Caught on camera.

1. "Coldplay’s ‘kiss cam’ zeroes in on mortified tech CEO Andy Byron and alleged HR-chief mistress Kristin Cabot" (NY Post)("Oh, what? Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy").

2. "Video shows boy, 7, being kidnapped at gunpoint — as dad runs and hides: 'Hell yeah I ran'" (NY Post)("I ran im thinking they tryna rob me not take my damn baby").

"In politics, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were, and maybe still are, daddies. A daddy-in-training is New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani..."

"... who Gates says 'hasn’t aged into daddyhood' quite yet. What all daddies have in common is the notion of or desire for a power imbalance — a dynamic at play in real and metaphoric, honorific paternal relationships.... Milo Yiannopoulos... began calling Trump daddy in 2017. At an October 2024 rally, speaking before Trump took the stage, Tucker Carlson compared Americans to naughty little girls who have misbehaved. 'When Dad gets home, you know what he says? You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now,' Carlson told the crowd, in perhaps one of the creepiest moments of the campaign. 'And no, it’s not going to hurt me more than it hurts you.' 'Daddy’s Home' shirts featuring Trump and the White House began circulating on Etsy shortly after his November win... We seem to have entered a deeply submissive era. Everyone is being well-behaved for Daddy, lest they be spanked.... But power and wealth are not all that a true daddy possesses....."

Writes Maura Judkis, in "Who’s your daddy? These days, who isn’t? Mack daddy, leather daddy, sugar daddy, Daddy Trump: The fraught and Freudian journey of a domineering archetype" (WaPo).

Gates = Bransen Gates, an Instagrammer who lipsynchs to Trump audio and demonstrates, comically, that Trump was born to be a gay man.

Perhaps you, like me, remember the phrase "Daddy's Home" as the title of a lovely doowop song from 1961 by Shep & the Limelites, so: here.

Even better:

"Mr. Borg Hoiby was 4 years old when his mother, Mette-Marit Tjessem Hoiby, a former waitress, married Crown Prince Haakon, the heir to the Norwegian throne, in 2001."

"Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s other children, Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus, are second and third in line to succeed their grandfather, King Harald V, 88. Mr. Borg Hoiby holds no title or official duties."

From "Son of Norway’s Crown Princess Is Charged With Rape and Sexual Assault/Marius Borg Hoiby, the stepson of Crown Prince Haakon, was charged with rape and sexual assault after a monthslong police investigation that has caused turmoil for the royal family" (NYT).

So he's not a prince, but his younger brother is a prince and his younger sister a princess. I see that when he was born, his father was in prison. Wikipedia: 

"He has a photo of his late friend Hunter S Thompson and a doll of Donald Trump climbing into a cage with the American flag inside it — the 'horrible cage,' he explains of the US presidency."

"On the coffee table I spot a magnifying glass, a book on Jack the Ripper and an ashtray with 'Hello C***y' written on it. This rented house is where Depp had been living for months but he knows that he has to move. Somebody of his infamy simply cannot live near Carnaby Street without getting stuck indoors. 'I can be isolated and happier than a clam,' he explains. 'But I don’t get out much. I’m stuck with my thoughts; just thinking, writing or watching weird shit on YouTube. It can’t be healthy... But there is never any way to hide, and I just feel uncomfortable causing this weird form of attention I do, because I’m really shy.' How is that compatible with his career? 'Well, fame is the last thing I ever chased...'... Does he miss having the children about? 'Oh man, my kids growing up in the south of France in their youth?... I was Papa. I cannot tell you how much I loved being Papa.... Then, suddenly, Papa was out the window. I was Dad. But Papa was awesome and I’m getting old enough for Papa to possibly come back. Some motherf***er’s going to have to call me Papa!'"

From "Johnny Depp: ‘I was a crash test dummy for MeToo’/Over a rambling four-hour session with Jonathan Dean, the actor opens up about the Amber Heard trials, his painful childhood, 40 years of fame and the friends who turned their backs on him" (London Times)

"Errol Musk, the father of Elon, has described the feud between his son and Donald Trump as 'over the top,' likening it to a clash between 'gorillas' fighting for dominance."

