"People with psychosomatic illnesses are unfortunate in the fact that their condition offends western ideas not just about illness but who we are...."

"Our minds are airy, ethereal, separate; our bodies are a sort of machine for which the doctor is a mechanic. But... [s]praying water from your eyes in response to bad news is an example of a psychological state causing a physical one. So is the phenomenon of staving off a bout of illness until after you’ve completed an exam or an important piece of work....[S]ufferers from Parkinson’s disease, a physically manifested illness with an identifiable biological cause, respond dramatically to placebos. This means the psychological experience of a physical illness (in this case whether or not you believe you’re being treated) affects the way that illness manifests itself.... Another challenge to our understanding of functional disorders is our individualism. Though universal in human beings, psychosomatic illnesses are rooted in cultures and societies. Resignation syndrome, a disorder that causes children to fall asleep for years, occurs almost exclusively in asylum-seeking families in Sweden. The illness seems to be spread by reports of its existence. In France, you can buy remedies for a common minor syndrome called 'heavy legs' in most pharmacies. No other country seems to experience 'heavy legs.'.... [A] functional disorder called grisi siknis (crazy sickness), which is common among girls of the Nicaraguan Miskito people and causes hallucinations, tremors and superhuman strength, is successfully treated with rituals and the community 'rallying around.' Secular, atomised western society has no equivalent treatment."

From "Let’s end the stigma of psychosomatic illness/Our culture insists disease must have a biological cause but doctors know it isn’t that simple" by James Marriott (London Times). 

Secular, atomised western society has no equivalent treatment? What about congregations praying for the sick? 

Would it be "western" of me to say let's end the use of "western" to mean obsession with... whatever Marriott is using it to mean. It seems to me that we who live in the western longitudes of planet Earth have plenty of scientific and unscientific notions of the brain, roiling around in our brains. And when I look at a map, I see that Nicaragua is just as western as Tennessee and Ohio.

***

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"Around 15 million garments per week flow through Kantamanto, one of the largest secondhand clothing markets in the world...."

"Retailers take out substantial loans to purchase the bundles, hoping to find worthwhile garments in sellable condition. Yet almost half of what is bought is thrown away.... Why is there so much secondhand clothing? Increasingly, it’s built into the way we dress: fast fashion, the trendy, mass-produced clothing that can be made quickly and at low cost.... [T]he average person purchased 60 percent more clothing in 2014 compared to 2000, while each garment was kept for only half as long.... [C]lothing production accounts for 10 percent of the world’s carbon emissions. In response to increasing criticisms, fast fashion brands like Uniqlo, Zara, and Urban Outfitters have launched lines with a sustainable veneer: collections made with recycled materials... referred to... as 'greenwashing.'... [One activist] proposes a solution that would expand upon the traditional Three Rs kids are taught in schools—Reuse, Reduce, and Recycle—by adding Reckoning, Recovery, and Reparations.... In order to make fashion truly sustainable, the world will require Westerners to radically shift our relationship to clothing itself."

From "Greenwashing Fashion/These days, sustainability is on trend. But the trend cycle of fast fashion isn’t sustainable" (The Nation). 

Do you have the "relationship to clothing" described in the article? I don't think I do. I know better than to donate things that aren't saleable. Just throw them out in your own trash. Don't make them take a journey halfway around the world to be thrown out later. And if it doesn't belong in the trash, why not keep wearing it until it does? 

If the answer is It went out of style, then you can stop buying things that have that sort of style of planned future unstylishness. Choose classic, timeless styles and utilitarian clothing. 

If the answer is It doesn't fit anymore, then donate what's resellable. Better yet: maintain a consistent body size. You know that would be good for you. And it would also be good for the environment in 2 ways: 1. You'd be offloading less clothing into the secondhand market, and 2. You would not be overconsuming food and using the additional fossil fuel it takes to move your extra poundage in your motorized vehicle.

***

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Is there an "adultification bias" that "uniquely plagues Black girls"?

I'm reading "The Columbus mayor called Ma’Khia Bryant a ‘young woman.’ Here’s why people are angry. Some said it exemplified ‘adultification bias’ against the Black 16-year-old girl who was fatally shot by police" (The Lily/WaPo): 

Earlier that night, Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther (D) took to Twitter to share news of the killing, calling Ma’Khia a “young woman.” 

Replies quickly poured in, noting that Ma’Khia was a child — not an adult. At the news conference a few hours later, Ginther acknowledged Ma’Khia was a child: “The city of Columbus lost a 15-year-old girl today,” he said. “This young 15-year-old girl will never be coming home.” 

But some still took to social media to criticize his initial characterization of Ma’Khia, calling it “adultification bias” — a form of discrimination that uniquely plagues Black girls, leading them to be perceived by adults as less innocent and more adult-like than their White peers, according to a widely covered 2017 Georgetown study. 

It may be that black kids are often regarded as older than white kids of the same age. When there's an emergency, like the one in the case of Ma’Khia Bryant, those who need to help can only judge by what they see. We've seen the video, and Bryant looks like a powerful attacker about to slaughter someone who looks utterly defenseless. 

But the question of how to talk about the dead person afterwards is different. City officials ought to be circumspect and use careful language. But what is the best way to refer to a 16-year-old female? I would have thought "young woman" is the most respectful locution and that "girl" for someone that age is questionable. 

But I understand the desire to encourage the police to see minors in a different light from adults.

They're equal, oftentimes, in size and power, and they are out in the world acting independently and capable of causing great harm, but they haven't had the chance to mature mentally, and we ought to give them special care.... if we can. Video can be deceiving, but based on the video, I'd say there was no time to give Ma’Khia Bryant special care befitting her young age. The life of the other girl/young woman was on the line. 

But The Lily goes on like this: 

To [Ijeoma Opara, an assistant professor in the school of social welfare at Stony Brook University], the shooting exemplified [the sexism black girls face], given the familiarity of the situation: kids fighting. But police aggressively responded to Ma’Khia because of sexism and racism, she argued. “Children fight all the time, regardless of race, regardless of class level,” she said. “When we think about Ma’Khia or other Black girls like her … they’re not given the chance to be in situations that could be de-escalated.”...

Ma’Khia’s mother, Paula Bryant, said she was an honor roll student and that she had a “motherly nature about her.” “She promoted peace. That’s something I want to always be remembered,” she told local TV station WBNS.

It’s those memories, Opara said, that journalists should make sure to include in coverage of the girl’s death. “Journalists need to stop for a second and reflect and think: ‘Would I talk about Ma’Khia this way if she was a White girl?’” she said. “We all really have to make a conscious effort to undo what we’ve learned in school and in the media.”

Does anyone really think that a white girl seen on video doing what Bryant did would get more respect than has been shown to Bryant? I think she'd get much less.

