Finally, some snow.

 

Snow and a borrowed dog...

"But they all didn’t just quit their jobs. They also posted a video about their decision, some of the very moment they resigned, on the popular social media site TikTok.

"And by doing so, they joined countless others who have turned the 'Great Resignation' — the pandemic-era phenomenon of record numbers of Americans quitting their jobs, more than 4 million a month since July — into a communal online experience. The TikTok videos, often raw, sometimes profane and always emotional, show how the pandemic has exacerbated the stresses of work in America and revealed how some workers are using this moment to reevaluate what they want out of life. But why post about quitting on TikTok? And if the videos show how much these TikTokers craved something better, what actually comes next? These five TikTokers told us their stories...."

From "#IQuitMyJob These 5 TikTokers wanted more from work. So they quit — in a very public way" (WaPo).

Here's the page at TikTok collecting all the #IQuitMyJob videos.

"During the Second World War, a pigeon was cited for bravery by the U.S. Army. During a storm, the bird, known as U.S. 1169, carried a distress message..."

"... from a foundering Coast Guard vessel and alerted rescuers. Between 1943 and 1949, the Dickin Medal—a British award for animal bravery—was bestowed on thirty-two pigeons, nearly twice the number given to hero dogs."

From the book "On Animals" by Susan Orlean.

Here's the Wikipedia page for the Dickin Medal, where you can see the details of what these pigeons — and other creatures — did. And by "other creatures," I mean dogs, mostly. 18 of them. The only other creatures were 3 horses and — incredibly! — 1 cat. He was a ship's cat named Simon:

"They are really looking for a unicorn... They want someone who is going to fight — but not too hard, because they don’t want it to be ugly and bickering."

Said an unnamed former staffmember of "The View," quoted in "POLITICO Playbook: ‘The View’ struggles to find a Republican." 

At the same time, the anti-Trump conservative can’t be seen as too chummy with the other co-hosts, as the network’s market-research shows that the audience wants to see the women spar. Sources said that this has hurt the chances of ANA NAVARRO.... It doesn’t help that there’s a perception that whoever sits in the conservative host slot is on borrowed time, with prominent Republican former co-hosts like NICOLLE WALLACE, ELIZABETH HASSELBECK, ABBY HUNTSMAN and [Meghan] McCain leaving the show with claims of being bullied by their co-hosts and ABC executives on-set and off, while veterans like [Whoopi] Goldberg and [Joy] Behar have thrived. Sources said that the show was eager to recruit young libertarian KAT TIMPF, but she turned them down because of the show’s reputation for treating conservatives poorly and her contract with Fox....

How is a libertarian right for the Republican Party position? I don't watch the show, but it seems to me that the problem is they've got a panel with 3 on one side and only 1 on the other. There should be 2 to oppose the 3 — at least. Or make it 2 to 2. Have a libertarian and a conservative Republican. Why wouldn't that make a better show (unless bullying the outsider really is the narrative)?

"In Agra in Uttar Pradesh, members of right wing Hindu groups burned effigies of Santa Claus outside missionary-led schools...."

"'As December comes, the Christian missionaries become active in the name of Christmas, Santa Claus and New Year. They lure children by making Santa Claus distribute gifts to them and attract them towards Christianity,' said Ajju Chauhan regional general secretary of Bajrang Dal, one of the right wing Hindu outfits leading the protest.... 'Let only Christian celebrate Christmas,' said one of the men, in a video filmed during the disruption. 'We are against Hindu boys and girls participating in Christmas function … it hurts our sentiments. They dress up in church and everyone sings Merry Christmas. How will our religion survive?'...  A Christmas event that is held every year at Matridham Ashram in Uttar Pradesh was also targeted by a Hindu vigilante group who stood outside shouting slogans such as 'stop conversions' and 'missionary murdabad,' meaning 'death to missionaries.'"

From "Jesus statue smashed in spate of attacks on India’s Christian community/Amid growing intolerance to India’s Christian minority, several Christmas events were targeted by Hindu right wing groups" (The Guardian).

Kamala, actually.

