Althouse

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• "But for many employees who enjoyed the freedom of working remotely, the return to office — no matter how fancy — carries a touch of end-of-summer, back-to-school dread."
• "Obvious efforts to circumvent the law for example an unreasonably small portion of soup, a serving of canned beans, a handful of lettuce... will be treated as a violation of the law."
• How damaged is NY Governor Kathy Hochul?
• At the Coot Café...
• "About 2016, when [Erica Anderson] began working with the Child and Adolescent Gender Center at UC San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital, she noticed a growing group of transgender youth..."

"But for many employees who enjoyed the freedom of working remotely, the return to office — no matter how fancy — carries a touch of end-of-summer, back-to-school dread." Posted: 13 Apr 2022 03:42 AM PDT "Few, it seems, are keen on going back five days a week. On Memegen, an internal company site where Google employees share memes, one of the most popular posts was a picture of a company cafeteria with a caption: 'RTO is just bumping into each other and saying "we must grab lunch soon" until one of you quits Google.'... The main draw for heading to the office, according to the surveys, is that employees want to see colleagues in person. After a number of postponements, Google kicked off its hybrid work schedule on April 4, requiring most employees to show up at U.S. offices a few days a week. Apple started easing staff back to the office on Monday, with workers expected to check in at the office once a week at first.... When Microsoft employees returned to their offices in February as part of a hybrid work schedule, they were greeted with 'appreciation events' and lawn games such as cornhole and life-size chess. There were classes for spring basket making and canvas painting. The campus pub transformed into a beer, wine and 'mocktail' garden." From "Welcome Back to the Office. Isn't This Fun? Tech companies really want their employees to be happy — or at least less annoyed — about returning. So they're providing concerts, food trucks and other perks" (NYT). RTO = "return to office."

"Obvious efforts to circumvent the law for example an unreasonably small portion of soup, a serving of canned beans, a handful of lettuce... will be treated as a violation of the law." Posted: 13 Apr 2022 03:23 AM PDT Said the New York State Liquor Authority, quoted in "No 'Cuomo chips' allowed: 'Substantial food' needed for to-go booze" (NY Post).  "Cuomo chips" refers to the way bars and restaurants responded to a Cuomo-era requirement that bars and restaurants serve food along with liquor. In response, the owner of Saratoga Springs' Harvey's Irish Pub automatically put $1 "Cuomo Chips" on customers' tabs so they weren't required to fork over the money for a full meal when patrons just wanted to sip on a beer or cocktail.... At first, the chips were deemed good enough, then Cuomo said they weren't:  A front-page story in The Post last July labeled the former gov "Drinktator" for his edict, and he only confused New Yorkers further when he bizarrely claimed, "There is no bar that only serves alcohol." "To be a bar, you had to have food available — soups, sandwiches, etc. More than just hors d'oeuvres, chicken wings," he explained during a press conference. "You had to have some substantive food — the lowest level of substantive food were sandwiches."  Many bars got creative with their meals, offering Lunchables, a single sliver of cheese quesadilla or H Mart dumplings cooked in a hot dog steamer, bar staff and customers previously told The Post.  Patrons of a Ridgewood joint said at the time that one spot is offering "soup" consisting of hot water and a bouillon cube. Another bar served a $1 gluten-free vegan taco consisting of a single corn tortilla, while in Bushwick establishments served gazpacho and a dry cup of ramen... The "substantial food" issue is an excellent lightweight distraction to leaven the NY Governor's race. It's an interesting opportunity for Cuomo, who's hinted he might run against the incumbent Kathy Hochul, who just became much more vulnerable (as discussed in the previous post).

