If forced to choose a Republican, I’d have to go with Nikki

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I failed yet again to watch the GOP debate last night, but never fear — I found the above video clip from it.

At least, it sounds like it, based on the debate clips I heard on the radio today.

What if you actually had to vote for one of these people? What if there were no choice?

That unpleasant choice seems much clearer than it was a few weeks back.

The stupidest headline I saw today, from a Ramesh Ponnuru column, posed the question as though it were actually difficult to answer: “How to decide between Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis.”

Seriously? You think there’s a decision to be made? You think people would find it difficult? Of course not. The only possible choice would be Nikki Haley.

Is that an endorsement of Nikki? Absolutely not. I am 100 percent a Joe Biden man all the way. No one in any party comes within a mile of him.

But of course, for quite a few years, it was my job to preside over the drafting of editorial endorsements in both parties’ primaries. And I was always insistent that we couldn’t not choose. The voters had to make a choice, and so did we.

What if I had to do that now? Or what if I decided that my vote would be better used voting for the least nightmarish candidate in the GOP contest, since Joe seems likely to sail to the nomination?

Well, then, I’d vote for Nikki.

Oh, every negative thing I’ve every said about her is true. But she has seemed to get a little better each time I look at her. One of the main reasons I opposed her so often over the years was that she kept running for jobs for which she was completely unprepared. But then I’d watch her, and she would gradually get better.

For instance: She was a disaster in her first term as governor, as expected. I mean, really bad, with no notion how to exert leadership. But then, well into her second term, she was notably better. And she had a really fine moment in leading South Carolina to do what I had been shouting for governors and legislators to do for 20 years — take down that flag. (Yeah, I know a lot of people want to dismiss that as not really taking moral leadership — but that’s complicated enough that we’ll have to discuss it separately.)

In other words, by the time she left the governor’s office, she had grown more or less to finally be qualified for the job. And what happens then? Suddenly, she’s the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Of course, no one thought for a minute that she was in any way, shape or form prepared for that job. Well, she had one asset: As I’ve said many times, Nikki’s superpower is that she makes a very good first impression. Being able to present yourself well is good. Trouble was, aside from that rather superficial “qualification,” she had nothing to offer in the field of foreign policy. No training, no experience, and no ideas to offer.

Even Donald Trump, who offered her the job, wasn’t blind enough to think she was qualified. But he didn’t give a damn. His only motivation was to reward Henry McMaster, the first statewide elected official in the country to endorse him, by making him governor.

But here’s the thing… if you listen to her talk foreign policy in these debates, she may not be ready to write a doctoral thesis on international policy, but she’s light years closer to understanding America’s role in the world and how to meet it than anyone else on that stage. And is even farther ahead of the guy who never shows up for the debates.

So she did learn something, which is more than you ever see from the rest of these people. When she was a dewy-eyed young legislative back bencher, I was happy to endorse her a couple of times because I thought she had some promise — if only she would take the time to learn a few things (such as how idiotic the phrase “run government like a business” is). But before she could qualify herself for the job she had, she kept running for the next brass ring. At least since then, she has learned a few things.

And as I’ve told you, I congratulate her on her willingness to turn away from the culture wars. You know, using beautiful words such as “consensus.” When she does that, it reminds my why I thought she was promising in the House.

Still, “President Nikki Haley” is a combination that causes me to shudder, no doubt about it. I could write a post several times as long as this one detailing why. But if you make me choose from that field, she’s now well ahead of my former reluctant choice, Chris Christie.

For what that’s worth…

Mind you, I never for a moment forget the darker moments…

December 6: Any Martin Cruz Smith fans out there?

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Pearl Harbor on Dec. 6, 1941. Found this on the East Tennessee Veterans Honor Guard FB page.

Call this a sneak attack, coming on the eve of the date that will live in infamy.

I just had to write down today’s date for some reason, and it got me to thinking about Martin Cruz Smith. Well, specifically, one of his less-known novels, December 6. You ever read it? Here’s a synopsis from Wikipedia:

In late 1941, Harry Niles owns a bar for American and European expatriates, journalists, and diplomats, in Tokyo’s entertainment district, called the “Happy Paris”. With only 24 hours until Japanese fighters and bombers attack Pearl Harbor, Niles has to consult with the local US ambassador, break up with a desperate lover, evade the police, escape the vengeance of an aggrieved samurai officer and leave the island, the exit points from which are all closed. Having grown up in Tokyo, Niles is fluent in the Japanese language and culture, and is highly streetwise.[2][3]

In other words, he’s streetwise for a gaijin, which is a word that comes up frequently in the book as Japanese folk interact with him. But it’s been awhile since I read it. I’ve never reread it as often as I have Rose and some of his Arkady Renko stories, especially Red Square. Although the one that pulled me and so many others toward his work was his amazingly brilliant first Renko story, Gorky Park.

