Althouse

"Some time ago my older brother became obsessed with Korean skincare, which he discovered on TikTok."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Fri, 01 May 2026 14:40:22 +0000

"In his early fifties, he spends nearly all of his spare time on this app, imbibing a steady stream of drag queens, Democrats and women washing their faces. This formula had sufficiently influenced him to plan a trip to Seoul, where he wanted to get 'skin treatments that are illegal in the US.' Would I like to come with him, he wondered? If it isn’t clear by now, my brother is gay. So am I, but he’s better at it than I am...."

Writes Ben Kawaller, in "My gay brother and I went on a beauty trip to Korea. It hurt/At 41, Ben Kawaller crossed the globe for a skin treatment that’s illegal in the US. Was the pain — and the four-figure price tag — worth it?" (London Times).

A brief description of one procedure: "the general idea is they burn off your face and the one that grows back is nicer."

"One fashionista visibly shuddered when asked her opinion. 'It was terrible. Just awful,' she said."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Fri, 01 May 2026 14:10:43 +0000

"'I mean, who was the stylist for that movie?' she gasped, hand to heart. (For the record, it was Molly Rogers, who took over from her mentor, the legendary Patricia Field, mid-way through filming as Fields’s 'dance card was full' with other projects such as Emily in Paris). Perhaps the worst criticism was aimed at the outfits Streep agreed to tolerate for her role. 'They put her in a coat with couch pillow tassels on it! It was criminally ugly,' said one aghast attendee. 'I’ll never get over it.' Or, as Peter Davis, the editor-in-chief of Avenue magazine, said, laughing: 'They should rename it The Devil Wears Bad Clothes.' He went on: 'The fashion was awful but not so bad it was good, like Ab Fab, which the filmmakers should have rewatched for inspiration before rebooting this cheesy, tacky, and worst of all, boring movie.'"

From "Why billionaire fashionistas hate The Devil Wears Prada 2/At an exclusive soiree on Billionaires’ Row celebrating a private screening of the sequel, guests bemoan sequins, sofa-esque tassels and a ‘lousy script'" (London Times).

"I wasn't worried. I understand life. We live in a crazy world."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Fri, 01 May 2026 13:59:13 +0000

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"The aura is lowkey sinister. The landscaping is busted...."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Fri, 01 May 2026 13:56:35 +0000

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The Baselitz Tree.

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Fri, 01 May 2026 13:24:51 +0000

I am inviting you to invert images today in honor of the recently deceased Georg Baselitz, who said, as I quoted below, "The hierarchy where the sky is at the top and the ground down below is in any case only an agreement, one we have all got used to, but one that we absolutely do not have to believe in."

"If you find out that an artist whose work you consume is a terrible person, and you still choose to consume it, are you a terrible person?"

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Fri, 01 May 2026 12:53:51 +0000

Asks Will Leitch, in "The terrible Michael Jackson movie exposes a central cultural question. The film is indefensible. The impulse to see it is deeply human" (WaPo).

I don't know who wrote the headline, but I don't see Leitch attributing deep humanity to the millions of people who are seeing and loving "Michael" — which he and all the critics know "is a bad movie."

Those people who love "Michael" are, in Leitch's words, those who "generally don’t see mass culture as a moral issue, or a political one, or really as having much practical, tangible effect on their lives at all. They go to the movies, listen to music, watch television or read books, not to make some sort of statement about the world but to take a break from it. For most people, art and entertainment are just something that gets you out of the house for a while — and might even make you dance."

In short, they are the very opposite of deep.

I would have liked to hear a sophisticated analysis of why it is deeply human to want to see Michael again, in his glory, without the ugliness of the accusations. It is deeply human to long for a return to feelings of joy and love that enveloped you when you were young. You're not a nitwit to want that.

