serena bares all

Tennis superstar Serena Williams will appear naked and pregnant on a forthcoming Vanity Fair cover. It's their August 2017 issue, which means it should go on sale in the United States next week.

The cover seems to be something of an homage to an earlier Vanity Fair cover featuring a nude and pregnant Demi Moore in the early 1990s. That cover generated a lot of controversy from what I've read, but I suspect this one will not almost three decades later.

I've written here before about how I don't usually find a naked pregnant woman attractive, but I think Serena is an exception. Maybe that's because she's visibly pregnant but not enormously so. She doesn't seem hobbled by her pregnancy, like I certainly looked toward the end.

It probably also helps to be photographed by Annie Leibovitz, one of the most famous lens masters in the world.

If you want to see more photographs of Williams that will appear in the magazine, I happened on this webpage which has a bunch. FWIW, that is a very flattering picture of Williams's significant other.

herpes keratitis

I've written before here about my occasional bouts of conjunctivitis, more commonly known as pink eye.

Apparently unrelated to this, I also sometimes get herpes keratitis, which are cold sores under the eyelid. They hurt like a bastard. I have a particularly nasty one right now and it's driving me crazy.

While mine have always been confined to the eyelid, herpes keratitis can occur on the eye surface itself, and that can lead to permanent issues with one's eyesight. I have anti-viral drops which I refill through my doctor on a regular basis in case another little bastard suddenly appears.

While I have excellent 20/20 vision, for whatever reason, I seem to have "sensitive eyes," considering the number of times I've had either conjunctivitis or herpes keratitis. Fortunately, I've never had both at the same time.

I never get cold sores in my mouth, but there's a good reason for that. Every morning with my vitamins I take a lysine tablet. For whatever reason, lysine doesn't prevent eyelid cold sores, only in my mouth.

The occasional yucky eye issue is the only recurring health problem I've ever had. All things considered, this is fairly mild, so I should count myself blessed and stop complaining.

lawfare

At some point not long ago I discovered the Lawfare website, which is affiliated with the Brookings Institution, a major Washington-based think-tank. It doesn't seem to be specifically designed for lawyers, although a lot of lawyers write for it and, probably, read it as well.

That aside, I've found some of their articles very informative and have helped me understand current legal and international relations issues. Their pieces, for the most part, are not long, so they can be digested in just a few minutes.

I've found them particularly helpful for understanding Supreme Court cases, particularly in detailing exactly what has happened and what the near-term future might bring.

If policy and current events are of interest to you, I recommend you check out the website. They also maintain daily email lists that remind you of new items that have just gone live.

visiting north korea

You've probably watched or read some news about the American who died recently after being released in a coma from prison by the North Korean dictatorship. I saw somewhere in the coverage that about a thousand Yanks visit North Korea every year, so it's inevitable something like this would happen, considering other Americans are already in their prisons.

The US has diplomatic relations with every country in the United Nations except Iran, Syria, Bhutan, and North Korea. Bhutan is very small and has few diplomatic relations with any country, so there's no hostility with America.

As for the other three, however, it's an entirely different story. Any Yank who visits those three is nuts.

Syria is a war-torn cesspool with a murderous head of state, so an American would be a complete fool to journey there. If you're captured or arrested, you have utterly no recourse.

The Iranian people are reportedly quite positive about Americans, as opposed to America, but that hasn't stopped Yanks who travel to Iran from being arrested for mysterious reasons. So if you go to Iran and get into some kind of fix, the American government has no real leverage to see you released.

Arguably traveling to North Korea would be even worse than Syria. The North Korean government is openly hostile to America and Americans. They sometimes see visitors as political footballs. You have zero recourse if arrested.

I guess it's exciting to be "behind the frontier" in a forbidden country, but who needs that stress? I certainly don't. I guess if you're a risk junkie that sort of thing would be exciting, but count me out, please.

If I had to make analogy, I would compare a trip to North Korea to Americans touring Nazi Germany in the last few months before the United States entered World War II. It might be interesting and memorable, but that doesn't make it smart.

shoehorned in paris

If you've ever been to Paris, you know the city feels more open and expansive than many other large European cities, thanks to a 19th urban design that knocked down scores of twisted streets full of small, cramped buildings and replaced them with wide boulevards.

But when you look at the aerial view below (enlargement) with the Arc de Triomphe at the center, the city looks like a tightly congested maze with people living in each other's laps. It reminds me of the Death Star closeups and is not at all inviting.