"Musk, 79, advised his 'alpha' son, 59, to accept that the president was the more dominant of the two and would 'win this round.' 'In any successful group of animals, whether gorillas, elephants or human beings, the dominant males will always fight for dominance,' Musk said, predicting that an eruption of bitter exchanges between two of the world’s most powerful men 'would now fizzle out.' Musk added: 'The problem you get with really good quality people is that the men all think they should be the general. They will have to sort it out and because Trump is the one who was elected, Elon is going to have to accept he is not going to be the general.... Trump isn’t vengeful. He will win this round with Elon and not hold it against him. A big person can forgive easily, only small people can’t. Things have gone over the top, but this is the situation when alphas fight it out. I’ve told Elon he has said his part, but now he must allow things to calm down — and I hope he will.'"

The London Times reports.

ADDED: Remember this:

"After becoming pregnant with their son, St. Clair and Musk’s relationship progressed.... In November, Musk responded to a selfie she texted him saying: 'I want to knock you up again.'"

"While she was pregnant, Musk had urged her to deliver the baby via caesarean section and told her he didn’t want the child to be circumcised. (Musk has posted on X that vaginal births limit brain size and that C-sections allow for larger brains.) St. Clair is Jewish and circumcisions are an important ritual in the religion, and she decided against a C-section. He told her she should have 10 babies, and they debated the child’s middle name.... She complied with the request to not name Musk on the birth certificate. Not long after the birth, [Musk’s longtime fixer, Jared] Birchall pushed St. Clair to sign documents keeping the father of the baby and details regarding her relationship with Musk secret in return for financial support. The offer was a one-time fee of $15 million for a home and living expenses, plus an additional $100,000 a month until the baby turned 21. Musk told her by text it was dangerous to reveal his relationship to the baby, describing himself as the '#2 after Trump for assassination.' He added that 'only the paranoid survive.' But she didn’t sign...."

From "The Tactics Elon Musk Uses to Manage His ‘Legion’ of Babies—and Their Mothers/The world’s richest man juggles more than a dozen children and ‘harem drama’ along with running his companies and advising Trump. He recently took a paternity test in a battle with one woman over money and privacy" (Wall Street Journal).

The life of a one-man genius sperm bank is not easy.

"A startup called Sperm Racing, run by four teenage entrepreneurs from the US, said it had raised $1.5 million to stage the event at the Hollywood Palladium..."

"... on April 25. Eric Zhu, the company’s 17-year-old co-founder, said the inaugural event would pit samples taken from two healthy young university students against each other on a racetrack 20cm (8in) long and modelled on the female reproductive system.... 'We want to turn health into competition,' Zhu said. 'Sperm is surprising as a biomarker. The healthier you are, the faster sperm moves.'... A live video feed, magnified 40 times to display the 0.05mm spermatozoa, will track the samples’ progress....The event will be run over three races in front of a crowd of 4,000 spectators, and feature play-by-play commentary, instant replays and leaderboards, according to Zhu.

I'm reading "What to expect from ‘world’s first competitive sperm race’/A fertility startup raised $1.5 million to stage the event at the Hollywood Palladium this month" (London Times).

With the sperm expected to swim at a speed of 5mm per minute, each race will take something like 40 minutes. There are 3 races... and room for 4,000 spectators. Interesting concept, and congratulations to the teenagers for getting $1.5 million and an article in the London Times, but I think success here depends on the quality of the play-by-play commentators.

For the annals of Things I Asked Grok: "What is the key to doing good play-by-play commentary for a long race, say 40 minutes?"

You can wear a device that records everything you say and, through A.I., advises you, on a daily basis, about how you can improve your communication skills.

I'm reading "This disc records everything you say — to make you a better person/Limitless hopes its AI wearable device will be used as a life coach and productivity tool by millions" (London Times).

“Practise more active listening and patience when interacting with your kids, especially when they’re seeking your attention,” one notification read that popped up on his smartphone. “Sometimes you get caught up in your own tasks or thoughts and may not fully engage the moment with your children.”

