Althouse |
- "Sweats were Out! Dresses and heels were In! The notion of 'revenge dressing' — dressing up to make up for lost time, and to spite a virus that has no feelings — took hold."
- "I literally have no friends. I wanted to go out today and i wanted to text someone if they’re down to do something fun. BUT then i realized i have no one to ask."
- 500 years of hair.
- "Beijing’s commitment to step up purchases of U.S. goods and services under a 2020 trade pact expires Friday with China expected to miss its targets by a wide margin..."
- I've admitted that I myself would have been a Loyalist in the Revolution, but it's interesting to see how much company I have from my fellow Americans.
- It's January 6th Week on The Althouse Blog.
- The entire week — month? (year?!) — will be dedicated to the commemoration of last year's January 6th incident.
- "My New Year’s Toast: to all the devils, lusts, passions, greeds, envys, loves, hates, strange desires, enemies ghostly and real, the army of memories, with which I do battle — may they never give me peace."
- "A governor, not governing during a crisis; and sunning his belly on vacation instead. @GovRonDeSantis is the Nero of Ted Cruzes."
- "If I ever found one of those on my car, I’d attach it to a police car ASAP. The owner would have a lot of ‘splainin’ to do when a cop with an iPhone was informed he was being tracked."
- "The biggest target of this campaign is 'little fresh meat,' a term of endearment for massively popular makeup-wearing male entertainers."
- 2022.
| Posted: 02 Jan 2022 07:55 AM PST "But then: delta. And after that: omicron.... So now the question is no longer what we will wear post-pandemic, but whether there will be a post-pandemic at all. We seem doomed to exist somewhere in the murky middle for at least another season, and hybrid work arrangements may keep us in the soft-pants space even longer. Rather than whiplashing back to expensive and impractical clothes, forecasters are seeing people dressing more for the version of themselves that they've discovered over the last 22 months... Key phrases are 'elevated loungewear' (coordinated sets in luxe fabrics) or 'relaxed suiting' (slightly oversize and slouchy suits with forgiving, four-way-stretch fabrics) or 'workleisure' (bike shorts paired with button-downs; nap dresses; house shoes).... Among those pandemic discoveries is mortality: Life's too short to wear uncomfortable clothes, but it's also too short to wear boring clothes. That might mean playing with gender norms, or wearing brighter colors to signal hopefulness, or deciding to never again press our toes into stilettoes. As for that 'revenge' attire, remember the timeworn breakup advice: Living well is the best revenge." From "The ideas and arguments that will define the next 12 months" (WaPo). As noted, the virus has no feelings, so "revenge" is misplaced... unless you're talking about revenge against the people who are imposing limitations and requirements on you. But these people don't care if your waistband binds or your shoes pinch. You're only hurting — or soothing — yourself. I considered going on about "revenge," but I've been blogging daily for 18 years — as of 12 days from now — and I'm sure I've already done that. Yes. Here. Quoting Wikipedia: "Of the psychological, moral, and cultural foundation for revenge, philosopher Martha Nussbaum has written: 'The primitive sense of the just—remarkably constant from several ancient cultures to modern institutions ...—starts from the notion that a human life ... is a vulnerable thing, a thing that can be invaded, wounded, violated by another's act in many ways. For this penetration, the only remedy that seems appropriate is a counter invasion, equally deliberate, equally grave. And to right the balance truly, the retribution must be exactly, strictly proportional to the original encroachment.'" Consider the proportionality of Covid 19 and baggy, elastic-waisted pants. |
| Posted: 02 Jan 2022 06:42 AM PST Says someone in the subreddit r/offmychest. There are 374 comments there right now, and nearly every one is "same" or a variation on "same." Some of the "same"s add that they have a spouse who is their best friend, but other than that, absolutely no friends. There's also the variation that sounds like a line from the Police song "Message in a Bottle": Seems I'm not alone at being alone. |
| Posted: 02 Jan 2022 07:49 AM PST Relying on artwork — historical portraits — and her own very long hair, Morgan Donner takes us on a 500-year journey: The level of commitment here is impressive — as vividly demonstrated at 6:38! And 12:10! And 17:40! AND: The end is truly nervy — beginning at 41:38. |
