Althouse

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• "... I was sensitive to the way my body had not been allowed its own autonomy, growing up as a girl. I began to realize that even [for] a boy, it doesn't mean all is open and everything is game."
• The new Murakami book is out today.
• "The comments section had become very man-centered.... Most posts contained a slur against you, particularly as a woman."
• The sun, found at 6:36 a.m.
• "Why Is the Supreme Court Hesitating on Abortion?"
• Speaking of brutalism... when the concrete falls off and crashes onto the walkway, you do not want to be there.
• "We heard a bullet hit a branch above us and we could hear the whistling sound of the bullet as it was going through the air. The other hikers turned to us..."
• Looking for the sun — 6:36 a.m.
• "A conscious neck restraint by policy mentions light to moderate pressure. When I look at exhibit 17..."
• Perhaps you've noticed that I've eliminated comments on this blog.
• "To me, this is something you do, ideally, zero times. You never experience the impulse to do it, and you lead a pleasant life."
• Looking away from the sunrise.

"... I was sensitive to the way my body had not been allowed its own autonomy, growing up as a girl. I began to realize that even [for] a boy, it doesn't mean all is open and everything is game." Posted: 06 Apr 2021 11:15 AM PDT "So when we used to play this lovely game called 'the mama clinch,"' where I would hold on to him and he was supposed to kiss me in order to free himself. And I used to love that, and he loved it as a child. And then when he was about 8 or 9, he started to not really enjoy that game and he would not jump into it. And I realized, 'Oh, he's growing up and he wants his own autonomy' and picking up on those cues. And I talk in another chapter about how important it is for us to pick up on those cues from our kids, and then that way they learn to pick up those cues from others." Says Sonora Jha, quoted in "Memoir Offers Advice On 'How To Raise A Feminist Son'" (NPR).  The feminist son rightly resists forced kissing. Interesting that the feminist mother had to learn her feminist lesson, and fascinating to face up to the strange reality of how much kissing is forced on babies and children.  Is it right, this soppy smooching? Dr. Spock's classic childcare book, from 1946, famously reacted to this advice from 1930:  "Never, never hug and kiss them, never let them sit in your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say goodnight. Shake hands with them in the morning.... Try it out. In a week's time you will find how easy it is to be perfectly objective with your child and at the same time kind. You will be utterly ashamed of the mawkish, sentimental way you have been handling it." That fell so far out of favor. But maybe we should reconsider being perfectly objective — and kind — to our children. Oh, but no one believes perfect objectivity is even possible. You'd just be fooling yourself. Still, I don't like that "mama clinch" game. I'm a bit surprised Jha talks about that openly. *** There is no comments section anymore, but you can email me here. Unless you say otherwise, I will presume you'd enjoy an update to this post with a quote from your email.

The new Murakami book is out today. Posted: 06 Apr 2021 10:57 AM PDT "First Person Singular" — a story collection. I put the text in my Kindle and the audio in my iPhone. It was already a great afternoon for a walk, and now.... Here's an interview with Haruki Murakami (at NPR). Excerpt: When I'm really focused on writing, I get the feeling that I shift from this world to the other world, and then return to this world. Kind of like commuting. I go there, and come back. Going is important, but coming back is even more important. Since it'd be awful if you couldn't return. At the beginning of the ninth century there was a nobleman in Kyoto named Ono no Takamura. During the day he worked in the imperial palace, and it was rumored that at night he'd descend to hell (the underworld) and serve there as secretary to Enma Daio, the ruler of hell. Commuting, as it were, every day between this world and the other. His passageway to travel back and forth was an old well, and it still exists in Kyoto. I love that story. Though I don't think I'd ever like to climb down inside that well. *** There is no comments section anymore, but you can email me here. Unless you say otherwise, I will presume you'd enjoy an update to this post with a quote from your email. I'll use only your first name unless you let me know you want something else.