The advice was followed by a transcript, recorded at 9.09am the previous day, when Siroker, a start-up founder, was clearly distracted while his six-year-old clamoured for attention. “It’s hard to hear this, because I didn’t realise …. I’m a good dad,” Siroker trailed off. “But now I can go back to that time, and say, ‘Hey, what was I doing at 9.09 that was so damn important?’”

Presumably, the child is also recorded. Does the A.I. critique the child too?  

The microphone is always on! You end up with searchable document of everything it records. And by "you," I mean anyone who uses one of these things. I hope whoever they are, they use it only for its intended purpose: To improve communication. The privacy problems are obvious, but it's only a matter of time. These things — like the cameras everywhere — are inevitable. 

Asked the famous question "What is a woman?," Trump does one of his weaves.

Yesterday, in the Oval Office:

"Well, it's sort of easy to answer for me, because a woman is somebody that can have a baby under certain circumstances. She has a quality. A woman is a person who's much smarter than a man, I've always found. A woman is a person that doesn't give a man even a chance of success. And a woman's a person that in many cases has been treated very badly, because I think that, uh, what happens with this crazy, this crazy issue of men being able to play in women's sports is just ridiculous and very unfair to women and very demeaning to women. And that's got to be about a 94% — I read today — it was a 94% issue, and I watched the other day, I watched congressman, Democrat Congressman, fighting for the fact that men should be allowed to compete, essentially, in women's sports, and I say, I hope they keep that going, because they'll never win another election. That's a big deal. But women are basically incredible people do so much for our country, and we love, we love our women, and we're going to take care of our women."

That's a lot of words, but if you had to boil it down to one word, I think you'd have to go with: paternalistic. The first thing he thought of was the capacity to have babies. He veered into abstractly praising women and digging into the transgender question, but he ended with the most basic expression of paternalism: We love our women, and we're going to take care of our women.

"Prince Robert also shared that his son asked him a final question: 'Papa, are you proud of me?'"

"Prince Frederik had struggled to speak for 'several days' before he died, according to Robert, 'so the clarity of these words was as surprising as the weight of the moment was profound. The answer was very easy, and he had heard it oh so many times, but at this time, he needed reassurance that he had contributed all that he possibly could in his short and beautiful existence and that he could now finally move on,' Robert explained. 'Frederik knows that he is my Superhero....'"

From "Luxembourg’s Prince Frederik dead at 22 from rare genetic disease: 'He is my superhero'" (NY Post). The disease is POLG Mitochondrial disease.

Tim Dillon — the comedian who says Trump is a great comedian — does not appreciate Elon Musk as a prop comic in sunglasses.

From the new episode of his podcast (transcript): "So we have Elon Musk, who is up at CPAC, bombing with a chainsaw and doing weird bits.... Americans, by and large do not love Elon Musk.... He is not Donald Trump. Donald Trump kills. Elon Musk does not. Donald Trump's jabs land. Hard. He's a political genius.... You might think he's an idiot. You might hate him.... He's great at what he does. Elon — it doesn't land all the time. It looks like you have sort of... like a weird billionaire talent show.... Where is Trump? Where is the one who got elected, who communicates effectively?...So here is Elon Musk with a prop. He's so high. I do respect how high he is. I do miss and love drugs. I really do miss and love drugs. Oh man, he's high.... 'Chainsaw for bureaucracy.'... "

"Can you play the meme thing where he goes, 'I've become meme' and it just doesn't land... I don't think this is good. This is not good.... I know that he's having fun with it, but there's gotta be a way to present this that where... he seems less high.... I'm just saying walking out on stage with sunglasses and a chainsaw is a little bit of a tell.... Whether they're high on ideas or actual drugs, I don't know. But we need sobriety in this country.... We need a dad... to just go, Hey man, here's the reality. You are outta control right now. You are absolutely out of control.... But this, this is a dad who himself is a little out of control, I think. I think you come home and you see dad with sunglasses and a chainsaw, and you go, my dad's going through something...."

"Musk has said... 'Lil X is my emotional support human.' The idea that X was not a child, with the needs and routines of children, but a trained care worker..."