It's curious how a city in three dimensions looks almost nothing like the same city in two dimensions. It's also curious that Paris isn't even in the top one hundred when it comes to city size when measuring both the city proper and also metropolitan area.

dear lord why?

A Texas woman will endure eight surgeries, many hours of pain, and significant expense so that she can look Melania Trump.

IMHO, the cost/benefit return on this is all but zero.

Melania is not an ugly woman, but she's nothing extraordinary, either. She looks like any number of Central European women in their forties who've had some nips and tucks.

I don't dislike Melania, unlike her spouse. I actually think she might be something of a victim, trapped in a deeply unhappy marriage to an odious, toxic narcissist. While there are no obvious physical signs she's the victim of spousal violence, she does have that skittish look of someone subjected to significant emotional abuse.

But I just don't understand the idea of enduring so much time, pain, and money just to look like her. Does this Texas woman want to be confused with her, want to bask in the glory of adulation from people who mistakenly believe she actually is Melania?

get down zola

Meet Zola the dancing gorilla at the Dallas Zoo. She's actually dancing without any music, which you can see in the unedited original.

I wonder if Zola created her own movements and choreography or whether that was something she was taught. A quick Google search informs me that gorillas, like many simians, will mimic other species, including humans, but not always. It depends on the individual animal.

Some enterprising soul added the theme music from Fame in the extended version seen below. Would Zola still dance if she heard music like that or would it freak her out?

hybristophilia

The Guardian is running an interesting first-person essay from a short story writer who attempts to see life though the eyes of women who have fallen in love with heinous men.

There's a clinical term for this: hybristophilia. If you fall for a mass-murderer or some other man who has committed horrid crimes, you might be suffering from this malady.

The writer speculates about what draws these women to such monsters. I think instinctively she's made some correct assumptions, but I wonder if she's gone far enough.

Not every woman would fall in love with Charles Manson or Adolph Hitler. I think I'm safe in guessing very few would, but nonetheless some would. I suspect it might be because such men fill an emotional void in those specific women.

One other factor to consider, and I've never seen it discussed in essays like this, is the idea that such men sexually fulfill these women like no other man had done before. Somewhere I remember reading that Charles Manson was allegedly an absolute maestro at cunnilingus, so if that's true, that would explain a lot.

I don't see myself as the sort of woman who would succumb to hybristophilia. However, if my husband started a cult and resorted to crime, I do see how I could become his idolizing groupie because he satisfies me sexually in a way no other man achieved. The fear of losing his sexual charms might drive me crazy to the point I lost touch with the rational world.

cramping my style

For as long as I can remember, way back to my childhood, I was not a big liquid drinker. Of course I drank some liquids but almost always sparingly.

So if I'm thirsty, but a few sips are fine. No need to drink a whole glass or even a half or quarter glass of water.

I suspect that's because, when I was a little girl, I hated needing the bathroom but not finding one. So at some point I had the idea, "well, just drink less water and you won't have to go." I imagine with time I just trained my body not to ask for liquids.

Flash-forward to present day. Sometime late last year, I started getting very occasional cramps in my legs. Most of the time these were minor and I could shake them off in a few seconds.

But a few of them would not go away. It was like a little demon had taken hold of my thigh muscles and was holding on for dear life, no matter how much I tried to shake it away and force my brain to make my leg relax.

So finally I asked my shrink brother on one of our regular Skype conversations. Although he's not a general practitioner, he nevertheless is an MD, so I figured he'd have a better idea than a Google search.

"Dehydration may be the answer," he answered without delay. "You don't use salt," he remembered, "and that could exacerbate the situation."

His recommendation was to drink more water, to specifically measure out a few cups and make sure to drink them on top of my normal daily liquid intake.

So I followed his advice. Boom, the cramps went away, totally, with one sole exception, and that wasn't a really bad one.

Needless to say, this does make me pee somewhat more. I usually sip my water dose throughout the day, but for whatever reason, the urge to wee does not come until late in the day and sometimes even overnight.

So my totally free advice to you: if you ever experience repetitive cramping, try more water. It has worked like a charm for me.

And now if you'll excuse me, I have to go to the bathroom.

the sixth extinction

I just finished reading the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Sixth Extinction -- An Unnatural History, by Elizabeth Kolbert. I've read and heard quite a bit about this book since it was published three years ago so I've been wanting to check it out.