From the transcript of Kamala Harris on "Face the Nation" yesterday:

But let's not forget our individual power to actually do something about it…. And that is again, where every individual has it within their ability and- and many may argue within their responsibility to actually take on these- these- accept the tools that are available to do something about this issue…. When we talk about the economy, the average person in America is going to measure the economy based on can they actually just afford to get through the day and through the month…. And- and Goldman Sachs just today said that actually, we know that Build Back Better will strengthen the economy. And so, I think there is without any question, room for discussion about what actually will be the impact to the economy…. But it actually makes economic sense to do that and it brings down the cost of living…. we have the ability to actually alleviate the burdens that people are carrying that make it difficult for them to get through the day or in the month…. Every- I read it every day. I read it every day, and then most days the president and I actually do it together with our IC- with the intelligence community…. I think that, you know, I actually wrote a book many years ago, and I do believe that it is important for us to have a cyber doctrine…. I mean, and I actually mean that sincerely for a number of reasons…. People are- people have a right to know and believe that their government actually sees and hears them. … And it has actually been part of my lifelong career to deal with tough issues and this is no different.

It's quite obvious that the word as she's using it has the opposite effect of its literal meaning. She must want to stress the reality and practicality of what she's saying, but it undercuts her credibility. It's the equivalent of asserting "I'm telling the truth," over and over. Who does that? Someone who's insecure about her believability. A good liar would know better. A secure truth-teller wouldn't run into the problem in the first place.

"I think of Roe v Wade as a house that’s sitting on the edge of a beach, where the water is coming under it and taking the sand out. The house is still standing there, but it is more and more in danger of collapsing in the water."

Said Sarah Weddington, back in 1998, quoted today in her obituary, "Roe v Wade lawyer Sarah Weddington dies aged 76" (London Times).

"But on closer inspection, his pictures of idealized pies, spaghetti entanglements of highways and gumball machines rimmed in blue halos required unpacking."

"A rustling of unexpected sadness occasionally crept into the paintings after that initial leaping rush of joy — an unsentimental nostalgia for a bygone era or some long lost love.... ... Mr. Thiebaud’s pictures were the opposite of mechanical-looking, their slathered surfaces as rich and thick as the icing on his painted layer cakes. This tactile luxuriousness was one of the things that separated him from classic Pop painting.... 'It has never ceased to thrill and amaze me,' he said, 'the magic of what happens when you put one bit of paint next to another. I wake up every morning and paint.... I’ll be damned but I just can’t stop.'" 

From "Wayne Thiebaud, Playful Painter of the Everyday, Dies at 101/Mr. Thiebaud’s rich and luminous depictions of midcentury Americana separated him from the classic Pop Art of the time" by Michael Kimmelman (NYT).

"The way C.K.’s flirtations with the offensive and the taboo work, at least historically, is by making himself a temporary stand-in for the bad guy."

"He ventriloquizes everything a pedophile might be thinking in exceptional detail, for instance. Or take the bit in Sorry about a Black woman picking out bananas....The success of such a joke depends heavily on the audience trusting that the comic beneath the 'creep' persona isn’t horrible. That by so precisely articulating such a perspective, it’s implicitly a critique. That meta layer is the safety net I’m talking about: For most of C.K.’s career, the 'real' Louis C.K.—a genuinely good guy troubled by demons but with a compassionate and decent core—has functioned as an authorizing alibi of sorts for the special’s boundary-violating experiments.... The Real Louis C.K. was the hapless, kind of dirty, but conscientious guy who bought a Girls Gone Wild DVD after his divorce but couldn’t jack off to it because he kept—as a dad—getting mad at the girls for making stupid choices. The revelations have made it harder to believe in that version of him; to a lot of his former fans, one horrifying thing about the allegations was that he turned out to be the very creep we thought he was lampooning. The joke we thought we were laughing at wasn’t a joke at all."

Writes Lili Loofbourow, in "What Louis C.K. Has Really Lost" (Slate), about Louis C.K.'s new special "Sorry" (which you can pay $25 to watch at his website). [Only $10 to watch the one special.]

This is a very well written essay, and it shows that Louis C.K. has a new foundation for humor. Loofbourow notes that before the scandal, he was having difficulty playing the part of the "loser," which had been his original comedy persona: "by no longer being an underdog, he’d lost something he needed to really make his act work. Well, he has again what he was missing then. Abjection is Louis C.K.’s medium; it suits him, and he thrives in it." 

We're seeing how he works from this new position — without the ability to retreat to the safe place of being the loser. He'd already lost loserdom before the scandal, so what has he "really lost"? He's gained! I think the headline writer didn't understand the essay... or the editorial position of Slate is that you've got to perpetually kick Louis C.K. around.

"Finally, here comes omega (ω). Everybody knows it signals the end. Although we are still near the middle of the alphabet, albeit on the downhill side, people are noticing that Greek has two 'O's."

