The NYT focuses on the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

I'm reading "2023’s Biggest, Most Unusual Race Centers on Abortion and Democracy/The election for a swing seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court has huge policy stakes for the battleground state. Cash is pouring in, and some of the candidates have shed any pretense of judicial neutrality" by Reid J. Epstein.

The seat is nonpartisan in name only, with officials from both parties lining up behind chosen candidates. Indeed, the clash for the court is striking because of how nakedly political it is. ...

"[I]t wasn’t hard to spot Russian literature in the discourse surrounding the war—particularly in Vladimir Putin’s repeated invocations of the 'Russian World' ('Russkiy Mir')..."

"... a concept popularized by Kremlin-linked 'philosophers' since the fall of the Soviet Union. The Russian World imagines a transnational Russian civilization, one extending even beyond the 'triune Russian nation' of 'Great Russia' (Russia), 'Little Russia' (Ukraine), and 'White Russia' (Belarus); it is united by Eastern Orthodoxy, by the Russian language, by the 'culture' of Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky—and, when necessary, by air strikes. In early March, I wasn’t altogether surprised to learn that a number of Ukrainian literary groups, including pen Ukraine, had signed a petition calling for 'a total boycott of books from Russia in the world!'—one that entailed not just cutting financial ties with publishers but ceasing to distribute or promote any books by Russian writers. Their rationale was similar to the one I’d encountered in 2019: 'Russian propaganda is woven into many books which indeed turns them into weapons and pretexts for the war.'..."

Writes Elif Batuman in "Rereading Russian Classics in the Shadow of the Ukraine War How to reckon with the ideology of 'Anna Karenina,' 'Eugene Onegin,' and other beloved books" (The New Yorker).

"Some fans tried to mount a 'Save Splash Mountain' campaign, even urging opponents of the switch to enlist the help of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R)."

"Others acknowledged they would miss a classic but were looking forward to a new chapter for the ride. Still others argued that it was past time for the original to go, given its source material."

From "Splash Mountain has closed.... The controversial flume ride at Magic Kingdom in Florida took its last plunge Sunday" (WaPo).

Splash Mountain was based on "Song of the South," the "1946 film set in post-Civil War Georgia that has been under fire since its release" and that Disney CEO Bob Iger has said is "just not appropriate in today’s world." Is he right? Who can say? Who has seen this movie? 

I've only ever seen the "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" sequence. 

Speaker McCarthy pithily states why Schiff and Swalwell will no longer serve on the House Intel Committee.

 

The questioner tries to make it about Santos — a ridiculous distraction that McCarthy rebuffs: the lies of Schiff and Swalwell are more relevant and consequential. McCarthy doesn't get sucked into trying to minimize Santos's lies. He just maximizes Schiff and Swalwell's lies. Maximizes or right-sizes.

"By this time four years ago, the Democratic presidential campaign was in full swing, with Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg and Kirsten Gillibrand..."

"...  all having opened exploratory committees or announced runs. This go around, the Republican field is frozen in place. Those preparing to challenge Donald Trump in the GOP’s presidential primary are taking their time.... An adviser to one potential presidential candidate has discussed with members of at least two other potential candidates’ teams the advantage of multiple candidates announcing around the same time, according to one Republican strategist briefed on those talks...."

From "Frozen: Trump’s primary challengers balk at jumping into the unknown" (Politico).

That makes it sound as though they're intimidated by Trump's strength — a strategist uses the phrase "safety in numbers" — but the piece goes on to say Trump is doing a good enough job defeating himself on his own:

"When you ask Americans how they save energy at home, 'turn off the lights' has been at the top of the list since the 1980s."

"But when it comes to actual savings, it doesn’t even crack the top 10. Like most conventional wisdom about how to reduce household energy and emissions, much of what we believe about our homes and appliances is wrong."

Writes WaPo's climate advice columnist Michael J. Coren, in "We still use appliances like it’s 1970. There’s a better way."

I formed the habit, back in the 1970s, of turning off lights as I exited any room and only keeping lights on in rooms that were occupied. I grew up in the 50s and 60s, when it was the norm to have the lights on all over the house in the evening. We didn't think about the pros and cons of leaving them on, but I imagine that we'd have thought it would deprive us of a feeling of coziness and optimism if the house were not lit up at night. From the outside, our house and our neighbors' houses looked warm and happy and alive.

"If you just sit tight, sometimes that renovation you wanted becomes something you would now want to un-install."

I'm reading "Want to break up with your gas fireplace? Here’s how to convert it/With pressure growing to ban natural gas in the home, experts explain what it takes to change a gas fireplace to wood-burning or electric" (WaPo). 

