Overheard... 19 years ago.

Notes written in the back of a book I happened to take down from the shelf. It represents how people talked in a music store in Madison, Wisconsin in 1997:

"Bernie Sanders will win the Wyoming Democratic caucuses... providing his campaign with one more jolt of momentum...."

"The Vermont senator was favored going into the caucuses. Wyoming is similar to other places he's won with big margins: rural, Western and overwhelmingly white. The victory is Sanders' eighth out of the last nine contests, a big morale booster heading into the crucial New York primary on April 19."

"Oh my god, it’s like the Zapruder film—if nothing had happened."

Said Bill Maher about the Corey Lewandowski video.

“But everybody on the left had to say—and this is what I hate when liberals do, when they mimic the stupidity of the right—they had to get on team ‘he almost killed her.’ And this woman said, and she was talking about the whole event, she said, ‘This has to be, aside from my father’s death, the worst experience I’ve gone through,’ and I thought, ‘What a charmed, lucky, clueless white girl life you have lived if that’s the worst thing that happened to you.’ Do we have to politicize everything?”

“[Lewandowski] shouldn’t have been [arrested]! It’s not assault!” Maher exclaimed later, adding, “If you cut in line in a bathroom at a nightclub, would there be an assault charge? Nobody can take someone’s arm anymore in America? That’s assault?”

The tea/sex analogy.

An animation from Emmeline May and Blue Seat Studios (note: language warning):



I found that after seeing this version — with a British voiceover — by the Thames Valley Police:



I found that via Metafilter, where people seemed charmed by the Britishness... even though Blue Seat Studios seems to be located in Providence, Rhode Island.

"According to the prosecutors, [former Speaker of the House Dennis] Hastert gave one boy, a 14-year-old freshman wrestler, a massage in the locker room, then performed an unspecified sex act on him."

"Another boy, Stephen Reinboldt, who died in 1995, was sexually abused by Mr. Hastert throughout high school in the late 1960s and early 1970s, his sister and others told the prosecutors. A third boy, who was 17 and remembered Mr. Hastert sitting in a recliner-type chair with a direct view of the locker room shower stalls, said Mr. Hastert had told him that one way to make his wrestling weight was to get a massage, then performed a sexual act. And prosecutors said Mr. Hastert had massaged another boy’s groin area after asking the boy to stay in his hotel room during a wrestling camp."

The details the federal prosecutor's case against Hastert come out. Hastert was a high school wrestling coach long ago. He has pleaded guilty to a banking violation (related to paying off one of the alleged victims), and he will be sentenced later this month.

"For Americans, and perhaps Anglo-Saxons generally, law is a lowest common denominator of civic morality."

"It’s what we expect everyone to do all the time, and if a law is being widely disobeyed, for us that’s a crisis – we either want to repeal the law or launch a crackdown, but we can’t have people making exceptions on the fly. For Mediterranean cultures, which still shape the thought-world of the Vatican to a significant degree, law is instead more akin to an ideal. It describes a moral aspiration, but realistically it’s understood that many people much of the time will fall short. (If you don’t believe it, come to Italy sometime and watch how the locals approach traffic laws!)"

Writes John L. Allen Jr. — the editor of Crux, which covers the Vatican — explaining how to think about "Amoris Laetitia," the Pope's new exhortation. The Pope didn't change any law, but he encouraged more flexibility applying it.

By the way, I don't agree with Allen that Americans are hot to strictly enforce all the law on the books. And I wish there were more pressure to repeal (and to avoid enacting) the laws we're not willing to enforce, but it seems that a lot of us like aspirational junk cluttering the statute books and making us skittish people uneasy and tempting corrupt officials to selectively prosecute. Just look at Colorado's open commerce in marijuana and the federal Controlled Substances Act. Why isn't that bothering people more? And look at the uproar among pro-lifers when Donald Trump said that if abortions were criminalized the women that have them should encounter some kind of punishment.

"No, we’re not going to wrap this up — I’m going to wrap you up. You go sit down over there and learn something."

