At the Saturday Night Cafe...

... you can talk all night.

"Its glorious Great Barrier Reef is dying, its world-heritage rain forests are burning, its giant kelp forests have largely vanished, numerous towns have run out of water or are about to..."

"... and now the vast continent is burning on a scale never before seen. The images of the fires are a cross between 'Mad Max' and 'On the Beach': thousands driven onto beaches in a dull orange haze, crowded tableaux of people and animals almost medieval in their strange muteness — half-Bruegel, half-Bosch, ringed by fire, survivors’ faces hidden behind masks and swimming goggles. Day turns to night as smoke extinguishes all light in the horrifying minutes before the red glow announces the imminence of the inferno. Flames leaping 200 feet into the air. Fire tornadoes. Terrified children at the helm of dinghies, piloting away from the flames, refugees in their own country.... As Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader, once observed, the collapse of the Soviet Union began with the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in 1986. In the wake of that catastrophe, 'the system as we knew it became untenable,' he wrote in 2006. Could it be that the immense, still-unfolding tragedy of the Australian fires may yet prove to be the Chernobyl of climate crisis?"

From "Australia Is Committing Climate Suicide/As record fires rage, the country’s leaders seem intent on sending it to its doom" by the novelist Richard Flanagan (NYT).

"I want people to take responsibility and not just constantly point a finger at somebody else, saying, 'You’ve ruined my life.'... #MeToo is a witch-hunt."

"I really feel there were a lot of people, decent people, or mildly irritating people, who were getting hammered. That’s wrong. I don’t like mob mentality.... When you have power [like Harvey Weinstein], you don’t take responsibility for abusing others. You enjoy the power. That’s the way it works in reality.... [His victims] were ambitious adults.… There are many victims in Harvey’s life, and I feel sympathy for them, but then, Hollywood is full of very ambitious people who are adults and they make choices."

Said the director Terry Gilliam, quoted in "Terry Gilliam faces backlash after labeling #MeToo a 'witch-hunt'/Director told the Independent he was ‘tired, as a white male, of being blamed for everything that is wrong with the world’" (The Guardian).

Meanwhile, Harvey Weinstein himself answered some emailed questions from CNN:

"The past two years have been grueling and have presented me with a great opportunity for self-reflection," Weinstein wrote. "I realize now that I was consumed with my work, my company and my drive for success. This caused me to neglect my family, my relationships and to lash out at the people around me. I have been in rehab since October 2017, and have been involved in a 12-step program and meditation. I have learned to give up my need for control."...

Weinstein declined to answer if he felt empathy for his accusers. "While I do have many empathetic opinions regarding many people, I am following the advice of my lawyers on the eve of my trial to not offer any commentary on this," he responded....

"My meditation and focus on looking inward has helped me balance my emotions," Weinstein wrote. "The whole process has been overwhelming, but I am working every day to stay level."

There's something I do every day that if you do it too you'll know why I'm looking at this picture today.

That's "Portrait of a Lady (formerly incorrectly identified as Christina of Denmark, Dowager-Duchess of Milan and Lorraine [1521–1590])" at the Wikipedia article "Bobbin lace" ("Bobbin lace is a lace textile made by braiding and twisting lengths of thread, which are wound on bobbins to manage them. As the work progresses, the weaving is held in place with pins set in a lace pillow, the placement of the pins usually determined by a pattern or pricking pinned on the pillow. Bobbin lace is also known as pillow lace, because it was worked on a pillow, and bone lace, because early bobbins were made of bone or ivory.")

Anyway, I love the painting — the fabulously homely face and the elaborate detail to the clothing.

"It’s possible to create a realistic portrait of contemporary San Francisco by simply listing all the harebrained new-money antics and 'mindful' hippie-redux principles that flourish there."

"All you have to do after that is juxtapose them with the effects of the city’s rocket-ship rents: a once-lively counterculture gasping for air and a 'concentration of public pain' shameful and shocking even to a native New Yorker. [Anna] Wiener deploys this strategy liberally, with adroit specificity and arch timing... By the end of the book, she shows that technologists are not interested in 'systems' thinking only because it can fix what’s broken; they are 'settling into newfound political power,' with armies of trolls now serving as foot soldiers in what founders call a 'war' for market share. Being skilled at deconstruction is a disadvantage for a customer-support specialist hoping to find 'meaning' in her work, and for a millennial who values moving through the world with a clear sense of right and wrong. For a writer, though, it’s a pickax, and we’re living through a gold rush, as they might say in San Francisco."

From "A Tech Insider Stylishly Chronicles Her Industry’s ‘Uncanny Valley’" (NYT) by the novelist Lauren Oyler (reviewing "Uncanny Valley" by Anna Wiener).

While I was at Amazon getting that link, I did a search inside the book for "blogging," and so here's a screenshot, just one thing that I found:

Forget the musician boyfriend. Just have sex with the room. Apparently.

