August 26, 2026

ONLY MARXISTS JUDGE ENTIRE GROUPS OF PEOPLE AS THOUGH THEY WERE UNIFORM WIDGETS:  Still About Men And Women.

Posted at 12:27 am by Sarah Hoyt

August 25, 2026

OPEN THREAD: Tuesday’s groovy.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

AS YOU MIGHT IMAGINE, IT’S HITTING HARD HERE IN DOLLY COUNTRY:

Meanwhile, at my house:

Flashback: Dolly Parton on the Cas Walker show on local Knoxville TV 1967.

Plus, 14 year old Dolly Parton in Fountain City, Knoxville.

Posted at 9:08 pm by Glenn Reynolds

ABE GREENWALD: Harping on Natalie.

All the fuss began a week and a half ago, when Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia made a dig about the two of them. Trump, he said, “wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.” Ossoff was referring to Trump’s covertly switching planes on his return from Turkey in July. The president had left Marco Rubio (and others) on the possibly targeted Air Force One while making off with a small group including Harp.

This became a juicy story for several reasons. Harp is an attractive young woman who’s always at Trump’s side, and Ossoff seemed to be insinuating that there’s something inappropriate about their mutual fondness. And when Ossoff, a possible Democratic contender in 2028, then denied that he was implying anything of the sort, a bipartisan game of gotcha was underway. While Republicans voiced their disgust over Ossoff’s innuendo, Democrats and liberal media went digging into Harp.

Which is interesting. Because while the left went looking for dirt in the life and letters and family members of a young woman who had survived bone cancer, lost her father to suicide, and committed the crime of working for Trump, feminists were beginning to organize in support of Lindsay Clancy, a suburban mother who had killed her three small children.

That’s just an aside I couldn’t resist. What’s more surprising is that the tale of the president and his loyal aide makes Trump look better than any story I’ve ever read about him.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 8:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

SUGAR ISN’T GOOD FOR YOU: These Babies Grew Up With Strict Sugar Limits. Decades Later, The Results Are Dramatic. “Compared with the babies who didn’t experience sugar rationing, the babies who were sugar-rationed for their first 1,000 days were 69 percent less likely to develop liver cancer in their adult lives. They also saw reduced incidence of prostate cancer (52 percent lower), lung cancer (41 percent lower), rectal cancer (40 percent lower), and breast cancer (36 percent lower). The sugar-rationed babies also tended to show longer telomeres – the caps at the ends of chromosomes that protect our genetic material, which are linked to longevity.”

Posted at 8:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

ROB LONG IN 2020: The Beauty Parton.

At the 2017 Emmy Awards, Dolly was reunited with her co-stars from the 1980 hit comedy Nine to Five. It was nine months into the Trump administration, and two of the presenters weren’t about to let you forget it. Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda let loose mini-screeds against Trump. Dolly looks uncomfortable, then defuses the awkwardness by making a joke about the size of her breasts. And the podcasters want to know—they need to know—why Dolly didn’t attack Trump along with her co-stars and friends. Doesn’t she hate the guy? (Translation: Please tell us you hate the guy!) For the first time in the podcast, Dolly seems confused. She doesn’t hate Donald Trump. She prays for Donald Trump.

And if the podcast producers thought they were frustrated by her refusal to be a feminist or an LGBTQ activist, they’re stopped cold by this admission. Dolly prays for Trump, by which she means, she’s not praying that he wins reelection or lowers his handicap. She prays that God will grant him wisdom and foresight and guide him as he leads the nation. Praying for the president—any president, every president—is actually part of the official liturgy of the Episcopalian church. But this is problematic for Dolly’s interviewers, for whom basic religious faith seems weird and baffling. They keep asking How does she do it? And she keeps answering them By writing songs that are emotionally true and not being a political activist and praying for God’s guidance. And they just don’t hear it. Can’t be that. Gotta be something else.

Dolly Parton’s singing “I Will Always Love You” to Porter Wagoner is one of those moments you hear about and think, This is going to be an Oscar-winning movie scene someday. But what came after the song wasn’t so nice. Porter Wagoner sued Dolly Parton for $1 million and trash-talked her for years. And then, a few years later, when she was a superstar and he had fallen on hard times, she bought his music-publishing company from his creditors and gave it back to him.

Weren’t you furious with him? the podcast producers want to know. He sued you. He took your money. Some have said he abused you. Again Dolly demurs. See it from his side, she says. Wagoner made her a star. He took a chance on her, introduced her to an enormous audience, stood by her. She was grateful to him. And she forgave him. She helped him financially and reconciled with him and was there at his deathbed to remind him that the words she sang to him years before were still true.

You forgave him? they ask, as if the word is strange and foreign and written in a different alphabet. Forgiveness, she says. “That’s all there is.”

Mary Katharine Ham adds:

Tweet concludes:

You can look through the window of her one-bedroom childhood home on display at Dollywood while listening to “Coat of Many Colors” and know she was rich long before she was rich and she wanted everyone else to know it, too.

Related:

Posted at 6:43 pm by Ed Driscoll

WINNING IS GOOD:

Posted at 5:54 pm by Stephen Green

ONE NIGHT IN BANGKOK:

Posted at 5:43 pm by Ed Driscoll