Althouse

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• Kamala, actually.
• "I think of Roe v Wade as a house that’s sitting on the edge of a beach, where the water is coming under it and taking the sand out. The house is still standing there, but it is more and more in danger of collapsing in the water."
• "But on closer inspection, his pictures of idealized pies, spaghetti entanglements of highways and gumball machines rimmed in blue halos required unpacking."
• "The way C.K.’s flirtations with the offensive and the taboo work, at least historically, is by making himself a temporary stand-in for the bad guy."
• "Finally, here comes omega (ω). Everybody knows it signals the end. Although we are still near the middle of the alphabet, albeit on the downhill side, people are noticing that Greek has two 'O's."

Kamala, actually. Posted: 27 Dec 2021 04:43 AM PST From the transcript of Kamala Harris on "Face the Nation" yesterday: But let's not forget our individual power to actually do something about it…. And that is again, where every individual has it within their ability and- and many may argue within their responsibility to actually take on these- these- accept the tools that are available to do something about this issue…. When we talk about the economy, the average person in America is going to measure the economy based on can they actually just afford to get through the day and through the month…. But it is the cost of the bill that has led Sen. Joe Manchin at least publicly to say it's actually going to hurt the economy…. And- and Goldman Sachs just today said that actually, we know that Build Back Better will strengthen the economy. And so, I think there is without any question, room for discussion about what actually will be the impact to the economy…. But it actually makes economic sense to do that and it brings down the cost of living…. we have the ability to actually alleviate the burdens that people are carrying that make it difficult for them to get through the day or in the month…. Every- I read it every day. I read it every day, and then most days the president and I actually do it together with our IC- with the intelligence community…. I think that, you know, I actually wrote a book many years ago, and I do believe that it is important for us to have a cyber doctrine…. I mean, and I actually mean that sincerely for a number of reasons…. People are- people have a right to know and believe that their government actually sees and hears them. … And it has actually been part of my lifelong career to deal with tough issues and this is no different. It's quite obvious that the word as she's using it has the opposite effect of its literal meaning. She must want to stress the reality and practicality of what she's saying, but it undercuts her credibility. It's the equivalent of asserting "I'm telling the truth," over and over. Who does that? Someone who's insecure about her believability. A good liar would know better. A secure truth-teller wouldn't run into the problem in the first place.

"I think of Roe v Wade as a house that’s sitting on the edge of a beach, where the water is coming under it and taking the sand out. The house is still standing there, but it is more and more in danger of collapsing in the water." Posted: 27 Dec 2021 03:14 AM PST Said Sarah Weddington, back in 1998, quoted today in her obituary, "Roe v Wade lawyer Sarah Weddington dies aged 76" (London Times).

"But on closer inspection, his pictures of idealized pies, spaghetti entanglements of highways and gumball machines rimmed in blue halos required unpacking." Posted: 27 Dec 2021 03:09 AM PST "A rustling of unexpected sadness occasionally crept into the paintings after that initial leaping rush of joy — an unsentimental nostalgia for a bygone era or some long lost love.... ... Mr. Thiebaud's pictures were the opposite of mechanical-looking, their slathered surfaces as rich and thick as the icing on his painted layer cakes. This tactile luxuriousness was one of the things that separated him from classic Pop painting.... 'It has never ceased to thrill and amaze me,' he said, 'the magic of what happens when you put one bit of paint next to another. I wake up every morning and paint.... I'll be damned but I just can't stop.'"  From "Wayne Thiebaud, Playful Painter of the Everyday, Dies at 101/Mr. Thiebaud's rich and luminous depictions of midcentury Americana separated him from the classic Pop Art of the time" by Michael Kimmelman (NYT).

"The way C.K.’s flirtations with the offensive and the taboo work, at least historically, is by making himself a temporary stand-in for the bad guy." Posted: 27 Dec 2021 02:34 AM PST "He ventriloquizes everything a pedophile might be thinking in exceptional detail, for instance. Or take the bit in Sorry about a Black woman picking out bananas....The success of such a joke depends heavily on the audience trusting that the comic beneath the 'creep' persona isn't horrible. That by so precisely articulating such a perspective, it's implicitly a critique. That meta layer is the safety net I'm talking about: For most of C.K.'s career, the 'real' Louis C.K.—a genuinely good guy troubled by demons but with a compassionate and decent core—has functioned as an authorizing alibi of sorts for the special's boundary-violating experiments.... The Real Louis C.K. was the hapless, kind of dirty, but conscientious guy who bought a Girls Gone Wild DVD after his divorce but couldn't jack off to it because he kept—as a dad—getting mad at the girls for making stupid choices. The revelations have made it harder to believe in that version of him; to a lot of his former fans, one horrifying thing about the allegations was that he turned out to be the very creep we thought he was lampooning. The joke we thought we were laughing at wasn't a joke at all." Writes Lili Loofbourow, in "What Louis C.K. Has Really Lost" (Slate), about Louis C.K.'s new special "Sorry" (which you can pay $25 to watch at his website). This is a very well written essay, and it shows that Louis C.K. has a new foundation for humor. Loofbourow notes that before the scandal, he was having difficulty playing the part of the "loser," which had been his original comedy persona: "by no longer being an underdog, he'd lost something he needed to really make his act work. Well, he has again what he was missing then. Abjection is Louis C.K.'s medium; it suits him, and he thrives in it."  We're seeing how he works from this new position — without the ability to retreat to the safe place of being the loser. He'd already lost loserdom before the scandal, so what has he "really lost"? He's gained! I think the headline writer didn't understand the essay... or the editorial position of Slate is that you've got to perpetually kick Louis C.K. around.

"Finally, here comes omega (ω). Everybody knows it signals the end. Although we are still near the middle of the alphabet, albeit on the downhill side, people are noticing that Greek has two 'O's." Posted: 27 Dec 2021 02:35 AM PST Writes Mary Norris, in "A Linguistic Look at Omicron/What is this penchant for using Greek to designate disasters?"  Omega means "big O." (Get it? O-mega?) Omicron means "little O." O-micron. The Greek micro, or "small," has given us "microbes," "microscopes," and "microminis." Mega, Greek for "big," has come into English in "Mega Millions," "mega-threat," and "megalopolis." If the repercussions from little old omicron have been so catastrophic, what are we to expect from big bad omega?  Before panic sets in, a note on pronunciation: "small O" and "big O" refer less to the size and shape of the written letters (omega is an omicron with big feet: Ω) than to their sounds. They are vowels with short and long values. Though there is no universal agreement about it, many American classicists pronounce omicron with a short "o," as in "om," and omega with a long "o," like an Irish surname: O'Mega.  Norris links to a Mother Jones article from a few weeks ago, "I Asked Seven Classics Experts How to Say 'Omicron.' Come Down the Rabbit Hole With Me." Excerpt: My first call was to David Sider, an American scholar with a terrific Bronx accent, in whom I found an equally frustrated ally. "You've called the right person!" he exclaimed. "I was driving in a car the other day, listening to the radio, and hit two different people on two different episodes say 'ah-ma-CRON. And that's wrong." "Kind of like the French president?" I asked. "Ah, Macron!" "Yes, yes, exactly," he said. "I've been bothered."

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