Death and the dyslexic furniture maker.

I'm reading 2 obituaries in the NYT this morning. The 2 men — both in the furniture business — are very different, but both were dyslexic.

1."Wendell Castle, the whimsical designer who coaxed wood into weird, mind-bending shapes that blurred the boundary between serviceable furniture and fine art, died on Jan. 20 at his home in Scottsville, N.Y., near Rochester. He was 85."

His sinuous, biomorphic chairs, tables, desks, pianos, clocks and vanities, which resembled giant teeth, a human tongue, elephants’ feet and human forms, started as freestyle drawings on rag paper. They morphed into urethane foam models that were laser-scanned by computer, sculpted in slices by a 5,000-pound room-size robot and finished by hand with chisels, sanders and other tools.

“Wood, I realized, could be shaped and formed and carved in ways limited only by my imagination,” Mr. Castle once said....

Wendell, who was dyslexic, struggled in school. “I was not good at anything,” he said. “The only exceptions were drawing and daydreaming, neither of which were valued.”...

“If there was any continuity and logic in there, I wanted to throw that out of whack,” he told City Newspaper of Rochester in 2016. “There is no reason.”

2. "Ingvar Kamprad, a Swedish entrepreneur who hid his fascist past and became one of the world’s richest men by turning simply-designed, low-cost furniture into the global Ikea empire, died on Saturday at his home in Smaland, Sweden. He was 91."

He grew up on a farm in the lake-dotted province of Smaland, in southern Sweden, a dyslexic boy who milked cows and found it hard to concentrate in school. His family was poor, and he earned money selling matches and pencils in villages. At 17, he registered his mail-order business in household goods, calling it Ikea, formed of his initials and those of his farm, Elmtaryd, and village, Agunnaryd....

All his life, Mr. Kamprad practiced thrift and diligence, and he portrayed those traits as the basis for Ikea’s success....

He sought to control his work force, too. In 1976, he wrote a manifesto, “The Testament of a Furniture Dealer,” with biblical-style commandments listing simplicity as a virtue and waste as a sin. Employees were expected to absorb “the Ikea spirit,” to be humble, clean-cut and courteous, not just knowledgeable about Ikea’s products but enthusiastic about its corporate ideology — principles to work and live by....

While he lived mostly in seclusion, he traveled to Ikea stores around the world, sometimes strolling in anonymously and questioning employees as if he were a customer, and customers as if he were a solicitous employee....

Can a public school require students to watch this video?

There is a lawsuit in federal court in New Jersey against a school that required students to watch this 5-minutes "Introduction to Islam" as part of the World Cultures and Geography course. Under Establishment Clause doctrine, there should be nothing wrong with teaching public school students about religion, but there are some problems with the video. As the plaintiff puts it:

The video, according to the lawsuit, "seeks to convert viewers to Islam and is filled with the religious teachings of Islam, presented not as beliefs, but as facts."

The lawsuit cites statements made in the video, including "Allah is the one God;" "The Quran is a perfect guide for humanity;" "Muslims created a tradition of unsurpassable splendor;" and concludes with "May God help us all find the true faith, Islam."

The text slides are set to a musical version of the poem "Qaseedah Burdah," which the lawsuit says, describes "Christians and Jews as 'infidels' and (praises) Muhammad in gruesome detail for slaughtering them."

I presume the educators who chose this video were thinking in terms of encouraging young people to respect and honor Muslims. The video emphasizes positive achievements — science, art, architecture — and positive values contained in the religion. But it does have the problem of simply asserting that various beliefs are true and seems almost to include the viewer in prayer. The use of hypnotic music throughout the video puts the viewer in a receptive, spiritual condition that is at odds with the justification that students are simply learning a lesson in world culture and geography.

Fake news: Preventive care will, in the long run, save money.

Now that we've been hooked into to paying for everyone else's routine maintenance, the truth comes out: "Preventive Care Saves Money? Sorry, It’s Too Good to Be True/Contrary to conventional wisdom, it tends to cost money, but it improves quality of life at a very reasonable price" (NYT).

