Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Althouse

Althouse

I've assembled 10 TikToks to keep you occupied for the next 10 minutes. Let me know what you like best.

Posted: 19 Jul 2022 12:50 PM PDT

1. This is your pilot speaking.

2. The puppies are not yet ready to play.

3. She's scared to drop in.

4. If you baby-talk, will your friend baby-talk back?

5.  Drew Barrymore really wants you to go out in the rain.

6. Backstage with The Beach Boys.

7. When Sting had to endure the Jose Feliciano version of "I'll Be Watching You."

8. A "Moonstruck" visual.

9. When the Wisconsin man goes to Hawaii.

10. The deadline gave us purpose.

"How to Build a Sex Room is technically a home-makeover reality show like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Flip or Flop, and Fixer Upper — complete with sledgehammering walls..."

Posted: 19 Jul 2022 11:19 AM PDT

"... ripping out unsightly wallpaper, and introducing spendy sofas.... But... it's also sex-positive sex ed.... Very sexy sex isn't aspirational enough anymore; people demand a dream home to have it in.... The show mixes it up, featuring queer couples, married couples with teenagers and toddlers, a recently engaged couple, a polycule, and a recent divorcee in her 50s....  [Designer Melanie Rose] asks about her clients' favorite positions, their kinks, what they're curious to explore. 'We're clam chowder with a dab of Tabasco,' Wesley, a law-enforcement officer, says about his sex life with his wife, Hannah, a real-estate agent.... When it comes to conceiving of a pleasure-room design, Rose has a few rules: no carpet — not even a stainproof one. She recommends tile (and installing a drain 'if there's going to be that much bodily fluid').... 'If you're installing a sex swing, do it on a ceiling joist'.... 'I'm very much a touchy-feely person," Rose says.... 'I like to smell the leathers, pick up the vibrators and the dildos.'"

Very sexy sex isn't aspirational enough anymore.... Noted. I'm glad people are aiming high. And have drains to hose it all down in the end.

Polycules? you ask. What are polycules? Come on. It's a portmanteau. Don't you see it? Polyamory + molecule. 

ADDED: Clam chowder... and I was just doing the new New Yorker crossword where 43 Down is "______ Bucket (unappetizing-sounding rival of the Krusty Krab, on 'SpongeBob SquarePants')." I don't watch that show, and my first guess was "Clam." Spoiler alert: It's "Chum." Good thing Wesley the law-enforcement officer didn't liken his wife to that.

"As Biden eyes 2024, one person weighs heavily: Trump."

Posted: 19 Jul 2022 07:04 AM PDT

That's a headline at WaPo for a piece by Matt Viser. 

Subheadline: "Biden's associates say he will feel compelled to run if Trump does. If that rematch materializes, Biden said recently, 'I would not be disappointed.'"

That was published at 5 this morning. I read it just after seeing this new poll by the Trafalgar Group:

If the 2024 presidential election were held today and Joe Biden and Donald Trump were your choices, for whom would you vote? 

  • Donald Trump — 47.9% 
  • Joe Biden — 42.6% 
  • Undecided — 9.6%

From the WaPo piece: "Biden was motivated to run for office in large part because he saw himself as best positioned to defeat Donald Trump. He still considers knocking Trump out of the White House one of his major contributions to America's welfare. And with Trump looming as the potential Republican nominee... Biden maintains that he is still best positioned to beat him."

What if he's right? What if the Democrats actually do not have anyone stronger than Biden to put up against Trump? 

"He talks a bit about famous customers he’s served, including Patti Smith, who shares his fondness for Robert Louis Stevenson’s essays."

Posted: 19 Jul 2022 07:31 AM PDT

"Philip Larkin would come in, looking for first editions of his own books. He sold a copy of 'Finnegans Wake' to Johnny Depp, who was 'trying incredibly hard not to be recognized and with predictably comic results.'"

From "Love the Smell of Old Books? This Bookseller Would Like You to Leave./In his grouchy, funny memoir, 'A Factotum in the Book Trade,' Marius Kociejowski writes about what a good bookstore should feel like, famous customers he's served and more" (NYT).

