Sunrise — 7:12.

If Trump on the Joe Rogan show was not enough for you...

 ... get ready for JD Vance on the Tim Dillon show — here — in 26 minutes.

"But I’m beginning to think students who don’t read are responding rationally to the vision of professional life our society sells them."

"In that vision, productivity does not depend on labor, and a paycheck has little to do with talent or effort. For decades, students have been told that college is about career readiness and little else. And the task of puzzling out an author’s argument will not prepare students to thrive in an economy that seems to run on vibes. Recent ads for Apple Intelligence, an A.I. feature, make the vision plain. In one, the actor Bella Ramsey uses artificial intelligence to cover for the fact they haven’t read the pitch their agent emailed. It works, and the project seems like a go. Is the project actually any good? It doesn’t matter. The vibes will provide...."

Writes Jonathan Malesic, in "There’s a Very Good Reason College Students Don’t Read Anymore" (NYT).

I remember "vibes" as a hippie word, so I have trouble seeing how it functions these days in the speech of the young, and so, it annoys me. I wish I'd made a tag for it long ago, so I could could keep track of how it annoys me — at least in its usage by mainstream media. Do non-media young people go around saying it? I don't know. It just irks me when I see it in media.

For example... 

"Everybody’s constantly looking for the next job, and it’s incredibly cynical and transactional and, now, dysfunctional."

"I’ve been disappointed on the reality of that part of it. And it’s just also astonishing. I can’t understand why there’s people that are willing to spend tens of millions of their own money to try to hold that office. ’Cause then you can get there and be like, Hmm, look at the glamour: I’m sitting in a 500-square-feet apartment, and I’m on Grubhub and watching bad TV on Netflix or whatever. I like to ask all of my colleagues, Hey, is there some kind of secret society or like a social life or something glamorous? Even [Mitt] Romney, I mean, he’s incredibly wealthy, and he has a nice house, but I read that he sits on his nice chair and watches Netflix and eats salmon from his friend, and actually puts ketchup on it. So I haven’t met that one person that’s having that quintessential glamorous life. It’s been elusive for me, but it’s not one that would even appeal to me. I think people all think life is like 'The West Wing' or something, where it’s snappy dialogue. But a lot of it comes down to just really bad performance art."

Said John Fetterman, asked to explain why he doesn't consider himself a politician, in "The Interview/John Fetterman Fears Trump Is Stronger Than Ever" (NYT).

Here, you can watch the interview:

ADDED: The headline may make you think there's something valuable about Trump. I'll cherry-pick it for you:

Last night's Homecoming Parade.

"Trump... took the stage to ominous instrumental music. He stood on stage for several minutes as it played out."

Writes Jake Traylor (of NBC News) on X, inviting the world to look upon Trump and wonder at his weirdness...

Trump (who was 3 hours late to his rally this evening) took the stage to ominous instrumental music.

He stood on stage for several minutes as it played out. pic.twitter.com/Ruwlyg1idG

— Jake Traylor (@jake__traylor) October 26, 2024

... which is going to feel different to different people, perhaps depending on whether the music has any context for you. Me, I know the music is called the "Undertaker" theme, and though I know what an undertaker is — and I don't think you want the leader of your country analogized to a professional who disposes of the dead — I don't know who "The Undertaker" is — some movie/TV/video game character? Just off-hand, I'm reading Trump's message there as a threat to his antagonists, the so-called "enemy within," to whom he's going to say "You're fired" when he wins, which he wants them to believe he will. It's some scary music for them, but it's delightful to his admirers.

Joe Rogan talks to Donald Trump for 3 hours.

I'm one hour into it, and the 2 men have great rapport.

The NYT headline is designed to make people think that nothing worthwhile happened and it's all a stupid distraction for young guys: "6 Takeaways From Donald Trump’s 3-Hour Podcast With Joe Rogan/The former president repeated his debunked claims of election fraud and speculated that there could be life on Mars in an interview aimed at young male voters."

He courted the show’s young male audience by floating the idea of eliminating the income tax, talking about mixed martial arts fighters, praising the military skills of Gen. Robert E. Lee and speculating that there was “no reason not to think” there could be life on Mars and other planets....