I guess we're not supposed to be mad about all the preventive care that got built into Obamacare, because it's just a nice thing to do anyway. But we don't generally pay to improve each other's quality of life. We expect you to work and pay for your own quality-of-life improvements.

From the article:

Let’s begin with emergency rooms, which many people believed would get less use after passage of the Affordable Care Act. 

We believed it, because the fake-news press and the lying politicians told us so.

The opposite occurred. It’s not just the A.C.A. The Oregon Medicaid Health Insurance experiment, which randomly chose some uninsured people to get Medicaid before the A.C.A. went into effect, also found that insurance led to increased use of emergency medicine. Massachusetts saw the same effect after it introduced a program to increase the number of insured residents.

Emergency room care is not free, after all. People didn’t always choose it because they couldn’t afford to go to a doctor’s office. They often went there because it was more convenient. When we decreased the cost for people to use that care, many used it more.....

ADDED: It is so irritating that this article blames us the believers — "Sorry, It’s Too Good to Be True," "many people believed...." This is the same newspaper that will turn and blame us for doubting what it tells us, as though we're a bunch of yokels when we don't adopt the beliefs it serves up as true.

The Grammys comedy sketch about trying out as the audiobook reader of "Fire and Fury" (and ending with Hillary Clinton).

"Spoken Word" is a category in the Grammy Awards, and it seems to be almost entirely the audiobook version of published, printed books. I love audiobooks, but I wouldn't call them "spoken word" performances. They keep giving the award to Presidents — Jimmy Carter (more than once! including 2 years ago for "A Full Life: Reflections at 90"), Bill Clinton (beating out David Sedaris!). They gave it to Hillary Clinton in 1997 for "It Takes a Village" (come on! who wants to listen to Hillary Clinton read her book).

My idea of a "spoken word" performance would be something more like what Spalding Gray used to do. Something like this, which he could take on tour and perform on stage, and you'd actually go see in a concert hall. I've done that. I've seen Henry Rollins give a spoken word concert. He once won a Grammy in the spoken word category, but it wasn't for a live, memorized performance like what I saw here in Madison years ago. It was a reading of his book "Get in the Van." And speaking — in written word — of Henry Rollins, I loved his performance on "Portlandia" as a member of the old punk rock band Riot Spray:



But back to last night's Grammys. I can't stand the Grammys, though I did DVR the show and attempt (unsuccessfully) to watch a few things, but I did watch that "Fire and Fury" sketch (just now, on YouTube). It must be hard for the Grammys people to figure out how to do politics, because they are playing to a general audience, and the people of the United States did elect Donald Trump. They can't act like they're talking within a group that all agree they hate Donald Trump. And yet those who like Donald Trump may like him in part because he can take all the heat you want to give him, his whole life has been heat, he likes heat, in a certain way. He wins even when he's attacked, as a certain subgroup of Trump fans understand.

In last night's sketch, we saw Cardi B, John Legend, DJ Khaled, Cher, and Snoop Dogg along with Hillary Clinton, and they were comical in different ways, some of which could be viewed as skeptical of the book or even admiring of Trump. Cardi B stops and says "Why am I even reading this shit? I can't believe this!" DJ Khaled seemed to love embodying Trump to proclaim, "If my shirt is on the floor, it's because I want it on the floor."

And a joke is made at Hillary's expense, with James Corden assuring her that her spoken-word Grammy is "in the bag." She has to say "The Grammy's the bag?" in an excited hopeful voice to set up the comedian James Cordon's line "in the bag," which is said in a way intended to remind us of how Hillary was (it seems) duped by pollsters and advisers assuring her that she'd already won the election.

ADDED: That "Portlandia" clip is even better now that Bruno Mars won all the Grammys.

"No, I wouldn’t say I’m a feminist. I mean, I think that would be, maybe, going too far. I’m for women, I’m for men, I’m for everyone."