The review is by Dwight Garner — note: "garner" is fine as a name! — and the reason Kociejowski would like you to leave — if you walk into his store and say "I love the smell of old books" — is that a thousand people have walked into the store and said the same damned thing.

The Robert Louis Stevenson essays Patti Smith might have bought is "An Apology for Idlers," which I've blogged about many times, including:

1. "There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy" (2012) — the post title is a quote from Robert Louis Stevenson. 

2. "Extreme busyness, whether at school or college, kirk or market, is a symptom of deficient vitality..." (2012). Again, an RLS quote forms the post title. More of the quote: "There is a sort of dead-alive, hackneyed people about, who are scarcely conscious of living except in the exercise of some conventional occupation." 

3. "Shhhh!" (2016)— quoting Stevenson: "Idleness so called, which does not consist in doing nothing, but in doing a great deal not recognized in the dogmatic formularies of the ruling class, has as good a right to state its position as industry itself."

4. "... but others will be regarded as idlers..." (2017). 

"We see the tradition of independent, self-governed nations as the foundation for restoring a proper public orientation toward patriotism and courage, honor and loyalty..."

Posted: 19 Jul 2022 12:15 PM PDT

"... religion and wisdom, congregation and family, man and woman, the sabbath and the sacred, and reason and justice. We are conservatives because we see such virtues as essential to sustaining our civilization. We see such a restoration as the prerequisite for recovering and maintaining our freedom, security, and prosperity. We emphasize the idea of the nation because we see a world of independent nations—each pursuing its own national interests and upholding national traditions that are its own—as the only genuine alternative to universalist ideologies now seeking to impose a homogenizing, locality-destroying imperium over the entire globe...."

I found that through "Beware of 'national conservatives' who dispense with American ideals" by Henry Olsen, at The Washington Post. He begins...
There's a lot to like about the burgeoning "national conservative" movement, which stands against the increasingly stale, pre-Trump intellectual orthodoxy on the right....
... but quickly switches to criticism. Trump is, of course, awful, so hooray for the alternatives that might lure conservatives away from Trumpism, but any alternative that works will swiftly become the new target. 

What's Olsen's beef? He says, the statement of principles has nothing about "human or natural rights." 

I searched the document for "right" and found only: 1. the idea that each nation has a "right to maintain its own borders and conduct policies that will benefit its own people," and 2. praise for the Bible — the "rightful inheritance of believers and non-believers alike" — for its "recognition of things rightly regarded as sacred." 

But there are many references to rights. For one thing, as students of the American Constitution knows, the structures of limited government and separation of powers are supposed to operate to protect the liberty of individuals, and the document says:
We recommend a drastic reduction in the scope of the administrative state and the policy-making judiciary that displace legislatures representing the full range of a nation's interests and values. We recommend the federalist principle, which prescribes a delegation of power to the respective states or subdivisions of the nation so as to allow greater variation, experimentation, and freedom. However, in those states or subdivisions in which law and justice have been manifestly corrupted, or in which lawlessness, immorality, and dissolution reign, national government must intervene energetically to restore order.

The right to freedom of religion — though not separation of religion and government — is stressed: 

Where a Christian majority exists, public life should be rooted in Christianity and its moral vision, which should be honored by the state and other institutions both public and private. At the same time, Jews and other religious minorities are to be protected in the observance of their own traditions, in the free governance of their communal institutions, and in all matters pertaining to the rearing and education of their children. Adult individuals should be protected from religious or ideological coercion in their private lives and in their homes.

The statement of principles highlights economic freedom:

We believe that an economy based on private property and free enterprise is best suited to promoting the prosperity of the nation and accords with traditions of individual liberty that are central to the Anglo-American political tradition.

But it is openly hostile to liberties that run counter to the institution of the traditional family:

Among the causes [of the disintegration of the family] are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life.
Finally, the statement strongly supports the right to racial equality:
We believe that all men are created in the image of God and that public policy should reflect that fact. No person's worth or loyalties can be judged by the shape of his features, the color of his skin, or the results of a lab test.... We condemn the use of state and private institutions to discriminate and divide us against one another on the basis of race. The cultural sympathies encouraged by a decent nationalism offer a sound basis for conciliation and unity among diverse communities. The nationalism we espouse respects, and indeed combines, the unique needs of particular minority communities and the common good of the nation as a whole.

