"[Lorie] Smith... sat near a plaque that echoed a Bible verse: 'I am God’s masterpiece.' She said she was happy to create graphics and websites..."

"... for anyone, including L.G.B.T.Q. people. But her Christian faith, she said, did not allow her to create messages celebrating same-sex marriages. 'When I chose to start my own business as an artist to create custom expression,' she said, 'I did not surrender my First Amendment rights.' Phil Weiser, Colorado’s attorney general, countered that there is no constitutional right to discriminate. 'Once you open up your doors to the public, you have to serve everybody,' he said. 'You can’t turn people away based on who they are.'"

Writes Adam Liptak in "A New Clash Between Faith and Gay Rights Arrives at a Changed Supreme Court A Colorado graphic designer says she has a First Amendment right to refuse to create websites for same-sex weddings despite a state anti-discrimination law." (NYT).

The oral argument is today.

If you're trying to remember why this is still a live issue after the wedding-cake case:

Impossible things before breakfast.

It’s too bad Twitter ceased to exist several weeks ago when those layoffs happened and everyone shifted to Mastodon; I used to like posting there.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) December 5, 2022

He's writing in a place he asserts doesn't exist. 

He's also writing badly: "... everyone shifted to Mastodon; I used to like posting there." Don't write it like that unless "there" means Mastodon. You're writing one damned sentence and I have to do the editing work in my head.

You know, if he'd given a link, I'd have checked out his writing on Mastodon. I even tried googling his name and Mastodon, and I couldn't find it. I found the — a? — Mastodon site and searched for his name and got 4 links. I clicked on all 4 and found no content.

Somehow "everyone" is there, but I see no one.

UPDATE: Commenters are telling me it's sarcasm. I don't know why I wasn't more attuned to the kudzu of the internet.

The New York Times finally put up a story about the Twitter files. (Really, it's a story about the reaction to the release of the files.)

This went up yesterday. It doesn't have a time stamp, but I believe it went up in the evening, that is, 2 days after the files were released:

"Elon Musk, Matt Taibbi, and a Very Modern Media Maelstrom/A release of internal documents from Twitter set off intense debates in the intersecting worlds of media, politics and tech," by Michael M. Grynbaum.

Let's do a close read: 

It was, on the surface, a typical example of reporting the news: a journalist obtains internal documents from a major corporation, shedding light on a political dispute that flared in the waning days of the 2020 presidential race. But when it comes to Elon Musk and Twitter, nothing is typical. The so-called Twitter Files, released Friday evening by the independent journalist Matt Taibbi, set off a firestorm among pundits, media ethicists and lawmakers in both parties.

Even more atypical was the way the NYT contributed nothing at all.

At the Sunday Night Café...

 ... you can talk about whatever you want.

"After opening the choice of Word of the Year up to English speakers for the first time in its history, over the last two weeks more than 300,000 people cast their vote.... And the winner is... Goblin mode."

"‘Goblin mode’ – a slang term, often used in the expressions ‘in goblin mode’ or ‘to go goblin mode’ – is ‘a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations.’ Although first seen on Twitter in 2009, goblin mode went viral on social media in February 2022, quickly making its way into newspapers and magazines after being tweeted in a mocked-up headline. The term then rose in popularity over the months following as Covid lockdown restrictions eased in many countries and people ventured out of their homes more regularly. Seemingly, it captured the prevailing mood of individuals who rejected the idea of returning to ‘normal life’, or rebelled against the increasingly unattainable aesthetic standards and unsustainable lifestyles exhibited on social media...."

So says Oxford Languages (the publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary).

Sample quote from The Guardian: “Goblin mode is like when you wake up at 2am and shuffle into the kitchen wearing nothing but a long t-shirt to make a weird snack, like melted cheese on saltines.” 

Here's an Axios article from last April: "Musk's 'goblin mode' is here to stay":

"South Korea recently broke its own record for the world’s lowest fertility rate. Figures released in November..."