"I have tremendous respect for women. You see all of the women I have working around me and working with me. Tremendous respect for women."

Said Donald Trump, obviously not applying the definition of feminism that says it's just the belief that men and women are equal.

So what's his definition of feminism? This makes me think of that 2010 question at Slate "Who gets to be a feminist?" — where I gave one of the answers and which still stands as my answer to the question.

Must we talk about Hillary? Steve Wynn is worse. He's more like Harvey Weinstein.

The question of Hillary Clinton and sexual harassment came up on "Meet the Press" this morning. The moderator Chuck Todd began with a question based on the Ruth Marcus column I linked to — here — earlier this morning.

CHUCK TODD: All right. There was the reckoning, I guess is probably the best way to describe it, the reckoning. Right? We have a reckoning at the U.S.A. Gymnastics. Reckoning with the U.S. Olympic committee, that in itself. But then there's been more reckoning with Hillary Clinton, a little bit the story in the Times that in 2008 her campaign that somebody was accused of sexual harassment. Campaign manager wanted to fire this person. Hillary Clinton stepped in and said no. Ruth Marcus today just eviscerates Hillary Clinton on this and, Heather, says, "Why can't she admit that that was a mistake?

How unfortunate for Hillary to have her story break at the same time as the truly nightmarish gymnastics story! And yet I feel no pity for her. In my view, her behavior protecting Bill Clinton and suppressing his accusers set the sexual harassment cause back 20 years.

Todd's question goes to Heather McGhee, president of the liberal group Demos. Look how quickly she changes the subject:

HEATHER MCGHEE: I think that you're right. I think that Ruth Marcus is right that she should have just admitted that it was a mistake. Hillary Clinton has a very difficult history with men in power abusing their positions in terms of sexual abuse and harassment. I think that our desire to bring Hillary Clinton continually into the story is understandable. I think the bigger story right now is obviously what's going on in the U.S. Olympic committee. I think the Steve Wynn story is a huge one in terms of finance share of the RNC. And some of those stories are terrifying....

So, Hillary Clinton's "history" is "difficult," and we just have a problem — albeit an "understandable" one — of "continually" dragging Hillary Clinton into the story! News just broke about the sexual harasser she kept on her campaign. We're not obsessively going back to her old misdeeds.

But Todd lets McGhee shift to the other new story, Steve Wynn. He even muses: "Steve Wynn feels like the closest thing we've gotten to Harvey Weinstein. Like almost as bad as Harvey." McGhee is all: "Worse in some ways." And Todd prattles: "It is. Harvey I thought is in a class by himself I think. But Steve Wynn was pretty close."

Like it's a contest of who's more loathsome. But Nasser, the Olympics doctor alluded to earlier, is obviously the most loathsome of all. He's forgotten at this point however because what McGhee and Todd are really talking about is whether "we've" finally gotten a Republican who's as bad as the Democrat Weinstein.

Trump's executive power and the political cost of trying to fire Mueller.

On "Meet the Press" this morning, Chuck Todd asked Senator Joe Manchin (Democrat of West Virginia) whether he was concerned about the report that Trump ordered the firing of Special Counsel Bob Mueller. Manchin said:

Chuck, here's the thing, you have a person who's the president of the United States that has been totally in control of his life, personally and his professional. He's been very successful. He's been able basically to either do things incentive-wise through checks, bonuses, money or organization or organization changes, things of this sort. He's had total control. Now all of a sudden he's understanding there's equal branches and there's equal powers. But also there's checks and balances. He's having a hard time with that. Hopefully I think that'll all come. But right now what you hear saying and what he's going to do. Let's see if he moves on [Deputy Attorney General Rod] Rosenstein.... I think at that time there'll be Democrats and Republicans saying, "Time to protect the judicial system and the three branches of government having equal power." Absolutely.

Does Manchin think the Special Counsel is part of the judicial branch?