Why not say he "courted" the old women (like me) by talking about the length of the bed in the Lincoln bedroom and how badly depressed Mary Todd Lincoln was after her son Tad died?

Mr. Rogan seemed to back Mr. Trump’s questioning of election processes, at one point likening those who raised concerns over elections to those who questioned coronavirus vaccines.

“You get labeled an election denier,” Mr. Rogan said. “It’s like being labeled an anti-vaxxer if you question some of the health consequences that people have from the Covid-19 shots.”...

What I thought was so interesting was the first topic: how Trump felt when he found himself suddenly President. If that's not a topic for women, I don't know what is, especially when Trump centered the description on his interest in seeing the Lincoln bedroom and imagining the feelings of Abe and Mary. I loved Trump's (seeming) openness, as he repeatedly described his subjective experience as "surreal."

Sunrise — 7:37.

"The ad... could be the final shot in an extremely negative campaign. It puts the spotlight on [Tammy] Baldwin’s personal life..."

"... in an attempt to turn a low-key Midwesterner into a high-flying East Coast elitist. And it also tries to invert one of Democrats’ most effective criticisms of [Eric] Hovde, the extremely wealthy chairman and chief executive of a bank in Utah."

I'm reading "In Wisconsin’s Senate Race, the Republican Highlights Baldwin’s Sexuality/Eric Hovde is closing out his challenge to Senator Tammy Baldwin, a low-key Midwesterner, with a new attack ad that appears to want to make sure voters know she’s gay" (NYT).

Is Hovde just fighting fire with fire on the issue of who really lives in Wisconsin or should this be considered some sort of gay baiting?

IN THE COMMENTS: Bushman of the Kohlrabi gives what I think is the correct response to the NYT's accusation:

Tammy is openly gay. She has been praised for her gayness by major state and national media outlets for years. She has been openly celebrated and supported by LGBT groups since she was first elected to the Senate. Every Wisconsinite with a pulse knows she’s gay. Is she now saying she’s embarrassed to be gay? More likely she just doesn’t want voters to know if her partner benefited financially from her Senate gig.

All this likening of Trump to Hitler has got me looking back to my 2011 posts, when Wisconsinites likened Governor Scott Walker to Hitler.

From March 19, 2011: "Scott Walker is like Hitler because 'he doesn't do nice things'" (the quote is from a young protester, in a video interview by Meade). 

From February 17, 2011: "Scott Walker compared to Hitler" (with video of Meade questioning a woman who is carrying a sign portraying showing Walker with a Hitler mustache).

Also from February 17, 2011: "I asked the woman if she thought Scott Walker was like Hitler, and she said 'Yes.' So I said, 'Are you saying that you think fascism could come to America,' and she said, 'It's what's happening.'" Here's the photo I took of the woman — hiding her face — and the Walker-as-Hitler poster:

"The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election."

 "We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates. As our Editorial Board wrote in 1960: 'The Washington Post has not "endorsed" either candidate in the presidential campaign. That is in our tradition and accords with our action in five of the last six elections. The unusual circumstances of the 1952 election led us to make an exception when we endorsed General Eisenhower prior to the nominating conventions and reiterated our endorsement during the campaign. In the light of hindsight we retain the view that the arguments for his nomination and election were compelling. But hindsight also has convinced us that it might have been wiser for an independent newspaper in the Nation's Capital to have avoided formal endorsement.'" 

That's "A note from the publisher," William Lewis, of The Washington Post, "On political endorsement."

Great! I prefer this policy, especially if it is based on a real commitment to professional, high-level journalism. There's a crazy amount of bias, which drives me away from whatever they are hoping to push. My sympathy for Donald Trump, the target of so much unfairness, is a bit absurd. I'm supposed to hate him? You idiots have made me love him. But somehow now you are drawing the line. What game is this?

Goodbye to Phil Lesh.

I thought he would live forever.

Very sad to see "Phil Lesh, Bassist Who Anchored the Grateful Dead, Dies at 84/One of the first rock bassists whose instrument regularly took a lead role, he also had a hand in writing some of the band’s best-known songs" (NYT).

