"Bringing a child into this nightmare world. This should require two-thirds, too. If you want to feel maternal, you can care for my plant, Fernie Sanders."

So reads one punchline in a New Yorker humor piece, "The Filibuster Belongs in my Group Chat, Not the Senate." 

There are 3 authors for this short piece. Speaking of group chats, this is group humor. The authors are Ginny Hogan, Alex Connolly, and Katy Fishell. That might be 3 women, but I don't know. 

Also on the list of individual decisions the friends as a group control with a filibuster:

Hosting a destination wedding. This should be constitutional-amendment rare—so, like, two-thirds to bring a vote.....

Is the humor in agreeing with the notion that other people are making bad decision in this area or is it in thinking that friends who want tight control over their friends' decisions are horrible? Or is it funny because you can't really tell? Alternative position: It's not funny. 

I do think the hostility toward destination weddings is real, but the intrusion into decisions whether to bear a child must be intended to reflect badly on the proposal to subject it to a filibuster. I note that the filibuster is set up to make it harder to choose to go through with a pregnancy. There's an implication of forced abortion! The proposal is not to subject a decision to get an abortion to the filibuster. 

I know, I'm ruining all the humor. I can do that all on my own.

Even though there's no reference to women in that humor piece, it's clearly about the way women feel about other women and how much they desire to control them and how their go-to technique is to weaponize their need to be part of a group.

"Harry Truman-style, Biden should press Republicans about what benefits they propose to deny to Americans who need them."

Writes E.J. Dionne in "Biden needs a reboot. Fighting for democracy is the key" (WaPo).

That got me wondering what "Harry Truman style" actually looked like, so I watched this:

Here's the text of the full speech (from September 1948). Here's part that's in the video: 

It does my heart good to see the grain fields of the Nation again. They are a wonderful sight. The record-breaking harvests you have been getting in recent years have been a blessing. Millions of people have been saved from starvation by the food you have produced. The whole world has reason to be everlastingly grateful to the farmers of the United States. In a very real sense, the abundant harvests of this country are helping to save the world from communism. Communism thrives on human misery. And the crops you are producing are driving back the tide of misery in many lands. Your farms are a vital element in America's foreign policy. Keep that in mind, that is of vital importance to us and to the world.

"Defeats, inaction and compromise drag Biden’s poll numbers down"/"'Frustration is at an all-time high': Behind Biden’s falling poll numbers."

There's an interesting difference between the front page teaser — "Defeats, inaction and compromise drag Biden’s poll numbers down" — and the headline that appears at the article — "'Frustration is at an all-time high': Behind Biden’s falling poll numbers" — in The Washington Post.

The first is an active declarative sentence. You've got 3 things (defeats, inaction and compromise) doing something  (dragging Biden's poll numbers down). The second is vague and imprecise. On the one hand you've got "frustration" — whatever that refers to — and we'll just put that over there on the one side of a colon. On the other side, you've got Biden's falling poll numbers, and they're just falling for whatever reason. You'll have to read the article.

We see a photograph of a black man in a hoodie and a wool beanie, and he's looking sad. The caption says he's the founder of the Black Male Voter Project. His name is W. Mondale Robinson. I'm just going to guess the W is for Walter.

The "frustration" quote comes from him. He also says: "Black men are pissed off about the nothingness that has happened." Which is a great quote. They're not just pissed that nothing has happened. They're pissed about the nothingness that has happened. And he says: "They can’t call me and ask me to serve my brothers up on a platter for their benefit." 

You wouldn't know from the headlines — either of them — but this article is about how black people — black men — don't like Biden. I wonder why the headline writer muffled that. Democrats are obviously aware of how much they need black voters, so why not shout out the alarm? 

Is it another pathetic effort to protect Biden? The highest-rated comment over there suggests that is indeed what WaPo readers want:

"Absent a controlled experiment in which people are randomly assigned to either have or not have an experience, we are left with several uncertainties."

