Happy New Year's Day — pre-dawn, quiet-house looking back on New Year's Eve.

Some of you spent at least some of the annual-nonsense evening at this blog's New Year's Eve post. I'm up working on what I can't really properly tag written strangely early in the morning. It's just not strange for me to be writing early in the morning. Maybe there are some topics that are strange to blog early in the morning, but the comments that arrived while I was sleeping isn't one of them.

MadAsHell said:

Haven't you used this video....er, pardon me....movie in an earlier post?? 

Yes, here. Back when I was editing home movies and posting them as I made them. But I never put this up on actual New Year's Eve before.

Charlie Currie said:

Wait, these are my family home movies...ha...I really need to work on getting mine digitized.

It's easy to get them digitized. I was happy with Legacy Box. The hard part is figuring out what belongs in a watchable edit and not getting distracted by thoughts about how they should have used the camera. It's pointless to say hold the camera steady, pan slowly, and stop showing people opening Christmas presents.

EDH said:

Did any children coincidentally arrive 9 months after that hootenanny?

My parents already had their 3 children, 2 of whom you see in bed in the beginning of the clip. As for "hootenanny," I'm sure the music was not folk. I'm guessing, since it was danceable, it was some kind of big band jazz or Latin music.

BJM said:

Great video Althouse! My folks had a Tiki party room with bamboo furniture, jungle floral drapes, a palm thatched roof over the bar and a pair of red & white conga drums ala Ricky Ricardo... corny as all get out now... but it was magical to an eight yr old creeping down the stairs in the dark to watch a very similar scene of merry making on New Year's Eve 1954.

Yes, everybody loved Ricky back then.



Lucy always wanted to get into his act, and she embodied all of America's desire to get up and dance. Americans really wanted to be happy.

rhhardin said:

Traditionally, I just go to bed on new year's eve and the dog wakes me up at midnight when the rural gunfire starts outside.

At 9:31 PM, Peg said:

I'm sitting here reading Ann's blog. You can imagine how thrilling my evening is! ;)

I outdid you by being asleep.

Earnest Prole said:

If I recall from years ago, it's your mother sitting in someone's lap showing off her garter -- remind us of the story.

I had to edit something out of that part of the video. But there's no "story" to tell. I don't know who the man is.

robother said:

God, the memories! Even in the mid sixties, girls had garters holding up nylons, the flash of which was an instant turn-on. Pantyhose didn't off[er] anywhere near the titillation, and presented whole different logistical issues in seduction by dashboard light.

If only you knew the struggle in the sliver of time when miniskirts overlapped with wearing stockings and garters. Stockings had a dark band at the top, and, when sitting, you had to take care not to let your "stocking tops" show.

Andy Cunningham said:

I like how everyone used to look so nice. Back when, men wore suits, ties, hats and pocket squares even while robbing a bank. People dressed up for meals. Singers and comedians dressed up. You could often discern a man's job since it came with a uniform (and hat). Now with the 60's riff raff running things we are all under-dressed even to paint a garage.

Here's a 39-second edit I made of home-movie clips of my father. Check out — at 6 seconds — what he wore to install patio bricks.

Big Mike said:

Happy New Year to Professor Althouse and the irrefutable Meade.

Irrefutable?! I'm going to use that.

Sane_voter said:

2016 ended wonderfully with Mariah Carey's epic fail live on ABC just before the ball drop....

Ah, yes. A bad start for the year for Mariah Carey....

Shit happens 😩 Have a happy and healthy new year everybody!🎉 Here's to making more headlines in 2017 😂 pic.twitter.com/0Td8se57jr

— Mariah Carey (@MariahCarey) January 1, 2017

But what are you going to do? Shit happens.

It's New Year's Eve.

Maybe you can have as much fun as my parents had in 1955:

Trump loves you losers, okay?

Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don't know what to do. Love!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2016

"A California Uber driver helped rescue a 16-year-old girl from sex trafficking after giving her a ride to a hotel along with two alleged female pimps..."

"... police say. Elk Grove cops arrested three people on Monday after the vigilant cabbie dialed 911 after dropping the group off at a Holiday Inn. Keith Avila, a married father of one in Sacramento, had just logged in to Uber and was picking up his first passengers for the night: the teenager, whom authorities would later reveal was a runaway, and two older women."