"Every time there is more surveillance and more captured of the lived experience, that will be helpful for police investigators. The consequences are an erosion of privacy..."

"... and security at our homes and in our private moments. The trade-off is one that is hard, but also one I’m not sure citizens have fully understood when they decided to buy a little extra security for their home.”

Said lawprof Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, quoted in "Man Captured on Doorbell Camera Footage Confessing to Murder/'I killed Jennifer,' the man said before his arrest, according to the authorities. The episode is one of several recent examples of doorbell cameras yielding footage that becomes useful to the local authorities" (NYT).

What are the invasions of privacy accomplished by doorbell cameras? People are outdoors and in public. Quite aside from privacy, how is there an "erosion of... security"? Maybe the professor didn't mean to say that, but I guess the man who said "I killed Jennifer" lost whatever security he may have had in escaping undiscovered.

Trump with the Evangelicals.

Yesterday, in Miami:



ADDED: Here's a Guardian article about Trump's rally, "'He was sent to us': at church rally, evangelicals worship God and Trump":

“My administration will never stop fighting for Americans of faith,” Trump said at the conclusion of an often freewheeling 75-minute speech. “We will restore the faith as the true foundation of American life.”...

Friday’s rally, hastily organized in the wake of a stinging Christianity Today editorial last month, recognized Trump’s need to retain the loyalty of the evangelical voting bloc that propelled him to victory in 2016. Four years ago, he won 80% backing from white evangelical voters nationwide.

“In 2016 evangelical Christians went out and helped us in numbers never seen before. We’re going to blow those numbers away in 2020,” Trump said. “I really believe we have God on our side.”

And I noticed this:

This is called a “laying on of hands,” a practice done by tens of millions of Americans in worship service.

Your bigoted attitude towards mainstream religious practices is what is fueling anti-Semitic violence in New York. https://t.co/7xFnPReZ3P

— Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) January 4, 2020

"Methodism in the United States dates to the early 1700s, with a long history of valuing local congregations over a top-down structure. It has split many times..."

"... most notably over slavery before the Civil War. Membership is varied demographically and politically, counting as adherents everyone from Hillary Clinton to Jeff Sessions.... [C]ongregations overseas are growing rapidly, particularly in Africa; there are nearly 3 million members in Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo. These groups tend to be more conservative than the typical American Methodist, which in part explains the vote in St. Louis, where more than 40 percent of delegates were from outside the United States.... Though the traditionalists won the narrow vote in 2019, it is the progressives who will remain under the banner of the United Methodist Church...."

From "United Methodist Church Announces Plan to Split Over Same-Sex Marriage/Under an agreement to be voted on in May, a new 'traditionalist Methodist' denomination would continue to ban same-sex marriage and gay and lesbian clergy" (NYT).

"It’s well documented at this point. Modern employees are feeling more stressed than ever."

Well, first of all, I don't believe that. Also, I'm not sure I understand. Does it mean that employees today are feeling more stressed than employees at any other time in human history or does it mean that within the category of modern employees, the most stress is happening right now? Either way, it seems unlikely to be true and silly to assert that it's "well documented."

But that's okay, because I wanted to express extreme skepticism about the main assertion in the article (linked by Drudge): Having a potted plant on your desk reduces stress. That's some low-grade stress if a potted plant is helping. Also, how stressed are you if you've got room on your desk for a plant (or if you have just enough room but will experience the new form of stress that is worrying about knocking the thing off the desk)?

[R]esearchers wanted to determine just how much relief workers felt after intentionally looking at an indoor plant whenever they started to feel tired on the job....

You have to intentionally look at it. One more task to complete.

"Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg saw a 6-point bump in the latest Hill.TV survey of the Democratic presidential primary."

I'm reading "Bloomberg rises to third place alongside Warren in national poll" (The Hill).

That tie has each of them at merely 11%, so that's pretty bad for Warren. As for Bloomberg, it's notable that he hasn't been in the debates (and can't be in the debates, because he's paying his own expenses and not collecting the donations that have been made the basis of qualifying to debate).

Bloomberg is kind of okay to me. I like his blandness. I'm sure he's thought of the slogan "Okay, Bloomberg," and that would express what I like about him. Nothing wrong with him. I like his response to the Soleimani killing and I liked his response to the pick-the-best-subway-seat meme:

I always stand. https://t.co/1QDM7KcST2 pic.twitter.com/kmc6F7IOIl

— Mike Bloomberg (@MikeBloomberg) January 2, 2020

But does it mean he made the wrong call?

I'm trying to read the Washington Post editorial, "Yes, Soleimani was an enemy. That doesn’t mean Trump made the right call."

My post title is the question I had when I read that headline. I've now read the editorial, and I can tell you that the editors do not answer my question.

It simply ends with the statement that Trump hasn't explained why the killing "is in America’s strategic interest."

