Sunrise — 7:14, 7:16.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments... and please consider using the Althouse Portal to Amazon to do your shopping. You'll be sending me a commission.

My mother was born 100 years ago today.

A montage of home movies....

(I'm the middle child.)

"I'm going in," I said, plunging into the forest, off the beaten path, at the first roseate glow.

"The enduring challenge for any activist is both to dream of almost-unimaginable justice and to make the case to nonbelievers that your dreams are practical."

"The problem is particularly acute in animal-rights activism. Ending wild-animal suffering is laughably hard (our efforts at ending human suffering don’t exactly recommend us to the task); obviously, so is changing the landscape of factory farms.... In 2014, the British sociologist Richard Twine suggested that the vegan isn’t unlike the feminist of yore, in that both come across as killjoys whose 'resistance against routinized norms of commodification and violence' repels those who prefer the comforts of the status quo...."

Writes Elizabeth Barber, in "What Would It Mean to Treat Animals Fairly? Each year, billions of animals die for human ends. In two new books, Martha Nussbaum and Peter Singer insist that we stop the suffering" (The New Yorker).

"A new form of protest against the government is rocking Iran: a viral dance craze set to an upbeat folk song where crowds clap and chant the rhythmic chorus, 'oh, oh, oh, oh.'"

"In cities across Iran men and women of all ages are gyrating their hips, swirling their arms in the air, and chanting the song’s catchy lines, according to videos posted on social media, television news channels like BBC Persian and Iranians interviewed. People are dancing on the streets, in shops, at sport stadiums, in classrooms, malls, restaurants, gyms, parties and everywhere else they congregate. In Tehran traffic was stopped in a major highway tunnel for an impromptu dance party to the song. Young women,hair uncovered and flowing, dance in parks and young men performed a choreographed hip-hop dance.... It all started with an old man at a fish market in the northern city of Rasht in late November. Dressed in a white suit the man, Sadegh Bana Motejaded, 70, who owns a small market stall energetically swayed and bopped...."

From "A Viral Dance and ‘Happiness Campaign’ Frustrates Iran’s Clerics/It all started when a 70-year-old fish market stall owner nicknamed 'Booghy' was grooving in public, in violation of Iranian law" (NYT).

"Ketamine is a powerful anesthetic that has become increasingly popular as an alternative therapy for depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder..."

"... and other hard-to-treat mental health problems. It is also used recreationally. The autopsy report said that Perry had been on ketamine infusion therapy but that the ketamine in his system could not have been from his last known therapy session, which was about a week and a half before he died.... 'At the high levels of ketamine found in his postmortem blood specimens, the main lethal effects would be from both cardiovascular overstimulation and respiratory depression,' the autopsy report said. It noted that the level of ketamine investigators found in Perry’s blood was equivalent to the amount that would be used during general anesthesia. The Food and Drug Administration issued an alert in October warning about the dangers of treating psychiatric disorders with compounded versions of the drug...."

From "Matthew Perry Died of ‘Acute Effects of Ketamine,’ Autopsy Says/The medical examiner said drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of an opioid also contributed to the death of the 'Friends' actor, who was found in a hot tub in October" (NYT).

ADDED: Here's Joe Rogan promoting the stuff 2 months ago.

AND: From "Matthew Perry denounced ketamine in his memoir, said it made him think he was ‘dying’" (NY Post):

Describing the drug as a “giant exhale,” [he] said he would receive ketamine while blindfolded and listening to music. He explained that he would “disassociate” during his infusions and often felt as if he were “dying.” “‘Oh,’ I thought, ‘This is what happens when you die,'” he recalled.... 

"Most Americans already don’t want Trump — or Biden, for that matter — to run, despite the overwhelming likelihood they will be the nominees."

"If 2024 is a 2020 rematch, it will be a contest between two candidates the country doesn’t particularly want. And voters appear to be pricing in Trump’s legal woes already."

Those are last 3 sentences of "Why a Trump conviction might not save Biden’s reelection. Pollsters have already started to explore what effect, if any, a criminal conviction before the election would have on Trump’s support" (Politico).

People expect Trump to get convicted of something, and the actual occurrence of a conviction before the election is not going to give Biden the boost he needs. The polls already show the effect of this future event, and Biden supporters who are hoping for new abhorrence of Trump when he's Trump the Convicted Felon need to wake up.

"No Mexican is out there chanting 'From the Rio Grande to Portland, Oregon.'"

Sunrise — 7:16, 7:18, 7:19, 7:27.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments... and please consider using the Althouse Portal to Amazon to do your shopping. You'll be sending me a commission.