FROM THE EMAIL: Jim writes: 

I read your post and shortly thereafter came across a related comment from Justice Thomas in a footnote to his opinion in Jones v. Mississippi, released this morning, on p. 5 where he comments : 

The Court’s language in this line of precedents is notable. When addressing juvenile murderers, this Court has stated that “ ‘children are different’ ” and that courts must consider “a child’s lesser culpability.” Montgomery, 577 U. S., at 207–208 (emphasis added). And yet, when assessing the Court-created right of an individual of the same age to seek an abortion, Members of this Court take pains to emphasize a “young woman’s” right to choose. See, e.g., Lambert v. Wicklund, 520 U. S. 292, 301 (1997) (Stevens, J., joined by Ginsburg and BREYER, JJ., concurring in judgment) (emphasis added); Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833, 899 (1992) (joint opinion of O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter, JJ.); Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 497 U. S. 502, 532 (1990) (Blackmun, J., joined by Brennan and Marshall, JJ., dissenting). It is curious how the Court’s view of the maturity of minors ebbs and flows depending on the issue. 

I think there is a tendency to attribute adulthood/maturity to a minor when it serves another purpose of the speaker/writer.

Yes, there is a new Supreme Court case on exactly this subject. The majority opinion is by Kavanaugh, joined by Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, and Barrett. Thomas's opinion is a concurrence. And the 3 liberal justices — Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan — dissent. Thomas is the only member of the Court who brings up abortion.

AND: Bill emails:

I have two comments: 

1. When I was a kid, even before puberty, it was common for authority-figure adults to call me "young man." Coaches in middle school and high school called us guys on the team "gentlemen." Depending on the context, it could feel like a reprimand or a sign of respect. It was "adultifying" in the sense that it carried with it an expectation that I would act a certain way. 

2. Apparently one must tread very, very carefully when remarking about a black person who appears to be in their late teens. Once a black person turns 18 years old, it is a terrible insult reminiscent of Jim Crow to refer to him or her as "boy" or "girl." But the day before that black person turns 18, it is "adultification" (also reminiscent of Jim Crow, probably) to refer to him or her as "young man" or "young woman."

Garner — in the news.

1. "It’s hard not to mythologize Bryan A. Garner. He is the Herakles of English usage.... A selection of sixty-eight items from the Garner Collection is on view at the Grolier Club.... The catalogue for the exhibit has two subthemes. One is a running count of how many parts of speech are defined in each grammar book: anywhere from two (nouns and verbs) to thirty-three (don’t ask). (The traditional number is eight.) The other thread is rivalry and backbiting among authors. In that era, a Grammar was second only to a Bible as a necessary object in a God-fearing household. While the Bible provided moral instruction, the Grammar, as a guide to correct linguistic behavior, might shore up confidence and help one get ahead in the world." — From "Grammar-Nerd Heaven/A new exhibit showcases the surprisingly contentious history of English grammar books" by Mary Norris (The New Yorker). 

2. "Earlier this month, the biographer Blake Bailey was approaching what seemed like the apex of his literary career. Reviews of his highly anticipated Philip Roth biography appeared before the book came out... Now, allegations against Mr. Bailey, 57, have emerged.... His publisher, W.W. Norton... said on Wednesday that it had stopped shipments and promotion of his book.... [In 2015], Valentina Rice, a publishing executive, met Mr. Bailey at the home of Dwight Garner, a book critic for The Times, and his wife in Frenchtown, N.J. A frequent guest at their home, Ms. Rice, 47, planned to stay overnight, as did Mr. Bailey, she said. After she went to bed, Mr. Bailey entered her room and raped her, she said. She said 'no' and 'stop' repeatedly, she said in an interview.... Mr. Garner was horrified to hear Ms. Rice’s account, he said. He added that he and Mr. Bailey do not have a relationship." —  From "Sexual Assault Allegations Against Biographer Halt Shipping of His Roth Book/W.W. Norton, citing the accusations that the author, Blake Bailey, faces, said it would stop shipping and promoting his new best-selling book" (NYT).

***

There is no comments section anymore, but you can email me here. Unless you say otherwise, I will presume you'd enjoy an update to this post with a quote from your email.

"Her art comes to life by oxidization. Just like apples, bananas oxidize, or turn brown, as the enzymes in their cells are released and interact with the oxygen in the air."

"Cells that are damaged — because they’ve been poked with a fork or dropped on the floor — brown faster. By varying when she applied the marks, Chojnicka discovered that she could create a palette of shades, resulting in surprisingly intricate pictures." 

From "Bored in the pandemic, she made art by bruising bananas. Now she has an international following" (WaPo), which is all about this Instagram feed. It's not high art. It's stuff like this:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Banana Bruiser (@banana_bruiser)

 

Yes, that gets you an article in The Washington Post these days. Got to keep up with the fads. Speaking of fads, bananas, and "high art," remember the 60s fad of getting high from banana skins and wondering if "Mellow Yellow" was about that? 

Ah, yes, here — Atlas Obscura has an article about it: "Smoking Banana Peels Is the Greatest Drug Hoax of All Time/They called it mellow yellow" ("Donovan would later state definitively that the song was actually written about a yellow vibrator...").

ADDED: I was curious about my use of the word "skins" — "banana skins" — instead of the more normal "banana peels." What came over me? I googled and was very amused to see that "Banana peel" has its own Wikipedia page. It's not just a subsection under "Banana." 

Anyway, there I learn that "banana skins" is the British term. The subsections with the "Banana peels" article are: "Uses," "Culinary Uses," "In a comical context," "Peeling methods," and "Psychoactive effects of banana peels." Under the "comical" heading, we get the serious science of why banana peels provide such a slippery:

The coefficient of friction of banana peel on a linoleum surface was measured at just 0.07, about half that of lubricated metal on metal. Researchers attribute this to the crushing of the natural polysaccharide follicular gel, releasing a homogenous sol.

*** 

There is no comments section anymore, but you can email me here. Unless you say otherwise, I will presume you'd enjoy an update to this post with a quote from your email.

1-minute sunrise.

This morning, at 6:05:

6:18, 6:22, 6:27.

This morning on Lake Mendota:

"The investigation I am announcing today will assess whether the Minneapolis Police Department engages in a pattern or practice of using excessive force including during protests."

Said Attorney General Merrick Garland, quoted in "Attorney General Merrick Garland announces an investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department" (NYT).

So-called pattern-or-practice investigations are often the precursors to consent decrees, court-approved deals between the Justice Department and local governments that create and enforce a road map for training and operational changes.... The Obama administration had repeatedly used the tool to address police misconduct. The restoration of consent decrees was one of the Biden administration’s first significant moves to hold police forces accountable in cases where they are found to have violated federal laws. 

FROM THE EMAIL: Mattman26 writes:

Good for the Biden Administration for committing to ferreting out the racism in the Democratic Party!

The whole “City X last had a Republican mayor in [year]” thing has become kind of an all-purpose giggle line for righties (myself included).

But seriously here: Except for a weird one-day thing, Minneapolis has had nothing but Democratic mayors dating back to the early sixties. The City Council (per Wiki), which governs the PD, has 12 Democrats and one Green (and that’s it). The Chief (nominated by the mayor, approved by the City Council) is a Black man who has held the post since 2017, and whom you’d have to guess is not a Republican (not because he’s Black, but because he got the job). And I’d guess you’d have to go way back in time to find a Chief who wasn’t Democrat-leaning.

So who hires these cops? Who trains them? Who disciplines them? Who provides their rules of engagement? It’s Democrats all the way down.