Said Steve Miller at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony last night.

"This is how close this whole show came to not happening because of the way the artists are being treated...."

What was his problem?

“The whole process is unpleasant.... They need to respect the artists they say they’re honoring, which they don’t.”

It seems to be about money. He didn't like the licensing agreements for the TV show of the ceremony, and he didn't like the way the tickets were distributed:

“When they told me I was inducted they said, ‘You have two tickets — one for your wife and one for yourself. Want another one? It’s $10,000. Sorry, that’s the way it goes.... What about my band? What about their wives?”

Who benefits from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? When an artist gets in, is he mostly giving or mostly getting?  I guess it depends on the artist. Steve Miller was lucky to get in at all, wasn't he? Maybe they told him that — or suggested as much — when they drove the bargain. They have to put on a show every year, and I wonder if some people — like Miller — are brought in to fill out the concert and maybe they realize that they're second tier and treated as such. I mean, what is the process for getting in?

Janet Morrissey of The New York Times wrote, "With fame and money at stake, it's no surprise that a lot of backstage lobbying goes on. Why any particular act is chosen in any particular year is a mystery to performers as well as outsiders – and committee members say they want to keep it that way." Jon Landau, the chairman of the nominating committee, says they prefer it that way. "We've done a good job of keeping the proceedings nontransparent. It all dies in the room."...

Here's some opinion on the Hall of Fame by Mike Nesmith (in the context of responding to the controversy over whether The Monkees, who are not in, should be):

I can see the HOF is a private enterprise. It seems to operate as a business, and the inductees are there by some action of the owners of the Enterprise. The inductees appear to be chosen at the owner’s pleasure.

This seems proper to me.

It is their business in any case. It does not seem to me that the HOF carries a public mandate, nor should it be compelled to conform to one.

And that may be the rub.

The main argument afoot is that popularity and the history and the work should somehow provide the HOF not only a mandate but also validation that should compel and convince them/it, and also be enforceable.

That doesn’t seem like a good argument, but as I say – I don’t know. I rode out the hurricane in the mobile home that is all that is left standing while all about it are vacant concrete pads and stubbs of power lines.

Yes, I know. He misspelled "stubs." He misspelled "stubs" and his mother invented Liquid Paper. If you look up Mike Nesmith in the modern "Dictionary of Received Ideas," you'll read one thing: His mother invented Liquid Paper. Liquid Paper, not Wite-Out. "Wite" isn't the right way to spell "white," you know. All the errors can be corrected later, so maybe you shouldn't worry about errors anymore. Mike Nesmith moved on after the metaphorical hurricane. He was living in a metaphorical mobile home, not the metaphorical record player designed by I.M. Pei — which is not a misspelling of I Am Pay — which was bankrolled — in part — by the needy people of Cleveland.

Who's saying this and what and whom is he saying it about?

"We talk about it, and a number of people have talked about it, including his family. And he knows that it’s a problem. And the first part of solving the problem is recognizing that it exists."

Answer here.

"A Dane County judge on Friday struck down Wisconsin's so-called right-to-work law, finding it violated the state constitution."

"Attorney General Brad Schimel said he would appeal and felt confident it would ultimately be upheld, noting every other state's right-to-work law has survived court challenges."

Dane County = Madison.

Bill Clinton almost wants to apologize.

Today, in Erie, Pennsylvania:

"Now I like and believe in protests. I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't 'cause I engaged in some when I was a kid.... But I never thought I should drown anybody else out. And I confess, maybe it's just a sign of old age, but it bothers me now when that happens. So I did something yesterday in Philadelphia. I almost want to apologize for it, but I want to use it as an example of the danger threatening our country.... I rather vigorously defended my wife, as I am wont to do, and I realized, finally, I was talking past [the protester] the way she was talking past me. We gotta stop that in this country. We gotta listen to each other again."

