“The rise of the bowl cut has nothing to do with the hairstyle itself, or the view that it’s somehow a cool or attractive hairstyle to be emulated.”

“In fact, in a lot of ways, it’s precisely the fact that it looks silly that it gained traction as a white supremacist symbol. Mark Pitcavage, the senior research fellow with ADL’s Center on Extremism, compares [Dylann] Roof’s bowl cut to Hitler’s mustache: an objectively ridiculous-looking, yet distinctive enough feature that it can be easily subject to memeification. Yet the rise of the symbol is inextricably tied to part of a larger effort to canonize Roof within the white supremacist movement. The ADL started seeing white supremacists incorporate the bowl cut into their iconography around 2017, a few years after the Charleston church shooting. Pitcavage says this timing is significant, in large part because in the immediate aftermath of the Charleston shooting, many white supremacists either disavowed Roof or expressed disapproval of his actions — not necessarily for moral reasons, but because they believed violence would attract undue scrutiny to the movement.”

From “How a White Supremacist’s Haircut Became a Symbol of Hate” (Rolling Stone).

The crowd laughed at the joke that Governor Abbott “hates trees because one fell on him.”

Reported at The Federalist, in “Texas Democrat Forced To Apologize For Saying Gov. Greg Abbott ‘Hates Trees Because One Fell On Him.’”

Governor Abbott was paralyzed from the waist down at the age of 27 when he was out running on a windy day and a tree fell on him.

How I swam 100 laps today and only 20 yesterday.

Yesterday, I counted laps. 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, the whole length of the pool, and 2, 2, 2, 2, coming back. It was a boring thing to think, and it was nevertheless also hard not to lose track.

Today, I used a poem I happen to have already memorized, and I thought one word for the length of the pool and advanced to the next word for the next length and so on. I never lost track of where I was, and I found it very interesting to isolate a single word and roll it over and over in my head as I swam a length. I got many new ideas about the poem and the words of the poem mixed nicely with moving along through the water.

Did I get a “workout”? — you might ask, but I don’t, other than to imagine another person pushing me on that score. I’m just looking for pleasurable, stimulating things to do with my mind and body. For that, the one-word-per-lap/memorized poem approach was fantastic!

Why had I never thought of this before? I don’t know, but I got snagged by computer problems this morning. It slowed me down but also got me thinking laterally. Sometimes when you can’t go galumphing along in your usual way, you stand around awhile and see another avenue.

What did Schumer mean when he threatened Trump about the CIA’s ways to get back at him?

“Did anyone ever ask Sen. Schumer exactly what he meant when he warned Trump that the intel community had ‘Six ways from Sunday’ to get back at him? What made Schumer think that? What ways did he have in mind? Please send article or link if this was asked and answered. Thanks.”

Sharyl Attkisson tweeted.

[Sorry, I’ve been having some computer problems this morning, and the close quotes and “Sharyl Attkisson tweeted” got cut off. That must have been confusing. The request from more info is from Attkisson, and I’m just glad to see she’s working on that.]

Here is a girl whose name and picture should not be in the newspaper.

I saw this story in a tabloid yesterday and chose not to blog it, because the child should be protected, but now I'm seeing it in the New York Times: "Black Virginia Girl Says White Classmates Cut Her Dreadlocks on Playground/The police said they were investigating a report by 12-year-old Amari Allen that three white students forcibly cut portions of her hair at their Christian school."

The girl, Amari Allen, who is in sixth grade, and her family said the assault happened on Monday during recess on the playground of the school, Immanuel Christian School in Springfield. They said the three boys, whom they would not name, had been bullying Amari since the start of the school year in August.

“They put me on the ground,” Amari said on Friday in a phone interview. “One of them put my hands behind my back. One put his hands over my mouth. One cut my hair. They were saying that my hair was ugly, that it was nappy.”...

Cynthia Allen, who is Amari’s grandmother and legal guardian, said in an interview on Friday that Amari was initially hesitant to tell her what happened to her hair, but that on Wednesday she finally broke down crying about the episode. “They called her ugly and told her she should not be alive,” Ms. Allen said. “They said she shouldn’t have been born.”... 