So — are any of y’all fans? I’d like to have a discussion about his stuff sometime. The dude can tell a story. His characters are a bit repetitive — it’s like the same people crop up in both 1870s Lancashire and 1980s Russia — but he makes it work. It’s actually kind of fun to see a familiar character, just with a different name, show up in an entirely different situation…

What’s YOUR Dream Team matchup for POTUS?

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My mention of Matter of Opinion earlier reminds me of a podcast from last month that I meant to post about, and forgot.

So here goes, and this time, I’m giving you a link that MAY let you listen to it, or at least read the transcript, without a subscription. Someone please try it and let me know whether it works.

Here’s the link to “The Presidential Fantasy Draft America Needs.”

If you can’t or won’t go listen, here’s the essence of it: Ross Douthat posed a question to the panel:

Since so many voters seem to be so over a Trump-Biden rematch in advance, I want to ask each of you what your ideal match-up would actually be. Who do you wish was going head to head for president in 2024?

He started it off by offering his own picks:

I’m going to say that I would like to see a race between JD Vance of Ohio and my home state senator, Chris Murphy, Democrat, of Connecticut.

Michelle Cottle responded, “I’m going a different way. I’m going Gretchen Whitmer versus Glenn Youngkin.”

Lydia Polgreen said she was going to cheat, which if I recall correctly caused the others to hoot at her, but she went ahead:

I’m interested in the sort of theoretical exercise of what the future might look like, knowing that these matchups will never happen. So the first one is testing how the various inflections of populism will unfold in this country. So I would love to see the representative from New York City, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez against Ross’s candidate, JD Vance, in Ohio….

The other is Rafael Warnock, the senator from Georgia, and Josh Hawley, the senator from Missouri. The reason I chose those two is that I’m very interested in the role of religion in our country….

The only one who came anywhere near my own choices was Carlos Lozada, whom (as I’ve mentioned before) I have come to respect a lot from listening to these podcasts:

…I finally concluded that my dream matchup is, coming out of nowhere, Biden versus Trump.

This is not the matchup you want. It is the matchup we need. More than any other dream matchup that I can dream up, this matchup forces America to decide on first principles on what it is about. Trump is running as an authoritarian candidate who wants to shred the Constitution.

Biden’s campaign, both 2020 and for 2024, are premised almost entirely on preserving American democracy…

I’m with him on Biden, but definitely not on Trump. Any major-party candidate has almost exactly a 50-50 chance of winning — that’s the way America is now. But there must be ZERO chance of Trump winning again. I refuse to advance a “dream” that offers any chance at all of that.

To do what Lozada is trying to do, but without the distinct chance of driving the final nail into America’s (and the world’s) coffin, we need an actual Republican to oppose Joe’s classic Democratic-liberal views. Then you’re offering the country a real choice, but not playing Russian roulette with the country.

So I’d go with Asa Hutchinson. Yeah, I know he has no chance. But he’s running, and he meets the bill as I’ve set it out, and after all this is a “fantasy draft.”

All that said, what I really want is to see whom y’all would pick. And make a good case for it, please…

What’s your first political memory?

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I got a couple of ideas out of this week’s Matter of Opinion podcast from the NYT. I’ll write about the other later when I have more time, but at the moment I’ll just share this little interlude where they asked kids (ranging in age from about 17 to a vague “under 30”) to call in with their first political memories:

And we’re back. So we have something else up our sleeve this week, in lieu of a Hot Cold. We recently asked our younger listeners to send in their political awakenings. So let’s take a listen now….

And the callers weighed in with their thoughts on recent events (one first took note of the political world on Jan. 6, 2021) that to them seem to have happened quite some time ago.

Which got me to thinking back a bit further, although I wish they hadn’t used the word “awakenings.” It has a disturbing flavor of ideological orthodoxy, like asking “When did you get your mind right?” I would simply have asked them to recount their “first awareness,” or simply first memory, of politics. That interests me more.

What is yours? Mine was from 1960, at more or less the very moment when I reached the age of 7. I’ve told it here before, but can’t find it at the moment, so I’ll just tell it again. I watched the presidential debates, and I decided I was for Nixon. That was based on my immature assessment of what I perceived as Kennedy’s aggressive tone on the subject of foreign policy. I don’t recall now what he said about the Soviets, but he sounded a lot more like a guy willing to go to war. And not a cold one. Of course, he may have said nothing of the kind. But that’s the way I heard it.

