"Facebook tanking."

"The social media giant's shares fell more than 5 percent after The Wall Street Journal reported that CEO Mark Zuckerberg blamed second-in-command Sheryl Sandberg for the Cambridge Analytica scandal and its subsequent fallout. The WSJ's report adds more fuel to criticism of Facebook's handling of the scandal and whether the two top executives have been too slow to change its platform. The New York Times detailed last week how the company ignored and then tried to hide that Russia used the platform to disrupt the U.S. election in 2016."

CNBC reports.

"Isn’t it beautiful?"

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of "The Beatles" — the white album — Roger Friedman reprints what Prudence Farrow wrote about the song "Dear Prudence." (Here's Farrow's memoir, "Dear Prudence," which Friedman says is free on Kindle, but you have to pay $10 if you don't pay for Kindle Unlimited.) I'll just give you one paragraph.

My mother [the actress, Maureen O'Sullivan] bought what became widely known as “The White Album” as soon as it was released in the fall of 1968. She introduced it to me in a most odd way. During a family gathering at her apartment, we were playing Killer, a whodunit game. The “killer” kills by winking at you, then you wait fifteen seconds before announcing you have been killed. My mother went around the room, showing the album while playing it on the record player. I listened to “Dear Prudence” with great apprehension. As each line finished, I wiped my brow with relief. As the song ended, I felt immense gratitude that it was not as I had feared. Just then, my mother came over to me, and leaning in, she gently said, “Isn’t it beautiful?” I looked up at her, and she winked.

Here's Maureen O'Sullivan talking to David Letterman in 1986. She talks about Groucho Marx, who tested jokes on her until she said "I really hate funny men. I will never laugh... So don't tell me any more jokes... I like humor to come out of something else — but no gags." She — who played Jane in the Tarzan movies — then proceeds to tell us about Cheetah — a "horrible creature" and "a homosexual."



ADDED: I'm adding my "animal cruelty" tag. O'Sullivan and Letterman and the audience laugh and laugh over what is the mistreatment of the chimpanzee used in the Tarzan movies.

At the Hot Pepper Café...

... say what you like.

"The White House Correspondents’ Association announced on Monday that for the first time in 15 years, no comedian would crack jokes at its annual black-tie dinner in April."

"Instead, Ron Chernow, the historian and biographer of Alexander Hamilton and John Rockefeller, will speak on the First Amendment. The dinner, intended to commemorate comity between the president and his press corps, has come under immense pressure in the age of 'fake news,' and President Trump has declined to attend two years running. This year’s performer, the comedian Michelle Wolf, outraged the Washington crowd with her off-color jokes about members of the administration. Mr. Trump, for his part, declared the dinner 'DEAD as we know it.'"

The NYT reports.

This one certainly gets my Era of That's Not Funny tag.

"Dick Cheney was the safe-cracker, the professional you brought in who knew all the ins and outs of our government. He was the ultimate gamesman. With Trump..."

"... the front door to the White House is wide open. There's deer and dogs and hyenas running around. And this guy is like an orangutan just throwing shit around. But Cheney was the grand master who finished the deal. Donald Trump has no belief system. So I would take the hyenas, the random wild animals running through the White House over Cheney any day of the week. If Cheney had stayed in office — let's say we didn't have term limits, and he was able to go another four, eight years — they would have invaded Iran."

Said Adam McKay, quoted in "The Dick Cheney Dossier: Inside Adam McKay’s Searing Exposé of D.C.'s 'Ultimate Gamesman' in 'Vice'" (Hollywood Reporter).

"There's Swedish death cleaning and there's Finnish forest raking."

Said Meade, as I was reading "Trump Says Finland Prevents Wildfires by 'Raking' Forests. Finland Isn't Sure What He's Talking About" (Fortune).

“You’ve got to take care of the floors. You know the floors of the forests, it’s very important,” Trump said amid the ruins of the town of Paradise, which was entirely razed by the Camp Fire. He added that President Sauli Niinisto of the “forest nation” of Finland told him “they spent a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things, and they don’t have any problem.”...

