Sunday/Wealth

Sunday/Wealth

Good news: One person had his prayers answered about the lottery.

In today's gospel, a man in the crowd asks Christ to tell his brother to share their father's inheritance with him. Christ says, “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?” He then talks about the folly of earthly riches.

But Christ must have laughed because He is the judge and arbitrator. And the question was not simply about money, it was about justice, which we all think of as an abstract universal value.

Christ's answer implies a lot. Wealth is of this world, a small, transitory spot of time and place in eternity. 

And, maybe, so is justice.

The Next Step

The Next Step

Renewable energy, despite decades of green-policy investment across at least the Western world, has barely made a dent in fossil-fuel use worldwide.

Coal use remains very high and nuclear undeveloped. An attack on the use of oil might make life difficult in the West, where it is essential, but unlikely to influence those less developed countries. Turning the energy off in the West will starve the West but not save the planet.

So, if this is an existential threat, what should be done to suppress the coal and oil users who are not making sacrifices? Are they a threat to the world? And, if so, is any aggressive action against them justified? If so, in such a crisis, what is not justified?

History Majors

  

History Majors

An article at The Scholar's Stage on History and Humanities as college study had this interesting bit:

From Brian Schmitt, “The History BA since the Great Recession,” Perspectives on History (26 November 2018)

In the 1960s, when history and English majors were among the most popular on campus, America was a very different place. This was an America where most kids memorized reams of poetry in school, where one third of the country turned on their television to watch a live broadcast of Richard III, and where listening to speeches on American history was a standard Independence Day activity. The most prominent public intellectuals of this America were people like Lionel Trilling (literary critic), Reinhold Niebuhr (theologian), and Richard Hofstader (historian). This was a world where the humanities mattered. So did humanities professors. They mattered in part, as traditionalists like to point out, because these professors were seen as the custodians of a cultural tradition to which most American intellectuals believed they were the heirs to. But they mattered for a more important reason—the reason intellectuals would care about that birthright in the first place.

Americans once believed, earnestly believed, that by studying the words of Milton and Dante, or by examining the history of republican Rome or 16th century England, one could learn important, even eternal, truths about human nature and human polities. Art, literature, and history were a privileged source of insight into human affairs. In consequence, those well versed in history and the other humanistic disciplines had immense authority in the public eye. The man of vaulting ambition studied the humanities.

Question 70

Question 70

When puzzling over the self-inflicted wounds of environmentalism, apparently self-destruction can be invigorating.
The Skoptsy emerged in 1772 in a plague period in Russia and practiced voluntary religious castration. They were wiped out during the Stalin purges in 1930. They were renowned as one of the wealthiest subsets in Europe. A strange but interesting paper investigated them trying to find the reason for their success and concluded that the high cost of entry created great loyalty and cooperation among them.

One can only imagine what happens when such people get the reins of a society.

If you are a true conservative — and I use the term not as Ted Cruz might, but in its literal sense, as in conserving what is of value in the modern world — then you should be obsessed with three threats to the most vital parts of our civilizational heritage, all of which are coming to the fore: war, pandemic and environmental catastrophe. These three events have frequently caused or contributed to the collapse or decline of great civilizations of the past. After being seriously weakened by pandemics and environmental problems, the Roman Empire was taken over by barbarian tribes. The Aztecs were conquered by the Spanish, who had superior weapons and also brought disease. The decline of the Mayans likely was rooted in water and deforestation problems.--cowen

On March 16 2020, Imperial College published its “Report 9” paper suggesting that failing to take action could overwhelm the NHS within weeks and result in hundreds of thousands of deaths. But the minutes now show that SPI-M did not believe the data were complete.
Bob Seely, the MP for the Isle of Wight, who has been critical of modeling throughout the pandemic, said: “The arguments for and against lockdown are complex, but what is becoming clear is that the evidence that the Government saw was incomplete and potentially inaccurate.
Prof Carl Heneghan, the director of the center for evidence-based medicine (CEBM) at the University of Oxford, said: “This has always concerned me about the modeling. Throughout the two years, there has been a systematic error, consistent overestimation, and a tendency to go directly to the media with conclusions, without validation or peer review.

Proving the intent behind a criminal act is crucial. And no principle should prohibit ever making punishment proportional to the motive for a criminal act. However, deciding that an actor’s heinous behavior is made more heinous because they had a bad attitude is dangerous. It is one thing for the law to hold individuals responsible for controlling their minds, which presumably control their bodies. It is quite another thing for government to inventory an individual’s mind for the purpose of declaring how admirable the government’s mind is, and perhaps by doing so to improve the public’s mind.
This impulse melds with what C.S. Lewis called the remedial theory of punishment, whereby government detains offenders until they are cured, as determined by government’s “official straighteners.” Another totalitarian temptation.--Will

 

 

Questions 69

Questions 69

Biden has brought pressure against Russia's ability to borrow. Those restrictions have already been placed on U.S. banks regarding American oil projects.

It will take a while to bring oil production up to speed. Will we allow it? The logic is undeniable, the objections are a matter of Climate Faith. Oil has been the bad guy in politics and the press for a long time. It would take a real moment of humility for these people to allow oil to rescue us. And these people are not big on humility.

Al Gore is back, calling attention to himself. Is the fact he is starting a Green fund just a coincidence?