"... for a father with self-confessed 'stormy' emotional needs was no doubt a joke. However, [Musk biographer Walter] Isaacson wrote that almost as soon as X was born, to the singer Grimes, Musk considered him something special, and described how the baby had a medicating effect on his father. He 'had an otherworldly sweetness that calmed and beguiled Musk, who craved his presence,' Isaacson wrote. 'He took X everywhere.' From infancy X accompanied Musk through a demanding work schedule, sitting on his lap at meetings, dancing on conference tables, attending film premieres.... Musk has repeatedly expressed how his lonely childhood instilled in him a desire that he 'never be alone.' His close working life with his four-year-old, or the person Isaacson describes as Musk’s 'cheerful energiser,' means that desire is met. Musk is a maths person, and perhaps having an awful lot of children is the equivalent of having one child but seeing an awful lot of them...."

From "Elon Musk takes his four-year-old son to work. Why? Musk has described ‘Lil X’ as his ‘cuteness prop’ — but his mother seems less delighted" (London Times),

"It’s like daddy arrived and he’s taking his belt off."

This is a big topic on X this morning:

MEL GIBSON on Trump heading to California today: “It’s like daddy arrived and he’s taking his belt off.”

pic.twitter.com/8mFU55JP7N

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 25, 2025

Scanning the posts over there, I'm mostly seeing the sharing of the video, in a manner that seems to approve of Trump's style and Gibson's rhetoric. The articulated criticism seems to have more to do with a purported weirdness to calling Trump "daddy" than any outrage about using the corporal punishment of children as a simile. I'd say "he’s taking his belt off" is much milder than "he's kicking ass" (which is a very common and accepted metaphor), so the focus on "daddy" seems apt. What I'd say about that is there's a longstanding practice of analyzing Democrats and Republicans as the "mommy party" and the "daddy party," and — as we can see in the video with L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and Trump, blogged below — the mommy/daddy contrast was very much on display in California yesterday. 

I'll make a more refined criticism of Gibson's simile. Mayor Bass represented the maternal tendency of the Democratic Party. She's in the mother position, not the child. Trump represented the role of the father, but if "daddy arrived and he’s taking his belt off," he should be going after his children, because they've misbehaved. With respect to the children's mother, his wife, he should be helping her solve problems with the children, not going after her. I think — as you can see by my earlier post — that Trump was trying to encourage her to step up and to use her executive powers, to be an effective co-parent. Mommy and Daddy can work together. 

"Along with three quarters of a million other people, I’m a member of r/AmIOverreacting, a forum on Reddit devoted to the problem of potentially freaking out too much...."

"If anything, r/AmIOverreacting is a kind of reactivity buffer zone—a place where reactions can be mediated, and so slowed down. In that sense, it’s part of a larger, society-wide effort.... Mindfulness is another way of managing one’s reactivity. Broadly speaking, mindful minds seek to replace the question “Am I overreacting?” with the neutral observation that, yes, a reaction is happening. In the pre-baby mindfulness workshop I attended, our instructor told us to imagine our emotions as locomotives. 'You can watch the train leave the station without getting on board,' she said. She encouraged us to react to our reactions with nonjudgmental attention...."

Writes Joshua Rothman, in "Are You Overreacting? How to survive when provocations are a natural—and inescapable—part of life" (The New Yorker).

"Mr. Musk has told people close to him in recent months that he envisions his children (of which there are at least 11) and two of their three mothers occupying adjoining properties."

"That way, his younger children could be a part of one another’s lives, and Mr. Musk could schedule time among them. Directly behind the villa is a six-bedroom mansion.... When in Austin, he often stays at a third mansion about a 10-minute walk away.... One of the mothers, Shivon Zilis, an executive at Neuralink... has moved into one of the homes with her children. But Claire Boucher, the musician better known as Grimes, who is the mother to three of his children, is in a protracted legal fight with Mr. Musk and has so far steered clear. The third mother is Mr. Musk’s first wife, Justine Musk, with whom he has five living children, all in their late teens or older. There is room in the Austin compound if they were to visit, though he is estranged from at least one of those children.... Mr. Musk has said that I.V.F. is a more efficient way of having children because it allows parents to control parts of the process, according to a person who understands his thinking.... In 2021, without Ms. Boucher’s knowledge, Mr. Musk donated sperm to Ms. Zilis, who became pregnant with twins through I.V.F.... That same year, the billionaire and Ms. Boucher were expecting a second child also conceived via I.V.F. but carried by a surrogate.... Further complicating matters, Mr. Musk took a name that he and Ms. Boucher had chosen for their daughter — Valkyrie — and gave it to one of Ms. Zilis’s twins...."