Thinking back on the impression now, I assume — if I heard it right — he was trying to sound that way because he was very young and widely regarded as inexperienced in comparison to the vice president. Maybe he was pushing the tough talk a bit in an effort to create a visceral impression of being a strong leader. But I didn’t know about things like that. I just knew my father was a naval officer, and Kennedy sounded more like a guy who would send my Daddy off to war.

I was quite serious about it, and took the election result hard, and rather, well, childishly. My mother watched Kennedy’s inauguration on the black-and-white in our Woodbury, N.J., apartment, and I protested loudly that I wanted her to change the station to something else (not that there would have been anything else at that moment). She ignored my requests, so in protest I hid behind a chair where I couldn’t see the screen. My mother told me to stop being ridiculous, but I persisted. Basically, I acted like a Trump supporter, although I didn’t storm the U.S. Capitol.

Anyway, I got over it, just not that day.

Speaking of my Dad, his first political memory was of his own father arguing loudly with a neighbor out on the sidewalk in front of the family home in Kensington, Md. The subject? FDR. The neighbor thought he was great, and I gather from his vehemence (which embarrassed my grandmother and caused her to call out to tell my grandpa to stop and come into the house) that he thought Roosevelt would be the ruination of the country. I’m guessing there, because my Dad was too young to understand and couldn’t explain it to me. I’m guess this was early in FDR’s time in office, so… maybe mid-30s. My Dad was born at the end of 1928.

Anyway, what’s your first political memory?

Hey, alla you kids — get offa my century!

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This really cracked me up. Remember the anecdote I told about the conversation I overheard awhile back between two students? To keep you from clicking and reading through that long post again, here it is:

I’m reminded of a conversation I overheard on the USC campus back when I worked in an office, and took long daily walks around the campus and downtown area. These two boys were walking behind me, and one of them was bitching about having to take a course in stupid history — as if anybody cared about that.

His friend, however, protested that learning history was important to understanding our world, and he got the first kid to agree, reluctantly. I almost applauded, but in keeping with my lifelong habit of hanging back and observing, I didn’t (anyway, they may have found that a bit… condescending).

But then I heard the first kid say, “Yeah, OK. But this was, like, 500 years back! Who needs to know about that?”

The friend felt compelled to walk back his position: “Well, maybe not 500 years! Let’s not be ridiculous…”

I just kept walking…

Well, that kid who was willing to defend history — up to a point — was an absolute classical scholar compared to the one who wrote this note:

The 1900s! Had they developed writing that early?

I wonder what he would think about Paul’s 20th-century speakers? He’d probably confuse them with Cato the Elder, if he’s heard of him.

Ever since I read that, I’ve tried to reconstruct the train of thought that led to that question, but I haven’t arrived.

Did he think the prof would respond mockingly, saying something like “Hey, why dontcha cite the Magna Carta, or… I know!… the Code of Hammurabi!…”?

I’m thinking about quoting the sages William “Bill” S. Preston, Esq., and Ted “Theodore” Logan here, but that would take us all the way back to 1989…

The Kochs are backing Nikki

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Does it seem weird to anyone besides me for the hopes of Republican orthodoxy to rest on her shoulders?

Hey, remember this mailer I wrote about back in August?

It was the one from the Koch organization Americans for Prosperity Action, urging Republicans to dump Trump.

Now, they’ve taken a more substantive step: They’ve made an endorsement:

A conservative-leaning political action committee backed by the influential Koch network is endorsing Nikki Haley for the Republican presidential nomination.

The Americans for Prosperity super-PAC says Haley is best positioned to beat former President Donald Trump in the primary election and President Biden in the general election.

In a letter addressed to “Grassroots Leaders, Activists, and Interested Parties,” Americans for Prosperity Action says it’s throwing its support behind the former South Carolina governor and United Nations Ambassador.

The statement says the Republican party has been choosing “bad candidates who are going against America’s core principles,” and that Democrats are responding with what it calls “extreme policies.”…

They’re making the move even as, in recent weeks, Nikki’s been making her own moves, rising to battle Ron DeSantis toe-to-toe — for the honor of being in second place, a couple of light years behind Trump.

Interesting. What the boys from Wichita seem to be trying to bring about is a return of the Republican Party, taking it back from you-know-who.

Is that possible? Can they even have a measurable effect in that direction? We’ll see. I wonder. Let’s say these guys could wave a wand and cause Trump to immediately have only one primary opponent. And let’s say every single real Republican left backed that one opponent.

Could they still deny the nomination to the interloper and his barbarian horde?

I hope they’re right to think they can bring that about. And just as fervently, I hope they’re dead wrong that this other person could defeat my main man Joe…

I’m posting this mailer from August because for some reason, it’s not showing up on the previous post…

DeMarco: Mike Johnson: a brilliant new speaker – for the 20th century

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The Op-Ed Page

By Paul V. DeMarco
Guest Columnist

Scene: A distant galaxy, year 2834, in the Tardis.