"The comments section had become very man-centered.... Most posts contained a slur against you, particularly as a woman." Posted: 06 Apr 2021 10:26 AM PDT After I added an emailed comment to yesterday's post — "The thing that's complicated about the body positive movement..." — I received email from a woman who does not want to be named: The person you chose to quote yesterday, Mary, wrote something similar to what I was thinking and considered emailing you about. Th[at] post strikes me as a woman's topic -- aging and acceptance as beauty fades -- and I began to wonder if your blog would become more of a woman's space. I'm one of the 77 who voted to stop comments and change to email. She's referring to the poll, the results of which you can see here. The comments section had become very man-centered. Every post contained someone, often the same someone, disparaging women and how they think. Most posts contained a slur against you, particularly as a woman. I was considering just not reading the comments anymore when you proposed your change. I restricted my interaction with your blog because I was intimidated by the men. I would not want this comment quoted on your blog. Too soon. I wrote back — saying she was putting into words something I had been thinking — and she did give me permission. I wanted to write as a show of support for the change you've made, and also to let you know that I'm curious to see what the blog becomes when some of the toxic interactions are removed. I'm curious too! I know you're indomitable.... That's just a public persona. One reason to do the blog is to push myself into the practice of something like indomitability. I actually looked up the word in the OED so I could reflect on whether I possess this quality. It means: "That cannot be overcome or subdued by labour, difficulties, or opposition; unyielding; stubbornly persistent or resolute. Usually approbative." ... but did that constant drip of misogyny impact your blogging? We shall see. I always thought the misogyny was its own argument against itself, and it could not touch me. That I allowed it meant, to me, that I was strong and didn't need or even care to exclude it. It's reprehensible, but reprehensible on its face. So why not allow it to show its face? I don't think it changed what I wrote, but then again, it could have affected me to see so many comments saying things like "Who cares?" whenever I put up posts like the "body positivity" one you and Mary responded to. And if women, particularly, feel intimidated — your word — about mixing with the men in the comments, then everything is skewed.  So, yes, we shall see. And thanks for the email!

The sun, found at 6:36 a.m. Posted: 06 Apr 2021 07:22 AM PDT

"Why Is the Supreme Court Hesitating on Abortion?" Posted: 06 Apr 2021 11:20 AM PDT Asks Ed Kilgre at Intelligencer.  Mississippi petitioned for SCOTUS review [in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization] last June, of course; the whole point of the state's provocative law [banning abortion after 15 weeks] was to invite the Court to [overrule] or significantly modify Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the landmark decisions establishing and affirming a constitutional right to abortion. The Dobbs case has repeatedly been on the list for discussion at the Court's conferences.... It takes just four justices to agree to review a case. Quite possibly, there are five or six prepared to begin unraveling the Court's abortion precedents but no consensus of four on where to start or how quickly to proceed.... The most likely path for an anti-abortion majority is a gradual erosion of Roe and Casey, rather than an abrupt reversal....  So maybe Roberts and Kavanaugh are waiting for the "right" case, and the other four conservative justices don't want to take up a case unless an anti-abortion majority is certain. More immediately, it's possible that a majority has decided to decline a review of the Mississippi case but that a negative order is being delayed while justices who are eager to approve the Mississippi law write long, passionate dissents.... [T]he anti-abortion movement is itself divided: There is sudden activist enthusiasm for the long-standing but previously marginal "personhood" crusade, which, instead of reversing Roe, would stand it on its head by establishing federal constitutional protections for fetal rights regardless of what state governments choose to do. There's not much evidence of judicial support for that radical notion. IN THE EMAIL: Wild Swan writes:  Abortion and vaccination are entangled in the Supreme Court decisions and this may be making the Court slow to take up an abortion case. It's often forgotten that the basis for government intervention in the case of Buck v. Bell was the right of the state to require vaccinations. And the decision in Buck v. Bell was the basis in Roe v. Wade for the right of the government to intervene in abortion when abortion is regarded as a medical issue. Roe v. Wade made the point that under certain circumstances a woman could choose to have an abortion and the government could not intervene while under other circumstances the government could. "... the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, ... protects against state action the right to privacy, including a woman's qualified right to terminate her pregnancy. Though the State cannot override that right, it has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnant woman's health and the potentiality of human life, each of which interests grows and reaches a 'compelling' point at various stages of the woman's approach to term. ... The privacy right involved, ... cannot be said to be absolute. In fact, it is not clear to us that the claim asserted by some amici that one has an unlimited right to do with one's body as one pleases bears a close relationship to the right of privacy previously articulated in the Court's decisions. The Court has refused to recognize an unlimited right of this kind in the past. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11, 25 S.Ct. 358, 49 L.Ed. 643 (1905) (vaccination); Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200, 47 S.Ct. 584, 71 L.Ed. 1000 (1927) (sterilization). My point is that at no point has either Jacobson or Buck v. Bell been actually overruled. "The Court has refused to recognize an unlimited right" to privacy and that refusal in relation to vaccination, sterilization and abortion still stands. However the right of privacy in these areas has become the default position. The burden is on the government to show cause and this is very clear in relation to abortion whereas it has been a non-issue in relation to vaccination. But now we have covid. So now I wonder whether vaccination law must be considered in relation to the various decisions made about abortion which were based on the decision made about vaccination. Does the effect work backwards? In other words, has the fact that the government cannot intervene in the abortion decision made it law that the government cannot intervene in the vaccination decision? *** There is no comments section anymore, but you can email me here. Unless you say otherwise, I will presume you'd enjoy an update to this post with a quote from your email.

