Althouse

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• The found ginger beer bouquet.
• "Statues paint an idiosyncratic portrait of American history. Consider Casimir Pulaski and Thaddeus Kosciuszko."
• Movies that you have to watch twice to understand.
• "Mr. Biden’s face-to-face meeting with MBS — preceded by a cordial, and ill-advised, televised fist bump — conferred a much-coveted legitimacy on the crown prince."
• "If you think about human biology, our bodies are built to reproduce.... You have to override what your body is saying..."
• "Tall and bald with the build of a swimmer, Pollan is no Timothy Leary — he isn’t asking anyone to drop out..."
• "More people are cancelling their video subscriptions to save money in the face of the cost of living squeeze, with under-24s most likely to walk away...."
• Sunrise — 5:35, 5:44.
• You know what?
• Just 5 TikToks made my list tonight. Let me know what you like
• "[T]he slowdown of human activity... has become known as the 'anthropause.' Some species clearly benefited from our absence..."
• "I don’t understand why the [Snopes] verdict is 'mostly false,' when most of this article is giving reasons why it would’ve made sense..."
• "The globalist billionaire who funded the woke transformation of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello paid for a similar overhaul of James Madison’s house..."

The found ginger beer bouquet. Posted: 18 Jul 2022 11:21 AM PDT Closeup: Long view: Write about anything you want in the comments.

"Statues paint an idiosyncratic portrait of American history. Consider Casimir Pulaski and Thaddeus Kosciuszko." Posted: 18 Jul 2022 10:13 AM PDT "The two Polish noblemen turned Revolutionary War generals are honored with more U.S. statues and monuments than all but a handful of native luminaries, according to the National Monument Audit. The audit was a year-long project to build a list of about 50,000 monuments... from mighty Mount Rushmore to a small monument in Ohio that pays homage to the man who 'brought the tuberous rooted begonia to this country from Belgium.'... Our colleague Gillian Brockell has already covered the report's headline findings. A.) Half of the 50 most represented men owned other human beings. And B.) Women are so rarely represented that mermaids easily outnumber congresswomen. (Counts of men in statues include Pulaski, who some scholars believe may have been intersex.)" From "The least diverse cities and most common statues in America. And more!" by Andrew Van Dam (WaPo). What's that evidence that Pulaski might have been intersex? The link goes to a 2019 WaPo article about a Pulaski monument in Savannah that contained a skeleton which had DNA that matched that of relative of Pulaski's and had a pelvis bone that a forensic anthropologist thought was from a woman.  Oddly enough, this news comes to me on the same morning that I am reading "Anthropologists Call for an End to Classifying Human Remains by Gender and Ancestry," a Jonathan Turley post" University of Kansas Associate Professor Jennifer Raff argued in a paper, "Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas," that there are "no neat divisions between physically or genetically 'male' or 'female' individuals."... ... Raff is not alone. Graduate students like Emma Palladino have objected that "the archaeologists who find your bones one day will assign you the same gender as you had at birth, so regardless of whether you transition, you can't escape your assigned sex." Back to the question why there are so many monuments to Casimir Pulaski and Thaddeus Kosciuszko. Van Dam writes: Ewa Barczyk, author of the forthcoming "Footsteps of Polonia: Polish Historical Sites Across North America," said... "Earlier generations of Poles — the workers who came here, worked hard and were successful — built these huge, beautiful churches and erected many statues...."