Here he is, still in his car, explaining what happened into his camera, as the police activity unfolds behind him:



ADDED: I don't think Avila was trying to make a viral video. I assume the police asked him to wait while they handled things and they would come back to take his testimony. He was very upset and he also needed to collect his thoughts and remember the details. He's an important witness and getting out the phone and making this video is an excellent idea from a legal standpoint (don't you think?). Emotionally, for him, it was also good. He was alone and this seems to have given him a way to comfort himself and to reach out to other people. He was also sincerely and justifiably proud of himself and wanted to memorialize the occasion. The virality of the video is a bonus, and it's especially nice virality, because it lets us experience his heroism and internalize the example he's set. It will, I hope, inspire others to notice their surroundings and to understand that calling the police is the proper response.

And the police come quick. They don't play around.

Another year blogged. Comparing the number of posts per year.

1. 2016 (3553)
2. 2015 (3788)
3. 2014 (3825)
4. 2013 (5118)
5. 2012 (4971)
6. 2011 (4463)
7. 2010 (3835)
8. 2009 (3716)
9. 2008 (3407)
10. 2007 (2915)
11. 2006 (2745)
12. 2005 (2920)
13. 2004 (2035)

In order of the number of posts:

1. 2013 (5118)
2. 2012 (4971)
3. 2011 (4463)
4. 2010 (3835)
5. 2014 (3825)
6. 2015 (3788)
7. 2009 (3716)
8. 2016 (3553)
9. 2008 (3407)
10. 2005 (2920)
11. 2007 (2915)
12. 2006 (2745)
13. 2004 (2035)

ADDED: A poll:

What do you prefer to read on this blog?

Longer posts, even if it means fewer posts.

Shorter posts, and lots of them.

Long and short. It's the variety that's nice.

Fewer more carefully crafted posts, whether they're short or long isn't what's important.

More posts. More more more. Try to beat 2013. Top 5,000 again. Go for the win.

 

pollcode.com free polls

A screen-grab from the NYT gives a good hint why Trump won.

Click to enlarge:



I'm sure the NYT must notice the dissonance between the editorial content and its own readers' response.

"His first art teacher was his father, who trained him nightly in calligraphy by having him dip a brush in water and trace ghostly characters on newspaper."

"They could not afford ink or drawing paper.... From 1936 to 1938, Mr. Wong was an artist for the Works Progress Administration, creating paintings for libraries and other public spaces.... Mr. Wong... joined Disney in 1938 as an 'in-betweener,' creating the thousands of intermediate drawings that bring animated sequences to life.... Painstaking, repetitive and for Mr. Wong quickly soul-numbing, it is the assembly-line work of animation...  A reprieve came in the late 1930s, when Mr. Wong learned that Disney was adapting 'Bambi, a Life in the Woods'... In trying to animate the book, Disney had reached an impasse. The studio had enjoyed great success in 1937 with its animated film 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,' a baroque production in which every detail of the backgrounds — every petal on every flower, every leaf on every tree — was meticulously represented. In an attempt to use a similar style for 'Bambi,' it found that the ornate backgrounds camouflaged the deer and other forest creatures on which the narrative centered. Mr. Wong spied his chance.... Invoking the exquisite landscape paintings of the Song dynasty (A.D. 960–1279), he rendered in watercolors and pastels a series of nature scenes that were moody, lyrical and atmospheric — at once lush and spare — with backgrounds subtly suggested by a stroke or two of the brush. 'Walt Disney went crazy over them'..."

From "Tyrus Wong, ‘Bambi’ Artist Thwarted by Racial Bias, Dies at 106."

Also: I did not know before reading that obituary that during WW2, some Chinese Americans chose to wear buttons to communicate that they were not Japanese:

Mere days after Pearl Harbor, the Chinese consulate in San Francisco started issuing identification cards, and Chinese Americans began wearing buttons and badges with phrases like “I am Chinese” on them.

"But meaning isn’t something you either have or don’t have. It’s an approach to life — a mind-set."

"People can choose to pursue meaning as well as happiness. In a recent paper, Veronika Huta and Richard Ryan discovered that people behave very differently depending on which they emphasize, and that in turn affects their well-being. In one study, college students were asked to pursue either meaning or happiness over ten days by doing at least one thing each day to increase meaning or happiness, respectively. Some of the most popular activities reported by people in the meaning group included forgiving a friend, studying, and helping or cheering up another person. Those in the happiness group listed activities like sleeping in, playing games, and eating candy...."

From "In 2017, Pursue Meaning Instead of Happiness."

"Act in ways to elicit the best in others."

The supreme ethical rule of The Ethical Culture Society:

"The first week, you’re overenergized... I’m having lucid dreams more often."

"The second week, his clothes fit better, but after that, it’s all uphill. By the fourth week, he said, 'I’m sick of whatever it is that used to be interesting about this.'"