Speaking of brutalism... when the concrete falls off and crashes onto the walkway, you do not want to be there. Posted: 06 Apr 2021 07:07 AM PDT I'm reading "Concrete slab falls from third-floor patio of Van Hise Hall on UW-Madison campus" (Wisconsin State Journal). I've always hated this ugly and very prominent building on campus, and now the ugly thing is expressing hate back at us. Wikipedia says it's the second tallest building in Madison, the tallest being the state Capitol, but because it's on a hill, it's the highest building in the city. I see it's "slated to be demolished in 2025." Maybe take it down as soon as possible. It's trying to kill us. When I think of a hateful building trying to kill us, I think of "Life and Times of Thomas House," by Mark Beyer (click image for much better clarity): "Arrgh I'm so frustrated. Expressing hostility toward humans isn't going to help my situation," says Thomas, and we can only hope that Van Hise Hall has that level of insight. *** There is no comments section anymore, but you can email me here. Unless you say otherwise, I will presume you'd enjoy an update to this post with a quote from your email.

"We heard a bullet hit a branch above us and we could hear the whistling sound of the bullet as it was going through the air. The other hikers turned to us..." Posted: 06 Apr 2021 11:25 AM PDT ".... and asked us if we had also heard the same thing that they did, because we all kind of were just in shock....Just running and not knowing whether the person knew that there were people nearby or not and worried that a bullet would be lower and hit one of us, it was truly terrifying."  Says somebody quoted in "Gunfire narrowly misses hiking family in Lodi, mother shares terrifying experience" (WMTV).  They were hiking on the Lodi Marsh segment of the Ice Age Trail, a completely normal place to go hiking. It was probably someone hunting or doing target practice, according to the police. How much we trust people with guns to know what they are doing! FROM THE EMAIL: Ray writes: This happened to me in Massachusetts back in the 1980's when I was in college. I was hiking through the woods and across a field when I heard this whistling sound go past my ear and then a loud "thwack" as it hit the trees behind me. It took me a moment to register what it was, and then I just flattened myself on the ground and waited. I didn't hear anything else, so I eventually got up and went on my way. Never did find out whether it was someone hunting or doing target practice, whether they knew I was there, whether they meant to hit me and missed, or purposely missed just to scare me. (I've always assumed it was the last option – purposely missed just to scare). MORE EMAIL: JustSomeOldDude writes: I fail to see any evidence that anything happened other than some people heard sounds that appeared to be shooting. A person's disposition can create of a bullet shot in their direction, but that's just an opinion of events. That made me go back and reread the article. There doesn't seem to be a point where they search the trees and find bullets, and the way the police deal with it is consistent with a judgment that these people were wrong. I don't know. It was important enough that a news article was written, but what does that mean?!

