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Lately, as part of Evan’s bedtime routine, I’ve been singing him a couple of short songs before he goes to sleep. It was Betsy’s idea — she started doing it first, and it seems to be working. Pretty often, the songs are “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and “You Are My Sunshine,” in that order.

It was only yesterday that I realized something: the end of the first song asks a question (implicitly), and the beginning of the second song answers it correctly. Check it out:

Twinkle, twinkle, little star
How I wonder what you are.

And then:

You are my sunshine …

What is a star? It’s just a sun that’s further away.

This is especially cool because it’s a science-y question and a science-y answer, featuring knowledge that’s relatively new on the grand timeline of astronomical inquiry. (I don’t think the ancient Greeks would have agreed that the sun is a star.)

I’ll tell Evan when he’s older.

Have a good weekend!

Outlet safety is not a joke.

Evan’s been obsessed with electrical outlets for a long time. “Outlet” (“ow-leh”) was one of his first words — I’m not kidding.

But lately we’ve been reading a book that shows, among other things, a baby looking at an outlet and the word “No!”

So now, every time he sees one, he shakes his head and says “No … outlet.” He looks at me and adds gravely, “No way. No … outlet!” His expression is like Daddy, are you getting this? Serious business. (In the photo above he’s actually saying something different, but it’s close enough.)

Electrical safety has become an area of major concern in our household, especially in the two-and-under demographic.

Of course, after delivering this dire counsel, he then goes over and touches them anyway. But you can’t expect miracles.

News outlets have struggled with how to report on a president who constantly says things that are foolish, childish, dangerous, and false. Are the old ways of writing news stories still adequate?

Occasionally I’ll hear a suggestion that the news should stop covering Trump’s statements entirely, or else relegate them to minor headlines. I understand that desire, but I don’t think it’s the right path. Ordinary celebrities may fade to obscurity if we ignore them, but that tactic doesn’t work on somebody who controls the executive branch of the US government. We need to know what Trump is saying, not because it’s good or sane or true, but because it has consequences for our nation.

I was pondering all this today, and I had an idea.

In the Trump era, report on politics like you report on the weather.

Hurricanes are big, slow, mindless, and dangerous, but we don’t ignore them. Instead …

• We gather as much data as we can.
• We keep track of where they’ve been and try to predict where they’re headed.
• We record the damage they’ve caused and we rate their destructive power on a scale.
• We issue warnings and advise ordinary people in the storm’s path about how to prepare or rebuild.
• We promote the groups who work to limit the destruction and save lives.
• Afterward, we figure out what we’ve learned and how we can do better when the next storm hits.

What would such a news story look like?

Maybe something like this.

Level 4 Press Conference Event rains down hazardous disinformation — caution advised

WASHINGTON — Another Press Conference Event manifested in the nation’s capital yesterday, pelting an already weary population with further truth distortions, narcissism, and chaos. Although the Event was localized in Washington and emanated directly from the Chief Executive, its effects will be felt throughout the nation, and likely around the world.

As usual with such occurrences, experts say it is difficult to pinpoint exactly what triggered this disaster, but the underlying cause is the same as with other recent events: an unstable and underdeveloped Executive operating at the center of a high-pressure system. The Governmental Disaster Relief Organization (GDRO) is categorizing this event as Level 4, recognizing it as both destructive and needless.

Links to a video and full transcript of the event will be posted here shortly. But readers are urged to use extreme caution when viewing such material, as it may damage the retinas or optic nerves. This event in particular contains 9 objectively false statements, 16 misleading or questionable statements, 3 false equivalences, 28 non sequiturs, and 45 separate instances of gratuitous self-aggrandizement. If possible, do not read more than 3 to 4 consecutive paragraphs without taking a break. Remember to stay hydrated.

For maximum protection, citizens should stay informed, remain open to dialogue, and exercise the rights of speech, assembly, and petition for redress of grievances guaranteed by Amendment 1. Where possible, read the Constitution before engaging in debate. To help mitigate the damage in your area, contact your representatives in Congress.

You can also donate to relief organizations such as ProPublica, which deliver badly needed fact supplies in areas of the country hardest hit by the truth drought.

Above all, remember that such disasters are largely preventable. In November of both 2018 and 2020 the government will open the question of whether to reduce the frequency and intensity of such events, or continue them unabated. Your opinion is welcome. A simple majority will suffice.

Here are two little facts about the “Ring around the Rosie” nursery rhyme.

Fact #1: As you’ve perhaps heard before, the song is actually about the Black Death. The “ring around the rosie” refers to the red blotches on victims’ skin. The “pocket full of posies” was believed to ward off the disease in medieval times. “Ashes, ashes, we all fall down” needs little explanation.

Fact #2: The previous fact is complete nonsense.

I’ve heard this thing about the Black Death a number of times, and I used to believe it myself. But it doesn’t take much digging to find out that it’s all made up.

First of all, the version of the song that’s most famous today is just one of many variations, many of which seem unrelated to the disease. Second, the song has been around since the nineteenth century, yet the earliest known mention of it being about the Black Death isn’t until the 1940s or ’50s. (If a song’s secret meaning goes undiscovered by anybody for over half a century, it’s very secret indeed.) But most importantly, there just isn’t any evidence that it’s true, aside from a vague textual link — and you can “find” any meaning in any text if you look hard enough. The theory is false.