The work is an examination of past mass species extinctions in the history of the world with emphasis on the most recent two -- the one that killed the dinosaurs and the current sixth extinction, which is being caused by humans. That fact is indisputable, but of course, some will dispute it and probably also tell you the world is actually flat, too.

In all honesty, my reactions to Kolbert's book was mixed. I learned a lot of interesting things by reading it and a few of the chapters were both fascinating and riveting.

However, I found the book's overall structure and focus at times to be vague and meandering. She defines and discusses the fifth and sixth extinctions, but never makes clear what the other four are, because she also talks about some extinction events which are not considered "the big six."

I think when you're telling a story that takes place over several billion years, you need to proceed in an orderly fashion and not jump all over the place in history, but she chose the latter approach. The result is the book is a collection of lots of interesting anecdotes, some of them quite memorable, but how exactly the puzzle fits together is left untold.

I've enjoyed Kolbert's writing in The New Yorker, where she is a staff writer, and it's worth noting that parts of The Sixth Extinction first appeared as articles in that magazine. And therein reveals the potential flaw at the heart of her book: it reads many times like a patched-together narrative from a variety of parts and not an organic whole.

All told, it's an interesting book and I don't regret reading it. I might even recommend it with the caveats above. But it wasn't the great book it could have been, and someday soon some other writer might come along and tackle that.

porn tech support

How does this have fifteen million hits yet I've never seen it? That aside, something tells me if porn sites had real tech support, it would never be used.

lazy sex

I was reading a political article on Buzzfeed and couldn't help but surf through to one of their clickbait articles: "The 10 Laziest Types Of Sex."

Well of course it didn't really deliver anything, but it made me think how there's nothing wrong with lazy sex. The one I wholeheartedly endorse on their list is: "Sex that's like 'you're the star and you can do whatever you want, as long as I get to lie down the whole time.'"

Sometimes my husband comes home from a long day and he's pretty exhausted. He's up for a fuck but has no energy to do anything. So I have him lie on his back, and I do all the work. Start with a blowjob, then sit on his face, then go for a baloney ride.

It works every time.

the lawyer's lawyer

So it turns out the President's personal lawyer has to now hire his own lawyer.

What's next? The President's lawyer's lawyer will hire his own lawyer, too?

A President's lawyer having to hire a lawyer is not something new, as funny as it may sound. I know this having recently read John Farrell's highly praised biography of Richard Nixon. Tricky Dick's personal lawyer, Herbert Kalmbach, became one of the key players in a dirty tricks scandal, a situation which led to criminal charges against him, conviction, and incarceration time.

When I lived in Los Angeles, for a period of time I rented a room from a woman who served as a prosecutor of sorts in disbarment proceedings against lawyers charged with doing very bad things. She told me lots of interesting stories, and I was always amazed at the incredibly sleazy things some of them did, usually involving some sort of personal enrichment.

It takes a lot of money and time to become a lawyer. It's not something done in a weekend. So why do people throw that all away for a fast buck?

Maybe it has to do with a deep-seated inferiority complex. Perhaps they don't really think they're worthy of all their success so their subconscious self-sabotages them.

a surprising verdict

Michelle Carter is a Massachusetts teenager convicted yesterday of involuntary manslaughter for sending text messages to her boyfriend urging him to commit suicide.

While lawyers and legal experts have focused considerable attention on the scant legal precedent for the prosecution and chances for appeal, less has been said and written about her motivations in the matter.

Prosecutors allege she acted as she did because she wanted the sympathy that would result from being a grieving girlfriend. They based this claim on the fact that Carter had told acquaintances the boyfriend was missing when he was not.

That doesn't seem particularly logical to me, from what I've been reading about this case. I have to wonder if this was more an empowerment thing. She felt powerless. Convincing someone to kill himself is supremely powerful. It also scratches a sadist's itch.

As a parent, reading about this case, it makes me want to insist my children never use a mobile phone and never text until they are adults. Maybe less technology wouldn't be a terrible thing.

george eliot

I have been re-reading The Mill on the Floss, the classic novel by the 19th century British writer George Eliot, who was actually a woman named Mary Anne Evans.

I first read the book ten or twelve years ago, and some of it flew over my head at the time, but now it makes much more sense to me because of other books I've digested over the last decade or so.