Here's the NBC4 report, putting the names Mike Pence and Karen Pence in the headline: "Boys Pin Down Black Classmate, Cut Her Dreadlocks at Virginia School, She Says/The incident occurred at the evangelical Christian school where Vice President Mike Pence's wife, Karen Pence, teaches part-time." The page has teasers for stories about discrimination against black people for their hairstyles. Additional factual assertions (reported without the usual "X told Y" phrases that the NYT is careful about):

[O]n Monday, she was at recess and about to go down a slide when one of the boys grabbed her and put a hand over her mouth. Another boy grabbed her arms. A third boy cut off some of her hair.

"They put their hands over my mouth. They put my hands behind my back. And they started cutting my hair and saying it was ugly," Amari said The bell rang and the boys ran off laughing.

Scared, Amari told no one. On Wednesday, her grandmother was doing her hair when she noticed long portions of it missing. The girl started crying and told the whole story.... 

"Trump always fights. He will fight it to the very end. After all he's stood up to, it's bizarre to think he won't stand his ground now."

"He's a showman, into the narrative, and if all his enemies take arms against him, he will know he's the star of this show. He won't slink off like Nixon. And Nixon had his own party turn on him. That hasn't happened to Trump yet, but even if the GOP turned on him, it wouldn't be the same as with Nixon, because the GOP was never really on his side. It just aligned with him when it served its interests. He will be an even more poignantly heroic protagonist if his own party turns on him, and his people will love him to the end."

That's something I wrote on Facebook, after someone suggested that the Democrats may be thinking that Trump will, like Nixon, resign.

"That’s why I applaud Mattel’s Creatable World, a new collection of gender-neutral dolls, which allow kids to customize their Barbie and Ken in ways they never could before."

"The dolls come in a variety of skin tones, with extensions so they can have short or long hair and wear contemporary clothing styles that men and women have shared for decades."

Writes Hannah Sparks in The New York Post.

Does Mattel really call them "gender neutral" dolls? I'm also seeing the term "gender-fluid" in the article. They look like girl dolls to me. Lots of girls have short hair and like to wear jeans and t-shirts.

I'm looking at the Mattel website, and the words I'm seeing are the name of the product line, Creatable World, the slogan "Making Doll Play More Inclusive," and this copy:

In our world, dolls are as limitless as the kids who play with them. Introducing Creatable World™, a doll line designed to keep labels out and invite everyone in—giving kids the freedom to create their own customizable characters again and again.

So Mattel is ostensibly against "labels," but the journalists carrying their PR forward are introducing "gender neutral" and "gender-fluid." Frankly, I find this unfriendly to lesbians. And it's annoying to girls who like short hair and play clothes but feel like girls (whether they're lesbian or not). That is or should be most girls. Why slap the label "gender neutral" or "gender-fluid" on that? Mattel doesn't, and there's no reason why girls (or boys) at the playing-with-dolls age should be bothered with these labels. The idea of "Creatable World" seems to be to leave the kids to come up with their own ideas not to foist some additional adult concept onto them. Let children be children.

"Write your life in terms of ten cars from your past. Are you inside or outside the car? Where are you sitting? Who else is there? What's to your right and to your left? Where are you going?"

A writing prompt from Lynda Barry, quoted in "UW-Madison profs Lynda Barry and Andrea Dutton win $625,000 MacArthur 'genius' award" (at the subreddit r/Wisconsin).

"It’s very frustrating because this community likes to see itself as very progressive, but look what the fuck is happening with someone in our community."

"That’s why it bothered me so much. This woman, who looks like anyone you could see at a PTA meeting or next to you in yoga class, is out here terrorizing people in CVS."

Said Renée Saldaña, a witness to an incident that happened in L.A., described in "Police Are Investigating A White Woman Who Yelled The N-Word And Said She Was Pro-Lynching At A CVS." The woman did not just "yell the n-word." There's a whole long rant, with the n-word used many times. You can watch the video and read the transcript at the link (to Buzzfeed).

"The meditative 'Because' has John, Paul, and George singing every line together. John said he was listening to his wife, Yoko Ono, playing Beethoven's 'Moonlight' Sonata..."

"... asked her to play the chords backwards, and then wrote 'Because' around that. The actual chords to 'Because' aren't the same as the Moonlight Sonata's first movement played backwards or forwards, but you can still feel how the spirit of Beethoven touched Lennon."