Later in the show, Todd talked to former C.I.A. director Robert Gates and asked him, "Do you think Congress should do whatever it took to protect [Mueller] if somehow the president decided to fire him?" Gates, making a lot more sense than Manchin, said:

Well, this is tough, because it is an executive branch appointment. And I don't know how you, how you, how the Congress extends an umbrella of protection legally through legislation over what is an executive branch nomination or appointment. I would say this. I think that the one thing that can be done is to try and figure out how to make it clear the magnitude of the political cost that would be incurred, should he be fired.

It is the power of the executive branch that is at issue, though Gates doesn't attempt to explain why. Instead he, wisely, shifts the focus to "the political cost" to the President if he were to try to fire Mueller. I think they're talking about unconstitutional limitations on the President's power to remove an executive branch official, so the President's opponents (and supporters) ought to keep the political pressure on the President to endure the investigation and let us see the outcome.

But if Manchin and others want to keep accusing Trump of threatening the constitutional balance of power among the 3 branches of government, the President's constitutional authority should be defended with something more than the kind of subtle nudge we heard from Gates. And yet, it's probably not in the President's interest to lecture us legalistically about the extent of his constitutional power here because it would have a political cost.

At the Pump Track Café...

... you can talk about whatever you like.

(And if you've got some shopping to do, consider using the Althouse Portal to Amazon.)

"Granted, Clinton is in an exquisitely awkward place when it comes to determining how to punish sexual harassment in the workplace."

"You don’t need me to explain why," WaPo columnist Ruth Marcus says. "But it is possible to imagine her thinking process: If I can this guy for doing way less than my own husband did with a subordinate in his workplace, how’s that going to look? Well, Clinton erred in the other direction, and that’s not looking so good now, is it? And classically, infuriatingly, this episode and its aftermath exposes, once again, the trademark Clinton failure to take personal responsibility; the allergy to owning up to error; the refusal to cede any ground, no less apologize; the incessant double-standarding, with different, more forgiving rules for the Clintons and their loyalists. Imagine a Hillary Clinton who said something like this. [Imagined speech omitted.] Imagine that Hillary Clinton. She doesn’t exist."

And I think I can extrapolate: If Hillary were President, the #MeToo movement would not exist.

Thoughts of a Dog.

i had a long talk. with my fren. about how to spot. a fake ball throw. the optimal strategy. is to follow the ball. with your eyes. instead of your heart

— Thoughts of Dog (@dog_feelings) January 27, 2018

A "fake news" conundrum.

Click to tighten the focus and enlarge:



I'd say the real victim here is Van Jones.

The real winner: Donald Trump (because he's got his haters carrying his message about low black unemployment).

"Are there really a lot of people who find Trump refreshing, who found Obama 'glossily beautiful'?"

Asks Angel-Dyne in the comments to a post where I dropped an aside: "And by the way, maybe Barack Obama was too glossily beautiful and that's how we developed a taste for Trump."

I know the readership here is not a scientific sample, but I can't resist polling:

Did you find Obama beautiful and then develop a taste for Trump?

Yes! Too much glossy beauty gave me a taste for something different.

I never found Obama beautiful, but I do have a taste for Trump.

I found Obama beautiful, but I've never had a taste for Trump.

Both Obama and Trump have suited my taste, the same taste, for a distinctive character.

Obama is sometimes attractive and Trump has his good points, but I don't care in a personal way. Just get the policies right and spare me the showbiz aspect of politics.

pollcode.com free polls

ADDED: Poll results:

"If you’re Trump’s lawyer... you’re saying to yourself, 'No way I let this guy testify.' When he feels threatened, his impulse is..."

"... to deny now and clean it up later (e.g.: I didn’t tell Comey to drop the Flynn investigation, but even if I had done so it would have been appropriate... ). In politics, you’re apt to be safe with this sort of thing — if the ultimate clean-up is plausible, people tend to forget the original dissembling. But in a courtroom, or an interview with prosecutors and FBI agents, a false denial or even a bumbling misstatement can get you indicted. Trump is litigious and cocky. He has been in lots of lawsuits and has taken the measure of lots of lawyers. He may be very confident that he can handle an interview. He may be certain he has not colluded with Russia and thus convinced there’s no need to worry. Trust me, though: He has not been sweated before like he would be in a special-counsel interview...."

