"Do these angry parents know how much planning it takes to fill six hours each day with material that’s interesting enough to keep children from breaking everything in the classroom by hitting each other with it (elementary school) or texting each other TikToks about recreational drug use and open-minded sexual promiscuity (contemporary high school, I assume)?"

From "As a Parent, I Would Rather Fake My Own Death Than Take Over Curriculum Planning From Teachers and School Boards" by Ben Mathis-Lilley (Slate). 

1. That's quite a sentence. I use this blog to collect unusual, elaborate sentences, and this is one of them.

2. The "angry parents" don't believe that what teachers and school boards are doing is just trying to make the material "interesting enough." It's hardly a dispute about interestingness. 

3. Why is it acceptable to portray children as little monsters? We immobilize them in schoolrooms and then express hostility toward them for failing at utter docility. 

4. Just because you can't or won't do a government official's job in its entirety doesn't mean it's wrong to criticize the way that work is done. On the contrary, it's exactly what we do all the time in a representative democracy. 

5. When you criticize the way someone else is doing their work, you ought to go through the exercise of contemplating what it's like from their point of view. So let's do that with respect to the lessons that these "angry parents" are outraged about. It seems that the mechanism of compulsory schooling is used to mold young minds to a social and political ideology. What is it like — from the inside — to be a school official with that agenda? Put yourself in their shoes. After that, go ahead and criticize if you're still so inclined.

"In the movies, the prep is everything. You also need time to clean, inspect and repair guns. You need time to fix old clocks."

"In period films, you are sometimes using antiques. But here, there was absolutely no time to prepare, and that gave me a bad feeling." 

Said Neal W. Zoromski, quoted in "'Rust' movie was turned down by veteran prop master over 'massive red flags'/The Alec Baldwin-starring film was operating on a low budget and wanted too small of a crew, the veteran filmmaker says."

That's at Fox News, which, I see, is generating a lot of "Rust" stories. There's also 

"'Rust' shooting left film locals 'rolling their eyes' at alleged lack of safety measures: 'Just unthinkable'/One local moviemaker hopes to see change in safety guidelines so 'the death of Halyna was not in vain.'" The text — though not the headline — makes a strong pitch for the labor union, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE):

Fall color a sunrise...

... with a view of the sun... 

... and with the moon...

Bonus view, much later, at 2:41 p.m., when I return to my lakeside path, walking this time, and going twice as far....

"The risks come not only from the noise and the chemical emissions that two-stroke engines produce, but also from the dust they stir up."

"'That dust can contain pollen, mold, animal feces, heavy metals and chemicals from herbicides and pesticides'.... All this adds up to increased risk of lung cancer, asthma, cardiovascular disease, premature birth and other life-threatening conditions.... But the trouble with leaf blowers isn’t only their pollution-spewing health consequences. It’s also the damage they do to biodiversity. Fallen leaves provide protection for overwintering insects and the egg sacs of others. Leaf blowers, whether electric or gasoline-powered, dislodge the leaf litter that is so essential to insect life — the insect life that in turn is so essential to birds and other wildlife. The ideal fertilizer and mulch can’t be found in your local garden center. They are available at no cost in the form of a tree’s own leaves...."

From "The First Thing We Do, Let’s Kill All the Leaf Blowers" (NYT).

And there's this: "hydrocarbon emissions from a half-hour of yard work with the two-stroke leaf blower are about the same as a 3,900-mile drive from Texas to Alaska in a Raptor." 

(I had to look up what a Raptor is — even though we are in the process of buying a Ford F-150. It's the bulked up version of the F-150.)

Why aren't people ashamed to be seen (or heard) using a leaf-blower? It's quite bizarre.

"Youngkin’s new ad features the heart-wrenching story of Laura Murphy, a mother who tried to shield her son from having to read Beloved, by Toni Morrison."

"The ad does not identify the book, nor does it mention that Murphy is a Republican activist. But the story was covered by the media at the time, back in 2013. Murphy’s son told the Washington Post that the book, assigned for his Advanced Placement English course, 'was disgusting and gross. It was hard for me to handle. I gave up on it.' He also complained that he suffered 'night terrors' as a result of reading it. Murphy sought to have Beloved banned until 'new policies are adopted for books assigned for class that might have objectionable material,' said the Post. One irony here is that Republicans are rallying around a privileged snowflake who claims a book millions of children have read caused unbearable trauma. If their principle is that parents should be able to prevent schools from assigning texts that upset their kids, what are they going to say when progressives start demanding the school excise texts by Mark Twain, Richard Wright, and other authors who have run afoul of the left for depicting racist dialogue?"

From "Glenn Youngkin’s Closing Message: Ban Toni Morrison From Schools/Virginia Republican wants the angriest parents to have a veto on school curriculum" (NY Magazine).

Here's the ad: 

What's it like to have Terry McAuliffe block you from having a say in your child's education?