Seattle announced a $2 million plan Wednesday to address what Mayor Bruce Harrell described as a critical shortage of police officers in the city.
It includes recruitment bonuses, reimbursement for moving costs and possible tuition assistance.
The city has lost more than 400 police officers over the past 2 ½ years, which Harrell's office said has led to the point "where essential services cannot be delivered promptly and effectively."
The plan notes that, as of May, the number of trained and deployable officers in Seattle is at its lowest in more than three decades — just 954 — and that the department has been unable to meet annual recruiting goals in recent years.

Celebrities and climate ministers continue to enjoy their fabulous lifestyles in plain view, confident in the cardinal rule of all environmentalism: one’s own activities are always important enough to be exempt from any environmental limits. Only the other person should have to sacrifice.--MacDonald. 

Does this two-tier legal system sound familiar?

The Left and the Enemy:
During the winter of 2021, journalist Virginia Heffernan sheltered from COVID in her upstate New York getaway. After a heavy snow, she was astonished when her Trump-supporting neighbor plowed her driveway. One could conclude that her neighbor saw an unprepared individual in need and acted with decency and kindness.
In her opinion essay for the Los Angeles Times, Heffernan revealed her tribal thinking as she weighed whether to offer thanks to her neighbor. After alluding to the Nazi occupation of France and Hezbollah’s policy of giving out free things in Lebanon, Heffernan concluded she could not give her neighbor “absolution.” She wrote, “Free driveway work, as nice as it is, is just not the same currency as justice and truth.” --Brownstein

Monkeypox

 Monkeypox

The World Health Organization has activated its highest alert level for the growing monkeypox outbreak, declaring the virus a public health emergency of international concern.

More than 16,000 cases of monkeypox have been reported across more than 70 countries so far this year, and the number of confirmed infections rose 77% from late June through early July, according to WHO data. Men who have sex with men are currently at highest risk of infection.

Europe is currently the global epicenter of the outbreak, reporting more than 80% of confirmed infections worldwide in 2022. The U.S. has reported more than 2,500 monkeypox cases so far across 44 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

In contrast to Covid-19, monkeypox is not a new virus. Scientists first discovered monkeypox in 1958 in captive monkeys used for research in Denmark, and confirmed the first case of a human infected with the virus in 1970 in the nation of Zaire, now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Monkeypox is primarily spreading through skin-to-skin contact during sex. Men who have sex with men are at the highest risk right now, as the majority of transmission has occurred in the gay community. However, the WHO and the CDC have emphasized that anyone can catch monkeypox regardless of sexual orientation. Does this sound familiar?

Lewis, the WHO’s monkeypox expert, said 99% of cases reported outside Africa are among men and 98% of infections are among men who have sex with men, primarily those who have had multiple, recent anonymous or new sexual partners. The virus has been detected outside the gay community, but transmission has been low so far. The CDC confirmed monkeypox in two children on Friday.

The WHO and CDC have repeatedly warned against stigmatizing gay and bisexual men, while at the same time stressing the importance of communicating the reality of how the virus is currently spreading so people in communities at highest risk can take action to protect their health. Does this sound familiar?

Although monkeypox can spread through respiratory droplets, that method requires prolonged face-to-face interaction, according to the CDC. Health officials do not believe monkeypox is spreading through small aerosol particles like Covid. 

Monkeypox is in the same virus family as smallpox, though it causes milder disease.

Five deaths from the virus have been reported in Africa this year. No deaths have been reported outside Africa so far. Wait. What?

Sunday/The Seduction of Angels

Sunday/The Seduction of Angels

In those days, the LORD said: "The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great,
and their sin so grave,
that I must go down and see whether or not their actions
fully correspond to the cry against them that comes to me.
I mean to find out."

God as explorer? As learner? And the crime is extraordinary, the attempted seduction of angels.

In today's Old Testament reading, God goes on an expedition to learn about Sodom. Abraham negotiates with God over the future of Sodom. It is a wild story, funny and grim. God seems to be egging Abraham on, conceding moral points, finally settling on not destroying the city if ten good men could be found.

But only Lot is virtuous, his wife and two daughters. So God destroys Sodom.

Discontent

 Discontent

Two articles evaluating the American Discontent:

Bret Stephen's NYT piece:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/21/opinion/bret-stephens-trump-voters.html

Noonan's 'protected class' article

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-and-the-rise-of-the-unprotected-1456448550

Margin Call

 Margin Call

Deborah J. Lucas is the MIT Sloan distinguished professor of finance and director of the MIT Golub Center for Finance and Policy. She analyzed the impact of the bailout from the Sub-Prime fiasco in 2008.

Popular accounts of bailout costs tend to severely overstate or understate their economically relevant value, Lucas writes in a paper to be published in the Annual Review of Financial Economics

Lucas draws selectively from existing cost estimates, such as those from the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, which uses that method, and she augments those numbers with calculations based on various data sources from that period.

By those calculations, the total direct cost of crisis-related bailouts on a fair value basis was about $498 billion, which amounted to 3.5 percent of the gross domestic product in 2009.

As for who directly benefitted, Lucas found that the main winners were the large, unsecured creditors of large financial institutions. While their exact identities have not been made public, most are likely to have been large institutional investors such as banks, pension, and mutual funds, insurance companies, and sovereigns.

Questions

 

Questions

Interesting study re: safety nets and Yang.
Did pandemic stimulus payments harm lower-income Americans? That’s the implication of a new study by social scientists at Harvard and the University of Exeter.
Liberals argue that no-strings-attached handouts encourage better financial decisions and healthier lifestyles. The theory is that low-income folks become more future-oriented if they’re less stressed about making ends meet. The Harvard study put this hypothesis to the test and found the opposite.
...
More plausible, the payments made work less rewarding, which reduced feelings of personal well-being. Cash recipients reported less earned income and felt worse about their work. It’s no surprise that people who received a large percentage of their monthly income for doing nothing were less motivated to work and less satisfied with their work. Earning a paycheck can give workers a sense of personal agency that encourages them to make better financial and health decisions. Receiving a handout may do the opposite.---Finley

The genius of England, as [Joseph] Conrad knew, had much to do with its parochialism, a parochialism that refused to go flying off in pursuit of millennialist dreams at the expense of its integrity. This integrity derived from centuries of good humor, courage, and common sense--epstein

French President Emmanuel Macron responded to the Roe ruling, saying, “Abortion is a fundamental right for all women. It must be protected. I wish to express my solidarity with the women whose liberties are being undermined by the Supreme Court of the United States.”
Everyone's got something to say about America. Nice of him to help but the limit for abortion in France is 16 weeks.

And while I'm at it, I like Prince Harry. I think he's been a standup guy in England, I think his wife has been outrageously savaged in his own country and I hope he will be happy in this country. But I'm tired of people who have been here for 14 minutes trashing us on the international stage. Speaking at the U.N. on some Mandela day he said, "From the horrific war in Ukraine to the rolling back of constitutional rights here in the United States, we are witnessing a global assault on democracy and freedom—the cause of Mandela's life."

He should not have said that.


From Mike Huemer:

… 

The Danger of Food

 The Danger of Food

We are dangerously close to reducing our national and international discussions to farce.

The Netherlands is said to be the largest exporter of meat in Europe and the second largest exporter of food overall after the United States, a remarkable feat for a nation half the size of Indiana

Dutch agriculture and horticulture account for 10% of the national economy and 17.5% of exports (€65 billion annually).

The government is demanding a cut in nitrogen pollution of 50% by 2030. That amount would require a livestock reduction of one-third or more and thus bankrupt many farmers.

Data show ammonia pollution from manure has already declined by nearly 70% since 1990.

Since the early 1960s, the Netherlands has doubled its yields while using the same amount of fertilizer.

Some 40,000 farmers gathered last week in the central Netherlands’ agricultural heartland to protest the government’s plans. Many arrived by tractor, snarling traffic around the country.

Politico (July 6):: Dutch police fired shots at tractor-riding farmers who were protesting against plans to cut nitrogen emissions on Tuesday evening in northern Netherlands.

Neighboring Belgium, which has the third-highest EU livestock concentration and a major nitrogen problem as well, is watching the Netherlands closely. The government of the Dutch-speaking region, Flanders, wants to reduce the number of pigs 30% by 2030 and is offering farmers €150 euros per pig and €855 euros per sow to buy them out.

New Zealand has unveiled a plan to tax sheep and cattle burps in a bid to tackle one of the country’s biggest sources of greenhouse gases.

It would make it the first nation to charge farmers for the methane emissions from the animals they keep.

New Zealand is home to just over five million people, along with around 10 million cattle and 26 million sheep.

Almost half the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture, mainly methane.

Academics and Grifters

 

Academics and Grifters

A note on Ms. Jones, the esteemed author of the 1619 scam.

'Nikole Hannah Jones has not written a single line for the newspaper where she is employed as a reporter in over two years. She also lacks a terminal degree in any field, has no prior teaching experience in higher ed, and has no scholarly publications. To cap that off, she has been credibly accused of severe acts of journalistic misconduct, including ghost-editing the web copy of her published articles in an effort to game the Pulitzer Prize review process.

Those facts combined render her fundamentally unqualified to hold a faculty position of any type, let alone one that is hired at the full professor level with tenure.

And now she’s outright grifting off of the taxpayers of North Carolina by securing a payout settlement from UNC to withdraw her lawsuit against the university for receiving all of those things and then declining the offer because the university’s board of trustees briefly pushed back against it.'--Magness

Intellectuals, Movements, and America

Intellectuals, Movements, and America

Eric Hoffer 

Hoffer is a rare case among 20th century intellectuals. He had little formal education, if any. He was always a manual worker and, after trying unsuccessfully to join the Army after Pearl Harbour, he landed a job as a longshoreman in San Francisco. He loved to read and one day picked up in a library Michel de Montaigne’s Essays. As many before and after him, he was enchanted by the beauty of Montaigne’s prose and by his ability to look into himself. That planted the seed which would blossom in his own determination to become a writer. 

Sowell on Eric Hoffer:

Hoffer’s strongest words were for the intellectuals — or rather, against the intellectuals. “Intellectuals,” he said, “cannot operate at room temperature.” Hype, moral melodrama, and sweeping visions were the way that intellectuals approached the problems of the world.
But that was not the way progress was usually achieved in America. “Nothing so offends the doctrinaire intellectual as our ability to achieve the momentous in a matter-of-fact way, unblessed by words.”

Since the American economy and society advanced with little or no role for the intelligentsia, it is hardly surprising that anti-Americanism flourishes among intellectuals. “Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America,” Eric Hoffer said.”

Hoffer’s insights on the hubris of professional intellectuals is as profound as his reading of mass movements. Actually, the two are connected. “Mass movements do not usually rise until the prevailing order has been discredited. The discrediting is not an automatic result of the blunders and abuses of those in power, but the deliberate work of men of words with a grievance.”

--from Mingardi

Sunday/Mary and Martha

Mary and Martha

In the Old Testament, Moses invites Pharaoh to the Wilderness for a time of contemplation. Pharaoh condemns him as idle. Even the ancient Egyptians had a lot to do.

Today's gospel is the Mary and Martha gospel, another take on the constant battle in the gospel between the practical and the spiritual. Mary has the better part.
But it is a "part," a portion of life. Christ recognizes the dichotomy, indeed the very need for it. Somebody has to feed Mary. No less a mind than Cardinal Newman, in explaining his defection from the Anglican church to the Catholic, said that the practical infrastructure of the Church allowed and enhanced its contemplative nature.
"Sabbath" means "stop."


The "Sons of Martha" by Kipling is a different, surprisingly American, take:

The Sons of Mary seldom bother, for they have inherited that good part;
But the Sons of Martha favour their Mother of the careful soul and troubled heart.

And because she lost her temper once, and because she was rude to the Lord her Guest,
Her Sons must wait upon Mary’s Sons, world without end, reprieve, or rest.

It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock.
It is their care that the gear engages; it is their care that the switches lock.
It is their care that the wheels run truly; it is their care to embark and entrain,
Tally, transport, and deliver duly the Sons of Mary by land and main.

They say to mountains, ‘Be ye removed’. They say to the lesser floods, ‘Be dry’.
Under their rods are the rocks reproved – they are not afraid of that which is high.
Then do the hill-tops shake to the summit – then is the bed of the deep laid bare,
That the Sons of Mary may overcome it, pleasantly sleeping and unaware.

They finger death at their gloves’ end where they piece and repiece the living wires.
He rears against the gates they tend: they feed him hungry behind their fires.
Early at dawn, ere men see clear, they stumble into his terrible stall,
And hale him forth like a haltered steer, and goad and turn him till evenfall.

To these from birth is Belief forbidden; from these till death is Relief afar.
They are concerned with matter hidden, under the earthline their altars are;
The secret fountains to follow up, waters withdrawn to restore to the mouth,
And gather the floods as in a cup, and pour them again at a city drouth.

They do not preach that their God will rouse them a little before the nuts work loose.
They do not teach that His Pity allows them to leave their work when they damn-well choose.
As in the thronged and the lighted ways, so in the dark and the desert they stand.
Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren’s days may be long in the land.

Raise ye the stone or cleave the wood to make a path more fair or flat:
Lo, it is black already with blood some Son of Martha spilled for that:
Not as a ladder from earth to Heaven, not as a witness to any creed,
But simple service simply given to his own kind in their common need.

And the Sons of Mary smile and are blessed, they know the angels are on their side.
They know in them is the Grace confessed, and for them are the Mercies multiplied.
They sit at the Feet – they hear the Word – they see how truly the Promise Runs:
They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and – the Lord He lays it on Martha’s Sons.

Putin

Putin

What happens when you don’t tend the seedbeds of democracy? Chaos? War? No, you return to normal. The 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries were normal. Big countries like China, Russia, and Turkey are ruled by fierce leaders with massive power. That’s normal. Small aristocracies in many nations hog gigantic shares of their nations’ wealth. That’s normal. Many people come to despise cultural outsiders, like immigrants. Normal. Global affairs resemble the law of the jungle, with big countries threatening small ones. This is the way it’s been for most of human history.

In normal times, people crave order, and leaders like Vladimir Putin arise to give it to them. Putin and Xi Jinping have arisen to be the 21st century’s paradigmatic men.

Putin has established political order in Russia by reviving the Russian strong state tradition and by concentrating power in the hands of one man. He has established economic order through a grand bargain with oligarch-led firms, with him as the ultimate C.E.O. As Fiona Hill and Clifford G. Gaddy write in their book, “Mr. Putin,” corruption is the glue that holds the system together. Everybody’s wealth is deliberately tainted, so Putin has the power to accuse anyone of corruption and remove anyone at any time.

He offers cultural order. He embraces the Russian Orthodox Church and rails against the postmodern godlessness of the West. He scorns homosexuality and transgenderism.

Putin has redefined global conservatism and made himself its global leader. Many conservatives around the world see Putin’s strong, manly authority, his defense of traditional values and his enthusiastic embrace of orthodox faith, and they see their aspirations in human form. Right-wing leaders from Donald Trump in the United States to Marine Le Pen in France to Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines speak of Putin admiringly.

The 21st century has become a dark century because the seedbeds of democracy have been neglected and normal historical authoritarianism is on the march. Putin and Xi seem confident that the winds of history are at their back. Writing in The Times a few weeks ago, Hill said that Putin believes the United States is in the same predicament Russia was in in the 1990s — “weakened at home and in retreat abroad.” --from a review of the book

The Hollywood Side of Leadership

The Hollywood Side of Leadership

Sidley reports on the British government's effort to manage the public during covid.

"The minutes of the SPI-B meeting dated the 22nd of March 2020 stated, ‘The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent’ by ‘using hard-hitting emotional messaging.’ Subsequently, in tandem with the UK’s subservient mainstream media, the collective efforts of the BIT and the SPI-B have inflicted a prolonged and concerted scare campaign upon the UK public.

The methods used have included:

– Daily statistics displayed without context: the macabre mono focus on showing the number of Covid-19 deaths without mention of mortality from other causes or the fact that, under normal circumstances, around 1,600 people die each day in the UK.

– Recurrent footage of dying patients: images of the acutely unwell in Intensive Care Units.

– Scary slogans: for example, ‘IF YOU GO OUT YOU CAN SPREAD IT, PEOPLE WILL DIE,’ typically accompanied by frightening images of emergency personnel in masks and visors.

He then proceeds to discuss the various elements of ethical questions raised by this program rather than asking the obvious question: are these people on our side?

The Mystery of Fetterman

 The Mystery of Fetterman

Fetterman's ad campaign is skewering the esteemed Mehmet Oz, the erstwhile physician and entertainer. Oz's family lives in New Jersey; he served in the Turkish Army, and is a member of the silly entertainment world that no one takes seriously. But Fetterman, for all his dramatic life, is a socialist, a real one, and no socialist should be able to beat any candidate in this free country.

Socialism is a quasi-economic system in which the ownership and management of the nation's production are put in the hands of the people who finished in the bottom third of their class. So the investment, research, management, and distribution of the nation's productivity is controlled by the same guys who planned the Vietnam War, the Iran Embassay defense, the Benghazi non-rescue, the sub-prime crisis, and the withdrawal from Afghanistan. And, of course, there is the uplifting history of socialism in the countless soundtruck democracies and revolutionary riches-to-rags stories

If there are incentives and disincentives for human actions, and if socialism eliminates property, prices, profit, and loss, what will the incentives for action and improvement in society be and where will they lead? Aside, of course, from the usual inefficiencies, corruption, economic despair, and collapse followed by the struggles for power, the gratuitous and revenge killings, and the trials. Then the new revolution to even scores and redistribute the wealth again.

How could any modern man take socialism seriously?

Testimony

 Testimony

From a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Berkeley Law School Professor Khiara Bridges and Sen. Josh Hawley, Tuesday:

Hawley: "Professor Bridges, you said several times, you've used a phrase I want to make sure I understand what you mean by it," Hawley told Berkeley Law School Professor Khiara Bridges. You referred to people with 'a capacity for pregnancy.' Would that be women?"

Bridges: "Many women, cis women have the capacity for pregnancy, many cis women do not have the capacity for pregnancy. There are also trans men who are capable of pregnancy as well as non-binary people who are capable of pregnancy."

Hawley: "So this isn't really a women rights issue it's a -- what?"

Bridges: "We can recognize that this impacts women while also recognizing that it impacts other groups. Those things are not mutually exclusive, Senator Hawley."

Hawley: "Oh, so your view is that the core of this right, then, is about what?"

Bridges: "So I want to recognize that your line of questioning is transphobic, and it opens up trans people to violence by not recognizing them."

Hawley: "Wow, you're saying that I'm opening up people to violence by asking whether or not women are the folks that can have pregnancies?"

Bridges: "So I want to note that one out of five transgender persons has attempted suicide. So I think it's important--"

Hawley: "Because of my line of questioning? We can't talk about it?"

Bridges: "Because denying that trans people exist and pretending not to know that they exist --"

Hawley: "I'm denying that trans people exist by asking you if you're talking about women?"

Bridges: "Are you? Are you? Are you? Do you believe that men can get pregnant?!"

Hawley: "No, I don't think men can get pregnant."

Bridges: "So you're denying that trans people exist."

Hawley: "And that leads to violence? Is this how you run your classroom, are students allowed to question you, or are they also treated like this? Or are they opening up people to violence?

Bridges: "We have a good time in my class, you should join. You might learn a lot."

Hawley: "Well, I would learn a lot. I've learned a lot from this exchange. Extraordinary."

Movers and Shakers

 Movers and Shakers

So, in Sri Lanka, the powers-that-be have taken the reins to help global ills and ended the use of fertilizer. They now have a drop in food production, famine is looming and the country is collapsing.

The European energy lemmings have cut domestic energy production. They now have an energy shortage. The Germans have turned back to coal-fired plants to preserve their declining natural gas reserves.

The Netherlands leadership has decided it best to cut back on farm production. They likely will no longer be a net food exporter; nor, of course, will Ukraine

The Americans have cut oil production and now have an energy shortage. We are negotiating with kings, totalitarians, and religious maniacs to make up the shortfall. The Americans did release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve but sold it to the Chinese.

Is it about time we stopped trying to explain this behavior and, instead, start to question the capacity of these people to rule?

Moral Lawbreaking

 

Moral Lawbreaking

“ATTENTION – Your gas guzzler kills. We have deflated one or more of your tires. You’ll be angry, but don’t take it personally. It’s not you, it’s your car.” (From a note found on the windshield of vandalized cars) “We did this because driving around urban areas in your massive vehicle has huge consequences for others,” the leaflet says. “We’re taking actions into our own hands because our governments and politicians will not.”
An international group that deflates the tires of SUVs and other larger vehicles in the name of fighting climate change has emerged in...California. It started in Europe called, cleverly, Tyre Extinguisher.
“We want to make it impossible to own an SUV in the world's urban areas. Deflating tyres repeatedly and encouraging others to do the same will turn the minor inconvenience of a flat tyre into a giant obstacle for driving massive killer vehicles around our streets,” a vandal representative said.

Ah, the vigilante! Don't you just long for the days of Charles Bronson? V for Vendetta? Lynchings? So, where on the trip to Chaos is Moral Lawbreaking?

Sunday/Samaritan

Sunday/Samaritan

Anyone thinking of using the Bible as a creative writing course could do a lot worse than starting with the Good Samaritan. The traveler is from the spiritual heights of Jerusalem, going to the worldly Jerico, the starting place of Israel. He is ignored by the religious and political leaders and saved by the despised outsider. He is taken to an inn and the savior stays with him. Then he does one of those weird gospel specifics: he pats with two silver coins (said to be the Church and tradition.) And then the kicker: He will return.

And of course, it finishes with poignancy and humor. When Christ asks the lawyer who his neighbor is, the Jewish lawyer says, "He who showed mercy on him." He is unable to credit even a fictional cultural enemy.

35, Almost 18

 

35, Almost 18

Guys who quote themselves in articles are fun to read. So some guy named Kreider opens his opinion piece in the NYT with extensive references to an article he wrote ten years ago--two paragraphs worth of self-congratulation--on the mistake that busyness is a virtue. His conclusion: “Life is too short to be busy.”

Heavy.

Here's the recent article: (There is a wall)

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/07/opinion/work-busy-trap-millennials.html

The following are excerpted paragraphs I picked out as representative. While I disagree with its essence, it is representative of a way of thinking that seems to be growing And its cause, I think, is as old as man.

"Through the internet, we could peer enviously at our neighbors in civilized countries, who get monthlong vacations, don’t have to devote decades to paying for their college degrees, and aren’t terrified of going broke if they get sick. To young people, America seems less like a country than an inescapable web of scams, and “hard work” less like a virtue than a propaganda slogan, inane as “Just say no.”

The pandemic was the bomb cyclone of our discontents; it not only gave all us nonessential workers an experience of mandatory sloth — which, for many, turned out to be not altogether unpleasant — but also dredged up a lakeful of long-submerged truths. It turns out that millions of people never actually needed to waste days of their lives sitting in traffic or pantomime “work” under managerial scrutiny eight hours a day. We learned that nurses, cashiers, truckers and delivery people (who’ve always been too busy to brag about it) actually ran the world and the rest of us were mostly useless supernumeraries.

I think people are enervated not just by the Sisyphean pointlessness of their individual labors but also by the fact that they’re working in and for a society in which, increasingly, they have zero faith or investment.

More young people are opting not to have kids not only because they can’t afford them but also because they assume they’ll have only a scorched or sodden wasteland to grow up in. An increasingly popular retirement plan is figuring civilization will collapse before you have to worry about it. I’m not sure anyone’s composed a more eloquent epitaph for the planet than the stand-up comedian Kath Barbadoro, who tweeted: “It’s pretty funny that the world is ending and we all just have to keep going to our little jobs lol.”

And I don’t believe most people are lazy. They would love to be fully, deeply engaged in something worthwhile, something that actually mattered, instead of forfeiting their limited hours on Earth to make a little more money for men they’d rather throw fruit at as they pass by in tumbrels.

Enough with the busywork already. We’ve been “productive” enough — produced way too much, in fact. And there is too much that urgently needs to be done: a republic to salvage, a civilization to reimagine and its infrastructure to reinvent, innumerable species to save, a world to restore and millions who are impoverished, imprisoned, illiterate, sick or starving. All while we waste our time at work."

This is really worth a thought because its basis is so integral to us. Meaning. The loss of meaning is the fallout of rationalism, of The Enlightenment. It, and the spirochete, drove Nietzsche mad. And if you can somehow create an arbitrary meaning in life, the tenor of the article becomes familiar: the tug-of-war between the spiritual and the temporal. If there is a Good that arches over all our lives, what time and energy can we devote to things outside it? The desert used to be filled with these guys, in huts and caves and on poles, contemplating. Praying. If the world is a battleground between Good and Evil, who has time to throw a ball, to hoe a field? What foolish self-absorption would bring a child into the world?

Yet in spite of this grim, human-less vision of life, these people think that we deserve entertaining, fun work that contributes to the Good. And they know that somehow, as they sit around the table in the coffeehouse, someone will be spiritually rewarded by bringing them a sandwich.

Gas

 Gas

Netherland farmers are demonstrating in response to “targets introduced last month” by the Dutch government “to reduce harmful nitrogen compounds by 2030,” which authorities say “are necessary in emissions of nitrogen oxides from farm animal manure and from the use of ammonia in fertilizer.”
If successfully implemented, the state initiative to “go green” would almost certainly cripple the country’s private agricultural industry, as the regulations are “expected to include reducing livestock and buying up some farms whose animals produce large amounts of ammonia.”
“The honest message … is that not all farmers can continue their business,” the government admitted in a statement last month.

The Netherlands has about 19 million people and their impact on global warming would be slight, if at all. But they are a significant exporter of food and the decline of farmland will be felt in Europe. 

Like the Germans cutting their nuclear plants, the elite has a disregard--or ignorance--of the impact of the things they do to feel better at their cocktail parties. 

Regrettably, their big hearts do not include us poor working stiffs.

The Enemy

The Enemy

The Truth may be out. The tensions in the U.S. may not be in its direction, may not be evidence of an evolution.

'We are slaves to an ancient document written by old white male slave owners.' (sort of an approximation)

This is a neat summary given by a law person from D.C. This actually makes sense: the enemy of these people is the Constitution, the basic founding document these people feel is an obscenity. And she was a big guest on The View, July 5, celebrating the Fourth, apparently. But it is clarifying when the Left admits its problem with America is its basic formation. It's sort of like going to France and being furious that people speak French. Or Iran and objecting to Islam.

One does wonder why such discontent allows for people to stay in a place where you hate its very marrow? Become evangelical and confront a majority who are content with the culture's very nature?

On the other hand, most confident cultures would strike back.

 

Questions 68

Questions 68

A person knowledgeable about the subject says that 10% of a Pittsburgh all-girls senior class are dating each other.

Fetterman is a socialist. His ad campaign says his opponent, Dr. Oz, is 'too extreme for Pennsylvania.'

A report on the quotidian riot in Portland yesterday says they broke windows and fired 'mortars.' Mortars? Maybe 'fireworks?'

Flashback: When a CIA consultant spotted soccer fields along the coast in Cuba in September 1962, he became concerned because, as he put it, “Cubans play baseball, Russians play soccer.”
The CIA analyst had deduced that the field indicated the presence of a Soviet military camp nearby.

An interesting side effect of WVa vs. EPA creates some funny ripples. First, it demands that guys in the legislature who have big ideas write how to do them. That will be interesting. Second, it disenfranchised lobbyists.

All administered Testosterone is a male contraceptive.

Lexington

 

Lexington

April 19, 1775
At about 5 a.m. on April 19, 1775, 700 British troops, on a mission to capture Patriot leaders and seize a Patriot arsenal, march into Lexington to find 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker waiting for them on the town’s common green. British Major John Pitcairn ordered the outnumbered Patriots to disperse, and after a moment’s hesitation, the Americans began to drift off the green. Suddenly, the “shot heard around the world” was fired from an undetermined gun, and a cloud of musket smoke soon covered the green. When the brief Battle of Lexington ended, eight Americans lay dead or dying and 10 others were wounded. Only one British soldier was injured, but the American Revolution had begun. The British moved to Concord and found more resistance so they withdrew. They were attacked on their withdrawal through Lexington and were harassed all the way to Boston.

Fourth of July

Fourth of July


America had an exceptional revolution, one that did not attempt to define and deliver happiness, but one that set people free to define and pursue it as they please.--Will

Isonomy guaranteed … equality, but not because all men were born or created equal, but, on the contrary, because men were by nature ... not equal, and needed an artificial institution, the polis, which by virtue of its νόμος would make them equal. --Arendt

The American Constitution is, as far as I can see, the most wonderful work ever struck off at any given time by the brain and purpose of man---Gladstone

Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.--Thacher

Jay Leno had a recurring skit where he asked questions to passers-by on the street--questions most people think are rather simple and obvious. He asked several people what the Fourth of July celebrated, when independence was declared, and who the country separated from. Of course, the results were embarrassing to most of those interviewed. One was particularly interesting. A college instructor knew nothing about the Revolution at all, thought it occurred in the 1920s, and thought China might have been involved.

A survey published recently said that 27% of people questioned did not know the American Revolution was waged against the British.

*****

When I was a child in the '50s, the Fourth of July was a great event. The kids decorated their bikes, small local parades were held--every community had some commemoration and the larger communities had fireworks. It was unlike other secular events like Thanksgiving which were delightfully family-oriented; this was a commonly held social event. It was a birthday party. And it was heartfelt. Everyone felt that years ago something of value had been accomplished, something special in the world created. There was a glow.

When Obama was first campaigning he was asked about American Exceptionalism. (The phrase was de Tocqueville's, from Democracy in America, 1835: "The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their strictly Puritanical origin, their exclusively commercial habits, even the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their minds from the pursuit of science, literature, and the arts, the proximity of Europe, which allows them to neglect these pursuits without relapsing into barbarism, a thousand special causes, of which I have only been able to point out the most important, have singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects. His passions, his wants, his education, and everything about him seem to unite in drawing the native of the United States earthward; his religion alone bids him turn, from time to time, a transient and distracted glance to heaven. Let us cease, then, to view all democratic nations under the example of the American people.")

The phrase has been used since by those who saw America as a point of reference in man's search for freedom and liberty. (It was also used by Stalin as a slur, decrying America's self-held belief that it was somehow excluded from the Marxian class warfare generality.) Obama saw a trap--it would not do to talk of "exceptionalism" when we want all people to be the same, all nations indistinguishable. So he hedged and said, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." He, unlike those Americans of just a generation or two ago, does not think that America is unique.

Unique. If that element is lost in this country a lot has been lost. So, buy a small flag. Decorate your bike.

The Sequence To Independence

John Adams thought that July 2nd would be remembered as the great day in America."The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epoch in the History of America," Adams exulted in a letter to his wife.
"I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."


The Sequence To Independence


The Declaration of Independence came 442 days after the first volleys of the American Revolution were fired at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. It was a long time coming.

The first major colonial opposition to British policy came in 1765 after Parliament passed the Stamp Act, a measure to raise revenues for a standing British army in America. Under the banner of “no taxation without representation,” colonists convened the Stamp Act Congress in October 1765 to vocalize their opposition to the tax. With its enactment in November, most colonists called for a boycott of British goods, and some organized attacks on the customhouses and homes of tax collectors. After months of protest in the colonies, Parliament voted to repeal the Stamp Act in March 1766.

