up and a balalaika tune plays every time Zhivago feels drawn to her.