"The extreme left may be morally no better than the extreme right. But in America the extreme left has almost no political power..."

"... while the extreme right controls one house of Congress and a number of states.... So, yes, let’s hold college presidents’ feet to the fire when they bungle on a major issue. And let’s denounce calls for violence wherever they come from. But let’s also focus on the biggest threat to our system of higher education, which is coming not from left-wing student activists but instead from right-wing politicians."

Writes Paul Krugman, in "The Biggest Threat to America’s Universities" (NYT).

Key word: "extreme."

The extremes on either side are perceived from the point where the observer is situated. Thus, to Krugman, "the extreme left has almost no political power."

"In ‘Miracle on 34th Street,’ Santa was canceled because he was drunk... I was canceled because I said something in a completely independent setting."

Said Ken Dorph, quoted in "He Was Set to Play Santa. His Views on the Middle East Got in the Way. Ken Dorph had grown out his white beard, but a tense discussion of the Israel-Hamas war at a local synagogue led to complaints that cost him the gig" (NYT).

"With Ukraine’s military facing mounting deaths and a stalemate on the battlefield, army recruiters have become increasingly aggressive..."

"... in their efforts to replenish the ranks, in some cases pulling men off the streets and whisking them to recruiting centers using intimidation and even physical force....  The harsh tactics are being aimed not just at draft dodgers but at men who would ordinarily be exempt from service — a sign of the steep challenges Ukraine’s military faces maintaining troop levels in a war with high casualties, and against a much larger enemy. Lawyers and activists... point out that recruiters... are not empowered to detain civilians, let alone force them into conscription.... Complicating the issue is the fact that Ukraine has been under martial law since Russia invaded in February 2022; some lawyers contend that this has laid the ground for a subjective interpretation — and abuse — of conscription laws...."

From "'People Snatchers': Ukraine’s Recruiters Use Harsh Tactics to Fill Ranks/Ukrainian men are reporting incidents of wrongful draft notices, unprofessional medical commissions and coercive mobilization tactics" (NYT).

This article appears at the top of the NYT website right now. 

"Liberals and leftists have lots of excellent policy ideas, but rarely articulate a plausible vision of the future...."

"It’s easy to see what various parts of the left want to dismantle — capitalism, the carceral state, heteropatriarchy, the nuclear family — and much harder to find a realistic conception of what comes next.... The right has an advantage in appealing to dislocated and atomized people: It doesn’t have to provide a compelling view of the future. All it needs is a romantic conception of the past, to which it can offer the false promise of return.... To compete with them, the left needs beautiful dreams of its own."

Michelle Goldberg writes, in "What’s Driving Former Progressives to the Right?" (NYT).

So the advice to the left is: Find some "beautiful dreams" to replace all that you are trying to destroy or people aren't going to find all that destruction too appealing. 

"The Satanic Temple of Iowa says a statue depicting the pagan idol Baphomet, part of its controversial display in the Iowa Capitol, had been destroyed."

The Des Moine Register reports.

The installation, permitted under state rules governing religious displays in the building, has come under debate and criticism of by Iowa and national politicians. Presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis on Tuesday joined a chorus of Republicans calling for its removal while others in the GOP said that, though it is offensive, it is a protected form of free speech....

The desperation is so intense, and it's only December. They can't go on like this.

1) These people seem certifiably insane. As in, needing serious psychological help. I'm not exaggerating here, they seem to have completely lost a relationship with reality.
2) I laughed multiple times in this Supercut. https://t.co/FY6eXuzqnb

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) December 15, 2023

My advice, and I've said it before, is to abandon the overblown demonization and treat Trump like the political candidate he is. About half of the electorate supports him. If it's democracy they're so concerned about, let them show respect for their fellow citizens and endeavor to understand the good reasons why they support Trump and not Biden and engage on the issues.

I don't expect them to take this advice, because: 1. They're so dug in, and 2. They don't trust themselves to argue on the substantive merits.

Of all the posts I've ever tagged "Trump derangement syndrome," this is the most deserving.

IN THE COMMENTS: michaele said:

The look on poor Jennifer Rubin's face at the end of her comments (.29) is half hilarious and half tragically concerning. Her anguish at the possibility of Trump being reelected truly seems to be affecting her mental and physical health.

Yes, I noticed that too. I'll make a screen shot. If I had more skills, I'd make that portrait in the background — a portrait of her, right? — change its expression too:

Sunrise — 7:15, 7:26.

Talk about whatever you want in the comments... and please consider using the Althouse Portal to Amazon to do your shopping. You'll be sending me a commission.