In addition to providing explorative bass work, Mr. Lesh sang high harmonies for the band and provided the occasional lead vocal. He also co-wrote some of the band’s most noteworthy songs, including ones that inspired adventurous jams, like “St. Stephen” and “Dark Star,” as well as more conventional pieces, like “Cumberland Blues,” “Truckin’” and “Box of Rain.”

Key to the dynamic of The Dead was the way Mr. Lesh used the bass to provide ever-shifting counterpoints to the dancing leads of the lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, the curt riffs of the rhythm guitarist Bob Weir, the bold rhythms of the drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, and, in the band’s first eight years, the warm organ work of Ron McKernan, known as Pigpen. 

A source of particular excitement was the relationship between Mr. Lesh’s instrument and Mr. Garcia’s. At times they mirrored each other. At other times they contrasted, in the process widening the music’s melodic nuances while helping to create the kind of variety and tension that allowed the band to improvise at length without losing the listener.

"As prisoners arrived, they were stripped, searched and deloused, a process overseen by Dr. Zimbardo, who played the role of prison superintendent."

"Initially there were a few giggles among the participants, but as the guards began enforcing rules, the mock prison began to feel very real. Though critics have accused Dr. Zimbardo of coaching the guards to act sadistic, he told the guards only to 'create feelings of boredom, frustration, fear and a "sense of powerlessness,"' according to a defense of the study on his website. They were, he said, given no 'formal or detailed instructions about how to be an effective guard.' Within a day, the guards had become abusive and were engaging in psychological torture: making the prisoners defecate in buckets, waking them up repeatedly through the night, forcing them to simulate sodomy. Several prisoners suffered emotional breakdowns. But Dr. Zimbardo kept the study going...."

From "Philip Zimbardo, 91, Whose Stanford Prison Experiment Studied Evil, Dies/ His provocative research made him a popular figure on campus. But his exploration of how good people can turn evil raised ethical questions" (NYT).

"Harris’s closing argument is dishonest, desperate and hypocritical/Trump isn’t a fascist, and he didn’t say he would use the military against his political opponents."

Writes Marc A. Thiessen, in The Washington Post. That's a gift link, so you can read the whole thing. Excerpt:

In their miasma of outrage, Democrats seem to have forgotten that they have been demonizing Republicans as “enemies” for years. During his noxious 2022 speech in Atlanta, President Joe Biden accused Republicans who opposed his proposed federal takeover of our elections of standing with traitors such as Confederate president Jefferson Davis and explicitly called them “enemies” of America, thundering: “I will defend the right to vote, our democracy against all enemies — foreign and, yes, domestic.” Barack Obama famously declared “We’re gonna punish our enemies, and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us” (He later conceded that he should have used the word “opponents” instead.)

Asking AI to make a beautiful face more and more beautiful ends up in the same place as a person who gets too much plastic surgery.

But you'll have to go to TikTok to see it: here.

"Once considered revolutionary, the notion of empathy and advocacy for the poor is now a central tenet of Roman Catholic social teaching."

"Once considered revolutionary, the notion of empathy and advocacy for the poor is now a central tenet of Roman Catholic social teaching.... Father Gutiérrez’s theology was not without its detractors. It was criticized by scholars living in capitalist countries for its use of Marxist social analysis to expose unjust political systems in the third world, many of them supported by first world powers.... More recently, his theology found favor with Pope Francis.... [T]he pope declared that liberation theology can no longer 'remain in the shadows to which it has been relegated for some years, at least in Europe.'... [Father Gutiérrez wrote:] 'Latin American misery and injustice go too deep to be responsive to palliatives.... Hence we speak of social revolution, not reform; of liberation, not development; of socialism, not the modernization of the prevailing system. "Realists" call these statements romantic and utopian. And they should, for the rationality of these statements is of a kind quite unfamiliar to them.'"

From "Gustavo Gutiérrez, Father of Liberation Theology, Dies at 96/Once considered revolutionary, his notion of empathy and advocacy for the poor has become a central tenet of Catholic social teaching" (NYT).