| Posted: 02 Jan 2022 05:37 AM PST "... creating a dilemma for the Biden administration as it calibrates a response. The White House could potentially reinstate certain tariffs that were cut as part of the trade deal, but that could backfire if China cut back U.S. purchases or took measures against American companies doing business there. Alternatively, the U.S. could ignore the shortfall, which could send a signal to Beijing that it won't face consequences.... 'The Biden administration is tied in knots by their own lack of clarity about how they evaluate the problem and the potential solutions,' said Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies." From "Beijing Fell Short on Trade Deal Promises, Creating Dilemma for Biden/China missed targets for buying U.S. goods, but retaliating could come at a cost to American companies and consumers" (Wall Street Journal). Do you think the Biden administration is tied in knots by lack of clarity? I feel as though I knew the response will be to do nothing and to go ahead and signal to Beijing that there will be no consequences. I would assume that the consequences that matter have to do with the effect on the elections in 2022 and 2024. Perhaps that's the reason to be tied in knots. There's fear that the failure to follow through on Trump's deal will hurt Democrats, and perhaps that it's too hard to explain that it was a bad deal... which the Wall Street Journal writer, Josh Zumbrun, thinks it was, as the article ends like this: Going forward, Mr. Kennedy of CSIS contends the U.S. should push China toward a market-oriented economy—and not set purchase targets that effectively reinforce Chinese state control. |
| Posted: 02 Jan 2022 05:21 AM PST  From "Republicans and Democrats divided over Jan. 6 insurrection and Trump's culpability, Post-UMD poll finds" (WaPo). I'm always inclined to say the government is doing well enough, and you shouldn't underestimate the downside of change and the relative value of working within the system, even if it's time-consuming and onerous. Here's my post from July 4, 2016, "In the American Revolution, would you have been a Loyalist?" The second commenter asked me to answer the question, and I said: "Isn't it obvious? Why do you think I put up this post. I've admitted it many times. Perhaps not on this blog, but Meade knows." Was that enigmatic?! I know I'd be cutting the king a lot of slack. He's doing well enough, and the alternative is chaos! |
| It's January 6th Week on The Althouse Blog. Posted: 02 Jan 2022 10:34 AM PST A horror show of an idea for this blog, but it could be easily done, following my usual approach to blogging, because there are so many articles jamming up mainstream media this week. UPDATE at 12:29 p.m.: You can see that I didn't do it, but let me preserve the voting results. Thanks to the 23% who showed confidence in my ability to pull it off. My own opinion is the second option. |
| Posted: 02 Jan 2022 03:06 AM PST Get ready. In the New York Times, the entire editorial board signs on to something titled "Every Day Is Jan. 6 Now." I guess a week/month/year is not enough. January 6th is forever: It's every day from now on. I'm all for examining what really happened and remembering that and going forward in a way that minimizes the chances that people will feel as aggrieved and alienated and that a large gathering can devolve into the chaotic breaking and entering of government buildings. But I'm also wary of the exaggerations, misstatements, and ginning up of grievance and alienation. I'm saying that having only read the first sentence of the editorial: One year after from [sic] the smoke and broken glass, the mock gallows and the very real bloodshed of that awful day, it is tempting to look back and imagine that we can, in fact, simply look back. Actually, I hadn't read the whole first paragraph. I'd stopped at the word "bloodshed." What bloodshed? I search the page for "Ashli Babbitt," because that's the only bloodshed I remember. No mention of Babbitt. I finish the sentence and move on: To imagine that what happened on Jan. 6, 2021 — a deadly riot at the seat of American government... A deadly riot? This exaggeration loses me. You had a huge crowd — supposedly crazed, presumably gun owners — and the violence was breaking into the building. I'm willing to count that as bad, but I cannot tolerate the exaggeration. I will push on: ... incited by a defeated president amid a last-ditch effort to thwart the transfer of power to his successor — was horrifying but that it is in the past and that we as a nation have moved on. You're accusing us of leaving the story in the past and want us to remember, but you're reminding us with exaggeration — I could say lies. So I cannot accept your telling me what to remember — my information is more accurate than yours — and I'm immune to your incitements about what I ought to be doing about it. This is an understandable impulse.... You know what's an impulse I understand, an impulse I'll attribute to you, since you're attributing an "impulse" to us? You want to help the Democrats win the elections that are coming up later this year. You have a plan to jack up anger and horror and anxiety and you're going to do it all year long. ... rampant lies and limitless resentments... twisted version of reality... existential threat... openly contemptuous of democracy.... the terror of that day... visible and visceral.... This emotive style leaves me cold. |
| Posted: 01 Jan 2022 07:20 AM PST Wrote Patricia Highsmith "well after midnight on what had been Dec. 31, 1947," quoted by Dwight Garner in his NYT review of her book "Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks: 1941-1995." |
| Posted: 01 Jan 2022 07:10 AM PST Tweeted Joy Reid, quoted in "Ron DeSantis accompanied wife to cancer treatment while critics claimed he was 'missing'/DeSantis announced his wife's breast cancer diagnosis in October" (Fox News). Let this be a lesson to everyone: You don't know what other people's troubles are, and maybe some of those troubles you don't know about aren't even a secret and could have been known by you. This gets my "empathy" tag. ADDED: Why don't links to Fox News work? Can anyone tell me the solution? If not, I will stop linking to Fox News. ALSO: On the anti-empathy side, we need to remember that a politician might use his wife's illness — and specifically breast cancer — as a cover for behavior that really is unseemly. I don't know about Ron DeSantis, but I remember John Edwards. He used his suffering wife as a political prop and, behind the scenes, carried on an affair. "John Edwards' betrayed wife 'tore off bra,'" the BBC reported, as Edwards was on trial in 2012 for using campaign donations to hide his pregnant girlfriend: Breast cancer sufferer Elizabeth Edwards... collapsed during the fight in an airport car park [in October 2007], a witness said.... [The witness] said Mrs Edwards had screamed: "You don't see me any more." Then she took off her shirt and bra, exposing herself to her husband in front of his staff, the court heard. Whatever happened in that trial? On May 31, 2012, Edwards was found not guilty on Count 3, illegal use of campaign funding (contributions from Rachel "Bunny" Mellon), while mistrials were declared on all other counts against him. On June 13, 2012, the Justice Department announced that it dropped the charges and would not attempt to retry Edwards. Edwards returned to the practice of law.... |
| Posted: 01 Jan 2022 05:51 AM PST A comment on the NYT article "Are Apple AirTags Being Used to Track People and Steal Cars?/Privacy groups sounded alarms about the coin-sized location-tracking devices when they were introduced. Now people are concerned those fears are being realized." (The AirTags send the message "AirTag Detected Near You" so you find out that someone may be stalking you, but it's not easy to figure out who.) ADDED: The post title is not offered as legal advice — or even practical advice. I consider it more of an expression of exasperation and helplessness and a hope of redirecting chaos. |
| Posted: 01 Jan 2022 03:27 AM PST "In a society where discussing politics is largely off limits and traditional media is tightly controlled, popular culture is the rare realm where individualism can thrive. And so the 'little fresh meat' phenomenon is about more than fashion and aesthetics; it offers an outlet for Chinese men and women at a time of economic uncertainty and a shifting power dynamic between sexes.... What the party appears to ignore, though, in blaming them for allegedly corrupting young men is that their fan base is predominantly female and in wealthy metropolises like Beijing and Shanghai. These women's embrace of a more fluid form of masculinity is not a phenomenon the party should dismiss. Well-educated and financially independent, these women are bucking gender norms themselves by turning away from matrimony and motherhood and are proving to be resistant to the party's push to boost marriages and births to offset the effects of an aging population. To this end, the party would do well to heed these women's preferences. As some fans put it, the seemingly gentle manner and mild temper of 'little fresh meat' offer a welcome contrast to the chauvinistic attitude they can encounter in Chinese men. 'Having men be tender and thoughtful like women improves them,' one woman going by the name Jiangzi wrote in an online essay explaining her fondness for 'little fresh meat.' 'In dating and marriage,' she asked, 'who likes to be scolded?'" Writes Helen Gao in "China's Ban on 'Sissy Men' Is Bound to Backfire" (NYT). |
| Posted: 01 Jan 2022 03:12 AM PST It's a new year. It's also a new day. ADDED: I took a break from New Year's blogging to do the NYT crossword. Was that the hardest NYT crossword ever? |
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