"... showed the average number of children a South Korean woman will have in her lifetime is down to just 0.79. That is far below the 2.1 needed to maintain a stable population and low even compared to other developed countries where the rate is falling, such as the United States (1.6) and Japan – which at 1.3 reported its own lowest rate on record. And it spells trouble for a country with an aging population that faces a looming shortage of workers to support its pension system.... [M]ore than $200 billion has been spent trying to boost the population over the past 16 years.... A monthly allowance for parents with babies up to 1-year-old will increase from the current 300,000 won to 700,000 won ($230 to $540) in 2023 and to 1 million Korean won ($770) by 2024.... Government-funded nurseries are free..."

From "South Korea spent $200 billion, but it can’t pay people enough to have a baby" (CNN).

"The reining in of expectations is perhaps best encapsulated by a phrase ubiquitous in China’s Covid restrictions: 'Unless necessary.'"

"Officials have instructed citizens: Do not gather 'unless necessary,' do not leave home 'unless necessary.' Many Chinese who had learned to dream of progress — even luxury — suddenly have been told, again, to expect only the essentials. Still, some hold onto hope that the retreat is a blip. For all the present difficulties, the years of extraordinary growth are still fresh in many minds...."

From "The Chinese Dream, Denied/The world’s harshest Covid restrictions exemplify how Xi Jinping’s authoritarian excesses have rewritten Beijing’s longstanding social contract with its people" (NYT).

Xi Jinping... has tied the success of “zero Covid” to his own legitimacy as ruler, and enforcing it has taken precedence over nurturing the freewheeling spirit that made... China, so vibrant.

The shift strikes at the party’s longstanding social contract with its people. After violently crushing pro-democracy demonstrations at Tiananmen Square in 1989, Beijing struck an implicit bargain: In exchange for limitations on political freedoms, the people would get stability and comfort....

ADDED: What percentage of Americans do you think would take that bargain: "In exchange for limitations on political freedoms, the people would get stability and comfort"?

I think there are plenty of Americans who are saying right now that they want this bargain. It wouldn't even need to be forced. They proactively want it.

They don't even worry about the potential for the "shift" the article describes: After the loss of freedom, the stable comfort you bargained for may be reduced to what is "necessary" — whatever that turns out to be.

"We have to create conditions where no actors dependent on the aggressor state will have an opportunity to manipulate Ukrainians and weaken Ukraine from within.... We will never allow anyone to build an empire inside the Ukrainian soul."

Said Volodymyr Zelenskiy, quoted in "Zelensky declares war on an enemy within the Ukrainian Orthodox Church new/Kyiv fears a Russian fifth column is operating inside one of the country’s oldest and most powerful institutions" (London Times).

"'Fuck Biden,' 'Don't Tread on Me,' and a Wisconsin Death Trip for Our Times."

"The author knocks on the doors bearing the darkest symbols, behind which lie guns, ammo, antisemitism, antiabortion dogma—and a belief in the coming civil war."

A long article by Jeff Sharlet in Vanity Fair.

Excerpt:

When does a dog get a NYT obituary?

When he was a TikTok star: "Noodle, Pug Known for ‘Bones’ or ‘No Bones’ Days on TikTok, Is Dead at 14/The pug’s videos served as a safe space and a distraction on an often divisive internet." 

If Noodle stood up for a few seconds upon waking up, it was a “bones day,” which meant good things were ahead or that it was a time to be ambitious. It was a “no bones day” when he plopped back onto his bed — not necessarily a bad day, but more of a slow, low-key day....  Noodle, who had 4.5 million followers on TikTok, would at times “crumple with ennui”....

You can scroll through all the videos here.

"Iran has abolished the morality police, according to an announcement by the attorney general carried on state media..."

"... following months of protests set off by the death of a young woman who was being held by the force for supposedly violating the country’s strict Islamic dress laws. The decision, reported by state news outlets late Saturday night, appeared to be a major victory for feminists who have sought for years to dismantle the force and for the protest movement ignited by the death of the young woman, Mahsa Amini, 22, in September. The unrest has amounted to one of the biggest challenges in decades to Iran’s system of authoritarian clerical rule and the decision to scrap the morality police was the government’s first major concession to the protesters. The morality police 'was abolished by the same authorities who installed it,' the statement by Attorney General Mohammad Javad Montazeri said...."