(For a post about Swedish death cleaning, go here.)

Trump is getting mocked for using the word "rake," but I'm thinking it's not rake rake. (I'm deploying a Whoopi Goldberg style locution.) Everyone seems to be acting as though they don't know what Trump was talking about, and the image of lots of Finns with rakes out in the forest is silly. It made me think of "The Walrus and the Carpenter":

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
"If this were only cleared away,"
They said, "it would be grand!"
"If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose," the Walrus said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.

If seven Finns with seven rakes raked the forest for half a year, do you suppose, the Trumpster said, that they could get it clear?



But if anyone is inclined to give Trump a sympathetic reading, consider that "raking" is simply a description of gathering underbrush together for removal, which might be done with some larger-scale equipment than the leaf rake that springs to mind. I googled for a few seconds and learned that there's something called a ratchet rake that attaches to a tractor.

Laughing at Trump and picturing Finns with rakes in the forest is a distraction from the real question of whether the Finns have anything to teach us about resisting and controlling forest fires. Trump said they're "raking and cleaning and doing things." What things? According to the Fortune article, what's working in Finland is "the country’s extensive forest road network—which helps firefighters move quickly and also slows down fires—and the fact that so much of the Finnish forest is privately owned. That means many small sections of the forest are cleared or thinned out, and therefore don’t easily let fires spread. Finland is also full of rivers, lakes and wetlands."

How are the small sections cleared or thinned out? Maybe it looks something like this.

ADDED: WaPo put up a piece titled "Trump suggests Californians can rake their forests to prevent wildfires. (He is wrong.)" Then it added this update:

Since this article originally published, some have suggested that Trump had in mind a more esoteric form of raking, such as perhaps an excavator rake; or a McLeod tool (a.k.a. a “fire rake”); or the 19th century European practice of removing organic topsoil known as “litter raking;" or — as a reader put it in a profanity-laced email to The Washington Post — “He didn’t mean literally raking with a rake, like some guy with a little rake from Home Depot, it’s a term meaning to clear underbrush and rotted forest floors with control burns which California does not do.”

The White House has not responded to a request for clarification on what Trump meant by “raking," so the above possibilities cannot be totally discounted.

However, it’s worth pointing out that when the president spoke of watching firemen rake beneath a little nut tree, he moved his hands back and forth as if he were miming a garden rake.

They love writing "He is wrong," but they hate saying "We were wrong."

"I was told [the sex recession] might be a consequence of the hookup culture, of crushing economic pressures, of surging anxiety rates, of psychological frailty..."

"... of widespread antidepressant use, of streaming television, of environmental estrogens leaked by plastics, of dropping testosterone levels, of digital porn, of the vibrator’s golden age, of dating apps, of option paralysis, of helicopter parents, of careerism, of smartphones, of the news cycle, of information overload generally, of sleep deprivation, of obesity. Name a modern blight, and someone, somewhere, is ready to blame it for messing with the modern libido.... [R]ates of childhood sexual abuse have decreased in recent decades, and abuse can lead to both precocious and promiscuous sexual behavior. And some people today may feel less pressured into sex they don’t want to have, thanks to changing gender mores and growing awareness of diverse sexual orientations, including asexuality. Maybe more people are prioritizing school or work over love and sex, at least for a time, or maybe they’re simply being extra deliberate in choosing a life partner—and if so, good for them.... [In Japan] many younger people see the very idea of intercourse as mendokusai—tiresome.... Among Japan’s more popular recent innovations... is 'a single-use silicone egg that men fill with lubricant and masturbate inside.'... The internet has made it so easy to gratify basic social and sexual needs that there’s far less incentive to go out into the 'meatworld' and chase those things.... [H]owever 'digitally nonchalant' Millennials might seem... 'they’re prudish in person.'..."

