Month: July 2024

So that happened.

Am I the only person who, in the last week, thought of the phrase “Lipstick on a pig?”

I appreciate all of the effort. A lot of people worked extremely hard, and on the whole it was a very impressive show.

But at the end, after all of that, the main reveal produced — exactly what you would expect.

To be fair, you’ve got to have a certain respect for the pig. A pig knows what it is. It is completely itself, and always remains true to its own identity.

So however much fanfare precedes its appearance, a pig will proceed to act exactly like a pig.

No matter how much lipstick you put on it.

I was at a Whole Foods market yesterday, and for the first time I really took a good look around and tried to deconstruct my experience. And I realized how much Whole Foods is not just about food — it’s about an idea.

Sure, you can buy food there, and you generally do, but so much more is going on. The lighting, layout, signage, placement of items within the aisles, the checkout experience, everything works together.

The entire time that you shop, you are receiving a well crafted narrative. That narrative is about variety, freshness, cleanliness and eco-friendliness. But it’s also about having an upscale elite experience, a feeling of being pampered within an orderly world where things are taken care of — where you are taken care of.

Sure, it costs more. But that extra amount that you are paying is for a high quality entertainment experience that often leaves you in a better mood than you were in before you entered.

And I say that’s ok. High quality ambience is worth paying for.

For example, high quality ambience is a lot of what you are paying for when you go to a museum. And a museum doesn’t even have food.

Today I read a surprising number of snarky comments online about Nancy Pelosi asking President Biden to consider withdrawing as a candidate. The comments all centered on her age.

She is 84, and the President is 81. So people were basically saying that it was the pot calling the kettle black.

But it isn’t that at all. Pelosi is reckoning not with age, but with the President’s performance in the first debate.

As we all saw, his opponent was a ranting snake oil salesman who ignored the moderators’ questions, while managing to say nothing truthful. Debating that kind of shallow blowhard should have been like shooting fish in a barrel. Biden should have wiped the floor with him.

But he didn’t, and that is the issue Pelosi is facing. It has nothing to do with age — it’s about winning — and the stakes are very high.

If your star quarterback suddenly couldn’t throw the ball, you would consider taking him out of the game. That is, if you wanted to win.

And the problem with those people complaining about Pelosi? They’re ageist.

“Those who cannot remember George Santayana are condemned to misquote him.”

Alan Kay once said that the thing to worry about is not artificial intelligence. The thing to worry about is natural stupidity.

I mentioned this recently to Jaron Lanier. He pointed out that this has an interesting side effect: It makes it easier for an AI to pass the Turing test.

After all, if you put an artificial intelligent computer at one terminal, and a naturally stupid person at the other, it might be impossible to tell the difference.

First the Supreme Court grants our former president magical and unlimited king-like powers of immunity against any and all crimes, as long as he can say “I did it in my official capacity.”

Then a would-be assassin manages to miss a clear shot with an AR-15 from a mere 400 feet away — which is a pretty astonishing thing to do if you know anything about firearms. Which leads to a “raised fist” visual that seems custom made for mugs, t-shirts and future flags.

Now judge Cannon dismisses the documents case by pretending that she is not aware of 28 U.S. Code § 533, which authorized the appointment of the special counsel.

I am starting to think that the fix is in.

So many jokes on the Internet today. Out of a sense of discretion, I won’t participate.

But I will say that they are cheering me up. So many of them are right on target.

A friend recently told me that he had just turned sixty four. In true proud nerd fashion, he said “I’ve finally added that sixth zero to my age.

So I told him “You don’t look a day over 11110.”

See if you can match the name in the first column with the name in the second column.

1 Austen	A Asquitho
2 Boccaccio	B Bogdanovich
3 Dickens	C Brooks
4 Dostoevsky	D Clayton
5 Fitzgerald	E Corman
6 Forster	F Ford
7 Hardy	G Huston
8 Heller	H Ivory
9 James	I Jackson
10 Kafka	J Lean
11 Melville	K Lee
12 Pasternak	L Nichols
13 Poe	M Polanski
14 Steinbeck	N Pasolini
15 Tolkien	O Schlesinger
16 Wells	P Scorsese
17 Wilde	Q Welles
18 Wharton	R Whale