Movies that you have to watch twice to understand. Posted: 18 Jul 2022 06:46 AM PDT That's a title for a list I wanted and, googling, I found 5 things. Let's see if any fit my needs. I have come to believe that the best movie-watching experience is the second (or subsequent) watch, so that first watches feel like a test to see whether this is a movie worth watching at all. These days, if I watch a movie once and think it's good, I watch it again, within a day or two. That way, I have the greatest opportunity to see the most in this thing I've discovered is worth watching. Sometimes on second watch, I feel humbled by how much I missed the first time around. I'm practically laughing at myself for thinking I had seen the movie. So let's look at what my search turned up. 1. "Inception & 14 Other Movies You Have To Watch Twice To Understand/Movies rarely hold up well to many viewings, but these movies are perfect examples of the types of movies that need to be watched again" by Daniel Smith (a 2020 piece in Screen Rant). First on this list is "Synecdoche, New York": Synecdoche, New York laughs at the idea of [its] viewer only watching it twice. In reality, upon a second viewing, everyone will most likely be left with even more questions than they had before. The film packs in so many characters, subplots, life events, and idiosyncratic details, it requires total, rapt attention and more.  2. "10 Movies You Need To Watch Twice To Understand/Sometimes movies can leave viewers more confused than satisfied. Here's our list of movies that deserve (or demand) to be seen more than once" by Andy Crump (a 2015 piece, also in Screen Rant). This focuses on movies with a complicated story that becomes much clearer after you know some particular thing — e.g., "Twelve Monkeys," "Memento," "Fight Club." We all enjoy linear movies, but every now and again we're taken off guard by a completely ambiguous, inscrutable flick... dense, cerebral films demand our attention and challenge our intellect... 3. "Top 20 Movies That You Have to Watch Twice to Understand" (Mojo). At #2 is "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968): Nowadays, when you watch a film that leaves you puzzled, the internet is there to help. But can you imagine watching "2001: A Space Odyssey" back in 1968? Not only can I imagine it. I can remember it. I can even remember verbatim what my companion said to me when it ended: "What the hell was that?" 4. Here's a Quora discussion from who knows when: "What movie have you watched twice or thrice - or more to fully get the concept/fully/partial understanding?" 5. "What movies do you have to watch twice to understand?" — a Reddit discussion from 7 years ago. This discussion more closely tracks what I am thinking about. Some top comments:  Coen Brothers movies are better the second time, you don't have to focus on the plot as much, and instead focus on the characters. Most Coen Brothers movies are character driven, not plot driven...  I always tell my friends that The Big Lebowski makes sense the first time, but it isn't funny until the second....  Wes Anderson movies and surprisingly Alexander Payne movies are like this for me too. Yes, it was a Wes Anderson movie — "The French Dispatch" — that got me thinking about this question. Part of "understanding" it is seeing all the things within the frame and catching all the dialogue. I could not do both things simultaneously. On second watch, I heard a lot of dialogue (and read a lot of subtitles) that I'd completely missed because I was choosing — unconsciously — to look at the pictures. You know, Hollywood people are always calling movies "pictures." Nobody calls movies "dialogue."

"Mr. Biden’s face-to-face meeting with MBS — preceded by a cordial, and ill-advised, televised fist bump — conferred a much-coveted legitimacy on the crown prince." Posted: 18 Jul 2022 05:55 AM PDT "On a visit calculated to secure increases in the Saudi oil supply, this moment crystallized the damaging appearance of trading U.S. human rights principles — indeed the Saudi people's legitimate aspirations for greater freedom — for help curing the president's domestic political problems caused by expensive gasoline.... ... Mr. Biden gave more than he got. He made no wider critique of Saudi Arabia's repressive policies in public; there were no releases of political prisoners or clemency for other regime opponents — including dual U.S. citizens — who have been denied freedom to travel.... And when it was all over, MBS had made no public commitment to pump more oil.... A presidency that began with bold talk of a new, human-rights-centered approach to the Arab world has reverted to a policy not much less indulgent of dictators than those of previous administrations, including that of President Donald Trump." Writes the Washington Post editorial board, in "In the Middle East, Biden's policy bumps into U.S. principles."

"If you think about human biology, our bodies are built to reproduce.... You have to override what your body is saying..." Posted: 18 Jul 2022 05:41 AM PDT "... in order to make an adoption plan, and it takes a human being with a certain capacity to be able to do that." Said Janice Goldwater, who heads an adoption agency,  "Women denied abortion rarely choose adoption. That's unlikely to change. Experts say there are powerful reasons why the 1 million-plus wait list to adopt a U.S. infant will not shrink much, despite the end of Roe v. Wade" (WaPo). In a 2016 analysis as part of the five-year Turnaway Study... UCSF researchers... found that one week after being denied an abortion due to a late-term pregnancy just 14 percent of 171 study participants reported plans to place the baby for adoption or considered it as an option. Only nine percent of those who went on to give birth – 15 women — actually placed their newborns for adoption....  In interviews with researchers, Turnaway participants gave several reasons for deciding to parent, including finding relatives were more willing to help than they anticipated and the bond they felt with their infants after birth. Lastly, they said they would feel guilty if they chose adoption "either because they believed adoption was an abjuration of responsibility, or because they believed it meant they'd have no ongoing knowledge of their child," the report summarized.  Those who chose adoption expressed strong satisfaction with their decisions, but follow-up interviews "revealed mixed emotions," the report said. The 2016 analysis concluded: "Political promotion of adoption as an alternative to abortion is likely not grounded in the reality of women's decision making."...