Excerpts from the long article in The Atlantic, "Why Are Young People Having So Little Sex?/Despite the easing of taboos and the rise of hookup apps, Americans are in the midst of a sex recession," by Kate Julian. I'm seeing a lot of links to this article, mostly by older-than-millennial people who are just saying things like this is depressing. There is so much detail to this article. So many ideas to discuss. Let's talk about it. Don't be shallow!

"Chani Nicholas doesn’t care for the hulking Alex Katz painting, depicting a trio of suited white men, hanging behind the front desk of the Langham hotel in New York. It reminds her of the patriarchy..."

"... she tells me one rainy, starless night in February, as we take the elevator up to her hotel suite and sit on the couch. We’re wrapping up a conversation about privilege, gender equality and the zodiac when Nicholas, who’s become popular on Instagram as a kind of social-justice astrologer, notices a different art piece hovering behind her. This one, she likes. The painting, titled 'Mona,' portrays a woman who shares a striking resemblance to Nicholas – dark hair with tight curls, sharp brown eyes, a strong jawline. She compares it to the painting in the lobby. 'The hotel staff must’ve known not to put me in a room with a bunch of weird guys on the wall,' she says. 'I’m basically an angry feminist who just happens to be into astrology and healing.'"

So begins "Meet the Woman Bringing Social Justice to Astrology/Chani Nicholas is transforming horoscopes from quips about finding true love and stumbling into financial good fortune to pointed calls to action" (Rolling Stone)(via my son John at Facebook).

If you get far enough into that article, you'll see some material about a technology and culture reporter at The New York Times, Jenna Wortham:

“I think the Internet is really good at helping like-minded individuals find each other and affirm each other,” she says. “I know a lot of people in my life who don’t give a shit about astrology and think that my interest in star signs is ludacris [sic] and laughable, but I don’t have to talk to them,” she says....

Wortham thinks that the millennial interest in astrology has to do with the correction of an imbalance, in which people are looking at their relationship to technology and finding it, at least to a degree, unnatural. Because social media and the Internet require people to externalize so much of their lives, people are looking for ways to be more introspective, she says. “In the same way that we’re like, ‘What’s the quality of the food that we’re eating? We’re now like, ‘How are we living? Is there a better way to live?'”

Last year, Wortham went through a difficult breakup and decided to switch neighborhoods in Brooklyn.... “I took Chani’s advice, and I made [something] happen,” says Wortham.... “When I think back on it, I don’t think it would’ve been as easy for me to manage all the influxes of opportunity had my house not been in order.” Nicholas’s guidance, Wortham says, helped her affirm whether she was doing the right thing. “It’s cool feeling like there’s something correlating in the cosmos and on the earth,” she says.

I wonder what the NYT's idea of reporting on "technology and culture" really is. Is it articles on technology designed to draw in people who wouldn't normally read about technology? I went over to the NYT and found this video about astrology:



I had to shut that off because I felt a strong and physical revulsion to the visual style. It didn't remind me of the patriarchy or anything like that. It just made me feel like a very annoying robot had the delusion that he could amuse me and intended to relentlessly act on that delusion. I had my own delusion — that I would have a seizure if I didn't shut it off.

ADDED: Jenna Wortham's new article in the NYT Magazine is "On Instagram, Seeing Between the (Gender) Lines/Social Media Has Turned Out to Be the Perfect Tool For Nonbinary People to Find — and Model — Their Unique Places on the Gender Spectrum." Excerpt:

Personally, Vaid-Menon doesn’t identify as any gender. “Nonbinary is so oxymoronic,” Vaid-Menon told me. “We’re defining ourselves by an absence and not our abundance.” When pressed, they will describe themselves as transfeminine, gender-nonconforming and nonbinary — but only reluctantly. “I really try to escape having to put myself in these categories,” Vaid-Menon said. “I wanted to be free from boxes — not end up in a new one.” Social media is one of the few outlets for that uninhibited expression.

