What a difference a second makes — 7:05:36 and 7:05:37.

Sunrise this morning:

 

One second later:

I've got 11 TikToks for you this evening. Some people love them.

1. Being King is bollocks.

2. What's ironic about Jesus Christ becoming a carpenter.

3. In 1944, the NYT had to explain what pizza is. 

4. The chords the cat sings — so crazy!

5. Highlights of things working out for Daniel and David.

6. It's so hard to plug things in when you're not looking at the outlet, isn't it?

7. So, did anyone want to buy the Skin by Kim accessories?

8. The grandmother's diaries begin in 1931: Start here. Continue here.

9. Kanye West explains his "White Lives Matter" shirt.

10. Why is the judgmental chef asked to view a litter box?

11. That artwork of yours that you put on the wall and no one says a word about — what does it mean?

Frost, this morning.

"Only an optimist would look around right now and feel convinced that there existed such a thing as a 'reasonable person'..."

"... let alone one who could be used as a standard in legal cases. But if you stop believing in reasonable people — even a person who is occasionally, initially fooled by something parodic — you stop believing that democracy is possible. If you don’t believe that most people are ultimately reasonable, why on Earth would you want them to be in charge of everything? Democracy, like parody, presumes that people are capable of noticing when someone is trying to dupe them. I have to think this is among the reasons autocrats distrust parody; not just because it shows them in a bad light, but because its underlying assumption is that people can see what is in front of them."

Writes Alexandra Petri, in "Parody is an act of optimism" (WaPo), after The Onion filed an amicus brief in a Supreme Court case, Novak v. Parma, about a man who was prosecuted for putting up a website that was a parody of a police department website.

Here's the brief. Excerpt:

What are the chances that in the normal course of blogging, I would encounter 2 NYU bioethics professors in a row?

After writing the last post — the one began with a quote from an NYU bioethics professor instructing us to view a violent attack in Prospect Park as "complicated" — the next article I see makes me want to blog it and begin with a quote that just happens to come from an NYU bioethics professor.

The article is "Cyborg cockroaches are coming, and they just want to help/Inspired by insects, robotic engineers are creating machines that could aid in search-and-rescue, pollinate plants and sniff out gas leaks" (WaPo).

Here's the chunk of text that I found: 

When it comes to cyborg insects, not everyone is excited. Jeff Sebo, an animal bioethics professor at New York University, said he worries how live insects might feel being controlled by humans while carrying heavy technology. It’s unclear if they feel pain or distress from it, he said, but that doesn’t mean humans should ignore that.

“We’re not even paying lip service to their welfare or rights,” he said. “We’re not even going through the motion of having laws or policies or review boards in place so that we can halfheartedly try to reduce the harms that we impose on them.”

There seems to be a theme in NYU bioethics: When you see the empathy going one way, search for other possible recipients of empathy. Challenge people to widen their scope of empathy and not to become over-attached to what has the most obvious appeal to your emotions.

"It’s complicated. It’s a conflict of values, between wanting security and social justice. Everybody has a responsibility in some ways."

"There are a bunch of issues here, a bunch of threats. We can deal with them in a compassionate way, or a not compassionate way.”

 Said NYU bioethics and public health professor S. Matthew Liao, quoted in "How a Dog’s Killing Turned Brooklyn Progressives Against One Another/After a sudden confrontation that left a golden retriever dead, neighbors came together online to support the owner of the dog. But then things changed" (NYT). 

Notice that the long headline never refers to the attacker. We have the "killing," the "progressives," a "confrontation," a "golden retriever," "neighbors," "the owner," and "things." That's a lot of nouns generated to put a cloak of invisibility over the man who attacked a woman, then attacked the dog that defended her.

But the interesting part of the story really is how people on line switched from empathizing with the woman to viewing the man — who is black — as an embodiment of manifold social problems.

Chris Christie says "sure" he's considering running for President in 2024.

That's at the very beginning of this clip: 

 

They go on to talk about whether the U.S. would be better off with "a royal family of America," a concept that causes Chris Wallace to gasp "Oh, my God." Who would be the royal family? Maher says the Kardashians.

"Players accuse the parents of enlisting their kids as combatants against the sport, urging them to launch projectiles (footballs, Nerf darts, etc.) into their courts...."