"In contrast to the refined intellectualism and impersonal aesthetic of artists like Sol LeWitt and Donald Judd, he offered an art that reveled in raw emotion, extroverted brushwork..."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Fri, 01 May 2026 12:13:05 +0000

"... and a fierce engagement with the complexities of 20th-century German history.... Mr. Baselitz’s 'Hero' series of 1965 and 1966 — blocky figures in thick impasto stumbling through tormented landscapes — plunged the viewer into a nightmare vision of postwar Germany. No less disturbing were the woodsmen, hunters and cows of the 'Fracture' series, disassembled into horizontal strips and merged with the landscape. In a break with convention, Mr. Baselitz began turning the central images in his canvases upside down in the late 1960s.... 'The hierarchy where the sky is at the top and the ground down below is in any case only an agreement, one we have all got used to, but one that we absolutely do not have to believe in,' Mr. Baselitz told the critic and historian Walter Grasskamp in 1984."

From "Georg Baselitz, German Neo-Expressionist Painter, Dies at 88/Along with contemporaries like Anselm Kiefer, he mounted a frontal attack on Minimalism and Conceptualism, the dominant 'cool' styles of the 1970s" (NYT).

Here's an example from the "Hero" series

I wish Baselitz could have done the official portrait for... various political figures. But I will not say who because I'm chilled by the arrest of James Comey.

And here's an example from the "Fractures" series, totally inappropriate for an official portrait:

IN THE COMMENTS: john mosby quoted the bit about "the sky is at the top and the ground down below" being "only an agreement" and "one that we absolutely do not have to believe in" and suggested "Prof, you could put this principle to work with your sunrise pics!"

Good idea:

"We are not going to get into issues of catastrophe and extinction...."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Fri, 01 May 2026 12:04:15 +0000

"But we’re not going to get into that. We just are not going to have this whole thing explode for the world to view it."

Said Judge Gonzalez Rogers, quoted in "Is A.I. a Threat to Humanity? Not in This Trial. One of Elon Musk’s abiding fears is that A.I. could one day threaten humans. But the jurors deciding his suit against OpenAI probably won’t hear about it" (NYT).

Sunrise.

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 23:40:21 +0000

Write about whatever you want in the comments.

And here's Meade's view of the duck:

"The Iran war must end with a decisive victory. And that victory can only be achieved in one of two ways..."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 20:50:00 +0000

"Either Iran capitulates or the U.S. launches a final flurry of military strikes. Trump has given the regime every opportunity to sue for peace, and it has rejected his overtures. It is admirable that Trump is taking his time. He understands that what he is doing is important and cannot be rushed. But it is also true that he cannot declare victory until either Iran cries uncle — or he finishes the job."

Writes Marc A. Thiessen in "Trump is 14 days from decisive victory in Iran/The regime won’t deal and the blockade alone won't break it. Only military action will" (WaPo).

ADDED: Elsewhere in WaPo, there's "What will happen when the clock strikes 60 days on Trump’s war/Clinton's precedent will allow Trump to keep fighting Iran without congressional approval."

That's by Stephen Rademaker, "a senior counsel at the law firm Covington & Burling, was an assistant U.S. secretary of state from 2002 to 2006."

The 60-day mark is tomorrow, but:

Every president since the resolution’s enactment in 1973 has considered its “60-day clock” unconstitutional, and no president has conceded that he was bound by it. Meanwhile, a clear pattern has emerged in Congress when presidents disregard the clock: Members of the opposing political party solemnly accuse those presidents of lawlessness, while most members of the president’s own party look the other way....

So how have presidents from both parties justified using force overseas for more than 60 days in instances where the clear language of the War Powers Resolution forbids it?

The Clinton administration clearly spelled out the rationale in 1993 when its military deployment in Somalia morphed from a peacekeeping mission into an operation aimed at suppressing rogue militias and hunting down warlords.... [T]he contention was that as soon as the shooting stopped, the clock reset, only to be started and then reset again the next time shooting broke out for a limited period of time. Using this rationale, the Clinton administration continued the deployment of combat forces in Somalia from the outbreak of hostilities there on June 5, 1993, until the final withdrawal on March 25, 1994 — a total of 293 days....

Variations of this analysis were relied on by Clinton again for his 78-day Kosovo conflict in 1999, as well as by President Barack Obama for his 226-day aerial campaign in Libya in 2011....