AND: Jeffrey emails: 

I didn't watch all of the Derrick Chauvin trial, but I watched enough to know that central themes included that his actions were far outside the norm of policing, as trained or practiced in the Minneapolis Police Department. So what happens to this ex-cop, oh-so hung out to dry by his department, when it is found that the problem wasn't that he was a rogue cop, but that he was literally doing what he understood to be his job? Doesn't that go to the whole "reasonable police officer" standard at the heart of the case? Shouldn't they have been announcing this investigation just like they were announcing the 8-figure settlement the city reached with the Floyd family? I mean, if we're improperly influencing the jury, shouldn't we do so in a balanced way?

"Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was in the Oval Office, pleading with President Biden... to end Trump-era restrictions on immigration..."

"... and to allow tens of thousands of desperate refugees fleeing war, poverty and natural disasters into the United States... The attitude of the president during the meeting, according to one person to whom the conversation was later described, was, essentially: Why are you bothering me with this? What had been an easy promise on the campaign trail — to reverse what Democrats called President Donald J. Trump’s “racist” limits on accepting refugees — has become a test of what is truly important to the new occupant of the White House... Now, a decision to raise the refugee limit to 62,500 — as Mr. Biden had promised only weeks earlier to members of Congress — would invite from Republicans new attacks of hypocrisy and open borders even as the president was calling for bipartisanship. It was terrible timing, he told officials.... Biden’s staff came up with a compromise.... The backlash was immediate.... Within hours, the president backtracked...."

Writes Maggie Haberman in the NYT. 

Isn't that awfully mean? One person interprets the President's attitude, and it gets published in the NYT:  

Why are you bothering me with this?

As if the man — touted for his empathy — has no empathy. What really happened? Obviously, Biden understands the human experience of the refugees. He doesn't need Blinken acting out the suffering to him at great length. I'm imagining Biden wanting to solve the problems pragmatically, taking all the considerations into account, not just caving in to gushing empathy for the desperate people at the border. 

Now, the NYT is portraying Biden as weak and wavering this way and that as he's criticized for anything he does, over a problem for which there is no satisfying solution.

IN THE EMAIL: Lloyd writes:

Finally, White House staff start leaking against the Pres, just like happened twenty times a day under Trump. Welcome to the real world Joe, or whoever your ventriloquist is.

AND: Let me say, I presume the "one person" who interpreted Biden's "attitude" to the NYT was Blinken himself. That strikes me as unpleasantly disloyal. And vain. BUT: Ignorance is Bliss writes to say the language in the NYT is "one person to whom the conversation was later described": "While that does not absolutely rule out someone who was in the room at the time, it does strongly imply that the source did not have first-hand knowledge of the exchange. So, likely not Blinken, and even worse to base a mean quote on hearsay."

ALSO IN THE EMAIL: Balfegor writes:

The Washington Post article on the refugee cap debacle actually paints Biden in a pretty positive light, I think, despite their headline about the wheels supposedly coming off:

He had a specific and to my mind quite reasonable concern about the capacity of the agency responsible for handling both the children abandoned at the border and refugee resettlement:

"The president was particularly frustrated by the government’s struggle to deal with unaccompanied minors at the border and became increasingly concerned about the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s response to the crisis, the people said. The unit, housed at the Department of Health and Human Services, has responsibility for both unaccompanied minors at the border and the separate group of foreigners seeking refugee status due to persecution, war or oppression at home."

That's a new crisis (if somewhat self-created) and one that didn't exist when he was making campaign promises, so it's entirely appropriate for him to take those changed circumstances into account when setting policy.

But it also sounds like Biden is facing the same problem Trump did, viz. that the civil service, including his own appointees, don't want to obey the democratically elected president and are trying to box him in, including through articles like the New York Times. His State Department proposed 62,500 in a report to Congress before he had a chance to weigh in. His press secretary, Psaki, even lied about whether there was a connection between the minors abandoned at the border and the low refugee cap, only to have Biden promptly reveal the truth when his handlers let him address the public directly. Yes, he got rolled in the end, but the fact that in the face of what must have been a concerted effort by the unelected officials and party activists around him feeding him data and recommendations, he was willing to buck their consensus speaks well of him.

"I wonder how Goldberg would react if the genders were flipped — if the discussion were about 'Andrea Yang,' a 46-year-old woman who's a successful businessperson vs. 'Alexander Ocasio-Cortez,' a 31-year-old man who..."

"... surprised everyone by getting elected to Congress when he was a 20-year-old bartender with an economics degree. I'm going to guess that if a male AOC and a female Yang were running in the same election and taken equally seriously, Goldberg would say that shows that women are systematically disadvantaged."  

Writes my son John (at Facebook), critiquing the NYT op-ed by Michelle Goldberg titled "There Could Never Be a Female Andrew Yang/No woman with his résumé would have a chance of becoming New York’s mayor." 

Goldberg herself brings up the comparison to AOC: "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of the great political talents of her generation, but I doubt she’d be taken seriously if she ran for New York mayor, despite being far more politically experienced than Yang." 

FROM THE EMAIL: James writes:

Has Goldberg never heard of Carly Fiorina?

MikeR writes:

"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of the great political talents of her generation, but I doubt she’d be taken seriously if she ran for New York mayor, despite being far more politically experienced than Yang." 

Non sequitur. Being very talented politically is a good reason to get elected to Congress, where politics is most of what you do. It is no reason at all to be elected mayor of New York City, where you have to run things competently. AOC has shown no talent for that and in fact has never even tried to do that in any phase of her life.

AND: bb says:

Bartending gets no respect. I've spent some time watching bartenders up close and I think bartending should be a prerequisite to being NYC mayor.

This seems to be the final blog post of the charming, inventive blogger Chip Ahoy: "I am in hospital. Intensive care..."

"... for right now. Little problem with heart, lungs, kidneys. They all failed together. Heart surgery tomorrow. I told the ambulance crew, the emergency crew, the intensive care crew that I am terrified...." 

It's not for me to make announcements of facts I cannot check. The blog doesn't even say "Chip Ahoy" on the front page, and there's no public announcement that relates to this pseudonym. 

Chip Ahoy was a highly valued commenter on my blog in the years 2007 to 2013 — especially for his animations of photographs that I had posted. Like this:

Click on the tag "Chip Ahoy" and keep scrolling to get to many more.

I don't have comments anymore (though you can comment by emailing me here). The last time I used the "Chip Ahoy" tag was the time I ended comments in 2013 — "The comments vacation." Comments came back eventually, but I never heard from Chip again, unfortunately. We've missed his light touch and warm charm.

"Music streaming platforms have sexism wired-in."

Jawad Iqbal writes in the London Times: 

Their algorithms, which recommend things you might like based on your listening habits, are basically sexist, generating playlist after playlist dominated by male musicians.

Isn't it like sexual preference — you really do respond to the sex of the singer? With no machine helping me at all, I can see in the music choices I am making that I prefer a male voice. 

Those damning findings...

Damning!!

... come from research conducted at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. Academics analysed the listening patterns of 330,000 users over nine years: only a quarter of the artists they listened to were women, because on average the first algorithm-recommended track was always by a man; listeners had to wait until the seventh or eighth song before hearing from a woman.