"[A] petition to stop the pickleball 'takeover' has garnered nearly 3,000 signatures. Its backers – which include the influential Greenwich Village Little League, and at least four other downtown sports leagues – see the West Village as a tipping point: if the city doesn’t step in now, the insatiable pickleball players could monopolize untold open spaces across the city. Lydia Hirt, a local pickleball organizer, described the characterization as 'unfair,' noting the group has worked to share space with other park users. 'Pickleball is a super happy, fun sport, you know, it's called pickleball,' said Hirt, who also runs a pickleball lifestyle newsletter called the 'Love At First Dink.' 'We all just want to enjoy New York’s limited outdoor space.'"

From "'Utter takeover': Pickleball invasion prompts turf war in West Village" (Gothamist).

The anti-pickleballists are hardcore. They don't just get signatures for their petition. They garner them.

That phrase: "super happy, fun." What does that remind me of?

 

No, that's just happy fun ball. So far from a whiffle ball, but let's move on, because it's not super happy fun.

I google the phrase and the top hit is "Super Happy Fun America." Oh, no! It's right wing! Wikipedia says: 

"Musk doesn’t eat lunch, possibly because an unflattering picture in a swimsuit taken on a yacht in Mykonos went viral..."

"... over the summer. Since then, he has been on a diet. At Fonda San Miguel... he... orders a frozen margarita (he calls it a slushy with alcohol).... Musk is telling me that companies are like children when the first plates land on the table: the lamb chops in a pepper sauce, and shrimp with cheese and jalapeños.... Musk is capricious, but he sees himself as a problem solver, and the problem is everything from the potential end of life on Earth to climate change and even traffic.... Recently, he has dreamt up his own (rather unhelpful) peace plan for ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.... Musk is very exercised about population decline.... Some friends, he reveals, have indeed suggested he should have 500 kids, but that would be a 'bit weird.'... [H]e predicts that 'the current trend for most countries is that civilisation will not die with a bang, it will die with a whimper in adult diapers.' But he says ageing should not be solved. 'It’s important that people die. How long would you have liked Stalin to live?'... Musk has a dystopian view of the left’s influence on America, which helps explain his wild pursuit of Twitter to liberate free speech. He blames the fact that his teenage daughter no longer wants to be associated with him on the supposed takeover of elite schools and universities by neo-Marxists. 'It’s full-on communism . . . and a general sentiment that if you’re rich, you’re evil,' says Musk. 'It [the relationship] may change, but I have very good relationships with all the others [children]. Can’t win them all.'"

From "Elon Musk: ‘Aren’t you entertained?’/The Tesla chief talks to Roula Khalaf about moving to Mars, saving free speech via Twitter — and why ageing is one ‘problem’ that should not be solved" (Financial Times).

At the Sunrise Café...

... you can write about whatever you want.

A baby green heron.

A baby green heron bridging the gap between birds and dinosaurs. Photo: JJJFrank pic.twitter.com/xVHhPQ9a1m

— Fascinating (@fasc1nate) October 7, 2022

"Sending people to jail for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives.... That’s before you address the clear racial disparities around prosecution and conviction."

"While white and Black and brown people use marijuana at similar rates, Black and brown people are arrested, prosecuted and convicted at disproportionately higher rates."

Said Joe Biden, quoted in "Biden Pardons Thousands Convicted of Marijuana Possession Under Federal Law/The move represents a fundamental change in America’s response to a drug that has been at the center of a clash between culture and policing for more than a half-century" (NYT).

Look at that quote: Did Biden say the government is guilty of illegal race discrimination? 

I don't think he did! The rate of use of marijuana could be the same among the different races, yet if the decision to bring charges is not based on use, but some other factor, then we need more information. If the people charged with possession are the ones caught with quantities of marijuana that imply drug dealing, then the question would be whether "white and Black and brown" people deal marijuana at similar rates.

There's still potential racial disparity that ought to concern us. Who chooses a career in drug dealing?

But Biden isn't talking honestly about any of that. The racial element is thrown in confusingly and for political gain. Where is the serious and effective program of reconfiguring the embedded patterns of racial disparity?