Like many classics of that era, the novel seems overwritten and somewhat melodramatic in passages to modern sensibilities but it nonetheless is a great book for many reasons, including how it broke new conventions and addressed social issues in ways that few other writers of the era did.

Evans published with a man's name because that was expected of female authors in that era. She also did so because she lived with a man for twenty years who happened to be married to another woman, a shocking defiance of Victorian morals.

What really strikes me about the novel, which I didn't realize before, is how strongly feminist it is. It isn't strident or preachy but instead masterfully subtle.

I wouldn't recommend the book unless someone was already familiar with reading 19th century classics, because the style of that age takes a while for a reader to absorb, so it's not the best first toe in the water for the genre. I also don't think it's up to the level of what is widely considered Evans's masterpiece, Middlemarch, but nonetheless is a great book.

Mary Anne Evans is remembered today by her pen name George Eliot, but her peer greats like the Brontë sisters, Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, and more never are referenced by theirs. I wonder why that is?

the borowitz report

I've always had mixed feelings about comic and satirist Andy Borowitz. He writes a lot of obviously fake news stories satirizing public figures -- usually politicians -- for "The Borowitz Report", which for the most part are not outrageously funny.

On occasion, however, he hits one out of the proverbial park. I absolutely howled with laughter at his latest entry, "Man Ravaged by Amnesia Somehow Able to Hold Down Demanding Legal Job."

With this brilliant piece, he managed to expose the Attorney General as a fraud far better than any pundits writing serious columns.

The cherry on top was the actual photo taken during the testimony in question, which makes the subject look like a confused, cowering, angry old man.

actual space aliens

Time magazine recently ran a short article about how popular culture likely gets space aliens all wrong.

In a nutshell, if they ever visit, extraterrestrials would likely be peaceful, wouldn't want to eat or breed with us, wouldn't look like us, and wouldn't want to steal earth's resources.

Drawing from a recent book about possible real ETs, the piece also notes what I always thought was the most probable scenario: we wouldn't be visited by actual aliens but by robots/cyborgs sent on their behalf, given how long a journey to earth would take.

While the linked article doesn't mention this, I've often thought that if we were actually visited by aliens or their proxy machines, they would be most interested in studying us, the same way anthropologists study aboriginal tribes -- in a friendly but distanced way.

The piece does mention how a space alien might look more like an octopus than a human. That brought to mind an article I read several years ago -- I wish I could remember where but it was in a legitimate magazine -- that theorized about how octopuses could possibly be space aliens that somehow got trapped on earth.

Something to think about before I order pasta polpo again in an Italian restaurant.

pearlface

It's official: the designers at Gucci have completely lost their minds.

Their newest collection is a psychotic mix of elements, like workout clothes blended with fur and glaringly clashing patterns and colors that only a profoundly mentally disturbed person would consider attractive.

The most ridiculous bits can be seen below. First up is a model wearing what Gucci obviously hopes will catch on: pearls, gems, and beads glued directly to the wearer's face and skull. Of course, you can't do this yourself -- you have to spend a fortune at a Gucci boutique where this look will be applied on you.

The second model seen below wears a maximum bead look, with her head, throat, and neck coated in beads and pearls. She looks like something from an reptilian alien invasion movie of the 1970s.

Last but certainly not least is another new trend Gucci is hoping will catch: fingers dipped in ink and then adorned with complex, debilitating jewelry that looks like orthopedic braces. Imagine tying to type or text with that crap on your hands.

Surely this has to be some kind of harbinger for the end times.

unfathomable

A Texas woman has been arrested and charged in the deaths of her one-year-old and two-year-old children who were allegedly left alone in her locked car for fifteen hours while she visited a friend.

Authorities said that the children were alone in the car overnight, when temperatures dipped to 60 degrees F, and then the following morning, when temperatures soared to the mid-eighties with extremely high humidity. They were left alone in the car at about 9:00 pm and then removed the following day at about noon.

The mother reportedly told people at the hospital that the children may have eaten poison at a park but authorities were able to determine what had happened to the children and how they died.

How a mother could leave her children unattended like this is unfathomable to me. I thought maybe she was a meth-head, but she looks clear-eyed and with clear skin in her mugshot, not something you would see in an abuser of that drug.

Our youngest son is now fifteen months old, and I wouldn't even think about leaving him alone in the car for fifteen seconds let alone fifteen hours.

Reading about her in several articles, she seems very immature and not at all ready for motherhood. Child Services had apparently visited her in the past but details about why were not released.