"We cannot be sure if the experience harmed the person’s mental state (in this case, that Instagram caused teenagers to become depressed); if the person’s poor mental state led to the experience (that depressed teenagers are more likely than others to use Instagram, or to use it more often); or if some other, unmeasured variable (such as family conflict) contributed to both the experience and the mental state, creating the appearance of a direct association between the two factors.... We need much better research than that described in the Facebook documents to sort out these competing accounts. Such research would be able to control for pre-existing differences between people who do and do not use the platform, to monitor them over time to look at changes in mental health during the period tracked, and to measure mental health with standardized measures of symptoms before and after.... [G]iven the widespread eagerness to condemn social media it’s important to remember that it may benefit more adolescents than it hurts.... We are told again and again that correlation is not causation, but we readily ignore this maxim when we are looking for an account that we hope is true."

Writes Laurence Steinberg in "Does Instagram Harm Girls? No One Actually Knows" (NYT).

Steinberg is a psychology professor who specializes in adolescent development. Here's his book: “Age of Opportunity: Lessons From the New Science of Adolescence.”

It's ludicrous that there's pressure to legislate when there isn't even any decent research on the subject. We've got some absurd political theater going on right now with the evil corporation, the heroic whistleblower, the secret documents, and the agitation to — quick — do something! 

What happened to the idea that we must be scientific about everything? What is it that causes the erstwhile elitists to degrade into the kind of people they'd otherwise call deplorable? 

The obvious hypothesis is: Political gain. The real goal isn't to help the kids at all but to increase the power of the Democratic Party. There is a noxious hope of coercing Facebook into controlling the flow of information in a manner that will serve the interests of the Democratic Party.  

I don't know that for a fact. Test my hypothesis. But the presumption should be against legislating, especially when the plan is to regulate speech.

Rowing at daybreak.

"The couple had planned to live together in her home but Swedish police insisted it could not be made secure."

"They wanted her to live in his tiny flat, in effect a 'closet' where he kept all the paintings no one would exhibit, [said a friend of the artist, a retired judge who] had been trying to broker an agreement between the couple and police. Now it is too late. [The artist's girlfriend] suspects excessive speed — it was normal for the police car to travel at 100mph on the motorway — may have killed her partner: she had often been 'quite scared' in the days when she was allowed in the car. 'I would grab Lars’s arm,' she said. But she never complained. 'I’m sad our last year was spent like birds in a cage, I alone here, he at his place,' she added, tears in her eyes. 'I miss him terribly.'"

From "Lars Vilks lived under police protection. Now the controversial cartoonist is dead/The man who drew the Prophet had been cut adrift by Swedish liberals before the car crash that ended his life" (London Times). 

And there's this, from another friend of the artist: "It was as if he had some disease... If you touched him, you got it as well — became a persona non grata or a pariah."

"The backlash has led to police telling her she should stay off campus for now and teach classes online."

"Officers have become so concerned about her safety that she has been given a direct hotline to call.... One social media user shared a picture of a man with a gun and the invitation 'Kathleen Stock rest your weary head.' Another post described her as 'on the wrong side of history' and said she would die alone. The academic, who is a lesbian, broke down in tears as she told of a 'culture of fear' taking over university campuses.... For the past three years she and a group of like-minded feminists have argued that men cannot become women by surgery and that it is important to protect women-only spaces in institutions such as prisons and refuges.... The campaigns against Stock date back to 2018 when a consultation was launched over the Gender Recognition Act and whether people should be able to decide for themselves which gender they wanted to identify as, without the need for a medical opinion. Stock spoke out against it. There were death threats at the time and a spy hole was set up in her office door for her safety."

From "Kathleen Stock, the Sussex University professor in trans row, urged to get bodyguards/A philosophy don has been advised by police to stay off campus to avoid the students who accuse her of transphobia" (London Times).

Here's Stock's book: "Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism."

"Prince William, who joined crisis talks with his grandmother and father over the decision to remove Andrew from public life, agrees that the change should be permanent."

"'There is no way in the world he’s ever coming back, the family will never let it happen,' says a royal source. 'William is no fan of Uncle Andrew,' says a friend of the Duke of Cambridge. Another source close to William says that one of the 'triggers' that 'really gets him' about Andrew is his uncle’s perceived 'ungracious and ungrateful' attitude towards his position, which William considers 'a risk' and 'threat to the family.'... One of Andrew’s problems is that he is not very popular. Mention his name in royal circles and courtiers roll their eyes. As one former aide explains: 'He’s not made any friends on the way up, so no one is helping him on the way down.' One Whitehall source describes him as 'a self-important bore.' A military source who has dealt with Andrew on several engagements does not mince words: 'I’ve got no time for Andrew. He’s a total dickhead, an arrogant shit.'"