Trump should have little trouble relying on these precedents to argue that his war against Iran need not abide by the 60-day clock. Combat against Iran truly has been intermittent, given the ceasefire that Trump announced on April 7 — 38 days after the war began....

"Great king," says Trump, pointing at Charles. "The greatest king in my book."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 20:30:00 +0000

After the King and Queen drive off, Trump says, "Great people. We need more people like that in our country. Really great people."

"Limiting food and water has been used to hasten death in people dying at home since long before it had a formal name."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 19:24:46 +0000

"But to accelerate decline this way for people with advanced dementia, whether their deaths are imminent or not, is uncomfortable territory for many.... While some patients are late enough in their dementia as to be nonresponsive, others may still be enjoying and requesting food and may not remember writing a directive to withhold it. 'Which person do you listen to: the person who had capacity once and made this decision that they wouldn’t want to live this life, or the person with dementia, who may seem very, very happy with the life that they have?' asked Dr. Eric Widera, a professor of geriatric medicine at University of California, San Francisco...."

From "She Didn’t Want to Live With Advanced Dementia. So Why Was She Being Kept Alive? Some consider the regular feeding of late-stage dementia patients to be nonnegotiable. Others see it as extending life unnecessarily" (NYT).

The article cites a paper that presents the idea of minimal comfort feeding: "The nursing staff could provide small quantities of food and liquid if the patient signaled she wanted it, enough to keep her comfortable while still allowing her to die."

From the comments over there: "Minimal comfort feeding was the human and humane default for millennia. It’s the medical system that messed this one up, forcing three meals every day primarily so they can create a paper trail. Blessings to families who accept that their loved one is dying and believe the closed mouth, shaking head, and pulling away just as much as they believe the desire for a milkshake." (The milkshake refers to something in the article: "Some days, she clenched her jaw tight. But that wasn’t always true. One day, her husband stopped by with a milkshake. 'For whatever reason, she wanted that milkshake,' Ms. Hendrickson said, 'So we’re like, ‘OK, have at it.'")

Billions of dollars and still no end date.

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 19:04:55 +0000

1. "The Iran war now has a price tag ($25 billion), but still no end date" (NPR).

2. "California high-speed rail price tag jumps to $231B, nearly seven times 2008 estimate" (Fox26News).

"King Charles tames Maga but Britain’s still in the doghouse."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 14:09:57 +0000

That's the headline at the London Times. Subheadline: "While the monarch has gone down a storm with President Trump’s VIPs, his US visit seems to have done nothing to help Sir Keir Starmer."

I guess "gone down a storm" is a British expression. I'm going to assume it means something like: was a big sensation. Yeah, that's right. I checked with A.I. The American expression that's equally mystifying to an outsider would be: brought the house down.

Speaking of house... in the doghouse seems to work in both countries.

Now, let me find the meat of this article:

There are signs that the King’s visit has lowered the temperature slightly on relations after months of barbs between the White House and Downing Street. First off, the president spoke of his love for the UK — saying the Americans have “no closer friends”. But also figures in the administration behind the scenes have been keen to play down how seriously to take a recent Department of War memo suggesting the US could harden its line against the UK on the Falkland Islands.

However, while the trip has reminded Maga what it likes about Britain — Magna Carta, Shakespeare and the monarchy — their views on what they believe Britain has become remain negative.

“Yes, there are strong and fond memories of a historically close relationship, and we are rooting for the return of the traditional British powerhouse, intellectually, economically and militarily,” says Victor Hanson, the historian and conservative commentator. “But currently we fear that the UK and indeed western Europe itself have embraced policies that ensure stagnant growth, social tensions, unsustainable entitlements, antisemitism and dangerous infertility — the same western pathologies that we too are confronting here but for now more successfully. I don’t think the old convenient boutique European anti-Americanism works any more, either here or internationally.”