This woman failed as a mother. The system failed by not interceding sooner. And everyone around her failed by not getting more involved in what almost certainly had to be an obviously unfit mother.

You don't get to the point where you're leaving your kids in a car for fifteen hours without anyone else noticing somewhere before that threshold.

fake cat outrage

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals made a video of a CGI cat that doesn't actually exist being mistreated by a man allegedly trying to make cute cat videos.

Is cruelty to animals in cute videos really a big problem? I love animals and genuine animal abuse is terrible, but I have to wonder about the person who thought this video would be a good idea.

In an age when "fake news" and other forms of public dishonesty already have people on edge, it seems going out of your way with a video to trick people is not the best foot forward.

PETA raises a lot of money and spends a lot of money on advertising as a result. On average, they take in about $40 million a year now and spend all of it.

I have to wonder if that $40 million would be much better spent on animal rescue and support, as opposed to splashy ads and media campaigns that might not actually do animals much good.

If you're a hungry, homeless dog or cat, a bus ad won't fill your tummy.

manspreading

I was reading an article on The Guardian website about manspreading and efforts to combat it. I didn't realize this had become such a big issue that warranted campaigns.

If a train or a pub isn't crowded, then I think any man can manspread if he wants to. When things are crowded, however, it's downright rude.

There are valid, semi-valid, and invalid reasons men manspread. For tall men, particularly if the seat is on the low side, it's hard not to manspread, so I would call that valid. There's just no room to put their legs. I know this is true for my husband, who is quite tall.

For corpulent men, sitting can push down their big bellies, so they manspread to compensate. I would call that a semi-valid reason. Slimming down would help for more than one reason.

Then there are the men who manspread for invalid reasons, namely they're cocky bastards who think they're too cool or their balls are too big or something. For these louts, manspreading is a sign of a raging inferiority complex and they need to learn to squeeze those legs together.

In my New York days, on more than one occasion after my request "could you scoot over please" was ignored, I would shove over a man's leg and just sit myself down, uttering a semi-loud "excuse me" after my sit was nearly complete. If they tried to spread again after I was seated, I learned a vigorous poke on the side of the kneecap would discourage that.

I remember one occasion when one clown was particularly spready, no matter how much I tried to push back. So I whipped out my hairbrush and did a particularly exuberant hair rejuvination that required a lot of elbow movement and hair flipping. Eventually he just stood up.

The only true way to stop invalid manspreading is if people are willing to speak up and push back.

a well hung parliament

As I'm writing this, the returns are still trickling in from Britain's election yesterday, and it appears to be very bad news for Prime Minister Theresa May. She had called an early election with an eye toward increasing her party's majority, and it appears the opposite will result with no one left with a majority of seats, a so-called hung parliament.

Unlike some previous elections where a coalition majority could be built with a large party joining with a smaller party, that apparently will not happen this time. Quite possibly, May will no longer be Prime Minister and another national election will be called fairly soon.

I am reminded of the maxim "a bird in hand is worth two in the bush." May had a slim majority but she and party leaders thought they could pull in more; however, the voters rained on their hubris parade.

From my perspective as an outsider, I think this actually may be a good result in the long run. It will force British politicians to pay more attention to the public.

Britain doesn't seem to collectively know what it wants right now, but it wants something, and the politicians are not delivering. So they will have to try again and soon.

As hectic as the forthcoming months may be for the Brits, I think in a weird way these results show the strength of a parliamentary system. Now their politicians must remain more in tune with their electorate in the short term.

Contrast this the United States, where an administration will rest on its heels and go whatever way it wants for several years, largely ignoring voters, until the next scheduled election. American administrations don't face the possibility of the rug being pulled from under them by voters as happened in the UK yesterday.

So for now, the Brits will have to keep calm and muddle on. And on a slightly related note, I found the picture below on The Guardian's website in an election piece but no one captioned who or what he's supposed to be (enlargement).

tornado man

The picture below quickly went viral this week. No surprise, because it's a great shot of a man in Alberta mowing his lawn, seemingly oblivious to a frightening tornado unseen by him (click to enlarge).

It turns out he had seen the tornado before he cut the grass but concluded it would not be moving anywhere near him.

I grew up in greater Chicago, where tornado were very occasionally seen and rarely did damage but I never saw one. Nonetheless, they do scare me.

Back in the states, when I moved from New York to Los Angeles, I drove through Oklahoma when major tornadoes were reported not far away. I spent more time looking up in the sky than the road as I sped westward but never saw any.

Australia occasionally has tornadoes -- an average of sixteen are recorded each year -- but fortunately they don't strike anywhere near where we live.

Nevertheless, I don't think I would be calmly hanging out in the yard like lawnmower man if I knew that monster was on the other side of my fence. Yes, it was moving away from him, but tornadoes can suddenly change direction.

the tallest legs

I was reading about this woman, a very tall model who may have the longest legs of any female American model. She has difficulty landing work because she may be too tall even for an industry that seeks tall women.

As a now-occasional model who will never get very much work because I'm too short, I have to say I think I would rather than be too tall than too dinky. There are many, many models like me who are too small, but there are very few models who are too tall.

An old rule in many endeavors is to feature, rather than hide, your shortcomings. Skilled comics do this all the time as do artists and performers.

This can also be done with modeling, if your shortcoming is unique. But when your deficiency is common -- your short shortcoming, so to speak -- then it's hard to make it work. You might be able to make tall work, however.

The reality of modeling, as Ms. Too-Tall probably knows, is that most models are meant to be generic and interchangeable. Designers want catwalk models who are close in size because it makes fitting and sight-lines easy.

She may be handicapped by the fact that she doesn't actually look that tall except when she's standing next to something or someone. That's because she "looks" more normal in her proportions and not like the thin willow so many tall models are. She's certainly not overweight, but she's not underweight, either.

I am somewhat curious about her romantic life. Do (relatively) short guys hit on her? Do men find it hot -- or not -- when a woman is so tall?

rolling coal

I was reading on a political website about an American phenomena called "rolling coal," an ad hoc movement where anti-environmentalists modify their vehicles, primarily diesel pickup trucks, so they spew filthy pollution on command.

Their goal, as you can see from the video below, is to spew black clouds on environmental protesters and similar progressive activists.

Some of these people film their escapades and then post their videos online.

This little hobby can be expensive. Modifying the vehicle costs money. Wasting fuel to do this costs money. And incurring polluter fines costs money. Hey, look at me, wasting my money and time doing this shit, aren't I cool?

As an American, I find this infuriating. This is exactly why my countrymen have an international reputation for being entitled, obnoxious, boorish jerks.

If I was a legislator, I would propose a law to levy criminal fines and driver's license points on anyone caught driving a vehicle with the exhaust system deliberately modified to increase emissions.

mugshot ethics

Over the weekend, The New York Times published an interesting opinion piece that looks at the proliferation of digital mugshots, particularly in the United States, and the ethical and legal arguments pro and con.

I will freely admit I snicker and giggle at famous people's mugshots as well as some more bizarre subjects of booking shots, some of whom have appeared on this very blog.

But the Times piece makes some good points. It also made me think of some other points against their widespread release not raised in the article.

What real value is there in releasing mugshots for individuals unless they've escaped from custody, are suspected of abducting someone, or are dangerous and at large? Does the public really have the right to know what a perfect stranger looked like the day or night he or she was arrested?

How many people actually look at these photos (a) for drive-by prurient values, like me, or (b) to actually assist law enforcement in some way? Are police departments releasing these photos (a) expecting any assistance as a result or (b) simply to shame people who have been charged with a crime?

Part of the reason it seems distasteful, as the Times column reveals, is that people are making a buck off these mugshots and potentially victimizing people who may be wrongfully charged or never convicted.

As a compromise, I think it would be perfectly acceptable to release mugshots after someone was convicted of a crime, and that would include, of course, anyone pleading guilty. But if your case is never brought to trial or you are found not guilty, I see how you could make the case that the public has no need to know what you looked like on what was possibly the worst day of your life.

open polar sea

I'm currently reading a book that mentions something called the Open Polar Sea. No such thing exists, but for several centuries, scientists and humans believed it was very real.

Belief in the Open Polar Sea probably came into being sometime during the late 16th century. It first appeared on a map published in 1595.

Until the later 19th century, scientists and seaman generated all sorts of theories and beliefs about the Open Polar Sea, but the general consensus went something like this: the North Pole and surrounding areas were covered by a warm, almost tropical sea that was rendered inaccessible by a ring of impenetrable glacial ring.

As a result, more than a few early, disastrous explorations were sent north, based on the presumption about something that had never been seen and didn't actually exist. Most all of these explorations ended in the death of all participants.

Today, of course, we know such an idea is utter lunacy. The North Pole is covered by the Arctic Ocean, and at the Pole itself, the water is always covered with frozen sea ice.

This episode from history reminded me of how significant and now debunked past scientific theories can come into being with utterly no proof yet lead to misery and death for many people.

Another example is geocentrism, the belief that the Earth is the center of the universe. People were executed for saying that wasn't true.

A really good example is humorism, the belief that four basic bodily fluids affect human body functions and health. Countless millions of people died because physicians made decisions based on a mythical science.

In our own era, many people still believe in fake science, like the so-called anti-vaxxers and those who think climate change is a hoax. Such beliefs can kill people today, too.

Science is a great advancement for humankind, but in the wrong hands, it becomes a blunt instrument for stupidity.

the art of droll

An ambitious cartoonist posted a gallery of his rejected New Yorker cartoons online. I can see why some of them were rejected -- obscenity -- but others seem like they were on the money.

Of course, it might just be about access. The cartoonists selling to top outlets like The New Yorker through agents have a much easier time than the lesser-knowns who peddle their own wares.

That aside, there is a certain sort of perfect drollness that makes a memorable New Yorker cartoon. It's both very funny and very clever but also perfectly captures some zeitgeist in the image.

Will McPhail has had a bunch of his cartoons published in The New Yorker and, IMHO, he's mastered the magazine's art of droll. My all-time favorite of his can be seen below, which is now one of my all-time favorite New Yorker cartoons, too.

About half of the time, I enter The New Yorker's weekly caption contest, where one of their regular cartoonists draws a cartoon without a caption and people enter their ideas. The one that wins the most votes gets something -- I think a framed version of the original.

Needless to say, I have never won, although I do know someone who has, whatever that means. I've come "close" to winning several times, because either my idea was almost exactly the same or identical to one that won (the reason I lost, I think, was because their idea was submitted before mine).

I come up with my best ideas for the caption by not really thinking too hard about it. I'll look at that week's cartoon and then go do something else.

At some point, an idea or two will pop in my head and I'll write them down. Then, before the deadline, I'll submit the one I think that best works.

I guess I'm slow on the take compared to the other people who come up with a similar or exactly same caption. I'm guessing some of them immediately think of their solution.

Nonetheless, I'll keep trying because it's fun. Half the time, however, my husband can't understand my caption, but I chalk that up to the America versus Australia thing. For instance, I had to explain to him why the one below is so funny.

the staring cult

Somehow, I happened on this webpage yesterday where a man named John de Ruiter is profiled.

The TL/DR version is pretty simple: he leads a cult of sorts where he sits in the middle of a room, surrounded by his female followers. He stares at them and they stare at him. For hours.

Occasionally, he'll bestow pearls of wisdom on his followers, with gems such as "use the pathways into yourself. But it still has not path -- as your deeper womanist moves through the pathways of yourself."

And that's it.

He makes money at this, like really good money. He's very popular in Canada and holds seminars all over the world.

I love my husband, but I don't even think I could stare at him for hours as he stared at me. And if he came out with some nugget of wisdom like "the softer your heart is the less that your past is forming your present and your future," I think I'd respond with something like, "sweetie, did you fall and hit your head?"

The only difference between this guy and Jack Handey is that Jack is pulling your leg while John is pulling your wallet.

covfefe

At 12:06 AM Wednesday morning, the President of the United States tweeted:

"Despite the constant negative press covfefe" and that was it. No end of sentence. No correcting tweet. Utter silence for another six hours.

Did he fall asleep? Drop his phone on the floor and couldn't find it? Forget what he was doing and wander out of the room?

Yes, it's funny in an eye-rolling sort of way. But it's also very scary. The nuclear arsenal is controlled by a man with such poor impulse control that he can't even use Twitter correctly without humiliating himself. Why did it take six hours for somebody to do something?

Presidents are statesmen. They have gravitas. Well, at least they used to.

Even Richard Nixon acted like a President much of the time, not like a tetchy overindulged child with Attention-Deficit/
Hyperactivity Disorder.

Hopefully the congressional leadership and the cabinet have already had some quiet conversations about when and why they may need to evoke the 25th Amendment to the constitution. It happened when both Nixon and Reagan were Presidents.

The time has come once again to give that serious consideration.