It's a problem only if you assume that the outcome should be equal. But isn't the algorithm attuned to what people have responded to?

Some of this bias is a reflection of historical failures in the music industry, which has always been dominated by male acts, save for occasional superstars such as Taylor Swift or Beyoncé.

Maybe we respond to what we respond to because it's familiar, and what is familiar is a consequence of sexist decision-making within the music industry. Why do we like what we like? Is it deep or is it shallow?

There's something called the "mere exposure" effect (Wikipedia):

The mere-exposure effect is a psychological phenomenon by which people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. In social psychology, this effect is sometimes called the familiarity principle. The effect has been demonstrated with many kinds of things, including words, Chinese characters, paintings, pictures of faces, geometric figures, and sounds. In studies of interpersonal attraction, the more often someone sees a person, the more pleasing and likeable they find that person... 

In the 1960s, a series of Robert Zajonc's laboratory experiments demonstrated that simply exposing subjects to a familiar stimulus led them to rate it more positively than other, similar stimuli that had not been presented before....

In 1980, Zajonc proposed the affective primacy hypothesis: that affective reactions (such as liking) can be "elicited with minimal stimulus input." Through mere-exposure experiments, Zajonc sought to provide evidence for the affective-primacy hypothesis, namely that affective judgments are made without prior cognitive processes....

[One] experiment exposed Chinese characters for short times to two groups of people. They were then told that these symbols represented adjectives and were asked to rate whether the symbols held positive or negative connotations. The symbols the subjects had previously seen were consistently rated more positively than those they had not. In a similar experiment, people were not asked to rate the connotations of the symbols, but to describe their mood after the experiment. Members of the group with repeated exposure to certain characters reported being in better moods than those without....

Why do we like the pop songs we like, and what is Spotify doing to our brains refeeding us what we've been fed before? Is it evil — damnable? The question whether it's sexist is only a small part of the problem. That seems to focus on whether the singers are getting their due or are penalized by pernicious subordination. But the minds of the listeners are much more important. There are billions of us, and we're plugged into this system of endless feeding and refeeding. Within it, we have the feeling of being pleased. But neither the machine nor we understand why we are pleased.

***

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FROM THE COMMENTS: Jen R writes: Hi Ann,

Hi Ann, 

This is the first time I've written in, as I never registered as a commenter.

A few months ago, I realized I'd stopped listening to Pandora, when I used to listen to it almost every day. I had grown irritated with the service, and it sounds like Spotify has the same problem. It's not what I would call sexism so much as what I think of as the algorithm whirlpool, which is the same reason I dropped my Netflix subscription and get exasperated with other feeds.

The algorithm whirlpool goes like this. I have a song stuck in my head, so I put the name of the artist into a channel. I click like on the song, then move on to other work. I never give other feedback, unless I skip one or two songs, other than continuing to listen while using other applications. Say the song in my head has a tenor in a rock band. The first few songs are more tenors, more rock bands. After a while, I feel quizzical -- why so many tenors, so much guitar, so much of the same beat? It gets monotonous, especially as the playlist moves away from the original artist, into songs that sound like weaker and weaker knockoffs. A DJ who did this kind of playlist would be fired. This soundtrack would never sell for a movie. I found myself increasingly annoyed that I would only hear female artists if I put a female artist first, or only male artists if I went with a song by a male artist, when I'd rather hear a mix of voices and variations on style. The whirlpool, at first a fun ride, has sucked me down into an inescapable stream of music that all sounds too much the same.

I'd rather the playlist built in some diversity while staying in the same era of music. I also like instrumental music, but if I select a piano concerto, I'll only get to hear piano music. No violins, no orchestra, no trumpet. Just ... more piano, all with the same approximate tempo and dynamics.

You might wonder, why not just pick "classic rock" or "classical music" for my station? My answer is that then, I tend to get the more (to me) blah, overplayed stuff that I already got sick of hearing on the radio.

I don't consider this "sexism," but bad programming that doesn't allow for a randomizer escape. On Netflix, it was even worse. I'd watch one comedy special from a favorite comedian of mine. Then I'd be offered even more comedians from the same demographic as the first. I'd try a couple out -- these would also be fairly funny. Then I'd be offered more, more, more, until I wasn't even smiling at their rambling non-jokes. Each time I'd open Netflix, I'd be faced with unrecognizable comedians. I'm not obsessed with stand-up, but the Netflix algorithm had pushed us both into a whirlpool. Their old interface was more indifferent to my prior choices, and therefore less annoying. I dropped my subscription and don't miss it.

Currently, everyone in my Youtube suggestions is from Australia or New Zealand. All after I liked one cupcake video. Go figure.

What ticks me off, besides the annoying algorithm design, is that now if people start hearing the female voices (or the non-comedy specials, or the non-Australians) pop up in their feeds, they'll assume this is a cloying "eat-your-vegetables" directive and resent women vocalists. The programmers created the problem by failing to understand how a lot of us engage with media & enjoy a little bit of surprise or variety. Then their solution will be something that supposedly looks like they are fighting sexism, but is just a distraction from how boring their algorithm-directed feeds are. So the conversation will be about whether female or male voices are more pleasant, instead of how wealthy computer programmers are treating us all like my toddler, bringing me every shoe in the house to try to get me to play outside.

AND: James emails: 

I listen to a lot of songs on Spotify and I had no idea that the recommended playlist algorithms could potentially be sexist. I merely thought that they were lame.

But I did decide to put it to the test and see how long I had to wait to hear something from a female artist. For today's Daily Mix #1 it's not a good start with the first female artist Janis Joplin appearing at number 24! Mix #2 is a little more promising with the first female artist is Sidney Gish at number 4. Back to sexism with Mix #3 that has Lana Del Rey at number 16, but Chrissy Hynde fronting the Pretenders takes the number 1 spot on Mix #4. With an unsurprising ZERO female artists appearing on Mix #5 due to its heavy German techno-metal content, Mix #6 comes back strong with a number 1 Irma Thomas.

My unscientific and completely personal experience verdict: not sexist.

That made me look at my Daily Mixes from Spotify. I don't see a Mix#1, but in Mix #2, I have Nico twice in the top 6 and Lana Del Rey and Yoko Ono.  In Mix #3, 7 or the top 10 are females — Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Etta James. The only males are Frank Sinatra and — doing "Whiter Shade of Pale" — King Curtis. Mix #4 is mostly male, and Mix #5 is all male. My unscientific and completely personal experience verdict: not sexist.

It's the new comments snippets post.

Thanks to all who have emailed in comments. This post is here to point you to posts in the last few days that have comments. The quotes are snippets chosen for amusement value and to give me something to put a link on:

1. "I'm weirdly interested in the fact that you're planting wheat and barley."

2. "It's funny that the article didn't mention Neal Stephenson's 1992 novel, Snowcrash...."

3. "I'm getting a lot of email saying that's not a bobcat, but a regular house cat, but I can't believe this man would put up the video if it were because he grabs the beast and hurls it hard into the ground."

4. "More than once I was called into chambers in the principal's office and point blank asked if I was a 'racist.' Me!"

5. "These boxes are not Habitats for Humans but a kind of litter."

6. "I presume your assertion near the end of your post was meant to be facetious; it would be profoundly racist to presume...."