"Tall and bald with the build of a swimmer, Pollan is no Timothy Leary — he isn’t asking anyone to drop out..." Posted: 18 Jul 2022 04:18 AM PDT "... and the medical trials described and shown in 'How to Change Your Mind' shouldn't be confused with Ken Kesey's freewheeling acid tests of the '60s. Back then, when psychedelics left the laboratory and entered the counterculture, the power structure freaked out. 'Kids were going to communes, and American boys were refusing to go to war,' Pollan said. 'President Nixon certainly believed that LSD was responsible for a lot of this, and he may well have been right. It was a very disruptive force in society, and that is why I think the media after 1965 turns against it after being incredibly enthusiastic before 1965.'... Given evolving attitudes, one challenge facing the filmmakers, including the directors Alison Ellwood and Lucy Walker, was how to depict the psychedelic experience in a sophisticated way, without stumbling into the territory of a '60s exploitation movie. 'We didn't want to fall into the trap of using psychedelic visual tropes — wild colors, rainbow streaks, morphing images,' Ellwood wrote in an email.... 'The ego is a membrane between you and the world,' [Pollan] said. 'It's defensive and it's very useful. It gets a lot done, but it also stands between us and other things and gives us this subject-object duality. When the ego is gone, there is nothing between you and the world.'" From "With 'How to Change Your Mind,' Taking a Trip With Michael Pollan/Based on the book about psychedelic therapy, a new Netflix docu-series prompted another writer to reach out to Pollan — and dig into his own experiences" (NYT). LSD without the psychedelic visuals of the 1960s, repositioned for our dismal times as something to eradicate whatever might be left of your ego. Thanks a lot, American culture.

"More people are cancelling their video subscriptions to save money in the face of the cost of living squeeze, with under-24s most likely to walk away...." Posted: 18 Jul 2022 02:50 AM PDT "Now, in a reversal of previous trends, the decline is being driven by younger audiences as they turn to free alternatives such as the BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub and TikTok. Household budgets are under intense pressure, with prices rising by 9.1 per cent a year, the highest inflation rate for 40 years, and with the Bank of England warning that inflation could reach 11 per cent within months.... According to Tom Harrington, of Enders Analysis, life is only going to get tougher for the platforms because 'it isn't just their direct competitors but every other household expense they have to worry about...." The London Times reports.

Sunrise — 5:35, 5:44. Posted: 17 Jul 2022 03:55 PM PDT Write about whatever you want in the comments.

You know what? Posted: 17 Jul 2022 04:14 PM PDT Here's a list of headlines beginning with "What" that are currently displayed on the New York Times homepage. "What a relief that Janeane Garofalo never sold out, our critic writes" "What Will Happen if Doctors Defy the Law to Provide Abortions?" "What to Know About BA.5" "What Joe Manchin Cost Us" "What It Means to See America in Person" "What Turns a Person Into a Mass Shooter?" "What I Learned When My Sister Got Sick" "What It Would Take for Your Team to Land Juan Soto"

Just 5 TikToks made my list tonight. Let me know what you like Posted: 17 Jul 2022 03:34 PM PDT 1. Lightning strike. 2. Parrots kiss. 3. The return of the influencer. 4. Asking people to name 3 songs by the band whose name is on their shirt. 5. The turtle sandbox is full of gender.

"[T]he slowdown of human activity... has become known as the 'anthropause.' Some species clearly benefited from our absence..." Posted: 17 Jul 2022 07:29 AM PDT "... [Christopher Wilmers, a wildlife ecologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz] speculated that the mountain lions were responding to changes in the urban soundscape, which might typically be filled with human chatter and the rumble of passing cars. 'But as soon as those audio stimuli are gone, then the animals are, like, "Well, might as well go see if there's anything to eat here,"' he said. Just north, in a newly hushed San Francisco, white-crowned sparrows began singing more quietly, yet the distance across which they could communicate 'more than doubled,' researchers found. The birds also began singing at lower frequencies, a shift that is associated with better performance — and an improved ability to defend territory and woo mates. 'Their songs were much more "sexy,'" said Elizabeth Derryberry, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and an author of the study. 'And it was overnight,' she added. 'Which kind of gives you hope that if you reduce noise levels in an area, you can have immediate positive impact.'"  From "Did Nature Heal During the Pandemic 'Anthropause'? Covid precautions created a global slowdown in human activity — and an opportunity to learn more about the complex ways we affect other species" (NYT). Slow down — anthropause — and the birds will sing a sexier song. I looked — just a little — for some information on the sexiness of birdsong. How would you know the effect on the nervous system of another bird? I did find this: "After some 20 years of theorizing, a scientist is publicly renouncing the 'beautiful hypothesis' that male birds' sexy songs could indicate the quality of their brains." Do you know when the bird's song is sexy? Do you know when the human's idea is beautiful?