But Olsen says that isn't a statement of a belief in equality. He says: 

It contends that "all men are created in the image of God" but says nothing about being created equal. Indeed, though it frequently praises nations and liberty, it never states the basic truth of human equality, which is the starting point for America's founding principles. This is not an accident.

Olsen doesn't go on to explain why he thinks it's not an accident that the statement never explicitly refers to equality. But it is true that the statement never uses the word "equal" (or "equality"), and that's such an obvious word that we might infer that it would surely have popped up if they were not straining to exclude it.

Perhaps true equality is such an advanced goal that you wouldn't want it in your founding statement. Yes, our Founders put it in the Declaration of Independence, but they weren't anywhere near to making it a reality, and we're still not there. We don't even agree about what equality is. Perhaps a little circumspection is appropriate. 

"Since redheads are often more vulnerable than most to the sun’s rays, we’re giving them shelter from the sun inside our fully air conditioned cinema screens."

Posted: 19 Jul 2022 05:03 AM PDT

A British movie chain announced, quoted in "Britain's redheads offered free movie tickets to dodge extreme heat/An Instagram post from Showcase Cinemas read 'free tickets for redheads on the hottest days ever'" (WaPo).
Some posts on social media noted that redheads can often be bullied at school for their rarer hair coloring — and that the offer may ostracize the community further.
Worse, it discriminates against people of other colors.

Note: I have white hair now, tinted slightly blonde, but my original natural hair color is red, as described here (with old photo of me).

ADDED: I think redheads are actually in the least danger from the extreme heat. We know we need to stay out of the sunlight — either by keeping inside or by always looking for the shade or choosing twilight or nighttimes for outdoor things. I make a point of getting out before sunrise, and during the day, if I take a walk, it's in the woods. If I go downtown, I pick the shady side of the street. By avoiding the sun for the sake of my skin, I am always finding the coolest places outside. Some people are sun-lovers. They gravitate toward sunny places. They want exposure. That puts them in the hottest places.

"The Uvalde, Texas, gunman gave off so many warning signs... that teens who knew him began calling him 'school shooter.'"

Posted: 19 Jul 2022 06:09 AM PDT

"A state investigative report... lays out a long trail of missed signals prior to the massacre but notes these clues were known only to 'private individuals' and not reported to authorities.... The report traces the descent of a shy, quiet boy once thought by a teacher as a 'wonderful student' with a 'positive attitude' into a mass murderer.... A former girlfriend told the FBI that she believed [the killer, Salvador] Ramos had been sexually assaulted by one of his mother's boyfriends at an early age, the report said, but when Ramos told his mother at the time, she didn't believe him.... Family members told investigators how Ramos had been bullied as a fourth-grader in one of the same linked classrooms where he carried out the attack. They said he faced ridicule over his stutter, short hair and for wearing the same clothing nearly every day. At one point, the report said, a fellow student tied his shoelaces together and Ramos fell on his face, injuring himself. The report noted that Ramos was flagged by school officials as 'at risk,' but never received any special education services.... In March 2022, two months before the shooting, a student on Instagram told him that 'people at school talk (expletive) about you and call you school shooter.' The next month Ramos asked in a direct message on Instagram, 'Are you still gonna remember me in 50 something days?' After the answer — 'probably not' — Ramos replied, 'Hmm alright we'll see in may.'"

ADDED: Here's a hypothetical to ask any schoolchild: Let's say at some point in the future — a year from now — one of the kids in your class becomes a school shooter: Which kid do you think it is? 

Don't you think the kids already know who the potential school shooters are? 

Here's some advice that we ought to convey to schoolkids, perhaps not in exactly these words: If you ever find yourself inclined to be cruel to another student, stop and think that you may be part of what turns him into the next school shooter. 

"I feel much more seen when I’m referred to as ‘they,’ but my closest friends, they will call me ‘she,’ and I don’t mind, because I know they know me."