So writes my son John in a blog post yesterday about "Abbey Road," which came out 50 years ago yesterday. I had just started college, and I remember being surrounded by people who were all so excited about the new Beatles album. I remember listening to the album for the first time with the person who would turn out to be [my son] John's father and it was specifically the song "Because" that we both especially loved the first time we heard it. I even remember the line that seemed most sublime: "Because the world is round/It turns me on."

John writes:

"Come Together" starts the album on a dark note, with the band sounding united as they play a primal, minimalistic hook that fuses guitars, bass, and drums; every instrument feels essential, especially Ringo's repeated fill. Eerily, John starts each repetition of the hook by saying: "Shoot me!"

I don't know when I started, but ever since maybe the 3rd playing of the record, I put the second side on first. To me, the album begins with "Here Comes the Sun." Very bright. Not dark!

ADDED: I added the bracketed "[my son]" because there are 2 Johns mentioned here and one could imagine not just that there's no heaven but that I got mixed up into some time travel and listened to "Abbey Road" with John Lennon's father. I don't want you to be confused!

"Dems hold Trump to double standard – What was OK for Obama isn’t OK for Trump."

Writes Andrew McCarthy (Fox News).

"When a Des Moines Register reporter on Tuesday helped expose racist tweets posted years ago by a local man who used his viral Internet fame to raise millions for a children’s hospital..."

"... it inspired a vicious backlash against 'cancel culture' — and the reporter himself, who critics soon found had his own history of offensive posts. The Register announced late Thursday that the reporter, Aaron Calvin, no longer works for the newspaper.... Critics upset with Calvin for surfacing the old tweets dug into the reporter’s own timeline and found troubling posts that mocked same-sex marriage, made light of abuse against women and used a racial slur. Calvin began deleting the old tweets Tuesday evening and then apologized...."

From "Reporter who outed racist tweets by viral fundraiser leaves Des Moines Register after his own offensive posts surface" (WaPo).

Cancel, cancel, cancel... it's a dangerous machine. You might want to step back... unless you're sure you never did or said anything bad.

I made a tag for "cancel culture." I'd been avoiding it, but this story pushed me over the line. Sorry, I'm not applying this one retroactively. It would be nice if I never had to use this one again. What's wrong with us? So hateful in the fight against hate. What bizarre hypocrisy!

"Trump’s getting impeached? I defy you to convince anyone at this cursed truck stop."

Writes Alexandria Petri, who seems to have ventured out of the elite cocoon to talk to some deplorables before condemning them for failing to match her opinion. This account of a perilous journey to the hinterlands appears in The Washington Post. She doesn't state where this truck stop is, so I'm not certain it isn't a satirical fantasy. I'm just reading the headline and glancing at the text, trying to find out exactly where this is, and I'm suspecting "cursed" is a clue that the place is her invention, the truck stop from hell.

Now, I'm reading the text.

I’ve been interviewing for what I figure is at least an hour — the clock on the wall is broken — and everyone I speak to still supports the president just as much as they did the day he was elected....

Who relies on a wall clock to know what time it is? That's your first clue.

The old man at the end of the counter shakes his head when I tell him the president is beleaguered by scandal. He’s not tied to his phone, like some of you coastal types. He’s not bound even to the latest fashion. I notice he’s wearing an old wide-brimmed hat and rimless spectacles, the kind I haven’t seen outside of movies. He says he’s still with the president, and that he doesn’t pay attention to the daily buzz of news. He has priorities like many real Americans have. I want to go out to my car, but it’s raining too hard. Coffee here is only a nickel. I order another cup.

I think that's another clue. Coffee can't be only a nickel anywhere, can it? I look it up, and find this at Eater:

A latte may cost $5—but America’s cheapest cup of coffee is a mere 5 cents.... Yet, one kitschy old place in Wall, South Dakota is garnering attention for the opposite reason. Their cup of joe only costs a nickel. And owners haven’t raised the price since the 1960s. Wall Drug Store, also known as Wall Drug, is a Western-themed diner on the edge of the Badlands that sells the bargain brew using an honor system, with serve-yourself coffee urns and piggy bank-style boxes where customers drop their change. 

Well, hell. I feel like I've dropped into my own surreal scenario. I look up the clue — 5¢ coffee — and I get an answer about what "truck stop" we're talking about and there it is: "South Dakota is garnering attention"... garnering! That word I've been railing against since 2015 (click the tag for more). Sometimes it seems the universe is winking at me.