We live in a house that is 100 years old, and it has the original wood-burning fireplace. It's never been fiddled with, but we'd been talking about installing one of those gas-fueled, push-button gizmos that look quite realistic.

Now, it seems, these expensive improvements are becoming something a prospective buyer is going to think about needing to pay to replace. Or will they think, great, the gas fireplace is grandfathered in?

Sunrise — 7:29.

"It was like flipping a switch. I would look at food and it wasn’t even appealing, and I am someone who loves food!"

"I almost had to remind myself to eat. It just took away all the cravings.... I remember looking in the mirror, and it was almost like I didn’t even recognize myself,” she said. “My body looked great, but my face looked exhausted and old."

Said some fool quoted in "Those Weight Loss Drugs May Do a Number on Your Face/People using drugs like Ozempic are discovering an unwanted side effect: facial aging" (NYT).

It's crazy to lose weight by making food completely unappealing. Wouldn't you want to still get pleasure from the food that you do eat while eating in a way that reduces weight? And then on top of that, it makes your face look old — older, apparently, than just the usual way too much weight loss makes you look hollowed out and haggard.

And there's an additional problem: This off-label use is creating a shortage of a medicine that people with diabetes need. At least their moral failing is causing them to look bad. I know, it's also a moral failing to enjoy seeing people get their just deserts.

And, yes, it's "just deserts," not "just desserts" (though feel free to call your cake shop Just Desserts).

Is China doomed?

"Benjamin Franklin, who is often inaccurately said to have discovered electricity, once shocked himself while trying to electrocute a turkey."

"Franklin believed that 'birds kill’d in this manner eat uncommonly tender,' although modern poultry research... appears to indicate that the flesh of birds killed by electricity might actually be tougher. Franklin’s testimony is one of the earliest accounts of what it feels like to touch the wrong wire. 'I have lately made an experiment in electricity that I desire never to repeat,' he wrote to his brother. Witnesses told him that 'the flash was very great, and the crack as loud as a pistol; yet, my senses being instantly gone, I neither saw the one nor heard the other.' Of the shock itself, he wrote that he felt 'what I know not how to describe—a universal blow through my whole body from my head to my foot, which seemed within as well as without; after which the first thing I took note of was a violent, quick shaking of my body.' As a boy I once shocked myself severely by plugging in a light for my fish tank while my hands were wet. The current that traveled up my arm seemed to make its own path. When it was over, I thought, I’m still here."

That's the second-to-last paragraph of "Illuminating the Brain’s ‘Utter Darkness'/A new biography considers the peculiar life of Santiago Ramón y Cajal, whose discovery that nerve cells are individual completely overthrew the existing theory of the brain" (NYRB).

Things that must be done "within one yard of a woman."

I'm reading "'Must be within one yard of a woman': Proud Boys trial reveals group’s strict 'no wanks' rules/The group's official handbook places strict conditions on masturbation, testimony reveals" (Salon).

Here's the text of the rule: "A Proud Boy may not ejaculate alone more often than once every thirty days. That means he must abstain from pornography during that time and if he needs to ejaculate it must be within one yard of a woman with her consent. The woman may not be a prostitute."

"In academia the Soviet Jew has long been seen as an ideological suitcase ripe for stuffing."

"Whether as an idealistic but ultimately failed Communist, a Zionist in training, an eternal refugee, or a Tevye-like throwback for his nostalgic American brethren, the Soviet Jew wanders across the imagination with a counterfeit passport always in need of stamping....  The inability to conform to either traditional Jewish practice or the nascent Bolshevik state, matched with the ability to 'play them off one another' in true trickster fashion, is perhaps the central conceit of How the Soviet Jew Was Made.... " 

Writes Gary Shteyngart in "Beyond the Pale/After the Russian Revolution, Jews left behind the shtetl and had to navigate a modern identity: New Soviet Man" (NYRB)(reviewing "How the Soviet Jew Was Made" by Sasha Senderovich).

"The first time I saw Bob, I was still a folk singer and Bob was still a folk singer. He was playing at one of the big clubs in the Village...."

"I sat there and I listened to him and I said, 'Well, shit, I can sing better than that.' Then it penetrated to me what he was singing. I listened to the words. Then I thought seriously about just quitting the business and taking up another line of work. I knew I couldn’t match that...."

Wrote David Crosby, one of 80 artists quoted in the "80 Artists Pick Their Favorite Bob Dylan Song For His 80th Birthday" (Stereogum, 2021). 

Wanda Sykes, guest-hosting on "The Daily Show."

She goes after Biden and she goes after Trump.

Most interesting to me was something that wasn't a joke — before becoming a stand-up comedian, she worked for the NSA for 7 years. I had to look it up to make sure it was not a joke. Wikipedia: 

The Oscar nominees were just announced.

 Here's everything (all at once).