This mom knows – she lived through it. Watch her powerful story. #VAgov pic.twitter.com/u8EjmMQX0n

— Glenn Youngkin (@GlennYoungkin) October 25, 2021

"A United Kingdom student described feeling 'vulnerable' and 'violated' after being a victim of 'needle spiking' at a nightclub in Nottingham."

"Hers is one of many cases reported across Britain, in which an injection is administered to someone without their knowledge or consent, usually in a nightclub or bar setting — sometimes through the clothes.... Campaigners say they are seeking 'tangible' changes to make nighttime venues safer, so no woman has to endure hours of memory blackouts, or worse.... Nottinghamshire police say no other offenses, including sexual assault, have been linked to the reports of being injected...."

From "'Needle spiking' in bars, clubs sparks new sexual assault concerns/Needle spiking involves an injection being administered without the recipient's knowledge" (Fox News).

Maybe just never go to a bar ever again.

No sexual assault reports from women who emerge from an hours-long blackout.

"To her, death is quite romantic/She wears an iron vest/Her profession’s her religion/Her sin is her lifelessness."

Sings Bob Dylan, in "Desolation Row." 

That played in my head I as I was reading "I do not mean that these people’s ideology is ‘like’ a religion. I seek no rhetorical snap in this comparison. I mean that it actually is a religion. An anthropologist would see no difference in type between Pentecostalism and this new form of antiracism." 

That's quote from John McWhorter's "WOKE RACISM/How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America," extracted in this NYT book review "John McWhorter Argues That Antiracism Has Become a Religion of the Left."

McWhorter writes for the NYT, so I expect only a gentle review, but there's this:

Where McWhorter is less effective is in his critique of some of the Third Wave’s high priests. Although he takes aim at writers like Ta-Nehisi Coates, Robin DiAngelo, Ibram X. Kendi and The New York Times’s Nikole Hannah-Jones, he only briefly quotes their writing. A more compelling pushback would have involved a thorough analysis of their arguments (he has reviewed Kendi and DiAngelo elsewhere).

Now, I know the feeling... I don't answer my phone if I don't recognize the number... but this is ridiculous.

"Colorado hiker, lost for 24 hours, ignored rescuers' calls because hiker didn’t recognize the number/The hiker told rescue officials they had wandered off the trail and could not find their way back" (Fox News).

By the way, were you confused about the number of hikers? Based on that headline, I was. You can count on Fox News to do woke pronouns, even at the cost of clarity. You never find out whether this was a man or a woman. In addition to they/them approach to pronouns, we get "The person started hiking" and "the subject ignored 'repeated phone calls' because they simply didn’t recognize the number."

These were official rescuers, not private citizens mobilizing for the task. Given the present-day habit of phone users declining to answer unknown numbers, they ought to have a way to use caller idea to display their identity. 

"While Viagra had been a kind of luxury good for older men... Hims catered to that man’s woke grandson."

"In the words of one of the brand’s designers, the core customer was 'coastal or urban, with a diverse cohort, aware of what’s going on in culture, cares about how they look.' The Hims Man could order sildenafil while waiting in line for Sweetgreen, changing in the Equinox locker room, obtaining knitwear on Mr Porter.... Hims claimed there was an undiagnosed epidemic of erectile dysfunction among men under 40, which made them eager to buy these wares. Or perhaps there was another explanation behind the sales figures, a combination of cultural forces that was changing the way men behaved in secret.... In a phrase the CEO uses constantly, Hims wants to become the 'front door' of the entire health-care system, the country’s main platform for nonemergency medicine...."

From "The Soft Sell/The health-care brand Hims wants to leverage young men’s anxiety over erections and hair loss into a multibillion-dollar empire" (NY Magazine). The illustration at the link is hilarious.

"Do not blame the LGBTQ community for any of this.... It's about corporate interests and what I can say and what I cannot say."

This is new video — 5 minutes of it — from Dave Chappelle — posted yesterday at Instagram:

 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dave Chappelle (@davechappelle)

He says that everyone he knows in the LGBTQ community has been supportive of him. He made a series of comedy shows and a documentary about making them. The first show was about the murder of George Floyd, and the documentary was accepted into various film festivals. Then, after the controversy over his most recent show, "The Closer," he got disinvited from the festivals and no one wants to touch the documentary. 

He doesn't say, but you can infer that he thinks that has more to do with race and George Floyd than anything about transgender people. 

He says he's willing to meet with transgender people, "but you will not summon me. I am not bending to anybody's demands." He states 3 conditions, the first 2 of which are serious. You have to watch the entire show, "The Closer." And you have to meet him at a time and place of his choosing. The third condition is a punchline: "You must admit that Hannah Gadsby is not funny." 