Said John Ore, the man who invented "Drynuary."

He anticipates a difficult Drynuary this year, because the month includes Inauguration Day.

"Great move on delay (by V. Putin) - I always knew he was very smart!"

Tweeted Trump, after Putin declined to retaliate after Obama kicked some Russian spies/diplomats out of America.

For effect, Mr. Trump “pinned” the post to the top of his Twitter feed, ensuring that it will remain the first message seen on his page. In a rapid demonstration of digital glasnost, within minutes the Russian Embassy in Washington had retweeted it....

And, like the Obama White House, many [in the GOP establishment] see Mr. Putin’s gesture — including inviting the children of American diplomats to enjoy the Christmas trees at the Kremlin — as a ploy....

In recent days, [Trump] has told associates he sees little upside to what he considers needless fights with Russia, and he has long said he sees potential in maintaining a working relationship with Mr. Putin. Mr. Trump has often said there are benefits to cooperating with Russia in fighting the Islamic State in Syria....

"Nearly a decade and a half after the Iraq-WMD faceplant, the American press is again asked to co-sign a dubious intelligence assessment."

"Something About This Russia Story Stinks," writes Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone.

If the American security agencies had smoking-gun evidence that the Russians had an organized campaign to derail the U.S. presidential election and deliver the White House to Trump, then expelling a few dozen diplomats after the election seems like an oddly weak and ill-timed response. Voices in both parties are saying this now....

It appears that a large segment of the press is biting hard on the core allegations of electoral interference emanating from the Obama administration. Did the Russians do it? Very possibly, in which case it should be reported to the max. But the press right now is flying blind. Plowing ahead with credulous accounts is problematic because so many different feasible scenarios are in play.

On one end of the spectrum, America could have just been the victim of a virtual coup d'etat engineered by a combination of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, which would be among the most serious things to ever happen to our democracy. But this could also just be a cynical ass-covering campaign, by a Democratic Party that has seemed keen to deflect attention from its own electoral failures.

The outgoing Democrats could just be using an over-interpreted intelligence "assessment" to delegitimize the incoming Trump administration and force Trump into an embarrassing political situation: Does he ease up on Russia and look like a patsy, or escalate even further with a nuclear-armed power?

"The Crazy Story of the Professor Who Came to Stay—and Wouldn't Leave."

"It's not easy to evict someone in California. Usually that's a good thing."

"How Corporations Became Obsessed with Fitness Tracking."

"Once companies amass troves of data on employees’ health, what will stop them from developing health scores and wielding them to sift through job candidates? Much of the proxy data collected, whether step counts or sleeping patterns, is not protected by law, so it would theoretically be perfectly legal. And it would make sense. As we’ve seen, they routinely reject applicants on the basis of credit scores and personality tests. Health scores represent a natural — and frightening — next step."

Here's the article and here's the Metafilter discussion. Many good comments there. I'll just single out:

The really galling thing is that employers put the burden of these 'wellness' programs entirely on the employee. They want employees to walk 10,000 steps per day, for example, but don't provide breaks for employees to go for a walk during the day. If you're a sedentary office worker, this effectively means making the wellness program an unpaid second shift. It's a hell of a racket.

These 'incentive' programs should be legally required to be completable during normal, paid work hours. If an employer wants its employees to go to the gym, then the employer can damn well pay for their memberships and let them count time spent there as work.

"The Devil Iz a White Men" — said graffiti spray-painted on a University of Wisconsin building.

You may remember that back in April, the University of Wisconsin police apologized for going into a classroom to confront a student about graffiti on campus.

Now, we learn that the UWPD has completed its review of the incident:

Officers had tried to make contact with Mr. McDonald several times over a two week time frame and were unsuccessful. At the time, based on their observations of the classroom, the officers did not believe a class was actively in session. The officers questioned Mr. McDonald outside of the classroom and then outside of the building. Eventually, Mr. McDonald was arrested on 11 criminal counts of graffiti and one count of disorderly conduct for threatening a bystander.

The decision to enter the classroom resulted in concern within the university community because this was not a common practice. At issue was whether or not the arrest and the method of arrest had been appropriate....

Or, as The Wisconsin State Journal puts it, "At issue was weather or not the arrest and the method of arrest had been appropriate."

The review found that the police did nothing wrong. But the UWPD has adopted a new policy, here, which might be violated if the same thing is done in the future. I say "might" because it's not clear what happens when the police mistakenly believe the class is not in progress.

"Self-Driving Cars Will Make Organ Shortages Even Worse."

Slate warns us about the downside of not enough car-crash death.