So why do so many people believe it? Why did I believe it?

Well, it doesn’t help that this little theory gets repeated a lot, often by sources who should know better, including professors, historians, and news outlets such as the Washington Post and New York Times. It also doesn’t help that a lot of people just aren’t terribly skeptical. Someone tells them something, so they add it to the mental database. It’s easy to do. I’ve done it myself many times.

But I have another hypothesis — call it speculation. Here it is:

People are more likely to believe things that sound subversive.

In this case, the Black Death explanation subverts the surface appearance of a harmless children’s song. “You think it’s harmless, but really …” I think that appeals to human nature. It’s satisfying. It feels like you’re seeing deeper, going beyond what the average person knows. And it makes more intuitive sense than “You think it’s harmless, but really it’s about this, except not really, it’s just a kid’s song after all.”

Ever heard that thing about how Mr. Rogers was a sniper in Vietnam? That’s nonsense too. But there’s that same element of subversion.

People like to find secret, often sexual messages in Disney movies too. Some of these are likely intentional, and some of them likely are not — in many cases it’s difficult to say. But many viewers prefer to skip the skeptical phase entirely and get straight to the business of believing.

On a grander and more ludicrous scale, there’s the conspiracy theory that we never really went to the moon. This seems to be less widely believed than the other examples, perhaps because it stretches credulity more, and perhaps because the counterarguments debunking it have become about as well-known as the conspiracy theory itself. But again, it has that feeling of subversion to it. “You know the official story, but here’s what really happened.”

Anyway, that’s my speculation. What do you think? Do counternarratives have more staying power than other rumors and urban legends?

… which means less blogging time, per yuʒ. But it’s better to have too much work than not enough.

At least, I think it is.

Have an excellent day.

I was reading an article about Beto O’Rourke, the charismatic (but long-shot) Democratic challenger for Ted Cruz’s Senate seat this year. Toward the end, the article casually drops this quote from one of his supporters:

He reminds me of Robert Kennedy, but more so.

I can’t decide what I love most: the sentence itself, the fact that I actually get what she’s saying, or the fact that the article didn’t even feel the need to clarify.

I love you, English. Never change.

Betsy and I have gotten into the habit of saying “per usual.” It’s just “as usual” phrased a little differently. “They played half an hour of ads before the movie, per usual.”

We say it often enough that we’ve shortened it. We drop the “-ual” from the end, leaving just two syllables.

One day, I tried texting the shortened form to Betsy, and I got a surprise. There’s no way to write it. At least, no good way that I could discover.

If you just drop the “-ual” ending, you get “per us,” which looks like you’re talking about “us” as in “you and me.” You can change the “u” sound from short to long by making it “per use,” but that has the same problem.

You can try to write it phonetically … but how? Something like “per yoosh”? First, that looks weird, and second, it doesn’t actually make the right sound. The end of the syllable isn’t an -sh sound. It’s the same sound made by the “J” in “Jacques” and by the “s” in “measure.” The problem is, there’s no standard, standalone, widely understood way to write that sound in English.

Now, if you forget about “widely understood,” there is a standard way to write the sound: “zh.” You could say “per yoozh.” That actually looks reasonable, to me, but I doubt it would fare as well with anyone who isn’t obsessed with language.

So I end up spelling out the whole thing, or just dropping it entirely.

How did we end up with an unwritable word?

Okay, maybe it’s not exactly a real word (whatever that means), but it’s still a fragment of English, a meaningful thing that I can say, and that others can understand. If I can say it, I can write it.

Or at least, that’s what I thought until recently.

What do you think?

Still very busy, wish I had more time to talk about this, but I’ll throw out a quick note about members of the Trump administration being refused service and getting heckled while going about their private lives.

I’ll put aside the question of whether business owners and the general public have the right to do this sort of thing — which I think is a complicated subject — and focus on whether they should. That one is much simpler.

Let people eat in peace. Let people have their private lives. Not because they deserve it, but because we are human beings living in a society. Because we are already divided more than enough. Because it hinders the path to a more civilized democracy. Because we shouldn’t use Trump’s us-versus-them mindset to oppose Trump’s policies.

When a restaurant owner ejected Sarah Huckabee Sanders from the building, it was at least done politely. I still don’t agree with that choice, but politeness is a good start. Other members of the administration have been heckled and harassed with much less respect, and I think that’s very sad.

Take Stephen Miller, for example. Miller has somehow done the impossible: he has managed to make me despise him more than Steve Bannon and Ann Coulter. I am convinced the laws of physics must have been broken somewhere to allow that to happen. And yet — he is still a person, still a part of our society. Does he deserve respect? Not particularly. But it’s not really about him, is it? By offering him civility, we improve ourselves, and we improve each other. The goal, remember, is to be better than dudes like him.

I have somehow managed to (1) ramble on longer than intended and (2) get on a preachy soapbox. C’est la vie.

Back to editing.

Very busy lately, hence the minimal blogging. But I hope you’re doing well, hypothetical reader. Enjoy your weekend!