Posted: 19 Jul 2022 03:05 AM PDT

Says Emma Corrin, quoted in Vogue, in "Emma Corrin on Fluidity, Fun, and Dressing Up to Stand Out."

I usually forget to read Vogue, but I saw that this morning because Instapundit linked to "Hairy Pits Strike Blow Against The Patriarchy" at Victory Girls, a discussion of the Emma Corrin cover photo at Vogue, which followed on a Wall Street Journal piece entitled "Armpit Hair Is Back, Whether You Like It or Not." 

The only hair the Vogue text refers to is head hair: "Emma Corrin's... mop of short, insouciantly tousled blond hair." The armpit hair is just something to dare other people to talk about.

Is the body in its natural form unsettling to you? Must it be changed to suit your feelings of unease? Ironically, the people saying yes are (probably!) the same people who think those who feel unease about their natural genitalia should not undergo surgery.

Should we alter ourselves with sharp blades or not? 

"We have definitely taken care of the researchers. Question is, have we taken care of other people? I reject vehemently this idea..."

Posted: 19 Jul 2022 04:24 AM PDT

"... that we can't serve more than researchers. We have to. We have to democratize access to this. And it can be done well, tastefully, but not without some level of change."

Said Mark Sweeney, Principal Deputy Librarian of Congress, quoted in "Preservationists say Library of Congress makeover plan is 'vandalism'/The library's Main Reading Room, included in a $60 million renovation of the Thomas Jefferson Building, lands on the D.C. Preservation League's list of endangered places" (WaPo).

A proposed change to the ornate Main Reading Room at the Library of Congress that critics say would remove the symbolic and functional heart of the 1897 Beaux-Arts masterpiece has landed the library on the D.C. Preservation League's 2022 list of Most Endangered Places. The Library of Congress plans to remove the mahogany librarian's desk that rises some 16 feet in the middle of this spectacular, first-floor room and replace it with a circular window in the floor that will offer a view of its decorative dome to visitors looking up from the floor below.

Sweeney touts the project as a "game changer." He's right about that. He's changing the "game" of research and architectural preservation to tourism. And it wouldn't even be good tourism. As one commenter over there puts it:

Through a window, from 3 stories below the dome, it will look flattened into a decorative plate. Painting the "plate" on the ceiling above a piece of glass would give the same effect for much less money and less alteration to the structure.

It's so crazy to cut a big hole in the floor of an iconic room so people can look up from below. And who are those people, demanding "access" and needing to be "taken care of"? They're just imagining them and prioritizing them over the people who have used what is a library as a library. 

But it is the elite whose minds are shaped by books who immerse themselves in abstractions like democracy and come up with permutations like "democratizing access" and perversions like big windows in floors. 

***

"Democratize" — meaning "To make (something) accessible to a wide range of people; to make (something) less elitist, pretentious, etc." — has been around since the late 18th century. Some historical quotes from the OED:

1796    W. Smith Oration 25   To see..virtue aristocratized to trample on it without shame, and vice democratized to commit it with impunity....
1840    Cleveland (Ohio) Daily Herald 18 Aug. 3/3   Without wishing to democratize it quite down to a 'log cabin', we think a suitable residence might be erected for our Presidents, spacious and elegant while simple and unambitious.
1858    Harper's Mag. Apr. 650/1   Again she attempts to democratize painting in her dear Italy, by inducing painters to draw their subjects from what is immediately about them.
1906    Edinb. Rev. Oct. 448   Zola has democratised the novel in another fashion.
1928    E. A. Powell Embattled Borders vii. 244   [The socialists] would also increase and democratize educational facilities.
2011    National Trust Mag. Summer 58/2   They were trying to find a route to combine traditional craft techniques and larger production techniques, democratising beautifully crafted pieces and rejecting the horror of the throwaway manufacture that Morris objected to at the Great Exhibition.


***

Ironically, if this place is changed from its historic form it loses value as a tourist attraction. You'd travel to see it because it is preserved as a 1897 Beaux-Arts masterpiece. If a big hole is cut in the floor, you'd be visiting a travesty. 
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