How damaged is NY Governor Kathy Hochul? Posted: 13 Apr 2022 03:09 AM PDT The NYT has this by Luis Ferré-Sadurní, "Hochul Picked a Running Mate. Now She Has to Pick Another One. Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin's resignation in the face of a criminal indictment creates a major political test for Gov. Kathy Hochul": The search [for lieutenant governor] was relatively swift, with Ms. Hochul, a white Democrat from Buffalo, homing in on elected officials of color from downstate. She picked Brian Benjamin, a Black state senator from Harlem who was expected to help Ms. Hochul broaden her appeal in New York City, announcing her choice at a campaign-style rally in Upper Manhattan in August.  The move came despite a string of ethics questions that had followed Mr. Benjamin and that centered on some dubious campaign finance practices during his time as senator and his unsuccessful run for city comptroller last year....  Mr. Benjamin's arrest appeared to blindside Ms. Hochul, disrupting her schedule just as she was increasing her time on the campaign trail this week. The arrest coincided with a mass shooting at a Brooklyn subway station, and Ms. Hochul had to call off a union fund-raiser in Manhattan and a news conference on Long Island.... And what did she say at that news conference? How did that go? The NYT just said she had to interrupt her campaigning and moves on to the possibility that Andrew M. Cuomo might run for governor again. That would "would most likely be a steep climb for him," we're told. It's for the reader to wonder how much less steep that the climb suddenly got. The damage to Hochul looks much more lurid over at the NY Post. Here's Bob McManus in "Kathy Hochul's terrible judgment leads to one terrible day." McManus begins by trashing that press conference (video at the link): Gov. Kathy Hochul rushed to the microphones Tuesday to reassure New Yorkers following the Brooklyn subway shootings..... Out tumbled a jumble of half-thoughts, unfocused and haltingly delivered, underscoring what has been apparent for some time now — which is that New York's latest accidental governor would be out of her depth in a Buffalo mud puddle....  Hochul's horrible day also included news that her handpicked, staunchly defended lieutenant governor, Brian Benjamin, had just been arrested on federal corruption charges.... [T]he scandal could have been predicted by anybody who pays even cursory attention to New York politics. But Hochul, it seems, doesn't pay attention to much....  Who better to raise up than a black, vocal defund-the-police progressive?... [I]t was no secret that the feds had him in their sights all along, even if the particulars weren't well-known — yet Hochul not only picked him to run with her for a full term, she firmly defended his place on the ticket until Tuesday....  Now Benjamin is gone, except that he'll apparently be on the June primary ballot anyway — a continuing embarrassment to Hochul and the party in general. Savvy politicians don't get themselves in the soup like this — which again amplifies Kathy Hochul's startlingly thin resume. Service on the Hamburg, NY, town board and a term filing legal documents as Erie County clerk isn't exactly job prep for the Empire State's top elected office. Watch the video at the link. Hochul babbles about how cold and uncaring the shooter was and goes on to stiffly declare her dedication to crime control.

At the Coot Café... Posted: 12 Apr 2022 05:26 PM PDT   ... you can talk all night.

"About 2016, when [Erica Anderson] began working with the Child and Adolescent Gender Center at UC San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital, she noticed a growing group of transgender youth..." Posted: 12 Apr 2022 05:21 PM PDT "... adolescents who had not appeared to question their gender much, or at all, before puberty. Some drifted from one identity to the other: gender-questioning, trans, nonbinary, gay. And many of their cases were complicated by anxiety, depression, autism, bipolar disorder or other mental health conditions that predated their desire to transition.... Online, a stream of transgender influencers and activists told teens that if they felt uncomfortable with their bodies, or didn't fit in, maybe they were trans. Some coached kids on how to bind their breasts, how to change their name and pronouns at school, how to push their parents for testosterone. 'To flatly say there couldn't be any social influence in formation of gender identity flies in the face of reality,' Anderson said. 'Teenagers influence each other.'... In her view, gender-affirming care is not accepting everything a teen says at face value, but engaging with the patient in an empathetic, open-minded way.... What did Cody mean, she asked, when he referred to his gender as abstract?... 'One friend says that their gender is the same vibe as a raccoon. They're not saying that their gender is a raccoon. They're saying that their gender has the same, like, chaotic, dumpster vibes as raccoons.' 'Dumpster?' Anderson asked. 'What would the human version of that be like?' 'There isn't one; it's just the same chaotic energy that their gender has,' Cody said. 'Which is why it's, like, very hard to explain. It's just kind of like a dialect — a way to talk about gender that just kind of builds up within groups.'" From "A transgender psychologist has helped hundreds of teens transition. But rising numbers have her concerned" (L.A. Times).

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