From "Donald Trump Should Refuse a Mueller Interview" by Andrew McCarthy (National Review).

Whatever happened to blogging?

Yes, I'm still here, and — importantly — you're still here. But generally, I'm told, what was once blogging has migrated to Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. The mommy bloggers, specifically, moved on to Instagram, so it says here in "How the Mom Internet became a spotless, sponsored void/Gritty blogs have given way to staged Instagram photos" (WaPo).

If you read that, you'll see that mommy blogging had already gotten screwed up by the effort to monetize. There are various ways to monetize your blog, but the most lucrative approach — especially available to bloggers with subject matter that connects to specific commercial products — is to write posts that incorporate the product.

So, instead of writing about your child and showing him eating a cookie, you get the kid to eat the sponsor's cookie and your post is a photo of the kid looking cute with the cookie and you saying something bloggy but phony about the cookie. Ptui.

But it's not just the monetization. It's also the insipid trend toward prettification and the commodification of one's own life. On Instagram and Facebook, many people — notably women with little kids at their disposal — present themselves and their lives as beautiful. There is a craving and genuine appreciation for beauty in human life, but a constant barrage of shallow, self-directed, predictable beauty cannot really satisfy the craving.

It may be that nothing on line can or should give us what we really want. Take a quick look at that fantasy of a wholesome woman with a cute baby in a well-kept kitchen, and know that it's the equivalent of eating a cupcake, looking at a few minutes of porn, or reading the new spiritual uplift from your faith adviser Burns Strider, and get on with your real life.

I like this from the comments at WaPo:

I see a distinct correlation between these curated social postings of moms today and the TV advertisements in the 1960s where women were shown in nice clothing attire and styled hair as they talked about the product they were using to make their homes spotless. The floors, walls, counters, kitchens, bathrooms were all shown in shining cleanliness.

Those old commercials became a joke, even back then, and advertisers had to find other ways, such as this one:



There's a danger now that any return to "grittiness" will be just as commercial and maybe even less sincere than the over-prettification that infects us today.

And by the way, maybe Barack Obama was too glossily beautiful and that's how we developed a taste for Trump.

So, yeah... whatever happened to blogging? It's just a place to write. You can write whatever you want, not necessarily about yourself. You might get some readers and give them a place to talk, not necessarily about themselves. And you can put up pictures. Most people will get sucked into pictures, and you as a writer might get overwhelmed by your pictures and never find your way back to writing about anything but your life in pictures. But if you're lucky enough to live in the real world, one day that baby is old enough to say "quit taking my picture."

I'm trying to read "How the Mom Internet became a spotless, sponsored void/Gritty blogs have given way to staged Instagram photos."

By Sarah Pulliam Bailey (at WaPo), which says some things I'm going to talk about in the next post but also has this:

[T]he biggest stars of the mommy Internet now are no longer confessional bloggers. They’re curators of life.... And with all the photos of minimalist kitchens... we’ve lost... a place to share vulnerability.... Instagram is built for beauty (its filters make your life look better), not for rawness.... The shift to shorter posts and an emphasis on likes and hearts has changed the tone and content of what moms find online: more pictures, fewer words, less grit....

I just want to connect that to this, the first thing that hit me when I looked at Twitter this morning. You have to watch through to the end:

"The meatballs were the meatballs were the meatballs. There was nothing to do with anything other than meatballs, period, paragraph. And don’t laugh..."

"... because that tells me that you don’t believe me," said one of the witnesses in a bribery case, described in "Testimony in Corruption Case Hinges on the Meaning of 'Meatballs.'" One side in the case is pushing the notion of "meatballs" as code — like "clams" or "dough."