He goes on to say that he's going to screen the documentary, free, in 10 cities (click through to the Instagram page to see the list), "And you will see what they are trying to obstruct you from seeing and you can judge for yourself." 

 He ends: "You have to answer the question: Am I cancelled or not?!"

Tortuous path or torturous path?

 Oh, New York Times.... you have made the classic booboo:

The mistake is in the headline and the article: 

The path to that tender moment had been torturous. Not long after the princess and Mr. Komuro announced their engagement four years ago, the public began to question her choice.... Princess Mako’s father withheld approval of the marriage, citing the curdled public opinion. The paparazzi chased Mr. Komuro, 30, after he left for New York to attend Fordham Law School and tracked his shaggy hair and food truck habits. Savage attacks on social media left the princess suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.... The media and the public were shocked, simply shocked, by the fact that he arrived from New York sporting a ponytail.... In some surveys, as many as 80 percent of respondents have said they opposed the marriage. Yet after waiting three years for Mr. Komuro to finish law school and start a job at a New York law firm....

Law school is a challenge, but it's not torture. A "torturous path" would involve torture. A "tortuous path" is a long and winding road. I know that any law student — even a ponytailed Fordham student — can crank out a defense of the use of "torturous path" here by stressing that the process was indeed painful for the princess so it's not really a mistake, just hyperbole. But the "tortuous path"/"torturous path" mixup is really well known. It's one of the most discussed word substitution issues, so even if you really wanted to say that the princess's path was torture, you should resist out of realizing that language mavens will say you were wrong.

And by the way, since I'm talking about law students, there's also "tortious." These words — "torturous," "tortuous," and "tortious" — all go back to the idea of twisting. In French, you probably know, "tort" means wrong, but that got started out of the idea of twisting. Think about the idea that wrong is twisted, distorted. Language itself is always twisting — twisting the night away — new meanings twining out of old ones. In the long scheme of things, we've benefited from the twists, the wrongs, but the mavens policing the lines — defending the distinctions — are part of the tortuous path of the language we love.

And best wishes to the happy couple! Let me quote the groom, because this is damned cute: "I love Mako. I would like to spend my one life with the person I love."

How to make a big sensation out of not being transgender.

Step 1: Be Shiloh Jolie-Pitt.

"Not everyone will wake up at 4.30am and walk up 1,000 stairs to see the sun coming up, it requires discipline and a special type of personality."

Says Breathwork coach Aigul Safuillina, quoted in "Sunrise breathwork meditation and exercise on a Hong Kong hilltop combines fitness, mind and body detox, and a reset of your circadian clock/Breathwork coach Aigul Safuillina started the Lantau Sunrise Club to promote group exercise, teach the basics of proper breathing and embrace the natural world/Dozens have signed up to practise tactical breathing and learn the ‘rock and roll’ exercise. A club member explains they get his day off to a positive start" (South China Morning Post).

It's interesting for me to read about people who are doing something that's very similar to what I do but also very different. I'm intent on seeing the sunrise and I have a number of steps I need to do to get to my vantage point (about 1700 steps each way, according to my iPhone), but I have a lot of differences: I do it every day (not once a week), I don't have a set of physical exercises to do when I get there (I take photographs), I don't meet up with a group or have any sort of club. 

And I feel distanced from notions like "tactical breathing" and "mind and body detox" and "special type of personality." Just to harp on that last one, what is this "special type of personality"?! That's off-putting, suggesting that most people should just forget about it and leave it to hyper-disciplined freaks. I know I wouldn't have regarded myself as the "special type." 

I do regard it as a spiritual experience but I would not want an instructor of any kind speaking to me, especially speaking to me as a member of a group and stressing fitness and breathing. I could imagine an idealized guru speaking to me is just the absolutely perfect way, but better than nothing is, in this case, a very high standard.

Sunrise viewed indirectly.

At 7:36 a.m.

"A friend messages: 'Jake Tapper thinks Alec Baldwin deserves "basic decency" from Republicans. Hahahahahahahahahaha.'"

"These guys can dish out the very nastiest stuff, but they can’t take it, because up to now they’ve been shielded by what Ann Althouse calls 'civility bullshit.' The only trouble is, people have realized it’s bullshit. You want civility and decency? Try displaying some."

Blogs Glenn Reynolds (at Instapundit).

"[T]he Audubon Naturalist Society (ANS), has announced it will change its name, due to the 'pain' caused by the 19th-century ornithologist and slaveholder John James Audubon...."

[Audubon] has come under scrutiny for his buying and selling of enslaved people in the 1820s; for his objections to the abolitionist movement; and for writings that portrayed black and indigenous people as inferior to whites. Audubon, who was born in modern-day Haiti but moved to the US before dying in New York in 1851, took five human skulls from a battlefield in Texas and sent them to Samuel Morton, a doctor who attempted to determine differences that he claimed showed varying intelligence levels between races."

The Guardian reports.