From "Elon Musk Wants Big Families. He Bought a Secret Compound for His. As the billionaire warns of population collapse and the moral obligation to have children, he’s navigating his own complicated family" (NYT)(free-access link).

I wonder what kind of "control" he is doing with IVF.

"Usha and J.D. made a memorable pair. The legal writer David Lat remembers attending a poker night with the couple in 2011..."

"... at the neo-Gothic home of [Amy] Chua and her husband, fellow Yale law professor Jed Rubenfeld.... At the time, Chua was mainly known for her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a gaily provocative paean to achievement-oriented parenting. Chua was a kind of den mother to certain student protégés, known on campus as 'Chua pets,' and J.D. was central among them. According to another former friend of the pair, Chua was not a fan of Usha. 'Probably because she didn’t engage in her bullshit,' the former friend said. 'You have to gossip and drink. J.D. loved that shit.' Usha did not. Lat happened to ride the Metro-North up from New York for the poker game with the soon-to-be Vances. He told his husband later that night that they’d reminded him of another famous Yale Law couple, Bill and Hillary Clinton. 'They had a kind of energy to them,' Lat said. 'They seemed very confident and successful. One thing that struck me as Hillary-esque was that Usha seemed to have more polish than J.D.'"

From "What Is Usha Vance Thinking? The veep candidate’s wife is the child of immigrants, a former Democrat, a highly skilled lawyer — and a total mystery" (NY Magazine).

The lack of enthusiasm for Kamala Harris "seems to be more pronounced with the brothers."

Said Barack Obama, quoted in "Obama admonishes Black men for hesitancy in supporting Harris/Former president suggests some in the Black community are uncomfortable voting for a woman and are coming up with excuses" (WaPo).

“And you’re coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses, I’ve got a problem with that,” he said. “Because part of it makes me think — and I’m speaking to men directly — part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you’re coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that.”...

The “women in our lives have been getting our backs this entire time,” Obama said. “When we get in trouble and the system isn’t working for us, they’re the ones out there marching and protesting. And now, you’re thinking about sitting out or supporting somebody who has a history of denigrating you, because you think that’s a sign of strength, because that’s what being a man is? Putting women down? That’s not acceptable.”

It looked like this:

Former President Barack Obama has a “tough talk” at the Black voters for Harris event in East Liberty. He addressed that Black men have not been as enthused about Harris as during his first run, and he sought to encourage them to join Harris’ movement pic.twitter.com/gDFZhsdLxC

— Ryan Deto (@RyanDeto) October 10, 2024

This gets my "Obama and manliness" tag.

And it made me think of the old "talking down to black people" controversy of 2008 when Jesse Jackson was caught on an open microphone expressing hostility toward Obama, because he had said, in a Father’s Day speech, addressing black men: "Any fool can have a child. That doesn’t make you a father."

But there, Obama was, I believe, attempting to appeal to white voters by displaying a bit of social conservatism. These new remarks of Obama's are, it seems, very directly aimed getting out the black male vote. It's very close to the election, and he's coming forward, at risk of overshadowing Harris, to deliver a strong push to the black men who might tip the balance in the 3 must-win states. Is his rhetoric effective? It's not for me to say. We'll find out.

ADDED: Harris is black because her father is black, but her non-black mother kept the father from participating in the upbringing of his daughters, and Harris continued the estrangement after her mother died and continues it to this day. We never get to hear from this man, Donald Harris, who is still alive. Do the black men who are hearing Obama's instruction to vote for Kamala Harris think about her relationship to her father? And does Obama think about his own father, who's gone now, but who barely took the trouble to know him?

Both VP nominees are now participating in the old tradition of responding to questions written on an orange that a reporter has rolled up the aisle of the campaign plane.

ABC reports.