Writes Mary Norris, in "A Linguistic Look at Omicron/What is this penchant for using Greek to designate disasters?" 

Omega means “big O.” (Get it? O-mega?) Omicron means “little O.” O-micron. The Greek micro, or “small,” has given us “microbes,” “microscopes,” and “microminis.” Mega, Greek for “big,” has come into English in “Mega Millions,” “mega-threat,” and “megalopolis.” If the repercussions from little old omicron have been so catastrophic, what are we to expect from big bad omega? 

Before panic sets in, a note on pronunciation: “small O” and “big O” refer less to the size and shape of the written letters (omega is an omicron with big feet: Ω) than to their sounds. They are vowels with short and long values. Though there is no universal agreement about it, many American classicists pronounce omicron with a short “o,” as in “om,” and omega with a long “o,” like an Irish surname: O’Mega. 

Norris links to a Mother Jones article from a few weeks ago, "I Asked Seven Classics Experts How to Say 'Omicron.' Come Down the Rabbit Hole With Me." Excerpt:

My first call was to David Sider, an American scholar with a terrific Bronx accent, in whom I found an equally frustrated ally. “You’ve called the right person!” he exclaimed. “I was driving in a car the other day, listening to the radio, and hit two different people on two different episodes say ‘ah-ma-CRON. And that’s wrong.”

“Kind of like the French president?” I asked. “Ah, Macron!”

“Yes, yes, exactly,” he said. “I’ve been bothered.”

Sunrise — 7:36.

Write about anything you want in the comments.

Mittenrise.

"1. No, the Taliban did not seize $85 billion of U.S. weapons.... Note: This was the most popular article in The Fact Checker’s 14-year history."

From "The most popular fact checks of 2021" by Glenn Kessler, "The Fact Checker" in WaPo.

"She was the lead voice on 'Don’t Mess With Bill' and other songs written by Smokey Robinson, who said she 'had this little voice that was sexy to me.'"

From the NYT obituary for Wanda Young, who has died at the age of 78.

Among the other Robinson songs that featured Ms. Young’s voice were “I’ll Keep Holding On,” a 1965 release that peaked at No. 34 on the Billboard chart; “The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game,” which rose to No. 13 in 1967; and “My Baby Must Be a Magician,” which hit No. 17 in 1968.

Here's the History of Rock Music in 500 Songs episode about The Marvellettes:

"These were not men who would necessarily raise a Black Power fist or quote Stokely Carmichael or Angela Davis, but were activists nonetheless, who doubled down..."

"... on the ideas of Black respectability and Black excellence as counters to the racial stereotypes that circulated widely in American media and popular culture. Cornielius himself was hypersensitive to negative racial stereotypes; in the program’s popular word-scramble segment, he wanted to make sure participants actually knew how to spell—even sharing the word beforehand—to guarantee that they wouldn’t show up on national television reinforcing ideas of Black illiteracy."

From "Soul Train and the Desire for Black Power/Don Cornelius’s faith that Black culture would attract a mass audience—and his devout belief that Black culture should be in the hands of Black people—make the program he created a radical touchstone 50 years after its debut" (The Nation).

"In the past decade, millions of Pakistanis have been caught up in the religious fervor of an anti-blasphemy campaign..."

"... launched after a liberal politician named Salman Taseer was assassinated by his own bodyguard for his denunciation of the harsh legal punishment of a Christian peasant woman accused of blasphemy. The anti-blasphemy group built a cult around the bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri. After he was hanged for murder in 2016, they declared him a martyr for Islam, built a shrine near the capital, Islamabad, and formed a new political party, Tehrik-e-Labbaik Pakistan... Labbaik’s leaders have repeatedly declared that they do not condone violence, yet they also preach that blasphemers deserve to die, and their crusade has inspired incidents of murder and arson. At a college campus in northwest Pakistan, a secular student was accused of blasphemy and beaten to death by classmates in 2017. A few days before the Sialkot attack, a mob burned down a police station in the northwest after officials refused to hand over a prisoner accused of blasphemy."

From "The mob killing of a factory manager in Pakistan comes amid surge in anti-blasphemy violence/This religious crusade is rapidly gaining popular support and could threaten the country’s stability" (WaPo). The factory manager, "preparing to repaint the walls for a visiting delegation, had taken down some religious posters that praised the prophet Muhammad and tossed them in the trash," and "several hundred workers chased him onto the factory roof and then dragged him into the yard, where they beat, stoned and kicked him to death, then set his crumpled corpse on fire."