Looking for the sun — 6:36 a.m. Posted: 06 Apr 2021 07:18 AM PDT

"A conscious neck restraint by policy mentions light to moderate pressure. When I look at exhibit 17..." Posted: 06 Apr 2021 06:32 AM PDT "... and when I look at the facial expression of Mr. Floyd, that does not appear in any way, shape, or form that that is light to moderate pressure."   From "Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo Testimony on Use of Force in Derek Chauvin Trial Transcript" (REV).

Perhaps you've noticed that I've eliminated comments on this blog. Posted: 06 Apr 2021 06:36 AM PDT If you want to understand why I've made this change, go to this momentous post from Sunday and search the comments for contributions from me. I did not believe when I put that post up that I was about to end comments, but the comments — ironically, the comments insisting that I keep the comments — convinced me that I needed to let go of the blogging-with-comments game. You can still comment on posts. You just have to send me email. Use this address. I'll presume you want to be quoted in an update to the post, but I'll be very selective about that. To see the first example of a post update with a quote from the email, go back to this post from yesterday.

"To me, this is something you do, ideally, zero times. You never experience the impulse to do it, and you lead a pleasant life." Posted: 06 Apr 2021 05:39 AM PDT "You travel. You eat lunchmeat sandwiches. Maybe you do a marathon, or climb something. You lead a blithe existence for many decades, you die in your bed in your mid-nineties surrounded by your cherished relatives, and in all that time, you never walk up to a colleague on the floor of the House of Representatives and out of nowhere present him with a nude photograph of someone you claim to have had sex with. But if you can't do it zero times, then ideally it happens only once. It happens only once, because the moment you do it, the person you show it to responds the way a person should respond. You produce your photograph to your colleague, and your colleague looks at you and says, 'Never show that to anyone, ever again. Go home and rethink your life. I do not feel closer to you. If anything, I want to have you removed forcibly from my presence by strong gentlemen whose biceps are tattooed with "MOM." The fact that you thought this would make us closer makes me question every decision in my life that has led me to this point. Leave now and never come back.' But we can probably suppose that this is not what happened, because life is regrettably unstingy with moments like this, when a small awkward 'no' seems too costly. Perhaps the person to whom this was shown emitted a sort of uncomfortable, nervous laugh, and this was viewed as acceptance enough. Or worse, he leered at it, encouraged it. Or, still worse (a scenario alleged to have existed during Gaetz's time in the Florida state House), he joined a fun little club with Gaetz and others to assign themselves conquest points." Writes Alexadra Petri in "Opinion: This should not happen more than once" (WaPo).  She's talking about the way Matt Gaetz "used to wander around and show his colleagues nude photos of people he had slept with." Strange use of the word "people." These were all pictures of women, I think. I don't know why Petri would want to downplay that this is something a man was doing to women.  Perhaps a new political correctness urges her to refrain from assuming that the human beings you're talking about are the sex they appear to be. But that diffidence drains power from feminism: We're all just people. In a culture that rejects colorblindness as the answer to racism, it's inconsistent to structure sex-blindness (gender-blindness?) into the discussion of issues of sexism.  Petri is calling for good men — and men who'd like to think of themselves as decent enough to deserve the company of women — to say "no" to the male camaraderie that comes in the form of nudging to casually enjoy the graphic depiction of the naked female body. In that view, it's up to all men to create the environment where somebody doing what she's saying Gaetz did would get the message that he's a creep.  Petri, perhaps unintentionally, points to a way out of cancel culture. The colleagues don't have the credibility to encapsulate and excise just the one person. They're all responsible. They must change.  But I don't know what Matt Gaetz did. Consider this, by former Congresswoman Katie Hill: "Matt Gaetz Defended Me When My Nudes Were Shared Without My Consent/Now He's Accused of Doing Just That/Matt and I forged an unlikely friendship in Congress, and he was one of the few colleagues who spoke out after a malicious nude-photo leak upended my life. But if recent reports are true, he engaged in the very practice he defended me from—and should resign immediately" (Vanity Fair). *** There is no comments section anymore, but you can email me here. Unless you say otherwise, I will presume you'd enjoy an update to this post with a quote from your email.

Looking away from the sunrise. Posted: 05 Apr 2021 07:21 PM PDT

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