The NYT reports.

Very good news!

And the more conventional news improves its signal to noise ratio, the less relevant Twitter becomes.

The more Twitter improves its signal to noise ratio, the less relevant conventional news becomes

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 4, 2022

 

Let new media and old media compete in the marketplace of ideas. At least theoretically, that will bring us closer to an understanding of what is true and good. In reality, who knows?

"A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution."

Wrote Donald Trump, at Truth Social, quoted in "White House rebukes Trump’s suggestion to suspend Constitution over 2020 election" (WaPo).

The post came a day after Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, claimed he would expose how Twitter engaged in “free speech suppression” in the run-up to the 2020 election. But his “Twitter Files” did not show that the tech giant bent to the will of Democrats. 

Trump's "truth" is so hyperbolic and disrespectful of the rule of law that it's idiotic clickbait, only worthy of attention because the man is running for President, and apparently, as polls go, the leading candidate. Sorry, I'm not going to spend every day agonizing over that. We will move on... I hope... I trust... He's so over-criticized that I don't see the point of jumping on him one more time. That doesn't work, and it drives some dedicated believers more deeply into his sphere.

I want to move on to the link in the indented quote — on "did not show" — which goes to "Elon Musk’s ‘Twitter Files’ ignite divisions, but haven’t changed minds/The company’s new chief executive detailed Twitter’s decision-making around a controversial story" (WaPo). 

Yesterday morning, I was critical of The Washington Post for not having an article on the "Twitter files," but by the end of the day, they had that. Let's read:

"By comparing MRI scans of a group of 128 children, half taken before and half at the end of the first year of the pandemic, the researchers found growth in the hippocampus and amygdala..."

"... brain areas that respectively control access to some memories and help regulate fear, stress and other emotions. They also found thinning of the tissues in the cortex, which is involved in executive functioning. These changes happen during normal adolescent development; however, the pandemic appeared to have accelerated the process, [Professor Ian] Gotlib said. Premature aging of children’s brains isn’t a positive development. Before the pandemic, it was observed in cases of chronic childhood stress, trauma, abuse and neglect. These adverse childhood experiences not only make people more vulnerable to depression, anxiety, addiction and other mental illnesses, they can raise the risk of cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other long-term negative outcomes...."

From "Teen brains aged faster than normal from pandemic stress, study says/The study, which measured brain age after about 10 months of lockdown, showed that teen brains had aged at least three years in that time" (WaPo).

There's also this anecdote (have you seen cases like this?):

"The idea that human rights encompass a right to self-destruction, the conceit that people in a state of terrible suffering and vulnerability are really 'free'..."

"... to make a choice that ends all choices, the idea that a healing profession should include death in its battery of treatments — these are inherently destructive ideas. Left unchecked, they will forge a cruel brave new world, a dehumanizing final chapter for the liberal story."

Writes Ross Douthat in "What Euthanasia Has Done to Canada" (NYT). 

I'll put the next sentence after the jump because it's a surprising change in topic (but I bet you can predict it if you know how these things go these days):

How many people should be traveling to Antarctica every year? Was that "rogue wave" a wake up call?

I've already blogged about the rogue wave that killed one cruise passenger, but I want to take up the question whether Antarctica ought to be visited at all anymore — or at least not routinely by bucket-listers on cruise ships.

I'm reading "Rogue Wave Strikes Cruise Ship, Killing a Passenger and Injuring 4 Others/The passengers were hurt after a large, unpredictable wave hit the ship, which was traveling toward the Antarctic, Viking Cruises said" (NYT):

Tourism to the Antarctic has steadily increased in the last 30 years, with 74,401 people traveling there in the 2019-20 season, according to the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators. Roughly 6,700 people traveled there in the 1992-93 season, according to the association....