From "William sees Prince Andrew as a ‘threat’ to the royal family/The royals never want the Duke of York to return to public life, insiders say — as one source reveals: 'William is no fan of uncle Andrew.'" (London Times).

Foolosophy.

It's the word of the day at the OED, and it means what you think — foolish philosophy. 

It's an old funny word, traced all the way back to 1592:

1592 ‘C. Cony-Catcher’ Def. Conny-catching To Rdr. sig. A3 That quaint and mysticall forme of Foolosophie.

I had to look up "Cony-Catcher"/"Conny-catching" too, and I imagined, wrongly, that it was a reference to female genitalia. But, no, "coney" is the skin of a rabbit. And to "coney-catch" is to swindle. 

From 1907:

1907 Putnam's Monthly May 188/1 ‘Man is truly handicapped by reason.’ Doubtless, when it comes to this kind of ‘Foolosophy’. 

But what kind of philosophy was it? Here's the whole essay from Putnam's: "Quack Journalism."

"Ordinarily staid and silent Supreme Court justices have become whirling dervishes of late, spinning madly to rebut the idea that Americans are beginning to regard the court as a dangerous cabal of partisan hacks."

Writes Maureen Dowd in "The Supreme Court v. Reality" (NYT). 

I've already blogged this topic many, many times, including multiple times recently. I'm only linking for one reason: The casual — and offensive — disrespect for whirling dervishes!

 

"This kind of whirling is a form of physical meditation.... It is a form of worship...."

Dowd is treating the religion of The Other as ridiculous and silly. How is that still happening in the New York Times? I presume the continuing disrespect for fundamentalist Christians is intentional, but the Whirling Dervishes are Muslims!

From the Wikipedia article "Sufi whirling": 

Trump rallies in Des Moines.

"As disastrous as the Biden administration has been, no one can blame the great state of Iowa, because boy we did really — we did really good here. Iowa, what a place!"

"How my Chef plates the cheesecakes at one the most expensive wedding venues in my city."

"'Crème anglaise' with Smuckers strawberry and chocolate sunday sauce, oh and if the crème anglais looks foamy to you it's because its just ice cream he left out."

 
From r/Kitchen Confidential (photo at the link).

The misspelling of "sundae" and lack of an apostrophe in "it's" are in the original, but no one paid the poster a lot of money to get it right.

Top comment: "Wedding venues are a total racket, seriously." To which someone appended: "Weddings in general." Other comments in that vein: "Some weddings go disastrously wrong. Like everyone says, the whole business is a racket"/"Well it's literally capitalizing on a shared state of emotional vulnerability between two people. Even the basic premise of the wedding planner is major fishy"/"I think it's also a little bit that offering any wedding-related service involves dealing with horrible, stressed-out customers with insane budgetary and time restrictions, and sane, qualified people don't want to do it. Like, I've planned events. But I wouldn't touch weddings with a ten foot pole. Certainly not for what most budget-grade wedding planners make. Same with photography. I'm a professional photographer, I've even shot friends' weddings. There's absolutely no way you could pay me enough to do it for strangers."

"British Airways has advised pilots and cabin crew not to refer to passengers as 'ladies and gentlemen' in onboard announcements as the carrier celebrates the 'diversity and inclusion' of its customers...."

The Telegraph reports today.

That caught my eye because I was just reading  a diary entry from 2017 in David Sedaris's new "Carnival of Snackery" about the decision to get rid of "Ladies and gentlemen" in announcements on the London Underground:

There’s something sad about this to me. It’s like a casual Friday for language, only it’s not just on Friday. I rather liked being thought of as a gentleman. Yes, I’d think whenever I heard it, I believe I’m up for this. 

The new announcements, he writes, would begin “Hello, everyone.”  