"Mills attempted to blunt Platner’s momentum this spring by running ads bringing up controversy around deleted Reddit comments he made years ago downplaying the seriousness of sexual assault."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 13:30:26 +0000

"Mills argued that Republicans would make 'mincemeat' out of Graham in a general election, given his Reddit comments, and that a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol, which he got covered up, will likely provide fodder for attacks."

From "Maine Gov. Janet Mills drops out of race to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins/The seat is critical to Democrats’ hopes of retaking the Senate. Graham Platner, an oyster farmer and Democrat, is likely to win the primary" (WaPo).

In the comments over there, somebody says "You can tell she's a Dem because she did the right thing" and somebody else says "How is quitting because you don’t have the money the 'right thing.' She did the 'only thing' she could have done."

"Plants depend on carbon dioxide to perform photosynthesis — but that doesn’t mean they grow better when there’s more carbon in the air, scientists say."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 13:24:26 +0000

"A sweeping survey of changes among 32 compounds in 43 crops found that nearly every plant that humans eat is harmed by rising CO2 levels. 'As a scientist, it’s really interesting,' said Sterre F. ter Haar, an environmental scientist at Leiden University in the Netherlands and lead author of the survey, published in November. 'As a person … you don’t want to see such a shift, because it’s so negative.' For the past several years, ter Haar and her colleagues have worked to compile a database of all existing research on nutrient changes linked to rising CO2.... Next the team used their dataset to calculate the nutritional densities of each crop under different carbon dioxide levels — and to predict how their composition could continue to shift in the future. On average, they found, nutrients have already decreased by an average 3.2 percent across all plants since the late 1980s, when the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was about 350 parts per million...."

From "Carbon pollution is making food less nutritious" (WaPo). That's a gift link, so you can figure out the science and whether this is a case of lying with statistics.

It occurs to me that percentages of nutrients would change if plants just contain more water, but a plant composed of more water might be more appetizing, so just eat a bit more of it. I'm always suspicious of articles that stir up climate-change anxiety.

The phrase "carbon pollution" irks me. "Pollution" is "Physical impurity or contamination" (OED). There's nothing impure about carbon dioxide in the air. Actually, the oldest meaning of "pollution" is "Desecration of that which is sacred" and modern-day environmentalism is a religion substitute. An archaic meaning of "pollution," going back to the 14th century, is "Ejaculation of semen without sexual intercourse." From a 1717 work titled "Syphilis": "The Patient is constantly stimulated in his Sleep to nocturnal Pollutions."

Sex and religion are traditional causes of anxiety. These days, we’re supposed to get anxious over the carbon dioxide in the air. What dullards we've become!

"Amazon Discusses ‘Apprentice’ Reboot—With Don Jr. as a Potential Host."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 12:25:49 +0000

The Wall Street Journal reports.

Interesting, but there is no reason at all to think that Don Jr. has what it takes to assume the role his father played. Schwarzenegger couldn't do it, and Schwarzenegger brought his famous charisma and media-and-politics know-how to the project. The only reason for anyone other than Donald Trump to do "The Apprentice" is to prove the unique skill and talent of our very special President, Donald Trump.

"The ballroom is, to the confusion of many, a top priority for Trump. Indeed, it has been one since long before he launched himself into politics."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 12:15:55 +0000

"Way back in 2010, Trump called David Axelrod, at the time a senior adviser to President Obama, and offered to build a ballroom for the White House. The offer was not accepted. Barely two weeks into his second term, Trump began talking up his ballroom dream once again. Within months, he had demolished the East Wing of the White House and construction was set to begin...."

I'm reading "What Does the Correspondents Dinner Have to Do With Trump’s Ballroom Project? The case may test just how far national security deference by the courts to the executive can stretch" (Lawfare).

"The area underneath the erstwhile East Wing has long been known to house an emergency bunker.... Over the course of litigation, the government insisted more and more explicitly that the harm to national security 'cannot simply be cleaved off' by permitting only below-ground work to continue while barring above-ground progress.... The attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner has now become part of this case.... 'D.C. does not have a secure space for large high-profile events.... Without such a location,' the Justice Department argues, 'the President is thus put to the choice of risking his safety by attending events in unsecure venues—be it the tents on the White House lawn, or places like the Washington Hilton (which is now home to two attempted presidential assassinations)—or forgoing those events entirely—to the detriment of his constitutional responsibility to 'speak[] to and on behalf of the American people.'..."