Dr. Who: What’s on the schedule today?

Ruby (the doctor’s companion): Looks like we have the day off. Not an alien in sight.

Who: Smashing! I’ve really wanted to brush up on my American history. The 1920’s seemed like an eventful time-jazz music, speakeasies, flappers, the Depression. I came across this name I had never heard of (flipping pages on a touch screen). Let’s see here… yes, there he is, Michael Johnson. Came out of nowhere it seems. Only six years’ experience and pop! – he’s the speaker of the House. Seems perfect for the job for someone of that era though. Rock-ribbed conservative Christian, literally interprets the Bible, believes in Noah’s Ark and the world being about 10,000 years old. A man for his time! Ha, but there’s a typo in his bio. It says he was elected in 2023. They must mean 1923 (pauses to adjust the Tardis’ time-travel settings). OK, course set for Michael Johnson as speaker of the House. Here we go!

Ruby (shouting over the roaring of the Tardis): Actually, Doctor, there is no mistake!! Johnson was elected in 2023!!!

Who: (also shouting): Sorry, I can’t hear you!!

(The Tardis makes a rough landing. Unbeknownst to the Doctor, Ruby is knocked unconscious).

Who: Blimey! That was more of a shake than I expected. Let’s see what other history we can glean before we start exploring. Righto, I see here that the Scopes Monkey Trial will happen in just a couple years. Well, that’s advantageous for Mike. He’s a constitutional lawyer whom I’m sure can argue a cracking case against evolution. He’s got a strong voice and a great stage presence. Ruby, don’t the creationists win at trial?

(Ruby awakens but is too groggy to respond. The Doctor is oblivious.)

Who: (continues reading) But there’s no mention of Mike at the Scopes trial… Hmm… I guess they needed a more experienced lawyer… (swiping)… so they picked Williams Jennings Bryan. Too bad for Mike.

Who: Ooh, I wonder if Mike ran for President in 1924. With that winning smile and such a nice head of hair. Surely he would have grasped for the brass ring. (Swipes touch screen) What! Calvin Coolidge?! Silent Cal? Surely Mike would have been more exciting. And he hated welfare just as much as Coolidge did.

Ruby (finally fully regaining consciousness): Where are we?

Who: 1923, weren’t you paying attention?

Ruby (now clear-headed): Doctor, we’re in 2023.

Who: Ruby, you are one sandwich short of a picnic! I mean a man like Mike Johnson makes perfect sense for 1923, when creationism and evolution were seen as competitors in the marketplace of ideas. But a hundred years does a lot to disabuse people of the notion that humans kept pet dinosaurs. And look at his ideas on sexual orientation. Back in 1923 every state had a sodomy law. Views like Mike’s prevailed and most gay people lived closeted and afraid. You expect me to believe that Mike Johnson was elected speaker of the United States House of Representatives, second in the line of presidential succession after the vice-president… in the year 2023! Not a snowball’s chance! It’s a foul-up in the blasted Tardis!

Ruby: Doctor, It’s not the Tardis.

Who: And then there’s his wife. Also ideal for early 20th-century America. What a role model for women who had just won the right to vote! Look at her – she’s running her own business. But, as would be expected in 1923, biblically submissive to her husband. What a power couple for the Roaring Twenties. She’s so much more magnetic than Mrs. Coolidge. Wow, they really missed an opportunity by not running in 1924.

Ruby (coming over to the doctor’s computer station and manipulating the touch screen fiercely): Doctor! There is nothing wrong with the Tardis!

Who: (reviewing what Ruby is showing him, stunned): Crikey… We are in 2023. It’s been 100 years since the Scopes trial, there’s now incontrovertible evidence that the earth is billions of years old, it’s been over 50 years since Stonewall, and gay marriage is legal. Isn’t that right Ruby? Gay marriage has been legalized by this time in the US?

Ruby: Yes sir, Obergefell was decided in 2015. (Swiping a touchscreen). Here’s some more about him. He made no secret that his interpretation of the Bible was at the base of his political views. He wrote columns in his local paper about it. Here’s one from 2003 in which he responded to the U.S. Supreme Court’s striking down of a Texas sodomy law. He said it was a “devastating blow to fundamental American values and millennia of moral teaching.”

Who: But surely he and his wife’s views moderated once he was elected Speaker…

Ruby: Well, his wife’s counseling service did take down their website in which they call homosexuality “sinful and offensive to God.”

Who: Well that’s something…

Ruby: But when asked what his views were a couple days after being elected, he said if you want to know what he thinks “About any issue under the sun… Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That’s my worldview.”

Who: Any issue? Climate change? Nuclear arms? The next pandemic? I am gobsmacked. But I have to know. Does America become a theocracy? Set a course to November 2024 (TO BE CONTINUED).

