Credit/blame for saying the right/wrong number.

Why should it have mattered what the president said he wanted? What should have mattered is what the Democrats demanded.

— Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson) December 23, 2020

At the Sunrise Café...

... you can talk about whatever you like.

"We've been educated, we've got liberated/And had complicating matters with men.../Oh we burned our bras and we burned our dinners/And we burned our candles at both ends..."

 

"K.T. Oslin... has died, according to a statement from the Country Music Association. She was 78. Oslin became the first woman to win the CMA Award for song of the year... for '80 Ladies.'" (CNN). She won the award in 1988.

You can read the full lyrics here. 

"The man and woman never did settle in, and as Flight 462 began to taxi out to a runway, the man stood up, ignoring a flight attendant’s order to sit, saying that he had post-traumatic stress disorder..."

"A short time later... the plane shudder[ed] to a stop.... The man had forced open a cabin door, activating an emergency slide, and then he, his female companion and their [large service] dog slid their way out of the plane, officials said.... This was not the first time a panicky passenger has pulled such a maneuver at a New York-area airport, but neither Delta, the F.A.A. nor the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates La Guardia, could say on Monday just how unusual it was for someone to make such an escape... [R]ecently, a traveler aboard a Florida-bound flight at Newark Liberty International Airport fled through an emergency exit and down an inflatable slide while the plane was still at the gate in February 2018....  yelling that he did not belong on the plane because it was not his flight...."

From "2 Passengers and a Dog Slide Out of Moving Plane at La Guardia/Delta Flight 462 was delayed for hours after a male passenger forced open a cabin door while the plane was taxiing. He and his companions slid their way out of the plane" (NYT).

ADDED: These cases seem ridiculous, but claustrophobia is a real anxiety disorder. Wikipedia says: "Being enclosed or thinking about being enclosed in a confined space can trigger fears of not being able to breathe properly, and running out of oxygen.... Most claustrophobic people who find themselves in a room without windows consciously know that they aren't in danger, yet these same people will be afraid, possibly terrified to the point of incapacitation, and many do not know why." It says here that 5 to 10% of people have severe claustrophobia, so the wonder is that it is so rare to see anyone panicking on a plane. Perhaps every plane has passengers who are experiencing panic but — "terrified to the point of incapacitation" — nothing shows on the outside and taking action — like opening the emergency slide — is not an option. 

"I wish I could make it so that people were more thoughtful and kind toward each other. It’s something that I think about a lot as I move through life."

"In Japan, for example, we have priority seating on train carriages, for people who are elderly or people with a disability. If the train is relatively empty, sometimes you’ll see young people sit in these seats. If I were to say something, they’d probably tell me: 'But the train is empty, what’s the issue?' But if I were a person with a disability and I saw people sitting there, I might not want to ask them to move. I wouldn’t want to be annoying. I wish we were all a little more compassionate in these small ways. If there was a way to design the world that discouraged selfishness, that would be a change I would make." 

 From "Shigeru Miyamoto Wants to Create a Kinder World/The legendary designer on rejecting violence in games, trying to be a good boss, and building Nintendo’s Disneyland" (The New Yorker)("In 1977, Shigeru Miyamoto joined Nintendo, a company then known for selling toys, playing cards, and trivial novelties. Miyamoto was twenty-four, fresh out of art school. His employer, inspired by the success of a California company named Atari, was hoping to expand into video games. Miyamoto began tinkering with a story about a carpenter, a damsel in distress, and a giant ape...").

"I thought it was delicious. Is that because I love McDonald’s too deeply? Or is something wrong with my taste?"

Wrote someone identified as Feifei Mao Enthusiast on the Sina Weibo microblog service, quoted in "In China, McDonald’s serving Spam burger topped with Oreo crumbs...." 

In the Chicago Tribune, which observes, "Global brands from restaurants to automakers sometimes roll out offbeat products to appeal to Chinese tastes in the populous and intensely competitive market."

How deep is your love for McDonalds?

That's just Spam, mayonnaise, and crumbled Oreos, on a hamburger bun, so it would be easy to make that at home. No need to go to China!

3 hours and 24 minutes after the solstice....

 

... the darkness had resolved into this.

"Across the United States, many areas with large populations of Latinos and residents of Asian descent, including ones with the highest numbers of immigrants, had... a surge in turnout and a shift to the right, often a sizable one."

"The pattern was evident in big cities like Chicago and New York, in California and Florida, and along the Texas border with Mexico, according to a New York Times analysis of voting in 28,000 precincts in more than 20 cities..... [T]he red shifts, along with a wave of blue shifts in Republican and white areas, have scrambled the conventional wisdom of American politics and could presage a new electoral calculus for the parties.... And over all, Mr. Trump, whose policies and remarks were widely expected to alienate immigrants and voters of color, won the lion’s share of the additional turnout....  ... Mr. Trump lost ground in white and Republican areas in and around cities — ultimately leading to his election loss — he gained new votes in immigrant neighborhoods.... 'The Latino conservatives feel a lot of momentum,' said Geraldo L. Cadava, a professor at Northwestern University and author of a book on Latino Republicans. They had argued that Mr. Trump could win Latino voters, not with the Bushesque strategy of moderation on immigration, but with a Reaganesque message of personal responsibility and hard work, he said.... Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, said he worried before the election that Democrats’ focus on racial justice issues came at the expense of outreach about easing the lives of hard-pressed workers. 'In general, it suggests that Democrats’ theory of the case — that their electoral problems were all about race rather than class — was incorrect.'"

From "Immigrant Neighborhoods Shifted Red as the Country Chose Blue" (NYT).

"Undercutting Trump, Barr says there’s no basis for seizing voting machines, using special counsels for election fraud, Hunter Biden."