"I’m usually wary of arguments that declining conditions are a catalyst to progress — contrary to the formulation often attributed to Vladimir Lenin, 'the worse, the better'..."

"... worse is usually just worse. I’m going to make an exception for Twitter, though. The best thing it could do for society would be to implode.... Twitter hooks people in much the same way slot machines do, with what experts call an 'intermittent reinforcement schedule.'... The company’s internal research has shown that Twitter’s algorithm amplifies right-wing accounts and news sources over left-wing ones. This dynamic will probably intensify quite a bit if Musk takes over. Musk has said that Twitter has 'a strong left bias,' and that he wants to undo permanent bans, except for spam accounts and those that explicitly call for violence. That suggests figures like Alex Jones, Steve Bannon and Marjorie Taylor Greene will be welcomed back. But as one of the people who texted Musk pointed out, returning banned right-wingers to Twitter will be a 'delicate game.'... An influx of Trumpists is not going to improve the vibe. Twitter can’t be saved. Maybe, if we’re lucky, it can be destroyed."

From Michelle Goldberg's "Here’s Hoping Elon Musk Destroys Twitter" (NYT).  

I didn't quote the beginning of the column, which says that Twitter, as it currently works, is a "hellsite." If it's already awful, when there's a repressive effort to make the place safe and welcoming, then there's already a bad "vibe." Why not embrace freedom, stop trying to control people, and see what happens — freedom for the sake of freedom, without an effort to "improve the vibe"?

Freedom is valuable in and of itself. Censorship is not. If Twitter couldn't make things better with censorship, even those who accept censorship as a means to an end should embrace freedom of speech. You don't need the end — a better vibe — to justify the means. The means and the end are one: freedom.

ADDED IN ANTICIPATION OF COMMENTS MAKING THIS POINT: The end pursued by the means of censorship was not "a better vibe." It was control for the sake of control. If so, the censors also had the unification of means and end: control.

"I wish I could say that the French Alps healed me. That I basked in their beauty and found the spiritual rest and direction I was seeking."

"But Grenoble frightened me. I heard stories of midday muggings where victims were pepper sprayed. Once, I saw two cars in a parking lot engulfed in flames. Another time, a rock shattered the bus window next to my face while I rode home from work, scattering glass fragments across the seat."

Writes Susanne Parker Loelius, in "To Find Love, Rub the (Bronze) Bulge/Groping a statue seemed a little odd, but entire tour groups were doing it, so I did too. And voilà!" (NYT).

What does the NYT know about me?

I was scanning the front page of the NYT, looking for headlines to click, and I noticed that the Times had picked out a set of things recommended for me. I was pleased for an instant and genuinely ready to to share Penn Jillett's love for hot baths and cold watermelon, but...

 

... I don't like the implications of the rest of it. The kiosk and the toilet are okay — lowly and functional — but don't push Jeffrey Dahmer at me, and don't juxtapose him with a person with a mysteriously drooping face.

I go to read the Penn Jillette article and the word editing slows me way down:

"In case you're wondering, as I did, how my punishment for tweeting about Toobin compares to Toobin's suspension for his offense...."

"He was off air for eight months; I was off for seven. One month was the difference between punishment for jacking off at work versus commenting on the inadvisability of jacking off at work. On one hand, the people who made this call about me are gone from the network, so maybe I could let it lie. But on the other hand, many of my colleagues no doubt knew about my banning from air, but not the reasons behind it, thereby leaving the impression I must have done something tantamount to Toobining. I did not. I was told it was Jeff Zucker, now gone, who put this order in place and a deputy, also gone, who kept it there. I was also told I wasn't informed of the network's displeasure because I had just had a baby and someone in the old leadership thought I might be a 'loose cannon.' Not as loose as Toobin's.... In the #MeToo era, I have been asked to make public comment on basically every errant penis in the media, government, sports, and entertainment worlds, sometimes to the exclusion of everything else in the news, and at the expense of some amount of professional dignity. It is ironic that in shining a light on bad behavior, which is the right thing to do, you're still a woman on TV talking about penises...."

Writes Mary Katharine Ham, in "In the Age of Quiet Quitting, I Was Quiet Suspended, And I Can't Shut Up About It/On Toobin's wake, professionalism, and the lessons I thought we learned in #MeToo" (Substack).