"I don’t understand why the [Snopes] verdict is 'mostly false,' when most of this article is giving reasons why it would’ve made sense..." Posted: 17 Jul 2022 06:07 AM PDT "... for Lucille Ball to say 'don't gaslight me' in 1953. The word is based on the 1944 movie 'Gaslight.' The article cites a 1948 article that quotes a woman's lawsuit as alleging that her husband gave her 'the Gaslight treatment.' That phrase was used on Lucille Ball's TV show in the '60s, and in 1956 she did a parody of 'Gaslight' in a whole episode of her earlier show. She was a comedian who knew how to improv — don't you think she would've been creative enough to turn a noun into a verb? People do that all the time, e.g. I probably started saying 'I'll Facebook this' soon after I first got a Facebook account." Writes my son John, at Facebook, commenting on a Snopes post about its article "Did People Refer to Gaslighting During the Era of 'I Love Lucy'? A stray piece of dialogue from the 2021 biopic 'Being the Ricardos' set off a fascinating online debate about a cultural anachronism."  Snopes acknowledges that people back then knew the concept of "the Gaslight treatment" from the movie, but it blithely assumes that somehow, in the 1950s, we didn't fluidly and comically repurpose a noun into a verb: It is possible that Ball, in 1953, might have improvised or riffed off existing phrases like "the Gaslight treatment" and said to Arnaz "Don't gaslight me." However, based on the best documentary and archival evidence available, it is simply not plausible in that form, and [the] objection to the line is well-founded. The idea that people today have more verbal fluidity is left unexamined. I think people decades ago had better verbal skills. Study the history of language. It's not something kids thought up recently, this device of making a noun into a verb. There's even a Greek word for it: In rhetoric, anthimeria or antimeria (from Greek: ἀντί, antí, 'against, opposite', and μέρος, méros, 'part'), means using one part of speech as another, such as using a noun as a verb: "The little old lady turtled along the road." In linguistics, this is called conversion; when a noun becomes a verb, it is a denominal verb, when a verb becomes a noun, it is a deverbal noun. In English, many nouns have become verbs. For example, the noun "book" is now often used as a verb, as in the example "Let's book the flight". Other noun-as-verb usages include "I can keyboard that for you," "We need to scissor expenses," and "Desk him." Other substitutions could include an adjective used as a noun, as in "She dove into the foaming wet," interjection as verb, as in "Don't aha me!" a verb as a noun, as in "Help! I need some eat!" and so on....  Yes, poets and comics and other clever writers do this parts-of-speech switcheroo all the time. To think Lucy wouldn't or couldn't do it is downright insulting.  ADDED: The OED has an entry for "gaslight," the verb. Its earliest written usage is the 1961 occurrence that is in the Snopes piece: A. S. C. Wallace Culture & Personality 183 It is also popularly believed to be possible to 'gaslight' a perfectly healthy person into psychosis by interpreting his own behavior to him as symptomatic of serious mental illness. The seriousness of that publication and the way its written suggest that the verb was already in use, and indeed, the OED includes this note: J. E. Lighter Hist. Dict. Amer. Slang (1994) I. 868/1 records an oral use from 1956. 1956 is the year "I Love Lucy" had the parody of "Gaslight."  BONUS: @rachmangler #gaslighting #gaslight #gaslightingsigns #gaslighting101 ♬ original sound - Carly Burke

"The globalist billionaire who funded the woke transformation of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello paid for a similar overhaul of James Madison’s house..." Posted: 17 Jul 2022 05:24 AM PDT "[B]lindsided tourists are hammered by high-tech exhibits about Madison's slaves and current racial conflicts, thanks to a $10 million grant from left-leaning philanthropist David M. Rubenstein.... Visitors to Montpelier get to see just three rooms in the sprawling mansion.... Outdoors and in the house's huge basement, dozens of interactive stations seek to draw a direct line between slavery, the Constitution, and the problems of African Americans today. 'A one hour Critical Race Theory experience disguised as a tour,' groused Mike Lapolla of Tulsa, Okla., after visiting last August. Hurricane Katrina flooding, the Ferguson riots, incarceration, and more all trace back to slavery, according to a 10-minute multi-screen video. Another exhibit damns every one of the nation's first 18 presidents — even those, like John Adams and Abraham Lincoln, who never owned slaves — for having benefited from slavery in some way. The only in-depth material about the Constitution itself appears in a display that pushes the claim, championed by the controversial 1619 Project, that racism was the driving force behind the entire American political system.... Even the children's section of the gift shop leans far left, with titles like 'Antiracist Baby' by Ibram X. Kendi and 'She Persisted' by Chelsea Clinton." From "Founding father James Madison sidelined by woke history in his own home" (NY Post).

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