By the way, WaPo calls it an "assassination," in that editorial and in at least 7 other pieces. If you use the word "assassination," aren't you implicitly saying it's wrong?

The "collab house" is not a hippie commune and not a sweat shop.

I'm reading "Hype House and the Los Angeles TikTok Mansion Gold Rush/The city is home to a land rush of 'collab houses,' where the content creators are getting younger and younger/Collab houses are beneficial to influencers in lots of ways" in the NYT, which seems to believe this is just really cool... or that the NYT is cool or you'll think it's cool that they're showing you these people, who look so pretty and vibrant in the photograph of them photographing themselves.

So-called collab houses, also known as content houses, are an established tradition in the influencer world....

“It’s a brilliant move for power players on these platforms to lift each other up,” said Sam Sheffer, a YouTuber and technologist. “‘Elevate others to elevate yourself’ is a saying, and it really rings true with this new generation of TikTokers. From a management perspective, it’s great... It just means all the kids will focus on content.”...

[I]f you want to be a part of the group, you need to churn out content daily. “If someone slips up constantly, they’ll not be a part of this team anymore,” [said Thomas Petrou, 21, a YouTube star]. “You can’t come and stay with us for a week and not make any videos, it’s not going to work. This whole house is designed for productivity. If you want to party, there’s hundreds of houses that throw parties in L.A. every weekend. We don’t want to be that. It’s not in line with anyone in this house’s brand. This house is about creating something big, and you can’t do that if you’re going out on the weekends.”...

MaiLinh Nguyen, a former videographer for Jake Paul, said... “I don’t think it’s sustainable to just be a collective forever... At some point if they want to do a pop-up shop, or release Hype House merch, they need to figure out how to divvy things up financially and they’re going to have to legitimize it as a business.”...

If you want to immerse yourself in influencer and internet culture, there’s no better place to be.... “It’s 24/7 here. Last night we posted at 2 a.m.,” Thomas said. “There’s probably 100 TikToks made here per day. At minimum.”

This is the kind of fact pattern I used to make Civil Procedure exams out of. This combines "The Real World" and "America's Funniest Home Videos." Back in the 90s I made into jurisdiction-and-joinder problems out of both of those shows. Not at the same time. In separate exams.

I remember reading — year ago — about media writers in a house in Brooklyn. Ah, yes, here it is: "From Mars/A young man’s adventures in women’s publishing" (in The New Yorker, in 2013):

On her first day of work, instead of going to an office, [Jenny Hollander, a twenty-three-year-old Columbia Journalism School student] arrived at a newly renovated four-story town house in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It had two kitchens, two living rooms, and a roof deck—all decorated in a funky flea-market style. The house was the headquarters of Bustle, a new online publication for women. There were four editors in their mid-twenties, and a gaggle of interns—college students or recent graduates, all women—sat around, typing on MacBooks. Many students have summer jobs that involve little more than fetching coffee and maintaining Twitter feeds, so Hollander was surprised when she was told to take out her laptop and start writing blog posts. “I called my housemate and was, like, ‘So I’m doing this job, and all I’m doing is sitting on sofas in this gorgeous house with a bunch of other girls, and we’re all writing together!’ ”...

Around noon, twenty-six writers and editors assembled in the second-floor living room. The scene resembled a dorm meeting at an exclusive college: the women, dressed in sandals and jeans, crowded onto couches and the floor. Someone had ordered Thai food for lunch, and take-out boxes were piled on the kitchen counter. Goldberg slumped at the end of the couch, with his hands behind his head. He was the only man in the room....

The writers and editors talked about their visions for the site. Turits said, “I often sit on my couch, and I watch MSNBC while painting my toenails. It didn’t feel like there was a Web site that felt like the Internet equivalent of watching MSNBC while painting my toenails.”...

Goldberg... likes to characterize himself as the leader of a youth revolt, rather than as a capitalist overlord.... 

Bustle is still around. Here's my screen shot of a portion of the current front page:



If I wanted to create more content, I'd explain the feeling that made me select that visual snippet. But it's time to move on — to go balls out and do something with all my power. About giant dogs. And loneliness.

At the Least Interesting Sunrise Café...

... you make your own entertainment.

This was, I think, the dullest possible sunrise. You're seeing the western view at 7:25. The "actual" sunrise took place at 7:30, which is an interesting time in that it's the latest sunrise time of the year, and we're stuck on that number until the 7th.

The art of the face.

Buttigieg comes as close to approving of the icing of Soleimani as a Democratic candidate is likely to get.

My statement on the killing of Qassim Suleimani. pic.twitter.com/DUCVczjNzm

— Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) January 3, 2020

Dershowitz gives the legal opinion on the blowing up of Suleimani.

The targeted killing of Soleimani was a lawful, proportional, preemptive military action against a combatant enemy who had killed and was planning to kill Americans. See my book: Preemption: A Knife that Cuts Both Ways.

— Alan Dershowitz (@AlanDersh) January 3, 2020