AND here's the Alex Katz painting at the Langham Hotel:



Significantly less evocative of the patriarchy than the Rolling Stone made it sound! The "trio of suited white men" is next to a trio of women. And the men aren't wearing suits. White Man #1 has a turtleneck under his jacket. White Man #2 doesn't seem to have a jacket. And White Man #3 has his shirt collar gaping open in a way that suggests he's not wearing a tie. All 6 adults are staring in the direction of a bright light source and all but the one man in prescription glasses are wearing sunglasses, so they're not in an office environment. Where are they? The background is dark, so it's a confusing setting, but there's no reason to think they're in a position to exercise patriarchal power. They're out for some kind of fun. And the women are in front of the men.

"Why Democrats Should Not Call the Georgia Governor’s Race 'Stolen'/There are three important reasons to cool this rhetoric..."

"... despite Brian Kemp’s odious voter suppression efforts," cautions lawprof Richard Hasen (at Slate). The 3 reasons:

First, rhetoric about stolen elections feeds a growing cycle of mistrust and delegitimization of the election process, an attack pushed by President Trump and other Republicans who have been yelling “voter fraud” every time they are behind in the count. I’ve already set out my fear that Trump could refuse to concede the 2020 presidential election if he is ahead in the count on election night and then ballot counts inevitably shift toward Democrats as the counting continues....

Second... Saying Kemp tried to suppress Democratic votes and saying the election was stolen are two different things, and making charges of a stolen election when it cannot be proved undermines Democrats’ complaints about suppressive tactics. If Democrats can’t prove it, some people will think the suppression is no big deal when it really is....

[Third] It focuses attention on the wrong question: whether there was enough suppression to change election outcomes....

ADDED: Let me expand on Hasen's first point: Fomenting cynicism about elections might hurt Democrats more than Republicans. Democrats are the ones who need to mobilize more of the people who are inclined to sit things out, and the idea that the everything's fake and rigged isn't going to motivate people to participate.

"Trump Makes Risqué Joke About Antonin Scalia's Widow Having 9 Kids During Medal of Freedom Ceremony."

That's how People puts it, because why not take what shots you can at Trump, even if unsettles the good feelings of honoring a deceased hero?

"I always knew I liked him" - Trump commends the late Antonin Scalia for his prowess in bed. DECORUM! pic.twitter.com/Dbq25Nrnyt

— Steve Silberman (@stevesilberman) November 16, 2018

Why not take shots?

1. How else are people going to notice how much sex there is in the remarks "You were very busy, wow. Wow" and "I always knew I liked him" (spoken to a woman who gave birth to 9 children)?

2. It's Scalia. Like Trump, he's someone you're supposed to take shots at whenever you can.

3. Because calls for civility, like Silberman's "DECORUM!" are always bullshit. Silberman's not going for DECORUM! himself as he yells DECORUM! at Trump.

By the way, who is Steve Silberman? I clicked through to his Twitter page and saw that he's the author of "NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity." That made me wonder what NeuroTribe Trump belongs to.

Here's the NYT review of "NeuroTribes." It seems to be only about autism, not some notion that there's a neurotribe for each of us. Too bad!

At the Cayenne Café...

... you can talk all night.

And buy your stuff at Amazon through the Althouse Portal. If you need a recommendation, I'd say that about once a year you should order a giant pump bottle of Precipitation.

Trump gives a Schitt.

So funny to see little Adam Schitt (D-CA) talking about the fact that Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker was not approved by the Senate, but not mentioning the fact that Bob Mueller (who is highly conflicted) was not approved by the Senate!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 18, 2018

Trump gives a long interview to Chris Wallace.

Watch the whole thing:

Celine Dion is a super-hero who bestows gender privacy on babies... with her new fashion line.

This weird commercial is worth watching — if only for the expression of philosophy:



Gender privacy for babies... and older kids... with stuff like this:



ADDED: At the shopping site, called CELINUNUNU, the brand explains itself in the kind of prose I've seen too often on wall cards at art museums:

"Fiction that isn’t an author's personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn’t worth writing for anything but money."

That's Rule 2, my favorite of Jonathan Franzen's "10 Rules for the Novelist" — an excerpt from his new collection of essays "The End of the End of the Earth," which is one of the books I'm reading these days.