 WaPo reports.

"What item of clothing was the emphasis on? What is the most risky piece of clothing?"/"Underpants... The insides, the crotch."

From "Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny dupes spy into revealing how he was poisoned" (CNN).

Toxicologists consulted by CNN say that if applied in granular form to clothes, the [lethal nerve agent] Novichok would be absorbed through the skin when the victim begins to sweat....

"The standard does not appear necessary to ensure that the product meets consumer expectations, and the F.D.A. has tentatively concluded that it is no longer necessary to promote honesty and fair dealing in the interest of consumers and may limit flexibility for innovation."

Announced the FDA, quoted in "F.D.A. Wants to Stop Regulating French Dressing/The federal agency said it was seeking to revoke its definition for the carrot-colored dressing, effectively erasing a government-required list of ingredients at the request of an industry group" (NYT). 

Marion Nestle — "a professor emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University" — called bullshit on the FDA : "They want to do it because they want less fat than what’s in the standard of identity, and they want to put more junk in it. And their argument is everybody knows what these things are, and everybody knows what they’re buying." 

Whatever. It's not as if the FDA ever protected us from the deception that is labeling this stuff "French."

The dressing was originally a simple vinaigrette made of oil and vinegar, but it gradually became the gooey, sweet, tomato-inflected dressing we recognize today, [said Paul Freedman, a professor of history at Yale, and the author of “American Cuisine: And How It Got This Way"]. Unlike the French, who tend to relegate sugar to dessert, the dressing reflects Americans’ love of all things sugary, from honey mustard to bacon slathered in maple syrup, he said.

"Among jurists I have encountered in the United States and abroad, Shirley Abrahamson is the very best."

"As lawyer, law teacher and judge, she has inspired legions to follow in her way, to strive constantly to make the legal system genuinely equal and accessible to all who dwell in our fair land."

Said Ruth Bader Ginsburg, quoted in "Shirley Abrahamson, longest-serving member of Wisconsin Supreme Court, dies at 87" (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel). 

Goodbye to Shirley Abrahamson.

Maybe just do the same thing but with a pseudonym.

Ok it’s a long story but I need a pseudonym. Which one of these is your fave?

— Tom Rosenthal (@tomrosenthal) October 11, 2020

Comedy story. @adrianbliss asked me to do a cover of ‘Home’ by Edward Sharpe for a video in 2015. My cover went viral on TikTok last week. Many asked me to release it on Spotify but don’t want covers on my Spotify so say hello to @EdithWhiskers my pseudonym. Song out tomorrow! pic.twitter.com/fLl8iwTyTG

— Tom Rosenthal (@tomrosenthal) October 15, 2020

Seems a fairly appropriate 2020 thing that a woman who doesn’t exist is currently 🥈 on the global viral charts on Spotify. pic.twitter.com/FofrE7oQIZ

— Tom Rosenthal (@tomrosenthal) November 14, 2020

What a strange life this is. https://t.co/0YHJ1hgNEo

— Tom Rosenthal (@tomrosenthal) November 26, 2020

At the Sunday Night Cafe...

... you can write about whatever you want. 

"Have you ever heard of 'pronoid'?" — I ask.

Meade says: "I've heard of 'noid.'"

I say: "What is that, some R. Crumb thing?"

Meade says, yes, and I look it up. 

I'm surprised. How could we both independently think "Noid" was an R. Crumb character and it not be true? "No, 'The Noid' was a character in old Domino's Pizza ads" — I say.

The slogan was "Avoid the Noid." In 1989, a man named Kenneth Lamar Noid, who believed the character had to do with him, took hostages in a Domino's restaurant in Chamblee, Georgia. The hostages survived, and Noid was committed to a mental institution. 

"Why did we both think of R. Crumb?" — I wondered. I google "noid" and "R. Crumb" and exclaim "Snoid!" 

Wikipedia quotes a description of the Snoid as "a short-statured asshole, and many people believe that Snoid, with his fetishes, sex cravings and disdain for materialism, is little more than an alter ego for Crumb."

Yes, but what's "pronoid"? It's the Oxford English Dictionary Word of the Day. It's a recent word, created as an antonym for "paranoid." It means: "Characterized by the belief (especially when viewed as irrational) in the goodwill of others or the pervasiveness of serendipity."

The oldest usage found was from 1982: "I am interested in the manifestations of pronoia and in the conditions that encourage or produce pronoid behavior." 

From the 1997 movie "Fierce Creatures":  "You've heard of paranoid, right? It means you think that everybody's out to get you. Well pronoid is precisely the opposite."

"I grew up in the former Soviet Union and in a late, flaccid, totalitarian state, the idea that 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions' was particularly obvious."

"For seventy years, the rhetoric of the Soviet state was always about happiness for all, a better future for all, equality for all—bullshit rhetoric that was like a paper bag thrown over a bomb. But apart from learning about how the genocidal state operates, you also learn instantly to recognize this idea, in whatever guise it comes at you, that someone else knows what you need to be 'happy,' and that this knowledge is certain and enforceable. You see it miles off. It emits a special stink even before you know it’s there.... When I was growing up in Ukraine, a line from Antoine de Saint-­Exupéry’s The Little Prince seemed to capture the ethics my family was teaching me without teaching it to me didactically: 'You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.' And if you can’t handle forever, then please don’t start. Just don’t.... The idea that doing something is always better than doing nothing is very dangerous, I think.... So much work and deliberation need to happen before you actually do anything that is ethically grounded and not fundamentally self-­serving."

Says Maria Tumarkin in "Unethical Reading and the Limits of Empathy" (Yale Review).

Here's Tumarkin's book — a collection of essays — "Axiomatic."