7. "Looks like the Times needed another article on the shooting, so they published one before they had figured out a clear story."

8. "Perhaps 'eye raising' now means something so attention-grabbing that it causes someone to look up from their phone."

9. "A well-fitting corset is far superior in support to a bra...."

10. "The powers that be just did not bother to let the rest of us know this until after the 'they killed a cop' narrative was firmly rooted in the public mind."

11. "Somehow she has moved from 'afraid to die' to 'afraid to live.'"

12. "It really doesn't make business sense to keep a program open when students don't want to enroll."

Symplocarpus foetidus.

The view from the Skunk Cabbage Bridge:

 

There really is a Skunk Cabbage Bridge in the UW Arboretum. It traverses the Skunk Cabbage Wetland. 

 

I took those pictures yesterday.

The Latin name for skunk cabbage is Symplocarpus foetidus: 

Eastern skunk cabbage is notable for its ability to generate temperatures of up to 15–35 °C (27–63 °F) above air temperature by cyanide resistant cellular respiration in order to melt its way through frozen ground, placing it among a small group of thermogenic plants.... Some studies suggest that beyond allowing the plant to grow in icy soil, the heat it produces may help to spread its odor in the air. Carrion-feeding insects that are attracted by the scent may be doubly encouraged to enter the spathe because it is warmer than the surrounding air, fueling pollination....

Chauvin guilty on all counts.

I'm sure that is an immense relief to many, many people

From the NYT:

Outside the building in Minneapolis where the verdict was read, there was a shout — “Guilty!” — and then an eruption of cheers. When all the counts came back guilty, the cheer changed: “All three counts!”...

At George Floyd Square, the memorial to where Floyd was killed, a woman nearly collapses in tears. When she straightens, she manages to croak out, “We matter. We matter.” 

***

There is no comments section anymore, but you can email me here. Unless you say otherwise, I will presume you'd enjoy an update to this post with a quote from your email.

6:07 a.m.

"The removal of the classics is a sign that we, as a culture, have embraced from the youngest age utilitarian schooling at the expense of soul-forming education."

"To end this spiritual catastrophe, we must restore true education, mobilizing all of the intellectual and moral resources we can to create human beings of courage, vision and civic virtue. Students must be challenged: Can they face texts from the greatest thinkers that force them to radically call into question their presuppositions? Can they come to terms with the antecedent conditions and circumstances they live in but didn’t create? Can they confront the fact that human existence is not easily divided into good and evil, but filled with complexity, nuance and ambiguity? This classical approach is united to the Black experience. It recognizes that the end and aim of education is really the anthem of Black people, which is to lift every voice. That means to find your voice, not an echo or an imitation of others. But you can’t find your voice without being grounded in tradition, grounded in legacies, grounded in heritages."

Write Cornel West and Jeremy Tate in "Howard University’s removal of classics is a spiritual catastrophe" (WaPo). 

FROM THE COMMENTS: Joe writes:

I know a lot of institutions are closing programs now, but it isn't a value judgement as much as it is an acknowledgement of no students enrolled. Looking at the federal government numbers for 2019, 2018, and 2017, no bachelor's degrees were awarded in classics at Howard University. In 2016 and 2015, only 1 degree each year was awarded. There are so few graduates in classics at most schools, I can't find any earnings data on the college scorecard site. It really doesn't make business sense to keep a program open when students don't want to enroll.

"We don’t know if it is going to ever be over... I will be masked up for many, many years... There are too many unknowns."

"I would give anything just to hold someone’s hand. People need other people. You need human contact to survive in this world.... [My daughter] said, ‘Mom, I already had COVID, so I don’t think I need the shot.’ I said, ‘Yes you do. You could get COVID twice. I know people who have gotten it twice... She’s just — I mean, you can’t really do so much. I said, ‘You’re not gonna see me until you’re fully vaccinated. Because you’re not gonna come up here and kill me.'... I get winded very quickly because of my heart issue, and it’s very difficult for me to breathe with a mask.... But I will not take it off.... The only time I will ever take the mask off is when I hear there are zero deaths, and it stays that way for a couple months, and there’s no new infections.... But I highly doubt that is going to happen anytime soon."

 Said Robin Argenti, a 57-year-old woman, quoted in "The Forever Maskers" (NY Magazine). 

FROM THE COMMENTS: Rosebud writes: 

This woman sounds very much like someone I know and love, and probably like someone that any reader knows and loves. Somehow she has moved from "afraid to die" to "afraid to live". She may be alive, existing, but not living in any sense other than living in fear, in my opinion. It's too bad she has done her own personal algebra and determined that living in fear is greater than just living, but she's welcome to her conclusion. Living in fear leads to dying just as certainly as living does, and for most of us living is greater than living in fear. We need to be welcome to our conclusions as well.

AND: Sean writes: 

"I would give anything just to hold someone’s hand." This is the quote that struck me. Because the words are entirely contrary to the actions of the speaker.

I'm also 57 and live in Upstate NY. I know a few people like Robin Argenti. People who have gone over the edge due to Covid. She's not willing to give "anything" just to hold someone's hand. She's obviously not willing to take the slightest risk and she's not alone.

Although the article lacks this detail, I assume if she's been making demands of family members to get a vaccine before she's willing to meet them in person that she's been vaccinated herself. So, you have a fully vaccinated person unwilling to meet someone who has already had Covid, even masked. The danger from such actions is exceedingly small.

I sense from the article the people quoted are fearful, totally risk averse, and also unable to assess risk objectively. The ordinary activities of life carry risk. There are fatal accidents everyday, both out in public and at home. There's never been any certainty, for anyone. Yet she's going to wait for Covid deaths to be zero for months on end before going out unmasked?

Feeling terrified and helpless is no way to go through life. I blame the media because fear sells and they've been selling it hand over fist for going on a year now. Fearful people are compliant. Now that Trump is gone and Covid is waning, they'll be looking for a new boogeyman. Climate Change perhaps.

"Yes, a book claiming objectivity on abortion (if that is indeed what Barrett produces) would just be a continuation of the dishonesty of Supreme Court nominees..."

"... acting as though they haven’t really thought much about the most heavily discussed and controversial cases in the history of constitutional law. Once confirmed, most of them fall silent until they actually rule on the relevant cases. Maybe Barrett’s book deal is in fact a big advance on a tome she will write after she has helped overturn Roe — in which case, she could publish a book of recipes or something about her stamp collection and grateful anti-abortion activists would snap it up. And at that point no one would much care whether her 'personal feelings' had anything to do with the chore Trump placed her on the Court to perform as part of his transactional relationship with the Christian Right."

Writes Ed Kilgore — with over-the-top hostility — in the "Justice Barrett Gets $2 Million Deal to Tell Readers What They Don’t Want to Hear" (NY Magazine). 

"What They Don't Want to Hear" is the discussion of the role of a judge in following the law without interposing personal feelings. Kilgore assumes the people who would buy a book written by Amy Coney Barrett are simply those who believe abortion is murder and want it stopped, however it can be stopped. 