You know, it's funny that "Ladies and gentlemen" lasted as long as it did. Even 60 years ago, it sounded old fashioned. It was corny announcer-talk. It seemed to imagine an audience that was much more dressed up and proper than the people who'd actually shown up. It added some humorous grandeur or an edge of hucksterism. And that was long before any complicated gender critique bubbled up in the culture. 

ADDED: Milton Berle used to say "Ladies and germs" as a joke.

"Prince Harry’s mental health start-up has trebled its valuation in just eight months to $4.7 billion (£3.5 billion) after scoring $300 million from investors..."

"... including a secretive fund run for Silicon Valley tycoons such as Mark Zuckerberg. The latest cash injection will help BetterUp, where the Duke of Sussex is chief impact officer, to expand globally. It recently unveiled plans to open a London office and hire about 75 staff. The California-based company’s app costs $249 a month for users in the US, who get one-to-one coaching sessions on everything from mental health and nutrition to work and childcare. Prince Harry joined the company this year and has been on paternity leave after the birth of his daughter Lilibet."

The London Times reports.

Look at how money flows to that man! What work is he actually doing for this company? I mean, even when he's not off on paternity leave? Do Zuckerberg et al. really believe there are hordes of people able and willing to pay $249 a month for "one-to-one coaching sessions" on miscellaneous subjects — enough to explain a company worth $4.7 billion? 

I wonder if the one-to-one coaches will ever help subscription-payers with their addiction to Facebook?

And what is a "chief impact officer" anyway?

As long as they're handing out billions, why not propose mammophants as a way to fight climate change?

I'm reading "The climate crisis is spawning weird ideas to fix it. They might be all we have" (WaPo):

A new company called Colossal Laboratories & Biosciences recently announced plans to “de-extinct” woolly mammoths through genetic recombination with Asian elephants. Part of the rationale for this kooky experiment is to address climate change. Permafrost — frozen soil rich in organic carbon — is melting in the north, releasing carbon into the atmosphere and threatening to liberate up to twice as much carbon as is already present. Colossal says it wants to halt that process by unleashing beasts to uproot trees and stomp down grass to expose more permafrost to the cold Arctic air... Permafrost was once stable not because mammoths roamed the tundra, but because the climate was very cold and dry, which also allowed the animals to thrive, says Vladimir Romanovsky, a professor of geophysics in the Permafrost Laboratory at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. The company’s plan has cause and effect reversed.

It's easy to laugh that one off... isn't it? But what's the next less laughable thing in the line of desperate proposals? And what if something that would work is mixed in and we're just skeptical about everything? 

If you're inclined to be skeptical, you're probably taking the easiest route of all and just being skeptical about the catastrophic anthropogenic climate change itself. Who cares how much of scam the proposed solutions are if you don't even believe there's a problem? 

Those who believe there's a problem feel desperate for a solution, and funding solutions is political activity that appeals to those who feel desperate. That's worrisome to those of us who just want the very best and most accurate science and technology.

But — oh, look! — elephants! We are babies. 

The authorities have decided that Martha Sepúlveda — that Colombian woman who was planning to get euthanized today — must live.

WaPo reports: 

[A] medical committee determined that she no longer met the conditions because her health had apparently improved.... She had no idea health officials were even meeting to review her case. She had been quietly living out her final hours, and had tuned out media coverage of her case. 

“She canceled her phone plan because she thought she was going to die tomorrow,” her lawyer, Camila Jaramillo, said on Saturday night. Jaramillo’s law firm, the Laboratory of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (DescLAB), has vowed to fight the decision, which it described as “illegitimate and arbitrary,” and one that violated her right to a “dignified death.”...

Here's my post from 2 days ago, based on WaPo's story about the planned event. The authorities say their new decision is based on the "high probability" that her disease — ALS — wouldn't kill her within 6 months, but it's very hard not to suspect that the news reports — especially the big WaPo article — caused the authorities to retreat from strong support for euthanasia. It's not just that the public was put in a position to express disapproval. It's also that she participated in publicity, providing evidence that the committee relied on:

Sepúlveda appeared on television smiling and laughing as she dined at a local restaurant this month.... 

ADDED: The authorities seem to have unwittingly inflicted something like the torture of a mock execution. Not exactly like, of course, unless there have been some victims of mock execution who, preparing to die, genuinely wanted to die.