Problems with Blogger comments

Not long ago I found that when using Safari on any Apple device, I couldn’t leave comments on Blogger blogs, even when already signed in to my account. I found a fix. In macOS:

~ Click on Safari in the menu bar.

~ Click on Preferences.

~ Click on Privacy.

~ Uncheck Prevent cross-site tracking.

In iOS:

~ Tap on Preferences.

~ Tap on Safari.

~ Turn off Prevent Cross-Site Tracking. (All capitalized here.)

After you’ve left a comment, it’s wise to prevent cross-site tracking again. Cross-site tracking is a good thing, but not when it prevents you from leaving a comment on someone’s blog.

Related reading
All OCA Blogger posts (Pinboard)

Maggie Haberman, apologist

At The New York Times, Maggie Haberman scratches her head and wonders: “Why Did He Resist Returning the Government’s Documents?” Guess what: “there’s no easy answer.” It’s “another mystery.” It surely is. Haberman runs through several possibilities:

~ The defeated former president is a collector of sorts:

Mr. Trump, a pack rat who for decades showed off knickknacks in his overstuffed Trump Tower office — including a giant shoe that once belonged to the basketball player Shaquille O’Neal — treated the nation’s secrets as similar trinkets to brandish.

~ The defeated former president thought of himself as a king:

“From my own experiences with him, which is bolstered by those around him who are speaking in his defense, his actions seem to fit the pattern that as ‘king,’ he and the state are one and the same,” said Mark S. Zaid, a lawyer who frequently handles cases related to national security and security clearances, including during the Trump presidency. “He seems to honestly believe that everything he touches belongs to him, and that includes government documents that might be classified.”

~ The defeated former president didn’t care about protocol:

Although Trump White House officials were warned about the proper handling of sensitive material, aides said Mr. Trump had little interest in the security of government documents or protocols to keep them protected.

Early on, Mr. Trump became known among his staff as a hoarder who threw all manner of paper — sensitive material, news clips and various other items — into cardboard boxes that a valet or other personal aide would cart around with him wherever he went.

Mr. Trump repeatedly had material sent up to the White House residence, and it was not always clear what happened to it. He sometimes asked to keep material after his intelligence briefings, but aides said he was so uninterested in the paperwork during the briefings themselves that they never understood what he wanted it for.

~ The defeated former president liked having mementos of leaders he’d met:

Mr. Trump, Mr. [John] Bolton said, never told him he planned to take a document and use it for something beyond its value as a memento.

It was “sort of whatever he wants to grab for whatever reason,” Mr. Bolton said. “He may not even fully appreciate” precisely why he did certain things.

But officials worried, particularly about the documents falling into the wrong hands.

Other advisers wondered if Mr. Trump kept some documents because they contained details about people he knew.

It’s only in that last sentence that Haberman comes close to considering an obvious explanation: that the defeated former president kept documents — and kept them and kept them — because he was seeking to monetize or otherwise exploit them. “Other advisers wondered”: well, why? What did they think the defeated former president might do with the materials he kept? Haberman doesn’t go there.

And thus her litany of explanations marks her as something of an apologist: he likes shiny objects; he doesn’t understand what is and isn’t his; he does things his own way; he wants to keep stuff. That’s just the way he is. Comparisons to human beings in the very early and very late stages of life come quickly to mind.

Stop giving him an out, Maggie Haberman.

Two TALs

Two exceptional recent episodes of This American Life: “The Possum Experiment” and “Name. Age. Detail.”

How Dr. Fauci caught COVID

From In the Bubble with Andy Slavitt. Dr. Anthony Fauci comments on the “remarkable transmissibility” of the virus:

“I have been compulsively careful about wearing masks and not being exposed in congregant settings. And I know exactly when I got infected. I had to go up to my sixtieth college reunion, where they were honoring me by naming a building, the Anthony Fauci Science Center, which was such a wonderful honor. And I went into the reception, and all of my classmates from the class of 1962 were unmasked. They saw me, they got very enthusiastic, they gave me big hugs. So I felt I looked so out of place with a mask on. I literally took my mask off for about forty-five minutes, mingling with them and their family, went back, put my mask on. Five days later — bingo, I was infected.”

Don’t let your guard down.

Misheard

“Every pen is different.”

No, pet, in a PSA about animal adoption.

But it is true that every pen is different, at least if we’re speaking of fountain pens. Even instances of the same model may differ in their feel and flow.

One way to prevent these wishful mishearings would be to look at the screen during commercials. But that’s not me.

Related reading
All OCA misheard posts (Pinboard)

A joke in the traditional manner

What do dogs always insist on when they buy a car?