A version of this column appeared in the November 15th edition of the Post and Courier-Pee Dee.

“Bigger on the inside…”

Apparently, top editors suspect the Matrix is coming

It really struck me that a day or two back, the editors of two of our nation’s premiere newspapers led their reports with the news that Sam Altman — a guy I’d only heard of, before this week, because I’ve listened to some really deep, detailed podcasts about AI in recent months — had been hired by Microsoft after being fired by OpenAI.

If you haven’t spent years of your life agonizing — and I mean agonizing — over what to put on a front page and how to play it, day after day, this may not seem to mean much.

But it meant volumes to me. Excuse me for oversimplifying the definition of a lede story, but it basically means that, at least for a moment or a day, this guy being hired was more important to the world than anything going on in Israel or Gaza or Ukraine or anywhere else in the world. Nothing presidents, kings or dictators were doing anywhere mattered as much.

Now why would that be? This is something you might expect to see, and sometimes still do, in a paper that’s historically all about business, by which I mean The Wall Street Journal. But these are general-purpose newspapers, and the cream of the crop.

So what pumps this up so?

Well, the guy was canned from OpenAI because some people on the board were worried about what AI might do to the human race, and thought Sam wasn’t as worried about it as they were.

But that’s a tempest in a teacup unless you, the editor making the play decision, think this guy’s work situation really IS of some sort of monumental importance to our shared fates — either because you’re worried about the Matrix or Skynet or some such, or because you think AI is so awesome that you believe where Sam has a job, and who he’s working for, overrides everything else in the world.

You wouldn’t be seeing this if the guy was the head of McDonald’s or something — unless, maybe, in the WSJ. They still love them some business.

So… if I see the White Rabbit, should I follow it? Should I keep an eye out for Terminators?

It seems ‘weed’ has become sort of… iconic

Once, this one was quite popular…

As y’all know, I’m rather word-obsessed. I’ve been meaning for some time to write a Top Five list on Overused Words. No. 1 would be “iconic.” Trouble is, I can’t think of any other words sufficiently overused to deserve a place with that one. It would take all five spots. It’s especially a problem in news headlines. About one out of 10 times it’s used appropriately. The rest of the time, not especially. But whether proper or not, it’s used way too much.

But today, I’m going to speak briefly about “weed.” It’s been quite some time since I’ve heard anyone under the age of 50 call marijuana anything else — unless they’re trying to sound prim and proper, in which case they might say, “cannabis.” (We generally stuck with that during the aforementioned campaign, as less provocative to those opposed.)

Bud made me think of this (again), when he wrote in a comment on the last post, “Waaaaaay past time to legalize pot for whatever the reason.” Poor old codger, throwing such terms around…

If I remember correctly, that one — which had been around a long time — started becoming a bit passe by the latter 1960s. I think that happened sometime before Granny told the cops she was going to “smoke some crawdads… but first I need a little pot!” That was Oct 4, 1967:

Once a prime-time network sitcom was using the term in jokes, “pot” was obviously not, well, countercultural. Cool people were more likely to be using something else from the following list:

  • Alice B. Toklas
  • Bud
  • Cabbage
  • Catnip
  • Crazy weed
  • Da kine
  • Doobie
  • Dope
  • Ganja
  • Grass
  • Herb
  • Joint
  • Loco weed
  • Magic dragon
  • Mary Jane
  • Maui-wowie
  • Oregano
  • Reefer
  • Sinsemilla
  • Smoke
  • Spliff
  • Stash
  • Tea
  • Whacky tabacky
  • Weed

There were many, many more — here’s one larger list, which I worked from — but I just thought I’d go with a few of the more familiar ones on the list. (Or, in the case of Alice B. Toklas, one that I thought was creative, but not all that commonly used.) Some, of course, weren’t used so much for the substance as the delivery system (“joint”). Some were used ironically to make fun of old-timers (“reefer”). And some were meant to apply just to specific varieties (sinsemilla). But all were used, if I recall correctly.

By the ’70s — which is when most people caught up with the ’60s — the number of terms dropped way, way down. Most of the time, people just said “dope.” Or, if they wanted to make sure it didn’t appear on a sitcom, they said “shit.” Usually in the context of “good shit.” I suspect too many people were stoned at this point to be verbally inventive.