Back to Petri:

I try to say something about the impeachment, but no one can hear me over the noise of the soybeans, growing healthy and strong. I have never heard a soybean so loud before....

Okay. Ha ha. So funny. Laughing at the farmers.

When I look at my watch, the hands don’t seem to move, but when I look at it again after my next sip of coffee, it says hours have passed. How long have I been here?

So she's not relying on the wall clock.

Someone tries to mention the phone call to the president of Ukraine, and out of nowhere, pigs in all the neighboring fields begin to screech, horribly, an almost human sound, and they only stop when he gives up mentioning it....

Oh, no. She's laughing at the idea of people living in farm country. It makes them so stupid. The screeching of the plants and animals fills up their useful-for-nothing-but-farming brains. What tags should I give this? Besides "garner (the word!)," I mean. I'm thinking "class politics."

The corn and soybeans don’t care about what the president has been doing on his phone calls to Ukraine. Whenever I try to ask, something rustles against the window, and it’s corn. I think it must be higher than an elephant’s eye now. The corn is pressed right up to the glass. I think the corn wants to get inside.

This is the figure of speech called "metonymy" — the things associated with people stand in for the people. She's talking about corn and soybeans as a way to talk about the people. You can only do this with white people, by the way. Talk about black people as animals and your career is over, but talk about white people as plants and you'll do fine.

There’s a Norman Rockwell painting hung on the wall, and it says it doesn’t think the president has done anything bad. There’s a scarecrow in a pair of dungarees with a big pitchfork. He and his pitchfork both voted for Trump. They will vote for him in the next hundred elections. When I turn around from talking to them, I don’t see the windows anymore. Is it day or night? I thought there used to be windows. Has it always been so dark? Are we underground?...

Here's the reveal that it's all a bad dream, presumably. Ha ha ha. Not fake news, not class snobbery, just something hilarious cooked up in the Washington Post for the comfortable amusement of its readers.

The walls are packed earth and so is the clock and it still hasn’t moved and now there is something crawling in the wall. The wall bursts! There’s an enormous worm here, and I pledge allegiance to it, willingly. I burn my notebook for King Worm!...

Just in case you were slow picking up that this is satire, you're beaten over the head with a giant phallic symbol (and soon enough "The walls squeeze in and out, like the clenching of an enormous fist!").

Good satire? A commenter over there says: "Wow. A bravura performance. Perfectly captures the dystopic and Kafka-esque reactions of the right wing to this clear cut (and clearly impeachable) scandal. Kudos, Ms. Petri."

In troublesome times, keep your spirits up.

"The agency is aware of the growing homelessness crisis developing in major California cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, and the impact of this crisis on the environment."

"Based upon data and reports, the agency is concerned that California’s implementation of federal environmental laws is failing to meet its obligations required under delegated federal programs."

Wrote EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to California Governor Gavin Newsome, quoted in "EPA tells California it is ‘failing to meet its obligations’ to protect the environment" (WaPo).

San Francisco officials reject the idea that they have failed to capture objects such as needles because they send sewage and street runoff to the same pipes. This combined discharge is treated at one of the city’s sewage treatment plants, where pollutants are captured or treated before being released to the San Francisco Bay or the Pacific Ocean.

“We have our challenges in San Francisco around homelessness,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s communications director, Jeff Cretan, said in response to Trump’s comments aboard Air Force One. “But in terms of needles flowing into the bay, it’s absolutely ridiculous.”

In terms of excrement flowing into the bay, it’s not absolutely ridiculous.

San Francisco is one of the few major cities with sewers that combine stormwater and sewage flows that is not operating under a federal consent decree.

Drawing on public databases and press reports — including a NPR report in August that “piles of human feces” are now visible on sidewalks and streets in San Francisco — Wheeler noted that even California’s own government has posted studies noting that human waste can increase bacteria levels in water off its beaches.

Apple's Emily Dickinson.

It's getting a reaction.

This new Dickinson show on Apple TV+ is hilarious for the simple reason that it’s triggering copious amounts of white people into “This isn’t Emily Dickinson!” rants and that makes me wanna watch it more, oddly.

Bravo, Tim Apple...

— Major K, MBA (@MajorKMusic) September 22, 2019

Me, I'm going to watch it and everything else more oddly.