Althouse

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• "How can the Washington Post say the court decisions on his vaccine or testing mandates were 'out of his control'?"
• "Hello, I’m Tom Hanks. The US government has lost its credibility, so it’s borrowing some of mine."
• "'Bat Out of Hell' was rejected by dozens of record companies before the album was finally released by Cleveland International, a small label.... It received tepid, even hostile reviews at first."
• "In his first press conference for 78 days, the President was perhaps seeking to demonstrate his command of detail, ultimately speaking for almost two hours."
• "The green M&M, previously seen in ads posing seductively and strutting her stuff in white go-go boots, will now sport a pair of sneakers."

"How can the Washington Post say the court decisions on his vaccine or testing mandates were 'out of his control'?" Posted: 21 Jan 2022 07:07 AM PST "Biden and his legal team are supposed to figure out a way to implement his policies that *won't* get blocked by courts! Those court decisions didn't happen at random; they happened because judges looked at what the administration did and decided that it didn't comply with the law." Writes my son John, at Facebook, commenting on "A year ago, Biden unveiled a 200-page plan to defeat covid. He has struggled to deliver on some key promises" (WaPo). "Biden and his legal team are supposed to figure out a way to implement his policies that *won't* get blocked by courts!" — We are all expected to pursue our goals and desires within the limits of the law. But we still can complain about the law that stands in our way and excuse our failure to achieve by pointing at this pesky law. Sometimes you push the limits of the law and hope to convince judges. With a slightly different configuration of the Supreme Court, the vaccine mandate would have succeeded. Blaming the Court is worth doing to set up judicial appointments as a campaign issue. And would the implementation of the vaccine mandate have served Biden's interests? Isn't he better off with it failing? He can point to it and say that he tried so hard and not be burdened with the realities of driving so many people out of employment, leaving businesses inadequately staffed, and imposing on the intimate personal bodily autonomy that his Party ordinarily celebrates.  By the way: "Activists look ahead to what could be the 'last anniversary' for Roe" (NPR). Speaking of the pending abortion case... did the Texas legislators "figure out a way to implement [their] policies that won't get blocked by courts"? I'd say they deliberately overreached well-known law because they wanted to convince the Court to change it and, failing that, they wanted political credit for trying.

"Hello, I’m Tom Hanks. The US government has lost its credibility, so it’s borrowing some of mine." Posted: 21 Jan 2022 06:25 AM PST  Said Tom Hanks in "The Simpsons Movie" (in 2007), quoted in "'The Simpsons did it first': Tom Hanks's video for Biden likened to cameo" (London Times). From the London Times article: In a two-minute video released by the Biden Inaugural Committee yesterday, the Oscar-winning actor narrates the accomplishments of the Biden administration in its inaugural year — pointing to the distribution of vaccines and that "shops and businesses are buzzing again all over the country."  Here's the new video, which I clicked off — muttering "Oh, jeez" — at the 3-second mark:    I'm going to try again to watch it, for the sake of this post, but I'm going to publish first, because I don't know how many on-and-off clickings it will take for me to reach the end.  ADDED: Okay. I've finished. It was long, but it mainly said we're dealing with Covid and the economy is coming back. It would have worked just as well as a Trump ad. Maybe the Democrats realize they need to squirrel away the divisive issues.

"'Bat Out of Hell' was rejected by dozens of record companies before the album was finally released by Cleveland International, a small label.... It received tepid, even hostile reviews at first." Posted: 21 Jan 2022 05:52 AM PST "But through relentless touring and a 1978 appearance on NBC's 'Saturday Night Live,' Meat Loaf found an audience, making 'Bat Out of Hell' an enormous, if unexpected hit.... Its signature tune, 'Paradise by the Dashboard Light'... was an ornate melodrama about a teenage make-out session... more than eight minutes long and [it] even contained a long segment narrated by Hall of Fame baseball player and broadcaster Phil Rizzuto, describing a batter rounding the bases and sliding into home. (Rizzuto said he didn't realize his description was meant to be an elaborate sexual metaphor.) His musical secret, Meat Loaf said, was that he approached every song like an actor preparing for a role. 'I can't sing unless there's a character... Because I don't sing. It's almost like being schizophrenic — I don't sing, the character sings.' Early in his career, the long-haired, 300-pound Meat Loaf was openly mocked by critics — and even by [his collaborator Jim] Steinman, who once called him 'a grotesque, bloated creature, who stalked the stage like an animal but acted as if he were a prince.'" From WaPo's very lengthy obituary, "Meat Loaf, whose operatic rock anthems made him an unlikely pop star, dies at 74." This wasn't my kind of music, but I can admire his work from afar. People loved him in "The Rocky Horror Show," and he had a very interesting role in "Fight Club."    And he's got a great Donald Trump connection — "Meat Loaf, should I run for President?"    Later, "You look in my eyes: I am the last person in the fucking world you EVER want to fuck with":