Of course, the stuff is much stronger now than it was then, and maybe that’s why those who indulge don’t try to diversify. They don’t even come up with a new term, but stick with the tried and true, somewhat pedestrian, old “weed.” They don’t even try to shock the little old ladies with words like “dope” or “shit.” Maybe they realize the little old ladies used to call it that. I dunno…

Sure, you hear other words here and there, even from younger folks. But my observation still stands. “Weed” has become, you know… iconic…

That would have been a good tweet during the campaign

I posted this with a release advocating medical cannabis, and James saw it and told me to take it down NOW. So I did, and I saw his point. But I had liked it, and whatever I substituted it with was boring…

Y’all may or may not remember that back during our campaign in 2018, James and Mandy supported medical cannabis. James knew veterans who would benefit from it, and Mandy had co-sponsored the bill in the House that would have legalized it.

I myself was kind of neutral on the issue, but my job as communications director wasn’t to push my views, but theirs. So I wrote a release or two about it. Here’s one, if you can read it. (I can’t link you to it because the website is long gone — or at least, I can’t find it.) That one was taking Henry McMaster to task for his coldly facile dismissal of the idea — I certainly believed he was wrong about that, however undecided I may have been on the larger matter.

Why undecided? Well, to quote from the release, Henry had been asked “whether the substance should be legalized for the limited use of sick people who have no other recourse for relieving their suffering.” In Henry’s position, I’d have said “yes,” but would have gone on to say I would need to educate myself more to feel persuaded that there were conditions nothing else would cure. It seems couterintuitive that would be true, given the huge variety of pharmaceuticals available in the world — but I had heard repeatedly that it was uniquely effective and I was at the “I need to learn more” point.

Doug Ross doesn’t need that, being a libertarian. So he supported our campaign, based at least in some part on that position. I very much appreciate that support. But I’m not a libertarian, and have no problem with the government saying “no” to people when there’s a reason. And to me, the reason has always been that I need to be persuaded that an intoxicant that is currently illegal needs to be made legal. I might be halfway there in this case, but not quite all the way.

But I might have been closer to a conclusion back then if I’d seen what Mandy retweeted the other day. This was impressive…

Open Thread for Friday, November 17, 2023

It would be cool if a great WRITER won it sometime…

I struggled a bit coming up with a full list for that last Open Thread. But yesterday morning, I had enough topics before I’d even gotten through The Washington Post. Unfortunately, I had zero time for blogging.

Some things that have come up are worth separate posts, and I hope I get to them soon. In the meantime, here are some quicker takes:

  1. Haley walks back declaration that all social media users must be verified — I don’t so much have a comment on what she said specifically in this case (she had said all people should be required to verify their identities to use social media platforms), although she’s right to be concerned about the problems with anonymity. But I post this because I think it’s interesting — and I suppose, a promising development, because it shows how she’s matured — that Nikki is worried these days about people acting irresponsibly on social media. Remember how she was on Facebook her first term as governor? And unfortunately, she wasn’t anonymous.
  2. Kevin Hart to receive Mark Twain Prize in March at Kennedy Center — OK, great. He’s a very funny guy. But I look at him and others who’ve won it over the years — Jonathan Winters, Carl Reiner, Whoopi Goldberg, Bob Newhart, Steve Martin, Will Ferrell, Bill Murray, Billy Crystal, to name a few — and I think the same thing: We’ve got some brilliant comedians here, but while Twain was our greatest humorist, wasn’t he an even greater writer? And by “writer,” I don’t mean someone who writes for a comedy show (like Tina Fey, another hilarious winner), but a writer. Ernest Hemingway didn’t say, “Mark Twain was a great comic;” he said, “all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” And he was right.
  3. After release of ethics report, Santos says he won’t seek reelection — Yeah, but he didn’t resign, which is what he needs to do. America has endured this farce long enough.
  4. Canada’s most prominent Indigenous icon might not be Indigenous — To translate from the Identity Politics phraseology, the news is that apparently, Buffy Sainte-Marie ain’t Pocahontas, either. I guess the kid who wrote the headline didn’t know who she was, and assumes readers wouldn’t, either. Which is kind of silly, but never mind. This is a shocker. Elizabeth Warren was one thing; this is another entirely.
  5. Do you prefer self-checkout? — I’m just curious. I saw this story in the NYT about the English grocery chain that’s replacing most of its self-checkout machines with actual humans, and it started with the statement, “When it comes to grocery shopping, there seem to be two kinds of people in this world: those who prefer self-checkout, and those who prefer interaction with a human.” Which are y’all?
  6. Tough choice, eh? — That’s just a setup for this very apt comparison I saw on Twitter:

 

Open Thread for Wednesday, November 15, 2023

Well, not REALLY for today. This is more stuff I’ve been saving up for the past week or so. But I’ll throw in some news, too…

  1. Israeli Military Pushes Into Gaza Hospital — Which gives the world, including me, a moment of horrible suspense. This is a critical moment in Israel’s battle against an enemy that deliberately hides among the most vulnerable of innocents. How it goes, and how the world perceives it, is central to the larger question of whether Israel can continue to exist in a world that operates more on knee-jerk reaction than at any time in history.
  2. House votes to avoid shutdown — Speaker Johnson did it, of course, with overwhelming Democratic support. In case you wonder about the S.C. delegation, my own congressman Joe Wilson voted with Jim Clyburn to keep our country going. All of the other Republicans — Jeff Duncan, Russell Fry, Nancy Mace, Ralph Norman, and William Timmons — voted the other way. Meanwhile, if you want to read something scary that I saw the other day: “Is SC’s Nancy Mace on Trump’s VP short list?“
  3. SC plans massive move of state employees from downtown Columbia — Well, that’s intriguing. It’s speculated to cost “$334 million more over 20 years.” Thoughts? I don’t know enough about the condition of the current buildings to have an opinion, although I suppose it’s a good idea to replace the one on the extreme end of this range: “The current buildings range from 32 years old to 195 years old.” Of course, much of this is motivated by the Legislature’s recent decision to split DHEC into two major agencies.
  4. Biden meets with China’s Xi — I like that they’re meeting in the neutral third nation of California. And no, I don’t think Joe’s main goal is to get the pandas back. There’s a lot of more heavy stuff than that…
  5. Didja know it was Hedy Lamarr’s birthday last week? — Bing made a point of telling me — you know, one of those things that pop up occasionally when you’re using Windows? I took interest because aside from being a babe, she was wicked smaht. I’m posting it six days late so I help you tell the difference between Hedy and Hedley…

Hedy — wicked smaht.

Hedley — not so smaht. Hey, give the governor a harrumph!

 

 

 

 

 

 

A conversation I had with a friend this morning

It’s the kind of exchange I think is valuable, so here it is…


You know what? The embed codes are messing up and overlapping each other. I’ll just give you plain text for the rest…

Steve: You’re right that a binary needs 2 to tango but also I’m not willing to bothsides this because there’s a peculiar madness on one side that is more responsible for our polarization than any other factor. I’m so devoted to that point of view that I wrote a book abt it.

Me: The right has gone stark, raving mad. But tragically, the left is weakened by its own embrace of some of the symptoms. Neither side is an appetizing “team” to join. And media have trained everyone to think in binary terms, by covering politics like sports. So we’re lost…

Me again: That probably seemed incoherent. Too many related thoughts, not enough room for the transitions…

Steve: It makes sense. But my conclusion is that madness supersedes weakenedness. The Right no longer is doing politics recognizably at all, they’ve gone so far there aren’t 2 sides anymore for anyone serious abt politics and that’s why we have to overcome the binary framing.

Me: You know that book I keep telling you I want to write, but (unlike you) never do? If I ever write it, I have an idea for another. It’s about politics, and my tentative title is “Consensus.” It’s what we desperately need to work toward, at all times….

Steve: A longtime struggler toward consensus, though, I have to say that you can’t achieve consensus or engage in dialogue with people who don’t accept that consensus and dialogue are legitimate. Our more fundamental problem is that too many people don’t believe in politics at all.

Me: Absolutely. That’s what I meant by “we’re lost.” And one of many reasons is that people don’t understand basic things about our system, which is intended to be deliberative. They think it’s about winning 50%+1, and cramming their will down the throats of the “bad people”…

Both of us could have gone on, but had things to do — especially Steve, who as I mentioned in passing, actually writes books instead of just talking about it, and has busy day jobs as well. He’s a  professor of public theology and director of The Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

You see what I did there? Under the guise of finally posting something on the blog (without having to write it from scratch) I snuck in another “ones and zeroes” post. Fair warning: I’m likely to do it again at any time.

The part of the exchange that deals with consensus is another step down the same train of thought that led to this post awhile back…

The system they came up with would work if we would accept that it’s designed to be deliberative, and not just about shouting at each other.

I hope all you urban types are voting today

I won’t be, because for reasons that continue to elude me, my own long-established subdivision — which is clearly a part of West Columbia — isn’t within the city limits. So I have my bucolic existence out here in the county. Maybe that explains why we don’t have sidewalks. It definitely explains why we pay double for West Columbia water.

But I keep getting reminders that you townies are voting today. Here’s my latest text, at right. I don’t know anything about Tyler, or about his opponent. Tyler must have something going for him, though, because my daughter has a sign for him in her yard — although I haven’t discussed him with her. But I have to say it’s distressing to get something about a nonpartisan election — which are far too rare, and to me, sacrosanct — framed in partisan terms. But I don’t blame Tyler, or his opponent. I’ve seen quite a few campaign communications such as this out of Columbia in recent days and years, and its a very disturbing trend, to me.

But what do I know about Columbia, now that I’m not longer paid to keep up with it?