For some reason, I always read Jonathan Franzen's essays, but I have never read one of his novels. The main novelist I've read in the last year is Haruki Murakami. I've read 4 of his novels this year (plus a short story collection). Franzen's Rule 2 sounds very much like what Murakami does, something I like.

Anyway, Franzen's "10 Rules" — published at lithub, linked above — has been "gleefully trolled on Twitter" according to The Guardian. None of the trolling is good enough to quote, but obviously, one idea is to produce your own list, but since you're on Twitter, you won't have enough room to write a list of 10. And most of what passes for trolling is writers showing they're hostile to (i.e., envious of) Jonathan Franzen.

Most of the "trolls" (i.e., irritated, envious writers) don't really get the spirit of the 10 rules, which I presume are inspired by the famous "10 Rule of Writing" by Elmore Leonard. The titles are not identical. Leonard has "of" where Franzen has "for." That slight difference makes it slightly less likely that Franzen was directly appropriating Leonard's idea. Oh, no, wait. It's more different. Franzen's title is "10 Rules for the Novelist." That explains the "for" instead of "of." Franzen is offering rules to a type of person. Leonard sees rules arising from and inherent in the activity.

Franzen has spoken positively about Leonard elsewhere, in a lecture "On Autobiographical Fiction" ("Farther Away: Essays" (pp. 129-130)).

The point at which fiction seems to become easy for a writer... is usually the point at which it’s no longer necessary to read that writer. There’s a truism, at least in the United States, that every person has one novel in him. In other words, one autobiographical novel. For people who write more than one, the truism can probably be amended to say: every person has one easy-to-write novel in him, one ready-made meaningful narrative. I’m obviously not talking here about writers of entertainments, not P. G. Wodehouse or Elmore Leonard, the pleasure of whose books is not diminished by their similarity to one another; we read them, indeed, for the reliable comforts of their familiar worlds. I’m talking about more complicated work, and it’s a prejudice of mine that literature cannot be a mere performance: that unless the writer is personally at risk—unless the book has been, in some way, for the writer, an adventure into the unknown; unless the writer has set himself or herself a personal problem not easily solved; unless the finished book represents the surmounting of some great resistance—it’s not worth reading. Or, for the writer, in my opinion, worth writing.

Ah, you see: There's the idea in Franzen's Rule 2. Right next to the name Elmore Leonard. I'm 99.9% sure that Franzen's "10 Rules" is his variation on Elmore Leonard. It even tracks Leonard's combining big rules and small rules. Franzen's Rule 2 is a big rule, but he also has a small rule, Rule 3: "Never use the word then as a conjunction—we have and for this purpose...." Leonard's smallest rule is #6, "Never use the words 'suddenly' or 'all hell broke loose.'" A big Leonard rule is #10, "Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip."

I've written about Leonard's rules before. Here's my "Suddenly, 10 things."

"I’m so upset, I feel physically ill. Just the ugliness of it all. It’s so heartbreaking that all we can do is bring each other down and cut into each other. I feel like I’m going to cry."

Said Marsha Newman, a 66-year old school counselor in Chapmanville, W.Va., quoted in "These Americans Are Done With Politics/The Exhausted Majority needs a break" (NYT). According to the article, a study by a "nonpartisan organization" found two thirds of "a representative group of 8,000 Americans" to fall into a category labeled "Exhausted Majority."

“It feels very lonely out here,” said Jamie McDaniel, a 36-year-old home health care worker in Topeka, Kan., one of several people in the study who was interviewed for this article. “Everybody is so right or left, and you’re just kind of standing there in the middle saying, “What happened?’”

By the way, the word editing in the NYT has really gotten bad — "one of several people in the study who was interviewed"!

I'm glad I already have a tag that works for this topic — "tired of politics." I know I'm tired of politics, but I kind of have been all my life. It's nice to have company.

But is this NYT article really about how people are exhausted or is it about how the Democratic Party needs to admit it has a problem? The end of the article sounds like a loud wake-up alarm for Democrats: