Sunrise — 5:49.

"Couples have less time on a grand scale while contending, suddenly, with more free time in their waking hours."

"Many disagree on how to spend it. 'I can do anything I want, but lack an activity partner,' reported Danny Steiner, a recently retired 70-year-old high school teacher whose wife does not share his passion for travel — a difference that really manifested only once it was an option. More time can lay bare the reality that some couples did better with less of it. 'Being together just does not feel as special as it once did,' said Martha Battie, a retired college administrator in Hanover, N.H. 'Whatever conversations or sharing we have seems to be forgotten, or not really heard from the start.' And more time means more exposure to whatever irritating habits were easily endured in smaller doses. Among the things that grated on her, Barbara had texted, was that Joe 'mansplains everything.' He had always been that way, she knew, but now she had to deal with so much more of it...."

From "These Couples Survived a Lot. Then Came Retirement. For many relationships, life after work brings an unexpected set of challenges" (NYT)(free access link).

Can you imagine talking about your spouse like that to a NYT writer?! Joe ought to mansplain to Barbara about why she shouldn't talking-to-the-NYT-splaining about his mansplaining.

"At Washington dinner parties, dark jokes abound about where to go into exile if the former president reclaims the White House."

That's the subheadline of a NYT piece by Peter Baker, "Gallows Humor and Talk of Escape: Trump’s Possible Return Rattles Capital."

"Just as students [in 1968] could no longer tolerate the horrific images of a distant war delivered, for the first time, in almost real time by television..."

"... so many of today’s students have found the images from Gaza, now transmitted instantly onto their phones, to demand action. And just as students in ’68 insisted that their school sever ties to a government institute doing research for the war, so today’s students demand that Columbia divest from companies profiting from Israel’s invasion of Gaza.... Universities do have a serious obligation to protect Jewish students from antisemitism and to maintain order, but it is to their students and teachers that they must answer, not to Republicans eager to score points against woke 'indoctrination' at elite colleges or to megadonors seeking to push their agendas onto institutions of higher learning...."

Writes Serge Schmemann, a member of the NYT editorial board, in "Student Protest Is an Essential Part of Education" (NYT).

By the way, that headline is close to what I wrote to my parents when I participated in a student strike at the University of Michigan, circa 1970. I am in possession of this letter, and I can only imagine what my parents must have thought. I went so far as to assert that the protesting was more educational than the classes themselves. And it's not as though they'd asked for an explanation. I took it upon myself to pontificate. The issue at the time was affirmative action. The chant was: "Open it up or shut it down." What did I know about the wisdom of a program of affirmative action? It seemed vivifyingly clear at the time.

"The new cure-all for vacation excess: the IV drip/IV therapy has moved from hospitals to luxury spas, hotels and Airbnb house calls."

A WaPo article.

Recreational IV drips may be most famously associated with hangovers, but they can purportedly alleviate a wide range of symptoms, such as dehydration, brain fog, nausea and lethargy. Prices vary by city and type of IV cocktail, but basic drips start at about $150 and can rise fivefold or more... A number of Four Seasons spas — Orlando, Washington D.C., Maui, New York City — offer the amenity....

[A]ctress Sofia Vergara... provided the amenity at her 2015 nuptials. Since then... the “bougie luxury service” has gone mainstream....

This is part of a larger phenomenon of rejecting natural life. Everything becomes a medical issue, and people feel fortunate to gain access to a regime of treatments.

"It was the third papal meeting for Laura, 57, a saucy Paraguayan sex worker who, in her realest moments, described herself as 'una travesti'..."

"... outdated Spanish slang for 'a transgender woman.' She lived by a code: Tough girls don’t cry. But the first time Pope Francis had blessed her, she couldn’t suppress her tears. On their second meeting, they chatted over lunch. He came to know her well enough to ask about her health. On top of her longtime HIV, she’d had a recent cancer diagnosis. During treatment, the church sourced her a comfortable hotel room in the shadow of the Colosseum and provided food, money, medicine and tests...."

From "How Pope Francis opened the Vatican to transgender sex workers/The outreach, reflecting the most radical stage of his papacy, has prompted backlash while also altering the lives of the nearly 100 people he has met" (WaPo)(free access link).

"'Groups of trans come all the time,' Francis told fellow Jesuits in Lisbon last August. 'The first time they came, they were crying. I was asking them why. One of them told me, "I didn’t think the pope would receive me!" Then, after the first surprise, they made a habit of coming back. Some write to me, and I email them back. Everyone is invited! I realized these people feel rejected.'"

Sunrise — 5:17, 5:40, 5:42.

The arb blooms at noon.

"Who among the protesters really thought that Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, and the board of trustees would view the occupation of Hamilton Hall..."

"... and say, 'Oh, if the students feel that strongly, then let’s divest from Israel immediately'? The point seemed less to make change than to manifest anger for its own sake, with the encampment having become old news. The initial protest was an effective way to show how fervently a great many people oppose the war, but the time had come for another phase: slow, steady suasion. This is not capitulation but a change in tactics.... We recall [Martin Luther] King most vividly in protests, including being imprisoned for his participation. However, his daily life as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was about endless and often frustrating negotiations with people in power, which eventually bore fruit. In this, as much as in marches, he and his comrades created the America we know today. Smoking hot orations about Black Power might have instilled some pride but created little beyond that...."

Writes John McWhorter, in "The Columbia Protests Made the Same Mistake the Civil Rights Movement Did" (NYT).

"Some senior-care homes say they don’t have the ability to lift fallen residents."

"Many have adopted 'no lift' policies to avoid the risk of back injuries for staff and other potential liabilities.... A nurse who worked at an assisted-living facility in Greensboro, N.C. ... said her company required caretakers to call 911 even if a resident had just slid harmlessly out of a chair. 'If you’re on the floor, period, you’d have to call'.... She said residents were often embarrassed by the lift-assist calls. Some begged her not to dial 911. She said she had no choice. Fire officials point out they bring no special skill to such situations — it’s just a matter of who’s doing the work...."

From "Senior homes refuse to pick up fallen residents, dial 911. ‘Why are they calling us?’ Frustrated cities and states have begun fining facilities for nonemergency calls, but some just keep calling" (WaPo).

ADDED: May I recommend that residents be trained in the methods of avoiding falls and in getting yourself back up if you do fall down. Here's a useful video on getting up off the floor.

"Special counsel Jack Smith’s team acknowledged Friday that some evidence in the prosecution of former President Donald Trump for hoarding classified documents at his Florida home..."

"... may not be in the same sequence FBI agents found it when they swept into the Mar-a-Lago compound with a search warrant in August 2022. The concession from prosecutors in a court filing Friday afternoon came after attorneys for one of Trump’s co-defendants asked for a delay in the case because the defense lawyers were having trouble determining precisely where particular documents had come from in the 33 boxes the FBI seized almost two years ago. In their filing, prosecutors acknowledged the government had previously — and incorrectly — told U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that the boxes remained 'in their original, intact form as seized'.... In a post on his Trump Social site Friday, Trump [said]... Smith 'and his team committed blatant Evidence Tampering by mishandling the very Boxes they used as a pretext to bring this Fake Case'...."

From "Prosecutors: Docs in boxes seized from Mar-a-Lago were inadvertently jumbled/Special counsel Jack Smith’s team acknowledged mischaracterizing the issue at a recent hearing in the Trump classified documents case, but said the reordering was not significant" (Politico).

"Look, think about it. Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they're xenophobic. They don't want immigrants."

Said Joe Biden, quoted in "Japan disappointed by Biden's 'xenophobic' comments" (Kyodo News).

Did he just blurt that out or is there political wisdom in saying that? It appeals to certain Americans and it might be a deliberate nudge to China and Japan.

"Writing about one’s own children has always been a delicate matter. It’s itchy and complicated..."

"... and there is no right way to do it. As a child who was often a subject of the writing of my mother, Erica Jong... I have very mixed feelings about the phenomenon. I like to think I truly hated being written about, but who can remember? Later, I found it gave me a profound lack of shame and no expectation of privacy, which helped me pursue a public-facing career I might otherwise not have...."

Writes Molly Jong-Fast, in "When Your Mom Is Famous for Hating Motherhood/In Heidi Reimer’s novel, 'The Mother Act,' a daughter grapples with being parented (or not) by an actress who happily mines her life for material" (NYT).

"Personally, I have found that there is no solution for having a parent who uses your life for content. There is no salve for the resentment it produces. Would I have been normal had my mom not written about me?... Am I uncomfortable on this planet because I always knew my mom was squirreled away working on a novel in which I would figure prominently, once as twins?"

By the way, Erica Jong is still alive — she's 82 — and Molly Jong-Fast has children of her own — 3 of them.

What was your mom doing when she was squirreled away? Did it make you "uncomfortable on this planet"? Or are we all, always, residents of our mother's planet? In which case, why are you not comfortable in the world you were born into — born out of?

"Mr. Musk’s decision to lay off the 500-member team responsible for installing charging stations, and to sharply slow investment in new stations, baffled the industry..."

"... and raised doubts about whether the number of public chargers would grow fast enough to keep pace with sales of battery-powered cars....  As the owner of the largest charging network in the United States, Tesla has a powerful effect on people’s views of electric cars.... Tesla does not disclose the financial performance of its charging business, but analysts say it requires capital that Mr. Musk would rather invest in artificial intelligence and robotics.... 'My guess is that the electricity and infrastructure costs of running the network far exceed the fees provided by Tesla and other drivers thus far,' Ben Rose, president of Battle Road Research, said..."

From "Tesla Pullback Puts Onus on Others to Build Electric Vehicle Chargers/The automaker led by Elon Musk is no longer planning to take the lead in expanding the number of places to fuel electric vehicles. It’s not clear how quickly other companies will fill the gap" (NYT).

It's a disaster, isn't it?

"Who is Bobby Kennedy?"

I like the way this begins with Bobby reading out mainstream media insults against him — he is nuts and clearly disturbed....

The NYT looks into the "outside agitator" rhetoric.

Yesterday, I noted the NYPD report that "More than a quarter of protesters arrested Tuesday at Columbia and 60 percent at the City College of New York had no connections to the schools." I asked: "But who are the outside agitators? If they are not students, who are they? How about some details? Lots of them were arrested. Why isn't there a torrent of detail about what sort of people they are?"

This morning I see the NYT doing something that seems to be answering my question. The headline is "The Mayor Called Them Outside Agitators. Many of Them Beg to Differ. City officials have blamed 'external actors' for escalating demonstrations at Columbia University and elsewhere, but student protesters reject the claim."

This article set off my bullshit detector:

1. I want to know who the non-students actually are, not — as the headline has it — that they "beg to differ" and "reject the claim." Of course, they wouldn't like their antagonists' effective rhetoric.

2. The article has 5 authors.

3. The article begins with 3 paragraphs cherry-picking 3 particularly nice non-students — a saxophonist, and gardener, and a nanny!

But let's look at the substance: