SEXISM AT SAMSUNG: In Today’s America, the ‘Evolved’ Man Is the Metrosexual.

REMEMBERING RAY MANZAREK.

TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 17. Including this from Jay Leno: “White House officials insist that President Obama knew nothing about the IRS scandal until we all heard about it in the news last week. They said because there was an investigation under way, it would have been inappropriate to tell him. And besides, he was too busy not knowing anything about Benghazi.”

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): Michael Barone: More than all past presidents put together, Obama uses 1917 Espionage Act to go after reporters.

Related: Ross Douthat: On terror, Obama’s “policies are basically the same” as Bush’s, but “more fundamentally dishonest.”

ONE O’ THEM NEWFANGLED SURRENDERED-WIFE TYPES . . . Patti Smith?

Would she like a new Mr Patti Smith? She looks shocked. “I would never have a Mr Patti Smith. To me, I’m happy to have the man as king. I would never consider a man in that position.”

Now it’s my turn to be shocked. After all, this is Patti Smith, rocker extraordinaire and feminist icon. “I wouldn’t care if he was a gardener or plumber or physicist, he wouldn’t be in second place in our household.” She’d happily be subservient? “I don’t mind. I have no problem with a man being in first place. I know who I am. If a man would need to be in first place, what of it?”

Well, punk was always about being transgressive. And nowadays, as I’ve noted, there’s nothing more transgressive than old-fashioned values.

UPDATE: Reader Paul Butzi emails with this quote:

“He had some measure the infuriating trait that causes a young man to be a noncomformist for its own sake, and found that the surest way to shock most people, in those days, was to believe that some kinds of behavior were bad and others good, and that it was reasonable to live one’s life accordingly.”

-Neal Stephenson, page 20, “The Diamond Age,” written in 1995

Stephenson is such a great storyteller, and tells stories of such complexity and length, that people tend to overlook his deep insight into human nature and culture.

Indeed.

TAKIN’ IT TO THE STREETS: Swedish Citizens Take to Streets to Defend Property From Rioting Immigrants. If the responsible authorities fail to act, other forms of authority will assert themselves. They may not act responsibly, but they will act.

HOPEY-CHANGEY TRANSFORMATIONS (CONT’D): IRS witch hunt targeted Ohio educator and bystander.

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HEH: Leno–Obama tells Morehouse College grads their future is great. Unless, of course, they want jobs. Then, they are totally screwed.

ACADEMIC CORRECTNESS: “[T]he government is blurring the distinction between physical assaults and ‘sexually themed’ speech in order to justify censoring and punishing the latter.”

They told me if I voted for Mitt Romney, prudes would be censoring academic speech. And they were right!

OUR FOREBEARS CROSSED THE OCEAN IN LEAKY SHIPS, AND THE PLAINS IN COVERED WAGONS. Motorists Can’t Face Fears, Get a Lift Across Bridge. “The Mackinac Bridge in Michigan spans five miles and is one of the longest suspension bridges in the world with the roadway soaring more than 200 feet over Lake Michigan. The bridge’s dimensions provide stunning views of the surrounding landscape, but those vistas can be stomach-churning for people with gephyrophobia, or an abnormal fear of crossing bridges. Between 1,200 to 1,400 calls are made every year to the bridge’s Drivers Assistance Program that provides motorists with a crew member to drive them across if they’re too afraid to drive themselves.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: This Is a Blog Post. It Is Not a “Blog.” “The No. 1 reason to make this change—and I’m not going to sugarcoat this—is that calling a post a blog makes you sound stupid. That may seem harsh, but I’m doing you a favor. Every time you make this mistake, it sounds like you don’t understand this newfangled thing, the World Wide Web. Even if you think all those who might judge you are just being superficial, that’s not going to stop them from judging you.” Yes, saying “I made a blog” when you mean “I wrote a post” makes you sound like an idiot.

HOW THE SMARTPHONE KILLED THE WEEKEND. “A three-day weekend? We can barely get through three waking hours without working, new research shows. The average smartphone user checks his or her device 150 times per day, or about once every six minutes. Meanwhile, government data from 2011 says 35 percent of us work on weekends, and those who do average five hours of labor, often without compensation — or even a thank you. The other 65 percent were probably too busy to answer surveyors’ questions.”

JONATHAN TURLEY: The Rise Of The Fourth Branch Of Government. Rise? It’s more like a takeover. But that’s also being deployed as an excuse:

There were times this past week when it seemed like the 19th-century Know-Nothing Party had returned to Washington. President Obama insisted he knew nothing about major decisions in the State Department, or the Justice Department, or the Internal Revenue Service. The heads of those agencies, in turn, insisted they knew nothing about major decisions by their subordinates. It was as if the government functioned by some hidden hand.

Clearly, there was a degree of willful blindness in these claims. However, the suggestion that someone, even the president, is in control of today’s government may be an illusion.

There’s more to Turley’s piece, though folks on the right are likely to find it kinda familiar, so read the whole thing. I will note, though, that I predicted the rise of this “ungovernable” argument years ago.

BAD NEWS FOR KNOWLEDGE WORKERS? The age of smart machines: Brain work may be going the way of manual work. Elwood P. Dowd’s strategy of going from being ever-so-smart to being ever-so-pleasant may be an important career move . . . .

MORE PHONE FUNNIES: The Justice Department Investigated a New York Times Reporter, Too. “The New York Times reports the Department of Justice investigated national security leaks given to Times reporter David Sanger over his story last year about the Stuxnet virus by pulling all the email and phone records of government officials who communicated with the reporter. . . . The Times’ Ethan Bronner, Charlie Savage and Scott Shane report the FBI requested for any phone and email logs from the White House, the Defense Department and other “intelligence agencies” that showed any contact between employees and Sanger. It does not appear they went so far as to seize Sanger’s telephone records or emails, as they did with the Associates Press and Fox News reporter James Rosen. They at least got creative this time. Instead of looking at his communication records, they looked at the communications between him and every government employee by looking on their end.”

FROM THE ADMINISTRATION’S STANDPOINT, THAT’S NOT A BUG, BUT A FEATURE: Press Sees Chilling Effect in Justice Dept. Inquiries.

Related: Obama Whistleblower Prosecutions Lead To Chilling Effect On Press.

GLOBAL WARMING UPDATE: A Wet And Miserable Start To Memorial Day Weekend: Business Owners On Jersey Shore, Coney Island Curse Mother Nature. “And remember, it can always be worse. Upstate, some areas were seeing light snow on Saturday morning, Murdock reported.”

Hey Fallen Angels is just science fiction. Nothing to worry about.

WHAT INDIA NEEDS: A Sexual Revolution?

NEWS YOU CAN USE: The Exercise Equivalent of a Cheeseburger? New Research Says Endurance Running May Damage Health. “Heart disease comes from inflammation and if you’re constantly, chronically inflaming yourself, never letting your body heal, why wouldn’t there be a relationship between over exercise and heart disease?”

Well, I’m not taking any chances. I still take my diet-and-exercise advice from Gary Taubes and Mark Rippetoe.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: How To Detoxify A Cow Fart.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN sex and creativity. Is it different for men and women?

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THE JOY OF QUILTING. I have a quilt that’s much older than I am; my grandmother made it out of scraps of my mom’s little-girl dresses.