"With those beautiful ears of yours — he's got great hearing."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 11:39:42 +0000

Periodista : pregunta de la nasa

Trump: el mas indicado para responderte es el director de la NASA con esas orejas que tiene, escucha re bien, tiene oido de gato😳

*le hacen zoom a las orejas* pic.twitter.com/SGUOv46qmo
— ElBuni (@therealbuni) April 30, 2026

Sunrise.

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:04:00 +0000

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

Crabapple blossoms on a rainy afternoon.

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 21:09:00 +0000

"The justices, split along ideological lines, ruled that the voting map was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 14:28:08 +0000

"In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan accused the court’s conservative majority of gutting the Voting Rights Act."

From "Live Updates: Supreme Court Strikes Down Louisiana Map in Voting Rights Case" (NYT).

Although the justices struck down Louisiana’s map, the court’s conservative majority upheld the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act itself. Voting rights groups had feared that the court might use the case to gut the remaining provisions of the landmark civil rights law.

AND: Here's the opinion: Louisiana v. Callais. It's 6-3, in the usual way, and Justice Alito writes for the majority.

ADDED: From the majority opinion: "The question before us now is whether compliance with the Voting Rights Act should be added to our very short list of compelling interests that can justify racial discrimination. To answer that question, we must understand exactly what §2 of the Voting Rights Act demands with respect to the drawing of legislative districts.... §2 imposes liability only when the evidence supports a strong inference that the State intentionally drew its districts to afford minority voters less opportunity because of their race.... In [Rucho], we held that claims of partisan gerrymandering are not justiciable in federal court. The upshot of Rucho was that, as far as federal law is concerned, a state legislature may use partisan advantage as a factor in redistricting. And litigants cannot circumvent that rule by dressing their political-gerrymandering claims in racial garb.... [T]he Voting Rights Act did not require Louisiana to create an additional majority-minority district, [so] no compelling interest justified the State’s use of race in creating SB8."

"Lonardo met Skiles’s biological mother, Cheryl Brown, in the late 1970s while they were both stationed at Fort Dix. During a weekend off..."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 14:03:28 +0000

"... they decided to travel to New York City together. They stayed at the Hotel Chelsea, Lonardo recalled, and visited the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. They had a fleeting romance, and shortly after they returned to Fort Dix, they went in different directions and never spoke again. But for nearly five decades, Lonardo has kept a bar of soap from the hotel...."

From "For years, he didn’t know he had a daughter. At 66, he adopted her. Jennifer Skiles said hearing her father’s voice for the first time 'felt like home.' Four years later, their emotional bond is now a legal one" (WaPo)(gift link, so you can read the whole story, which will make you cry, unless you never cry about strangers).

"[T]he organizations producing that data are cooking the books so they can smear the Right with the Left's crimes."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 13:43:22 +0000

You can't fix a problem if your diagnosis hinges on blaming its victims. If the Democrats actually care to tackle political violence, the Left needs to own up to the fact that it is responsible for inculcating a culture of violence that targets the Right. https://t.co/VaOPejzOQI
— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) April 29, 2026

"Jack Schossshhhhberg is that kind of leader."

noreply@blogger.com (Ann Althouse) — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 13:19:41 +0000

A mush-mouthed Nancy Pelosi delivers a barely intelligible endorsement:

I'm watching that because of this in the NYT: "In First Campaign Ad, Schlossberg Leans on a Well-Known Name: Pelosi/Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of John F. Kennedy, is among a slate of Democrats seeking to replace Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York."

Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of John F. Kennedy, has built his campaign for a New York City House seat around turning the page on the Democrats’ old guard. Yet when he debuts his first paid advertisement on Wednesday, the 33-year-old candidate has chosen his party’s oldest living leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, to do the talking....

He's turning the page. She's the page.