E. Bryant Crutchfield (1937–2022)

He invented the Trapper Keeper. The New York Times has an obituary.

Trapper Keepers were prohibited at my children’s schools, and we never knew why. One fambly member’s suggestion is that the authorities wanted to keep out a status symbol. It turns out that there’s a world of discourse about this question. A 2001 Washington Post column for young readers quotes teachers who say that Trapper Keepers are too large and lead to disorganization.

Here’s much more about this venerable school supply: The History of the Trapper Keeper (Mental Floss).

Teachers, take warning: the Times reports that Trapper Keepers are once again on the market.

Siren eyes

New directions in makeup: siren eyes. (JSTOR Daily). Good grief.

It’s worth pointing out that in the Odyssey, the seduction of the Sirens has little to do with sexual allure. What the Sirens promise is the full truth of the Trojan War. They claim to know “everything / that the Greeks and Trojans / Suffered in wide Troy.”

Jonathan Shay, in Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming (2002):

In the language of metaphor, Homer shows us that returning veterans face a characteristic peril, a risk of dying from the obsession to know the complete and final truth of what they and the enemy did and suffered in their war and why. In part, this may be another expression of the visceral commandment to keep faith with the dead. Complete and final truth is an unachievable, toxic quest, which is different from the quest to create meaning for one's experience in a coherent narrative. Veterans can and do achieve the latter.

And:

The "voice“ of the Sirens, scholars tell us, is the "voice“ of the Iliad, the voice of a wartime past experienced as more real and meaningful than the present.

And to be captured by that song is to lose one’s homecoming.

Related reading
All OCA Homer posts (Pinboard)

[The lines from Homer are in Stanley Lombardo’s translation.]

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.