The punchline is in the comments.

More jokes in the traditional manner
The Autobahn : Did you hear about the cow coloratura? : Did you hear about the new insect hybrid? : Did you hear about the shape-shifting car? : Did you hear about the thieving produce clerk? : Elementary school : A Golden Retriever : How did Bela Lugosi know what to expect? : How did Samuel Clemens do all his long-distance traveling? : How do amoebas communicate? : How do ghosts hide their wrinkles? : How do worms get to the supermarket? : Of all the songs in the Great American Songbook, which is the favorite of pirates? : What did the doctor tell his forgetful patient to do? : What did the plumber do when embarrassed? : What happens when a senior citizen visits a podiatrist? : What is the favorite toy of philosophers’ children? : What’s the name of the Illinois town where dentists want to live? : What’s the worst thing about owning nine houses? : What was the shepherd doing in the garden? : Where do amoebas golf? : Where does Paul Drake keep his hot tips? : Which member of the orchestra was best at handling money? : Who’s the lead administrator in a school of fish? : Why are supervillains good at staying warm in the winter? : Why did the doctor spend his time helping injured squirrels? : Why did Oliver Hardy attempt a solo career in movies? : Why did the ophthalmologist and his wife split up? : Why does Marie Kondo never win at poker? : Why is the Fonz so cool? : Why sharpen your pencil to write a Dad joke? : Why was Santa Claus wandering the East Side of Manhattan?

[“In the traditional manner”: by or à la my dad. He gets credit for the Autobahn, the elementary school, the Golden Retriever, Bela Lugosi, Samuel Clemens, the doctor, the plumber, the senior citizen, Oliver Hardy, and the ophthalmologist. Elaine gets credit for the Illinois town. Ben gets credit for the supervillains in winter. My dad was making such jokes long before anyone called them dad jokes.]

Undone by an archivist

Debra Steidel Wall, Acting Archivist of the United States: that’s the signature on a May 10, 2022 letter to one of the defeated former president’s lawyers, letting him know that the National Archives and Records Administration would be turning materials over to the FBI.

There’s something sweet and fitting about the prospect of a man with no regard for history and no regard for the written word (save for its monetary value) being undone by an archivist. If the arc of the moral universe isn’t exactly bending toward justice, it might at least be bending toward poetic justice.

“Home”

I cringe a little and laugh a little every time I hear a news outlet refer to Mar-a-Lago as the defeated former president’s “home.”

House of course won’t do. But how about property ? Or residence ? Granted, home fits better in headlines. But there’s something ludicrous about calling a resort that houses (no pun intended) a private club a home.

Leaving a Ph.D. program

Here’s an anonymous piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “Why I’m Planning to Leave My Ph.D. Program.” The subtitle explains it all: “My family can’t live on $17,000 a year.” An excerpt:

Over four years in my English Ph.D. program, I’ve taught 132 students as the instructor of record, a total of 396 credit hours, and so, at my college’s stated tuition rates, helped it bring in something on the order of $575,000. While those funds aren’t entirely profit, the minimal overhead of my class means I’ve more than paid my way. In addition, I’ve served as a research assistant and worked in the writing center. In exchange, my institution paid me a stipend averaging $17,000 per year.

The writer quotes from Ulysses at the end of his essay, likening his contemplation of his young daughter’s future to Stephen Dedalus’s contemplation of his sister Dilly’s sad prospects. More bitterly, I think of repurposing Stephen’s famous observation about Ireland in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man : Academia is the old sow that eats her farrow.

For me the saddest thing about the Chronicle piece is that the writer never considers what might follow the completion of his degree. One cautionary tale along those lines: William Deresiewicz’s account of why he left academia.

Where’s Mary?

From Axios: “Mary Miller missing from IL GOP messaging.” She was missing from a Republican Day rally at the Illinois State Fair:

When reporters repeatedly asked IL GOP chair Don Tracy about her absence at the rally, he responded, “I don’t know where Mary Miller is.”

Given Miller’s Adolf Hitler moment and her celebration of “white life,” it may be that those in charge thought it would be safer not to have her present. Or perhaps she chose not to show up because she might have to answer a question from a news outlet. She doesn’t do that. (She refuses. Sometimes she hides.) Nor does she answer letters from at least some of her constituents. I’ve written four, the first of which had no response but put me on her newsletter list. (They must have had an e-mail address for me from her predecessor, John Shimkus.) I immediately unsubscribed. The other three letters had no response.

Regular readers of OCA will know that Mary Miller is “my” representative in Congress.

Related reading
All OCA Mary Miller posts (Pinboard)