ADDED: I just want to say that I love the phrasing "I almost want to apologize." It's just lovely snark. It's emphatically not a nonapology (which would be something like "I'm sorry if you were offended"). He's making a point of withholding the apology. He's considered it and decided it's not called for. But he "almost wants" because he's an open, warm-hearted guy who cares about other people. He feels your pain. But the want is incomplete. He's got some restraint. The mind rules over impulse, and an apology is just not deserved.

The Pope exhorts us to "The Joy of Love" ("Amoris Laetitia").

Some excerpts at the NYT.

Here's the part about gay people:

Every person, regardless of sexual orientation, ought to be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration, while ‘every sign of unjust discrimination’ is to be carefully avoided, particularly any form of aggression and violence. Such families should be given respectful pastoral guidance, so that those who manifest a homosexual orientation can receive the assistance they need to understand and fully carry out God’s will in their lives.

And gay marriage:

In discussing the dignity and mission of the family, the Synod Fathers observed that, ‘as for proposals to place unions between homosexual persons on the same level as marriage, there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.’ It is unacceptable ‘that local Churches should be subjected to pressure in this matter and that international bodies should make financial aid to poor countries dependent on the introduction of laws to establish ‘marriage’ between persons of the same sex.

"Patient secretly recorded doctors as they operated on her. Should she be so distressed by what she heard?"

I don't know about that.

But it occurred to me: Why aren't we entitled to a recording of what is said around our body when we're under anesthesia? Why should you have to sneak a recording device into your ponytail? You have to be knocked out for the surgery, and all these people have access to your vulnerable body, why shouldn't you have a right to use an artificial device to do what your senses would normally do — monitor what's happening to you? Do the doctors and nurses have an interest in having a private conversation around your body? I'd say you have the greater interest in finding out what's happening to you when you're unconscious. Anyone who wants to make a recording should be able to do it openly. You wouldn't need to take any additional steps to improve the "bedside manner" of doctors and nurses.

What's the argument on the other side? The only halfway decent thing I can think of is that maybe better surgery gets done when doctors and nurses are blowing off steam, blabbing carelessly, aimlessly and not distracted by wondering what the patient will think of it. Remarks about how some body part looks — maybe it helps to say something crude or mean now and then. Maybe it's important not to think of everything from the point of view of a patient who might be sensitive and unduly judgmental.

IN THE COMMENTS: MisterBuddwing said:

Er, Professor, you tackled this very subject last December: http://althouse.blogspot.com/2015/12/after-five-minutes-of-talking-to-you-in.html

That post is about a man who used his cell phone to make a recording, and, in the comments there, john mosby said:

When I had a colonoscopy, I had to put all my clothes and personal effects in a locker, then put on a hospital gown. I assume this was to help keep the procedure room sterile and to avoid "hey, my necklace is missing!" claims. Where the heck did this guy conceal the cellphone?

And I said:

Can't you just buy something like this and pin it inside the hospital gown or hide it in your hair?

That's what the lady in this new article did. I'm not saying she got the idea from me — she did it before I made the suggestion — just that it's not such an odd and paranoid thing to think of getting a tiny USB device and hiding it in your hair.

Let's see... a Clinton joke about head...

... must the jokes write themselves?

I couldn't bring myself to live-blog the final finale of "American Idol"...

... maybe you remember the old, old days of this blog when I did live-blog the show. But I watched. I'll blog a couple news stories about it, and then I want to share an opinion about American people voting, something that transcends the show and relates to the presidential election.

TIME's reviewer says:

The series... was at its best all about democracy. And on Thursday night it provided a sort of recall election, placing the vast majority of its alumni performers into stagings chosen seemingly at random.... Five of them, the so-called White Guys With Guitars who marked the show’s later years in which tween girls were the major voting base, were limited to 20 percent apiece of a David Bowie tribute. Jordin Sparks and Taylor Hicks, two relatively early winners, had arguably less to do than Pia Toscano, who came in ninth place five years ago....

The show began with President Obama — on video, not in the theater — and he looked so bad that I thought it was some anti-Obama political ad. He wasn't properly made up for the camera and he looked really tired. His congratulations to the show morphed into a lecture on voting:

"Voting is the most fundamental and sacred right of our democracy. I believe it should be almost as easy as voting on 'American Idol,' and we're working on that. But when we choose not to vote we surrender that right."

Eh. What bilge. Voting is the most sacred right? Voting in elections should be like voting on "American Idol," where you call and text in multiple votes? And you surrender your right if you don't use it? No, you don't. Just as you have a right not to speak (as part of freedom of speech) and a right not to have a religion (as part of freedom of religion), the right to vote includes the right to abstain. And abstaining when you have no preference in an election makes as much sense as keeping silent when you've got nothing to say and not bothering to act like you have a religion when you don't sincerely believe.

Obama ended by wagging a finger at us and telling us to go to vote.gov and register.

Now, the thing about voting is, I think, Americans don't like to be told what to do. We didn't like being told we were going to vote for Jeb Bush, and we've been putting up an agonizingly long, slow resistance to getting Hillary jammed down our throat.

On this last season of "American Idol," the judges continually acted as if it was already understood that the winner was going to be La'Porsha Renae. We were supposed to vote, but we were supposed to vote for her. [SPOILER ALERT.]

No matter how much progress anybody else made, no matter how hard he worked to win us over, the fix was in. But the "American Idol" establishment couldn't make it happen, and the other guy, Trent Harmon, won:

Harmon tumbled to the stage in surprise as host Ryan Seacrest announced him as the 15th and final winner....

"I know that I have a God-given ability, but I didn't want to take it for granted. I wanted to work so, so hard, and she pushed me to do it," a tearful Harmon said of Renae, who stood poised and smiling by his side.

The judges hurt Renae's case by leaning on us to vote their idea of what is correct. We rebel. Don't tell us what to do.

ADDED: WaPo demagogues it: "Surprising no one, white man bests black woman to become final ‘American Idol’ winner." The first 3 words of that headline are a blatant lie. Most were surprised. And:

As one Twitter user put it: “ANOTHER basic white boy” had triumphed.

Sweden wants love.

"To gin up interest in the Scandinavian country, a Swedish tourism agency created the Swedish Number, 46-771-793-336, a single phone line that connects international callers to randomly selected Swedish volunteers to chat about whatever is on their minds...."

The Swedish Number’s website invites callers to “talk about anything you want.” After I dialed the number... an automated voice responded: “Calling Sweden. You will soon be connected to a random Swede, somewhere in Sweden.”"...

By letting everyday Swedes communicate directly with foreigners, tourism officials hope to present a more authentic picture of the country than one conjured up by a marketing agency, said Magnus Ling, the secretary general and chief executive of the Swedish Tourist Association.

Yes, he acknowledged, the chats could go off the rails. But he had little fear of lewd, meanspirited or even dangerous correspondence — he believed that people have good intentions, he said. And he believed the Swedish people would make good ambassadors for the country.

The linked article is in the NYT. The coverage leans cutesy, and there's zero acknowledgement that Sweden might have a tourism problem based on news reports that might lead women to believe that we are not safe walking alone there.

For example, from last month: "Police defend warning for solo women in northern Sweden." And: "Two 10-year-old schoolgirls molested and a woman's trousers ripped off: Inside the sleepy Swedish town rocked by EIGHT sex attacks in three weeks by migrant men."

"The computer models that predict climate change may be overestimating the cooling power of clouds...."

"... new research suggests."

Using data from instruments aboard the Calipso satellite, which monitors clouds and particles suspended in the atmosphere, the researchers determined that mixed-phase clouds contain more water and less ice than expected. Water droplets reflect more solar radiation back into the sky than ice crystals do. As the atmosphere warms, clouds tend to have more water and less ice in them, and the more watery clouds prevent solar radiation from reaching the earth.... With less ice in the mix to start, however, there is less capacity for water to replace ice.... The result... is more warming.