It was a while before the next problem, the result of the British effort to aid the faltering East India Company. Parliament enacted the Tea Act in 1773 which greatly lowered its tea tax and granting the Company a monopoly on the American tea trade. Many colonists viewed the act as another example of taxation tyranny. In response, militant Patriots in Massachusetts organized the “Boston Tea Party,” which saw British tea valued at some 18,000 pounds dumped into Boston Harbor.

Parliament, outraged by the Boston Tea Party and other blatant acts of destruction of British property, enacted the Coercive Acts, also known as the Intolerable Acts, in 1774. The Coercive Acts closed Boston to merchant shipping, established formal British military rule in Massachusetts, made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in America, and required colonists to quarter British troops in their homes. The colonists subsequently called the first Continental Congress to consider a united American resistance to the British.

In April 1775, Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts, ordered British troops to march to Concord, Massachusetts, where a Patriot arsenal was known to be located. On April 19, 1775, the British regulars encountered a group of American militiamen at Lexington, and the first shots of the American Revolution were fired.

June 17, 1775 Major General William Howe defeated the Americans at Bunker Hill, the first time the Americans stood and fought. It was a Pyrrhic victory. 140 colonists were killed and 271 wounded. 226 British were dead and 828 wounded. The vast majority of Rebel deaths came from bayoneting the wounded in the field by British soldiers, furious at their losses. The behavior of the British soldiers enraged the colonists and tipped most away from reconciliation with the crown and into separation. Historian Richard Ellis says that the Battle at Bunker Hill scarred Gen. Howe, one of the crown's elite generals. Never again would he be comfortable with assaulting rebel fixed positions and he yearned for reconciliation--a feeling many believe hampered his generalship, especially in the siege of New York.

In January 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense, an influential political pamphlet that convincingly argued for American independence and sold more than 500,000 copies in a few months. In the spring of 1776, support for independence swept the colonies, the Continental Congress called for states to form their own governments, and a five-man committee was assigned to draft a declaration.

On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress voted to approve a Virginia motion calling for separation from Britain. The dramatic words of this resolution were added to the closing of the Declaration of Independence. Two days later, on July 4, the declaration was formally adopted by 12 colonies after minor revision. New York approved it on July 19. On August 2, the declaration was signed.

The American War for Independence would last for five more years. Yet to come were the Patriot triumphs at Saratoga, the bitter winter at Valley Forge, the intervention of the French, and the final victory at Yorktown in 1781. In 1783, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris with Britain, the United States formally became a free and independent nation.

Under America’s first governing document, the Articles of Confederation, the national government was weak and states operated like independent countries. The debate over the power of a unifying federal government went on until 1787 when a convention was held in Philadelphia presided over by George Washington. There delegates devised a plan for a stronger federal government with three branches–executive, legislative and judicial–along with a system of checks and balances to ensure no single branch would have too much power. It was signed on September 17, 1787. The Bill of Rights–10 amendments guaranteeing basic individual protections such as freedom of speech and religion–became part of the Constitution in 1791.

The first presidential election electing Washington was held from Monday, December 15, 1788 to Saturday, January 10, 1789, five years after the Treaty of Paris.

Odds And Ends

Odds And Ends

I have been cynical about the January 6 riot hearings; it appeared to me to be little more than another pompous effort to damage Trump as a 2024 candidate--and as a politician. Some reasonable people think these hearings are more significant.
Peggy Noonan was really impressed with the Hutchinson testimony. She thinks it makes Trump indictable.
And, in National Review, former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy wrote that Hutchinson's testimony was devastating in that it portrayed Donald Trump as “singularly culpable” for the events of 1/6.


The Pirates lost last night 19-2. They could not hit, catch or pitch. Despite the comedy, the game raised two serious questions.
First, the Pirates used an infielder to pitch the ninth. The logic goes that you don't want to use up a pitcher in a lost cause. Interestingly, Milwaukee used a position player to finish the ninth, presumably the obverse of the argument, you don't want to waste a pitcher on an obvious winning cause. This takes a terrible lopsided game and diminishes it further. Bob Walk said that the game had gotten rid of pitchers hitting because they clearly couldn't hit and that discrepancy diminished the game; so what about position players pitching?
The second question is a more serious matter: cruelty. The Pirate pitcher in the eighth could not get anyone out. Eight runs scored before any out and he pitched over fifty pitches. Now a team has some responsibility to have players that are at least in tune with the game, that have some basic abilities to perform it. Having a uniform and playing by the rules is not enough. And humiliating marginal players is too high a price to pay for the owner's profits. The fans have become peripheral here. But the league owes more to its players. It should protect them from heartless abuse.

Dorian Trump

Dorian Trump

Ms. Hutchinson said she "had been “in the vicinity of a conversation” that she “overheard” in which President Trump said “something to the effect of” about his supporters having weapons.
Impressive, non? And would a serious group of investigators allow this? Non.

The Hutchinson testimony is more indicative of the setting than the topic. Regardless of what you think about Trump, these hearings are nothing more than a defamation project. Watching an unattractive guy up close is unattractive. What these politicians don't seem to understand is that mud does not spatter accurately; they themselves will look bad. The problem with Trump is that he is a politician without the camouflage. When the Dorian Grey politician looks in the mirror, he sees Trump and it drives him mad.