"In his first press conference for 78 days, the President was perhaps seeking to demonstrate his command of detail, ultimately speaking for almost two hours." Posted: 21 Jan 2022 05:13 AM PST "But the moment he finished White House officials desperately scrambled to 'clean up' the remarks on Ukraine. They said what Mr Biden had been talking about was the divisions in Nato over how to respond to Russian aggression. It was also suggested that by 'minor incursion' he had meant Russian cyber attacks, rather than a small military invasion.... For Mr Biden it was the latest gaffe on foreign policy. In October, his officials had to calm the waters after he suggested the US would come to Taiwan's defence in the event of an attack by China, appearing to shift Washington's delicate longtime policy of 'strategic ambiguity.' On Wednesday... Mr Biden then embarked on a lengthy analysis of what he thinks is going on inside Mr Putin's head - a notoriously difficult thing to predict. He went into great depth speculating on what Mr Putin might believe about a variety of subjects, including fires on the Russian tundra and nuclear war. If he was watching - it was the middle of the night in Moscow - Mr Putin must have been rather puzzled by it all." From "Joe Biden's gaffe may have inadvertently revealed the truth about his Ukraine policy/The President appeared to suggest that a 'minor incursion' by Russia wouldn't result in harsh sanctions" (Telegraph). It's "notoriously difficult" to know what's going on in Putin's head, the article-writer says... before asserting that "Mr Putin must have been rather puzzled." Must have? I'd imagine Putin to be something other than puzzled. Isn't he an evil genius playing 3D chess?

"The green M&M, previously seen in ads posing seductively and strutting her stuff in white go-go boots, will now sport a pair of sneakers." Posted: 21 Jan 2022 04:44 AM PST "A description for the green candy on the M&M's website says she enjoys 'being a hypewoman for my friends.' 'I think we all win when we see more women in leading roles, so I'm happy to take on the part of supportive friend when they succeed,' the green M&M said on the promotional site."  From "M&Ms characters to become more inclusive" (The Hill). I didn't know that M&Ms had become color-based characters. If you're green, you're one thing, red, another...? Is that a good lesson for the kids? I feel so old, only able to remember an M&Ms advertisement that's half a century old — you know, the one where the peanut M&M and the regular M&M are sunning by a pool. The emphasis back then was that kids made a mess out of chocolate that's not "candy-coated." They did add arms, legs, and faces to the M&M, so they were, essentially, characters, but I don't think we expected them to have individualized personalities. Or was the peanut M&M a bit "nutty"? What is the history of adding arms and legs to food items for advertising? Was the Kool-Aid Man first — in 1954? Oh, no, wait! Mr. Peanut has him beaten. 1916. And Mr. Peanut always had a lot of personality: He was high-class and cheerful. And what about the California raisins? You don't see them around anymore. Their time came and went — 1986 to 1994. But back to the green M&M, which I've never seen in action. It's hard to believe the ad makers styled it as some sort of "seductive" go-go dancer, but if that happened, improvement was needed. It's funny that they went for the most flat-footed feminist concept. If you're such an achiever, Green, why are you eating candy?! Finally, let me say that I have never before seen the word "hypewoman." I read that as "hyperwoman" first, and that sounded candy-appropriate. But "hypewoman" — that looks like it should mean huckster or con artist. Urban Dictionary tells me it's the female version of "hypeman" — someone who comes out on stage to hype up the audience before a performer comes out and may "work the side of the stage... yelling classic lines like 'Throw ya hands in the air!' 'All the ugly people be quiet!' 'When I say_________, y'all say _________!'" And that undoes my impression that they just made Green a feminist cliché. She's actually a bit of a sexist stereotype, taking the role of supporting others. Re-experience that Françoise Gilot quote that begins the previous post: "As young women... were taught early that taking second place is easier than first. You tell yourself that's all right, but it's not all right. It is important that we learn to express ourselves, to say what it is that we like, that we want." The new green M&M is not all right. Whenever they change something that's wrong, they just change it to something else that's wrong. Wrong in a new way.

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