Walz did it first, responding to the question "Dream dinner guest?" His answer (written on the orange and rolled back (more than a day later)): Bruce Springsteen.

(I struggle to resist re-telling the story of My Dinner With Bruce Springsteen.)

Vance's reporters wanted in on this orange action and rolled him the question "Fave Song." Under the circumstances, I would have chosen "Let Me Roll It"...

But Vance rolled back — immediately — "10 Years Gone":

Thank God something light-hearted is happening on this overwrought campaign.

Rivers always reach the sea/Flying skies of fortune, each a separate way/On the wings of maybe....

Why did it take Walz over a day to think up Bruce Springsteen? If you were going to workshop the most politically opportune answer, assuming you'd pick a pop star, wouldn't you pick a pop star affiliated with a battleground state? 

I see that Kamala Harris, on Steve Colbert's show last night — see "The high life: Kamala Harris cracks open a beer with Stephen Colbert" (Guardian)— chose Miller High Life as the beer for the little exercise in relatability" and...

Harris repeated the popular slogan “The champagne of beers”, while Colbert noted that it comes from Milwaukee, in the swing state of Wisconsin. He said: “So that covers Wisconsin. Let’s talk Michigan. Let’s appeal to the Michigan voters, OK? What are your favourite Bob Seger songs?”

Walz could have said Bob Seger! What're his politics?  

Vance answered quickly, and his choice is a bit idiosyncratic, but that doesn't free him of any suspicion of answering what he thought was politically advantageous. He's a quick thinker, and he knows the assignment. But he's chosen British pop stars, and "Ten Years Gone" is not near the top of obvious Led Zeppelin songs.  It's #40 on Vulture's "All 74 Led Zeppelin Songs, Ranked." So there's a good chance it really is his favorite Led Zeppelin song.

Is Led Zeppelin his favorite band? The name appears 4 times in "Hillbilly Elegy." Here are 2::

Heinz apologized for this ad. What did it do wrong?

Good luck finding anything wrong there. You have to first guess at how it could be misread, then see why that could be understood as a problem.

At X, you can see the misreading and the consequent outrage in motion.

For an overview of the path to apology, read "Heinz apologises after ad featuring black family sparks anger online/Firm accused of stereotyping in advert spotted at Vauxhall and Manor House tube stations in London" (The Guardian).

Here's the apology, which resists blaming the viewer for the misunderstanding: "We always appreciate members of the public’s perspective on our campaigns. We understand how this ad could have unintentionally perpetuated negative stereotypes. We extend our deepest apologies and will continue to listen, learn and improve to avoid this happening again in the future."

They can't say hey, idiots, the bride's dad is the man on the left. 

Ironically, it's the white groom who doesn't have a dad in the picture. I think Heinz got into trouble by trying too hard to display a correct vision of diversity.

This is the article I've been wanting to see but — at this point — thought I'd never see.

"Kamala Harris and the Influence of an Estranged Father Just Two Miles Away/Donald J. Harris rarely speaks to his famous daughter, who lives nearby. But he helped shape who she became."

That's the NYT, and I'm giving you a free-access link.

Dr. Harris’s spectral presence in Ms. Harris’s life began when he and her mother separated in 1969, when Ms. Harris was 5. The couple divorced in 1972 after he lost a bitter custody battle that brought his closeness to Ms. Harris and her younger sister “to an abrupt halt,” Dr. Harris wrote in a 2018 essay. The sealed divorce settlement, he said, was “based on the false assumption by the State of California that fathers cannot handle parenting.”

He added that it was “especially in the case of this father, ‘a neegroe from da eyelans’” who “might just end up eating his children for breakfast! Nevertheless, I persisted, never giving up on my love for my children.”...

They're eating the.... 

The question is why Kamala Harris never found a way to connect to him. Did she not want to understand what happened in that momentous court case? Was her father discriminated against by the U.S. authorities? She is forefronting her genetic inheritance from her father (and making that her dominant racial identity over that of her mother), so shouldn't she want to make that connection to her father? Compare Barack Obama, who made an elaborate search for his father — recorded in "Dreams From My Father." And his father had not been there in his young life or fought to preserve the relationship the way Harris's father (apparently) did.