Kilgore's basis for accusation is thin. He speaks of "the chore Trump placed her on the Court to perform," but Barrett has life tenure and free of any "chores" that must be performed. And I don't think Trump is much of an abortion opponent. He many have won the votes of the "Christian Right," but now that the elections are over, he's not in a "transactional relationship" with these people. Trump had the power to appoint when he had it, and he used it to make an appointment of a person that he knew would be on her own once sworn in. Kilgore scribbles about a deal was made and remains alive, and I guess that's what he gets paid for. And isn't that's what New York Magazine subscribers pay to hear?

***

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"All that transpired played a role in his condition," said the medical examiner, in the case of Officer Brian D. Sicknick, who died after the January 6th breaching of the Capitol.

"His office said that it attributes death to natural causes when it can be ascribed to disease alone and that 'if death is hastened by an injury, the manner of death is not considered natural.'" Yet the medical examiner, Francisco J. Diaz, determined that Sicknick died of "natural causes."

I'm reading "Officer Attacked in Capitol Riot Died of Strokes, Medical Examiner Rules The determination is likely to complicate efforts to prosecute anyone in the death of the officer, Brian Sicknick" (NYT).

"The determination is likely to complicate the Justice Department’s efforts to prosecute anyone in the death of Officer Sicknick, 42; two men have been charged with assaulting him by spraying an unknown chemical on him outside the Capitol. But an autopsy found no evidence that Officer Sicknick had an allergic reaction to chemicals or any internal or external injuries.... Two men were charged last month with assaulting Officer Sicknick, but prosecutors have avoided linking the attack to his death...."

That's written confusingly. If "prosecutors have avoided linking the attack to his death," then what are the "efforts to prosecute anyone in the death of Officer Sicknick"? The assault is an assault regardless of whether it caused a death that happened to occur soon afterward. But there's also that discrepancy between what the medical examiner said — "All that transpired played a role in his condition" — and the assertion that the finding of death by "natural causes" excludes the idea that death "was hastened by an injury."

Not discussed in the New York Times article is the way the media ran with the notion that the Capitol protesters had killed a cop. That's the legend they created, and I bet that legend will live.

FROM THE EMAIL: I'm getting a lot of email, much of it expanding what I've already said in that last paragraph. I get the sense many readers need that to be said more elongatedly, more emphatically. But let me give you this emailed comment, from James. It's short and pithy, and it kicks things up with an observation that I didn't make — speculation that there was deliberate delay to give life to the legend:

Maybe the reason prosecutors have not tried to link anyone to Officer Sicknick’s death or charge anyone with homicide is that they have known for months that he died of natural causes and there was no homicide. The powers that be just did not bother to let the rest of us know this until after the “they killed a cop” narrative was firmly rooted in the public mind.

ALSO: Glenn Greenwald is especially outraged for the way other journalists treated him: 

Because of its centrality to the media narrative and agenda, anyone who tried to point out the serious factual deficiencies in this story — in other words, people trying to be journalists — were smeared by Democratic Party loyalists who pretend to be journalists as "Sicknick Truthers,” white nationalist sympathizers, and supporters of insurrection.

For the crime of trying to determine the factual truth of what happened, my character was constantly impugned by these propagandistic worms, as was anyone else's who tried to tell the truth about Sicknick's tragic death. Because one of the first people to highlight the journalistic truth here was former Trump official Darren Beattie of Revolver News and one of the few people on television willing to host doubts about the official story was Tucker Carlson, any doubts about the false Sicknick story — no matter how well-grounded in truth, facts, reason and evidence — were cast as fascism and white supremacy, and those raising questions smeared as "truthers”: the usual dreary liberal insults for trying to coerce people into submitting to their lies....

"[L]ast year, Hsu Hsiu-e, 84 and Chang Wan-ji, 83—a married couple who own a laundromat in Taiwan—became global social media stars thanks to their Instagram account..."

"... @wantshowasyoung. The pair pose in compelling outfits styled from clothes their laundromat customers have left behind. The account is now up to over 654,000 followers and the pair was recently named the ambassadors for Taipei Fashion Week." 

From "Grandpa Style: Why 20-Somethings Are Dressing Like Senior Citizens/Thanks to Instagram accounts like @Gramparents and books like ‘Chinatown Pretty,’ milllenials and Gen-Z are coming to appreciate their gray-haired elders’ fashion sense" (WSJ). 

 I'm amused by the way the WSJ tried so hard to get the double letters in "millennial" right and came up with "milllenials." 

Anyway... @wantshowasyoung isn't about youngish people dressing like really old people. It's old people wanting to "show as young" — look young. I'm blogging this little side issue, because I like the Instagram account. Such a perfect idea. Example:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by 萬秀的洗衣店｜WANT SHOW as young (@wantshowasyoung)

As for millennials and Gen Zers dressing like "grandfathers," my favorite example of this is the YouTube icon Review Brah, who explains here — in his mesmerizing style — why he dresses like that: 

 

The Wall Street Journal has written on this subject before. Back in 2013, it had "Grandfather Knows Best — Instead of idolizing Dad, some well-dressed men reach a further generation back for their style cues":

"My grandfather taught me that a man always carries a handkerchief and always needs a clean-cut hairstyle," said Max, a private-equity firm associate who lives in Chicago....While his father is no slouch, Max explained, "he requires comfort in his dress."

Perhaps it's the legacy of the baby boomers who loosened their collars and made every day a Casual Friday, but many men are looking past dear old Dad and finding lessons in their grandfathers' wardrobes....

FROM THE EMAIL: Mr. Wibble writes: 

Over the past year I've fallen down the rabbit hole that is the historical costuming community on Youtube, and one interesting point that gets raised by these (mostly) women time and again is how much "comfort versus style" is a false-dichotomy. The two are not at odds; in fact, dressing well can often be more comfortable.

A well-fitting corset is far superior in support to a bra, natural fibers such as cotton, linen, or light wool breathe far better than modern fabrics, and the clever use of tailoring and padding can help create the fashionable shape and hide any number of sins. 

Personally, I've found that a jacket, tie, and slacks are far more comfortable for everyday wear than jeans and a t-shirt. I have to wonder if the rise of mass manufactured clothing post-WWII has played a role in the sloppiness of modern society. Modern fabrics (read, "plastic and rubber") sewn by Vietnamese workers and designed to fit the most body types without any adjustment will always look sloppy and feel uncomfortable. 

Also, that suit is too big for that young man. He needs it taken in, and needs to sit up straight. 

*rambles like an old man*

I agree that casual clothes can be uncomfortable and dressy clothes can be comfortable. It's a matter of fabric and fit. But it takes some thought and searching and, often, extra money to get yourself into dressy clothes that are comfortable. 

And I don't buy that corsets are more comfortable than bras. "Bra" is not just one thing. There's a whole range, and if you have something of good quality that fits, it might be pretty comfortable. For casualness, you can just toss out that bra, though some women insist that they are less comfortable with no bra at all! Personally, I think that's a problem caused by bra-wearing, which provides external support for what is otherwise be supported from the inside. But are corsets more comfortable than a well-made, properly fitting bra? Maybe they are if they are well-made and properly fitting, but it might depend on the person.

As for modern fabrics, I think the really high quality stuff that you find in athletic wear may be superior to cotton. Runners and hikers are advised not to wear cotton.

As for Review Brah, he wears what he likes, and he like oversized, baggy clothes. He gets people telling him all the time that his clothes should be more fitted, and he adamantly rejects the advice. His position is wear what you want, and he's wearing what he wants.

"I wish elected officials would stop talking about this case, especially in a manner that is disrespectful to the rule of law and to the judicial branch and our function."

"I think if they want to give their opinions, they should do so in a respectful and in a manner that is consistent with their oath to the Constitution to respect a coequal branch of government. Their failure to do so I think is abhorrent, but I don't think it has prejudiced us with additional material that would prejudice this jury." 

Said Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill, the judge in the Derek Chauvin case, quoted in "Jury ends first day of deliberating with no verdicts in Derek Chauvin murder trial/With the dismissals of the alternates, the jury of 12 is now half white and half people of color" (Star Tribune). 

It's a hopeless wish. People are going to talk. And disrespect is part of human expression. An important part. The rule of law is one of the all-time great ideals, but the way the law plays out in real life deserves — and benefits from — the expression of disrespect. It's fine for the judge to wish for respect, but it's up to him to do what earns respect. 

His main point here is to deny that there has been a mistrial because of what's been said out there in public, particularly what Rep. Maxine Waters said — that protesters need to get "more confrontational" if there is no guilty verdict. It's horrible to think that all the hard work of conducting a trial could be squandered by one wild-talking politician. Of course Cahill denied the motion.

But does the threat of riots unfairly prejudice the jury — and does Waters's one inflammatory statement make all the difference? What does "more confrontational mean"? It could just mean bigger, louder, more passionate demonstrations. But perhaps we're supposed to know that she meant destruction and violence — just like the way the supporters of the last impeachment were sure that when Trump urged people in the street to "fight like hell," everyone was supposed to know he advocated criminal disorder.

***

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Trout lilies.

 

 

 

These are all photos by Meade, taken yesterday on the shore of Lake Mendota.

"Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield."

"And it might be the dominant emotion of 2021.... In the early, uncertain days of the pandemic, it’s likely that your brain’s threat detection system — called the amygdala — was on high alert for fight-or-flight. As you learned that masks helped protect us — but package-scrubbing didn’t — you probably developed routines that eased your sense of dread. But the pandemic has dragged on, and the acute state of anguish has given way to a chronic condition of languish. In psychology, we think about mental health on a spectrum from depression to flourishing.... [W]hen you’re languishing, you might not notice the dulling of delight or the dwindling of drive. You don’t catch yourself slipping slowly into solitude; you’re indifferent to your indifference.... When you add languishing to your lexicon, you start to notice it all around you...."

From "There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing/The neglected middle child of mental health can dull your motivation and focus — and it may be the dominant emotion of 2021" by Adam Grant (NYT). 

According to the article, the antidote to languishing may be flow. But there's not much in the article about how to achieve flow, so I'm not going to make this post about flow. This post is just about noticing languishing. It's one thing to understand the concept of flow, another to get into that state. I think it requires doing things that you have some skill at and where you have good feedback that you're are operating with skill, and neither bored nor overly challenged. If you're sitting home enduring lockdown, do you have something to do that could work that way?

(To comment, you can email me here.)

Amy is garnering and I'm raising my eyebrow.

It's like Politico is nudging me twice, saying Althouse, get on it, you must blog about Amy Coney Barrett getting paid to write a book. They use that word I have a tag about — garner — and a silly incorrect image:

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s last pick for the Supreme Court, has also sold a book — garnering a $2 million advance for a tome about how judges are not supposed to bring their personal feelings into how they rule, according to three publishing industry sources. The figure was “an eye-raising amount” for a Supreme Court justice and likely the most since book deals won by Clarence Thomas and Sandra Day O’Connor, one of the people added. 

"The people" are "three people familiar with the deal." I think people in publishing should know better than to say "an eye-raising amount." The expression is "eyebrow-raising." 

From Merriam-Webster's "Learner's Dictionary":

To raise eyebrows means to cause other people to react with surprise or mild disapproval. To raise an/your eyebrow means to move your eyebrows up in a way that shows surprise or mild disapproval.

What the hell would "eye-raising" even be?!

FROM THE EMAIL: Jim writes:

Perhaps "eye raising" now means something so attention-grabbing that it causes someone to look up from their phone.

Love = lonely sadness.

"During the era of the Man'yōshū, the native Japanese words today known as yamato kotoba (大和言葉, lit. 'Japanese words') were starting to be written using kanji, and the word for 'love,' koi (today written 恋) was written as 孤悲, or 'lonely sadness.'" 

From the Wikipedia article about the movie "Garden of Words," which I happened to watch last night. Recommended, especially if you like looking at animated rain and sun shining through rain onto the sides of people's faces. And handmade shoes. And tanka poetry. 

Quite aside from what is in the movie, I'm interested in the development of Japanese writing and the understanding of love. Actually, that is in the movie, because the director, Makoto Shinkai, who wrote the screenplay, has said that he intended to examine the traditional meaning of love as "lonely sadness" (or "longing for someone in solitude").

Here's the trailer:

 

(To comment, email me here.)

"Soon after Swan Lake’s first, warmly received revival in 2019, allegations emerged about Scarlett’s conduct over the previous decade..."

"... including inappropriate sexual behaviour and bullying at the Royal Ballet and Royal Ballet School. Leading classical companies and vocational schools are coming under greater pressure on questions around safeguarding and accountability, either those coming forward or those accused. An independent investigation by the employment consultant Lucinda Harvey Associates found 'there were no matters to pursue in relation to alleged contact with students of the Royal Ballet School,' but neither discounted nor described the allegations. Scarlett made no public response and the ROH ended its relationship with him."

From "Liam Scarlett obituary/Dynamic choreographer whose meteoric rise at the Royal Ballet was halted in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations" (The Guardian).

Scarlett — "the new choreographic wonder boy of British ballet" — was 35, and the cause of death is "undisclosed." If the inference of suicide is wrong, please disclose something. This looks like an infuriating case of the cancel culture destroying one of the most gifted human beings we had in this world. 

There was an investigation. It found "no matters to pursue." But he was cut off from his work nonetheless — the work at which he was a genius! What monsters did this! What loss! What vicious cruelty!

"Scarlett made no public response...."

***

There is no comments section anymore, but you can email me here. Unless you say otherwise, I will presume you'd enjoy an update to this post with a quote from your email.

She's not like other Senators.

Kyrsten Sinema, the Senate’s most colorful member, posts a pic of herself on instagram rocking a “F*** Off” ring & sipping what looks like Sangria pic.twitter.com/ec6AkEPUiE

— Melanie Zanona (@MZanona) April 18, 2021

Post headline is a reference to the "not like other girls" meme: 

"Any law is only as good as the people that are enforcing it. Does it make sense we took away the gun because he’s too dangerous to have one, but we didn’t take the step to prevent him from going out and buying one the next day?"

Said Brad Banks, a former prosecutor in Marion County (location of Indianapolis), quoted in "In Indianapolis Shooting, a Red Flag That Never Flew/Red flag laws are supposed to keep guns away from people who should not have them. That did not happen with the gunman who killed eight people in Indianapolis." 

The headline is obfuscatory. Why can't they say it straight, in a way that challenges the people who cry out for more laws? The Indianapolis Shooter Was Legally Barred From Purchasing a Gun, But the Seller Sold One to Him Anyway. 

But is my proposed clear headline correct? I had to comb through the article trying to find the answer. It wasn't easy!

In March 2020, Mr. Hole’s mother approached officers at a Police Department roll call and told them she believed that her son was having suicidal thoughts and might even try to commit “suicide by cop,” the chief of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police, Randal Taylor, said on Sunday....

When the police arrived at the house, Mr. Hole’s mother “asked him to come down,” the chief said. “When he does, they’d already felt they had enough information to do the needed detention.” Mr. Hole, who was 18 at the time, was taken to a hospital on a “mental health temporary hold,” according to Paul Keenan, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s Indianapolis office.

Having been told about a shotgun that Mr. Hole had recently purchased, an officer at the house went upstairs to take it, the chief said, and saw on the young man’s computer “some stuff about some white supremacy ideations and those kind of things.”

Federal investigators would interview Mr. Hole about those discoveries the next month, though they would conclude that he did not harbor an ideology of “racially motivated violent extremism.”...

I'm trying to cut the text down as much as possible as I try to focus on why the gun law didn't work in this case, but I'm leaving in the white supremacy material because it's such a big topic, and it feels as thought the reader is getting detoured into the subject of controlling not guns but hateful thoughts. But I'm more than halfway into the article, and I still don't know why the existing gun law did not work.

The seizure of weapons under red flag laws is often temporary. In Indiana, once a weapon is taken by the police, prosecutors have 14 days to justify the seizure to a judge. If such a determination is not made, the firearms are immediately returned.

But the shotgun seized from Hole was never returned, so this does not yet address the lapse that led to Hole's having a gun.

But if the judge decides the person in question is so unstable that he or she should not be permitted to have guns, the police hold onto the seized weapons, and the person is barred from possessing any guns for at least six months. The permanent seizure of Mr. Hole’s shotgun would therefore suggest that prosecutors had sought and obtained a red flag determination. But this apparently did not happen....

So where was the lapse?

Ryan Mears, the Marion County prosecutor, said in an interview at a vigil on Saturday that he did not know what had happened in this case. But he suggested, posing a hypothetical, that the authorities might have taken the gun in response to pleas from concerned family members, and considered the crisis resolved. “What could have occurred,” Mr. Mears said, “is the point was: ‘Let’s get the gun out of there, make sure the gun is not returned,’ if that was the agreement that was made. And I’m not saying that it is the case. But there’s no reason to go in front of the judge at that point in time, because the point is we want to take the weapon away.”

What "point in time" is he talking about? Why isn't Mears informed about this particular case? Something obviously went wrong. The people had their important gun control law. Hole's mother did what she could, and so did the police. Why is Mears talking about "mak[ing] sure the gun is not returned" when the question here is why was this dangerous young man allowed to buy a gun when, under the red flag law, he should have been barred from purchasing a gun?

[W]ithout a red flag restriction, Mr. Hole would go on to buy two powerful firearms within the next six or seven months. For those who have studied the evolution of red flag laws, Mr. Hole may turn out to be a tragic example of their shortcomings.

The NYT never tells us that the Indiana statute has a provision not only for seizing guns but for barring the future purchase of guns! It speaks of the "evolution of red flag laws" and "their shortcomings" as if the problem is in the text of the law. But the problem was in using the provisions of the law! Here's how the article ends: 

In practice, experts say containing more chronic threats like Mr. Hole might be beyond the laws’ reaches, in their current forms. “Maybe it prevented something for a year, or six months,” [said Aaron J. Kivisto, a psychology professor at the University of Indianapolis]. “And then it wasn’t enough.”

But what wasn't enough? The text of the law or the actions of those with the responsibility to enforce it? Instead of mushing up this article with the "maybe" musings of the psychology professor, the NYT should shine a harsh light on the prosecutors. Why did these killings happen? The young man was apparently quite obviously mentally ill and dangerous, and his poor mother did what she could. So did the police, it seems. The legislation was on the books. 

My proposed clear headline is wrong, I believe. I think that there was some failure, the fault of the prosecution or the court, that caused there not to be a bar on Hole's purchasing of a gun. I don't think the seller was at fault. Correct  me if I'm wrong. 

Must I answer that question I asked above: "Why can't [the NYT] say it straight, in a way that challenges the people who cry out for more laws?" The answer seems obvious: The NYT prefers to heat up the demand for more gun laws. 

FROM THE EMAIL: Ozymandias writes:

Chief Taylor is first reported to be baffled by the absence of a judicial detention order: 

The permanent seizure of Mr. Hole’s shotgun would therefore suggest that prosecutors had sought and obtained a red flag determination. But this apparently did not happen. “For whatever reason,” Chief Taylor said, “that never made it to the court.” 

But later in the piece, there’s this: 

Still, this would not explain how the authorities legally held on to the shotgun after the 14 days. But the chief said Mr. Hole called at one point and said that “he didn’t want the weapons back.” 

“It’s not uncommon,” the chief said. “People realize, you know, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have it.’  

[Emphasis added.] 

It seems no judicial order was sought because Hole agreed to the seizure after the gun was taken, and perhaps before the 14-day deadline for a red-flag order had expired. There was no order on record, Hole was apparently free to buy more guns. 

Such flaccid, meandering writing. Looks like the Times needed another article on the shooting, so they published one before they had figured out a clear story. Quote in the fifth paragraph even lacks closing parentheses.

Yes, that is incredibly garbled. I could be more compassionate toward the NYT. My assumption was they used a template: We need more gun legislation. Your idea is: They rushed to publish a story that they didn't even understand. Either way, it's defective journalism.

AND: Amadeus 48 writes:

This problem (possession of guns by deranged persons) is perhaps one of these things in life to which there is no solution. But the bright and ambitious people who populate our various governments never want to have THAT discussion. In a country where there are already hundreds of millions of guns, we are never really going to be able to corral even a significant fraction of them. Plus, citizens do have the right to defend themselves. We may have to live with this problem, as we have done. And, as this article hints, we don’t enforce the gun laws we have.

When we were in the thrall of the last mayoral election in Chicago, the leading candidates all came serially to a forum of which I am a member. As we all know, the south and west sides of the city have become a shooting range. I asked each candidate what they proposed to do about the surging violence. Each of them said, “Pass tighter gun laws.” When I pointed out that the prosecutors and courts weren’t enforcing the gun laws we have, which are quite strict, they blamed Indiana and Wisconsin in a non-sequitur. Each of them did this, without knowing what the others said. My conclusion was that they didn’t know what to do, so they default to “pass more gun laws” and attempt to change the subject.

ALSO: Another reader emails: "Ryan Mears is a Democrat. There will be no examination of the failures of his office. Reading the article triggered my 'name that party' sense."

Intrusive thoughts.

Have you thought about intrusive thoughts? Here's a brilliant TikTok on the subject:

@natsingssongs

intrusive thoughts but make it a jam? 💃🏻🕺🏻#memes #intrusivethoughts #songwriter #fyp

♬ original sound - Natalie Burdick

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