Remember World Central Kitchen

Some background for those unfamiliar with WCK:

How to win at Monopoly

A tip of the hat to Jason Kottke, who found and posted excerpts of a strategy to markedly improve one's chances of winning the Monopoly board game:

With a second monopoly completed, your next task is to improve those properties to three houses each, then all of your properties to four houses each. Six properties with three houses will give you more than half of the houses in the game, and four houses each will give you 75% of the total supply. This will make it nearly impossible for your opponents to improve their own property in a meaningful way. Keep the rulebook nearby once the supply gets low, as you will undoubtedly be questioned on it. At this point, you will be asked repeatedly to build some friggin’ hotels already so that other people can build houses. Don’t.

At this point, you more or less have the game sewn up. If losing a normal game of monopoly is frustrating, losing to this strategy is excruciating, as a losing opponent essentially has no path to victory, even with lucky rolls. Your goal is to play conservatively, lock up more resources, and let the other players lose by attrition.

Most board games are intrinsically competitive, but Monopoly does tend to bring out some of the baser instincts, and as Jason notes, it can also provide uncomfortable reminders of income inequality and business malfeasance in the real world.

Know before you vote

Everyone is rightfully expecting a massive turnout at the polls for the mid-term elections.  Appeals to vote are everywhere, but I want to emphasize that people need to study up a little before going to the polls.

Embedded above is an excerpt from an informative flyer distributed to voters in Wisconsin with content from the League of Women Voters.  The flyer was circulated by Wisconsin Conservation Voters (note "conservation" = environment, not "conservative") in order to call attention not to the candidates but to three proposed state constitutional amendments.  One of these amendments is entitled "Freedom to Gather During an Emergency," which sounds like a variation on the basic "freedoms" so treasured by Americans, but it is actually a proposal that would limit or prevent the state from locking down during an lethal virus emergency.

I'll not discuss the flyer any further here, because it's a Wisconsin matter, but I would encourage everyone to check various online sources regarding non-candidate proposals on upcoming ballots in your state.  

(If readers want to alert others re deceptive proposals on other state ballots, feel free to do so in the Comments).

Inviting friends to your house is just "too exhausting"

Excerpts from an article in The Guardian about a social trend in Britain:

"I really loved hosting at home years ago, before I had kids, when my house wasn’t filled with toys and I had lots of time to plan and shop,” says Rehanna, 41, from Birmingham. Now, if she’s catching up with friends, she would rather go out... When you host, quite often it feels like you’re just a spectator to your friends’ evening,” says Simon, 37, from Glasgow. In the past, he’s found that, as host, he spends so much time making sure his guests are catered for that it can be difficult to connect with them on anything other than a superficial level...

“One reason is that our social networks may have become more scattered as cities have got larger,” he says. “If we live in smaller villages and towns, it is easy to visit for casual get-togethers. There is a thing called the 30-minute rule: if someone lives more than 30 minutes away, we pretty much stop seeing them regularly. The time/effort required becomes too great.”..

In May this year, the Spectator claimed the dinner party was also being killed off “by the modern curse of the ‘dietary requirement’”; both food intolerances and voluntary restrictions appear to have increased over the past 20 years, and so cooking for others might certainly feel like more of a challenge...

I’d venture that the rise of tablescaping has a lot to answer for... Whereas hosts might once have simply given surfaces a quick wipe and emptied the bins, there are now tips for curating the perfect playlist, and rules for creating an aesthetically pleasing “theme”...

Caz has two children under the age of 10 and says her house is therefore always “a complete nightmare zone”. Of course, her friends don’t actually care about the mess. “I know this deep in my heart,” she admits, “but it doesn’t stop me from feeling shame every time anyone comes over.”..

“Until the 1960s, things like homework from school was limited, and children kind of looked after themselves – playing in the street together and turning up only when they needed to get fed. Now the little darlings are under your feet until they go away to university.” In addition, he notes that there is now an “endless stream” of extracurricular clubs and activities that children are encouraged to take part in, which means “families have to be free to do a lot of ferrying”.

Thompson also touches on the idea that it’s now “too much fun to be home alone”. Whereas we might once have invited friends over to stave off boredom – and faced social pressure to attend such events, even if we did not much care for the hosts – today we are “cocooned within personalised entertainment fortresses”. 

Related: a similar article in The Atlantic - Whatever Happened to Friday Night?

Friday night has become "just another weeknight"

The Atlantic makes note of a social trend in the U.S.:

Americans have been spending less and less time with their friends over the past two decades, a trend that started well before the isolation of the coronavirus pandemic, and has continued long after restrictions were lifted. But looking across the week, Caren found that, starting in the mid-2010s, the biggest loss of friend time happened on Friday nights. (Saturday hangs have also declined a bit, but are still “nearly double the weekday level,” he wrote.)...

But it seems that the vibe of Friday night is evolving... people of all ages have been reporting a strong preference for staying home on evenings and weekends. In a 2020 Gallup poll, Americans’ favorite way to spend an evening was “staying home with family.” The runner-up was “watching television or a movie at home.” Only 3 percent of people named “entertaining/visiting friends” as their favorite evening activity. In a 2026 Harris poll on Gen Z, 73 percent said that staying home was their default weekend plan...

Friday nights in particular might be suffering because of their association with hitting the bars; drinking has fallen out of favor in the U.S... Or people might simply be too exhausted at the end of the workweek... For whatever reason, “the cost of going out on Friday nights—people aren’t finding this worthwhile anymore.”

An article in The Guardian comes to the same conclusion.

When the restaurant wants your phone number

Excerpts from an article in The Atlantic:

A man walks into a restaurant. He doesn’t have a reservation, but that shouldn’t be a problem; there are ample seats at the bar, visible just over the hostess’s shoulder. “Of course,” she says, smiling. “We can seat you right away.” As she gathers menus, he absorbs the pleasant hum of a busy dining room, breathes in the tantalizing smells from the semi-open kitchen. Then, the hostess stops, Columbo-like, to interrupt with one more question: “And what’s your phone number?”...

Like pretty much everyone else, I am well aware that my information is strip-mined wherever I go, in more ways than I can count and in many that I will never know... Much of the data collection has been justified in the name of customer service—a way to track allergies, preferences, birthdays, and so on, thus bringing technological efficiency to a job previously handled by a heavily notated reservation book or the encyclopedic mind of a gifted maître d’. “We try to build a database on everybody and get as much information as possible,” Vilkhu told me when I called him a few weeks after my dinner. His restaurant uses OpenTable, and he knew, for instance, which bartenders had served me, the friend who had joined me, that I had complimented the cocktail list and enjoyed the crawfish dumplings. This information, he assured me, was shared with the Kingsway’s sister restaurant but nobody else: “We just want to be able to curate the experience as best as we possibly can.”...

Most striking was OpenTable’s promotion of a feature, currently in beta, called Global Insights. Until now, as Vilkhu had told me, whatever data a restaurant collected through the reservation platforms remained confined to that restaurant or restaurant group. Global Insights, which is available to OpenTable Pro subscribers, is the first feature to jump that garden wall and allow other restaurants access to the same information—in OpenTable’s words, to “get an idea of how your diners behave at other restaurants across the OpenTable Diner Network.” With an account, any restaurant can identify big spenders, diners who tend to linger at a table, diners who order a lot of drinks, frequent late-cancelers, and chronic “no-showers."...

Curious to see what insights on me OpenTable might share with that hypothetical restaurant, I sent the company a request for my personal data....

Continue reading at the link.  My goal in blogging is to drive people to links, not steal content.

Sami drums

Half of my biologic heritage is from Norway, so this Facebook post earlier this year about Sami drums caught my attention.  Wikipedia has an extensive discussion of the history of these drums, but I don't have time to read, much less excerpt it, so for now I'll just embed the Facebook blurb.

Drum-related: Three-minute drum solo on a bodhrán

Minneapolis has a "Buckthorn Removal Singles Club"

When we moved into our present home 25+ years ago, I spent the better part of three summers grubbing out invasive buckthorn from the small woods behind the backyard (in subsequent years, native wildflowers have emerged in the same soil after the canopy-creating and water-stealing rascals were removed).  I later volunteered at the University of Wisconin Arboretum nearby for several buckthorn-removing projects.  So it makes perfect sense to me to see that in Minnesota, this worthwhile and productive activity has been turned into a social activity.

Cooke had recently noticed buckthorn overtaking a local park. It reminded him of how dating apps have invaded the social scene, choking out more natural methods of partnering up. What if he could entice singles to do habitat restoration with the prospect of meeting other eco-minded eligibles?..

The BRSC’s collectivist concept resonated in a post-ICE-resistance Minneapolis. It paired fun with education and do-gooderism, like other quirky, homegrown social events such as the Great Northern festival and the Wedge Cat Tour. Unlike bars and clubs, prowling with apex predators, the BRSC was a safe space where participants might unashamedly tuck pants into socks.

More information at the Minnesota Star Tribune (photo credit Richard Tsong-Taatarii)

The happy people of Mayberry

Found online years ago.  I have no idea whether this is true; I've never watched the show.

Library card

Obviously not a check-out-a-book card, these are public service cards made available at our local community library in a suburb of Madison, Wisconsin.  If you would like to obtain some of these, contact the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.  The cards are available in 59 languages.

Screed

 “To the people of the United States of America: you realize that you are being seen by the rest of the world as no better than Russia, no better than China? You’ve threatened Canada, threatened Greenland, invaded Venezuela, and starved Cuba. You’ve caused untold pain around the world. The Strait of Hormuz and the blocking of oil supplies has brought countries to their knees. Now your president is saying that he’s going to make the Strait of Hormuz American territory? Have you people lost touch with reality? While he sits in that chair, the American people are responsible. Go a little further and have a look at the way you are allowing him to treat your sailors: The disrespect he showed the bodies of your servicemen that came back. The way American citizens are being treated on the street. You are allowing it. The people of Iran rose up, and thousands of them were killed. You sit back and watch this man prey on the rest of the world. Disgraceful.”

Not my words, but I agree with them.  Attributed to a "Martin Bella" somewhere on "social media."

I'll add the etymology of "screed" so we can learn something today:

From Middle English screde [and other forms], a variant of shrede (“fragment, scrap; strip of cloth; strip cut off from a larger piece; band or thread woven into fabric; element, streak”) (whence shred (noun)), from Old English sċrēad, sċrēade (“a piece cut off; paring, shred”), from Proto-Germanic *skraudō (“a piece, shred; a cut, crack”), from *skraudaną (“to cut up, shred”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut off”). The English word is cognate with Old Frisian skrēd.  Doublet of escrow, scroll and shred.

Used in this post as "A speech or piece of writing which contains angry and extended criticism. " 

The iconic green bathrobe is made from dried lamb's ear

I was surprised today when I checked TYWKIWDBI for previous posts about seed art and couldn't find any.  Time to correct that.  Embedded above is a Facebook entry about one of the artworks being submitted to the "seed art" competition at this autumn's Minnesota State Fair.  The subject matter of the art is particularly apt for Minnesota, but seed art in general deserves greater appreciation.

Here's the original photograph (credit Leila Navidi, Minnesota Star Tribune) on which this art is based:

"This image captures a scene in St. Paul, Minnesota last week during an incident involving ICE. The central figure in the light-green bathrobe and slippers is Sam Stroozas, a producer for Minnesota Public Radio. Stroozas, who lives only blocks away, rushed to the scene of the car crash that involved federal agents without changing clothes to record the results of their high-speed chase of an immigrant, who was later hospitalized."

Seed art or crop art has been a standard feature at many American state fairs since the 19th century.  When I was young, my family made annual visits to the state fair.  My favorite destination was not the rides but the crafts building.  I don't have the time or requisite skills to create seed art, but I do appreciate the time and effort involved.  I'll look to find other entries to this year's competition after the fair opens and hope to append some of them below later on.

Trinket trade boxes

Bloomington nurse and mom Roze Mulen poses with her trinket trade box, where people can swap figurines and toys. 

(Roze Mulen/Provided)

The trinket trade is taking root thanks in part to America’s trending obsession with blind boxes. The Asian retail craze drives shoppers to gamble on purchases of collectible toys and figurines. But buyers don’t know which item is in the box until they open it.

Roze Mulen, a nurse and mom in Bloomington, said her office is packed full of trinkets, including duplicates she’s unknowingly bought in blind boxes. After scrolling on TikTok and seeing people across the country start trinket swaps, she decided to bring the idea to the Twin Cities suburbs...

Trinket trade boxes have lately been popping up across the Twin Cities and in the suburbs especially, as parents and artists like Ross aim to add more whimsy to their residential streets and subdivisions sometimes known for their sameness.

“I wanted to build an interactive community-wide art piece where everyone gets to feel that childhood magic,” Ross said. “It’s not just about trading items. It’s about trading moments of joy.”

Buying boxes of unknown products on the internet seems to me a chancy proposition, but moments of joy are in short supply these days, so if this variant of the Little Free Library does bring joy to others, good for them.  More info at the Star Tribune.

Two interesting numbers about teenagers

Percentage of Americans who were paid to babysit as teenagers: 56

Who say they would trust a teenager to babysit today: 11

Numbers from the June issue of Harper's magazine.  As phrased it's not clear to me whether the 11% is of Americans or of Americans who babysat as teenagers.  In either case the discrepancy is striking.

Addendum:  interesting comment by an anonymous reader: "Slight twist on the same idea: I don't trust adults not to sue me if my teen makes a mistake while babysitting.'

"When she turns eight, they will take her"

Sima* is 18, but has already given birth four times. Her youngest is a newborn, the eldest is four. Sitting with her children in their mud-brick room in Badghis province, Sima says: “After the Taliban entered the country, I had just finished the sixth grade and was supposed to start the seventh. But two months later, my father pressured me immensely to marry my cousin. After being beaten by my father several times, I was forced to accept.”...

Interviews with workers at one public hospital in northern Afghanistan revealed that 42 underage girls gave birth in the first five months of this year. Six were in their second pregnancy. Five had ectopic pregnancies – a leading cause of maternal deaths – and 18 had caesarean sections. Two died, though their babies survived...

They are victims of a growing trend toward child marriage, driven by Taliban policies legalising the practice and forcing girls out of school, combined with a deepening humanitarian crisis in which families are forced to sell their daughters to pay debts or buy food...

Some families falsely believe the younger the mother, the healthier and smarter the child. Mothers who are still children themselves often haven’t completed their physical or psychological growth and face higher risk of severe bleeding, anaemia, miscarriage, obstructed labour and premature birth, along with a greater likelihood of a low-weight or unhealthy infant...

Shabnam says families often resist caesarean section, believing they limit future pregnancies. Two young mothers in her care recently died in childbirth because their husbands refused to permit one...

The other three families interviewed for this report, all in western Afghanistan, say their daughters had been used to settle debts – money paid in advance, the daughters to be handed over later. Three of the girls are still under 10, unaware of the future that has been planned for them...

“When she turns eight, they will take her from us,” says Golnar. “They gave 100,000 afghani upfront, and they will give another 100,000 after they take the girl from me. We gave it directly to the creditors for the debts.” She worries about her granddaughter’s future, remembering girls sold years ago in her neighbourhood: “They have no future. Whether they leave us to burn in a fire or face anything else, we will not know.”

The grim story continues at The Guardian.

A new fashion statement: the "divorce ring"

"Shimmering on Deb Marino's finger are diamonds set in an eye-catching gold ring.  "Of course it's a middle finger ring, because, why not?" the Florida-based blogger says on her Tiktok feed.

Getting rid of her engagement ring would have suggested a regret the 34-year-old doesn't feel - after all, her marriage brought her daughter. Even just not wearing it would have felt like a waste. "I didn't want it locked away in a box," she says. "Diamonds are precious."..

Deb is part of a rising trend promoted by jewellers around the world of women marking a new chapter in their life with a new statement piece: the divorce ring.

Deb had the diamond from her engagement ring set at one end of an open circle and added a new sapphire to represent her daughter to the other end. It cost $3,000 (£2,245). It's a sizeable sum to part with when divorces can be expensive.  Ring resale values tend to be only around 30% of the original price so for many the trend of giving their old jewellery a new life feels a better investment."

More details (and examples) at the BBC, whence the (cropped) embedded image.

Ethnicity map of the United States

To celebrate the nation's 250th birthday, the New York Times has created an impressive interactive map depicting the self-reported ethnicity of U.S. citizens as they recorded such in 2019-2024 U.S. Census.  Responses rhat included a race but not a specific origin group are not included.

In the interactive map, you can zoom in to drill down to specific subregions, apparently defined by census data rather than county borders:

And there is a map from the time of colonization:

World Central Kitchen in Gaza

Regular readers here may remember that World Central Kitchen is far and away my favorite charity.  I believe my last report on their work in Gaza was two years ago.  Because I'm a regular contributor, today I received an email update, which I'll share:

WCK is still cooking in Gaza—and we want to be direct with you about what is changing and why. Due to significant financial pressure, including rising food and fuel costs driven by regional conflict, WCK is making the difficult decision to reduce the scale of our meal distribution in Gaza. This decision reflects financial reality, not a reduction in need. Our teams remain on the ground, delivering hundreds of thousands of hot meals every day.

Since the start of the conflict in 2023, WCK has invested more than half a billion dollars feeding the people of Gaza—surging to one million hot meals a day. But no single NGO, funded primarily by small private donors, can sustain that level of output indefinitely. We specialize in emergency food relief, not long-term food security—and the long-term responsibility of feeding Gaza cannot rest on our shoulders alone. The people of Gaza have lost their homes and their economy. Governments, institutions, and international partners must commit the sustained, secure funding this crisis demands.

We know you have questions—here are answers to what we are being asked more frequently.

They note in the email that the upcoming wildfire season is expected to break records.  It's shameful to consider how much $ is currently being expended on weaponry and reparations to insurrectionists when basic human needs like this go unmet. 

The "cool S"

The Cool S, also known as the Universal S, the Super S, the Pointy S, and the Graffiti S, is a graffiti sign in popular culture and childlore that is typically doodled on children's notebooks or graffitied on walls. The exact origin of the Cool S is unknown, but it became prevalent around the early 1980s as a part of graffiti culture.

This cultural icon is cited as an example of "childhood folklore" in an interesting article at Cup of Joe, where the extended discussion thread (350 comments so far) cites other examples of childhood folklore that are more familiar to me ("Rabbit rabbit" on the first of the month, "step on a crack...")

Via Kottke.

Addendum, courtesy of reader Drabkikker:

Reinstituting U.S. military draft registration

A very interesting headline in The Hill this morning.  Details re the implementation at the link.

I came of age during the 1960s, when the Vietnam War was at its peak, and I can assure younger readers that a wartime draft was a very big deal back then.  I have read in unreliable sources (Facebook) that with the onset of the Gulf War, soldiers have been implementing misdemeanors (smoking weed on base etc) in order to be dismissed from active duty.  And it's possible that the onset of active conflict and some combat-related deaths has diminished the applications for military service.

But then I saw this in the article at the link:

"In addition, immigrants who don’t register may lose their U.S. citizenship."

Is this automatic registration being implemented as a strategic way to justify the mandatory deportation of legal immigrants?