I’m slightly, but only slightly — since I don’t get to vote on these things — more familiar with the contests on my own side of the river.

By slightly, I know how I would vote in at least one of these races, if someone suddenly told me before the polls close that I’ve somehow been annexed into Cayce. Based on very little recent research (but more than your standard name-recognition voter engages in, alas), I can tell you with confidence that in that situation, I would happily vote for Elise Partin.

Of course, I have long been in Elise’s corner, as you will see if you search for her name on this blog. My support extends to our having endorsed her at the paper, back when she was starting her commendable service as mayor. In fact, I see we endorsed her on the same day we did John McCain in 2008. She hasn’t disappointed me since.

I know little about her challenger Tre Bray, beyond what’s on his website. Oh, I can get a little critical about some things I find there. For instance, he complains that the town has been moving informally toward a “strong mayor” form of government (which I would love, of course, especially with an incumbent as strong as Elise)… and then he goes on to make promise after promise using “we will do this” and “we will do that” language. And y’all know I don’t like campaign promises of any kind, particularly ones stated in such definite language. But hey, who listens to me? Everybody does it. Well, almost everybody. I notice Elise’s site is more about what she and Cayce have done during her stint in office, which carries more weight with me.

And of course, that’s the traditional advantage of incumbency. But going by yard signs, Mr. Bray does have a lot of support. I don’t know what that’s about, so I’m holding myself back from assuming it’s just the revanchist sentiment of Cayce’s old power cliques, which have never fully adjusted to Elise. I just don’t know. Maybe some of y’all know.

Meanwhile in West Columbia, I know… even less. I know Iiked Tem Miles quite a bit years ago when I interviewed him for the seat representing my House district. But I liked Micah Caskey more. Beyond that, I know pretty much zip. Let me vote right now, and I’d back him — because I know a little about him, and it’s positive. But I have to admit that’s based on just a little more than name recognition.

I trust that if you live in West Columbia — or Cayce, or Columbia — you can do better. So please, get out at vote. There’s not much time left, so I’ll stop typing now…

I’m dumb and the rest of the world is dumber

Or rather, the part of rest of the world that is dumb enough to take the Slate news quiz — which as we know is a terrible test, because I seldom do well on it.

I had to be especially dumb to turn there for validation after doing particularly badly on the weekly NYT quiz. Sometimes I do well on that, but usually not.

I had already tried making myself feel better by taking the latest Flashback quiz, also at NYT. I love that one because it tests whether you have a clear sense of the overall flow of history, rather than happening to know random facts of the moment. I was in luck, in that I had two I hadn’t done yet — the one for Oct. 29, and the one for Nov. 4, which had been released early for some reason.

Trouble is, I got one wrong on the 29th, which seldom happens. Getting a perfect score on the one for Saturday didn’t make me feel all that much better, since I’ve grown to expect that, proud so-and-so that I am.

So, weakly, I turned for solace to the Slate quiz, which overall is the worst place to seek it. And unsurprisingly, I did particularly badly.

But you know what? Everybody else did worse.

Maybe at some point, those Slate people will see that their test is seriously lacking. Maybe not. Anyway, g’day, mates…

Do today’s Halloween costumes make you feel inadequate?

The scene in Shandon. Or ONE of the many scenes in Shandon…

How was your Halloween? Mine was nice. Went trick-or-treating with my grandchildren in Shandon, and they had a good time, and the weather was nice. My wife stayed at home and tended the door, which made me feel guilty, of course…

And then I came home and watched the Rangers whip up on the underserving Diamondbacks in Game 4. A perfect cap to the evening. I had worried about having missed the first half of the game, but then I saw that the boys from Texas were ahead 10-1. I’m so proud of them that they don’t need me to actually be watching.

But I was thinking about costumes, and how they’ve changed over time. While walking about with my son and daughter-in-law, I bored them with my thoughts on the matter. So why should y’all escape their fates?

On my way into Shandon, I saw something I hadn’t seen before, and was impressed — a kid, probably 8 or 9 years old, in an astronaut costume. It was obviously store-bought, and quite nice. All plastic, but the look was good. It was an old-school suit, from the days when astronauts were heroes — white, with the (in this case soft, and I hope not airtight) helmet and everything. A real, miniature John Glenn. Or at least Gordon Cooper.

And it hit me that back in the day when all the boys that age might have wanted to dress as an astronaut (I was that kid’s age when Glenn went up), there were no nice-looking prefab astronaut costumes to be had. And such a thing was hard to improvise.

Back then, we usually did improvise, and the results were unimpressive. A pirate was a standard fallback for me (which means I was pleased that one of my granddaughters chose that approach last night). Of course, we weren’t looking to win prizes; we were out for candy. We were a mercenary lot.

You could buy prefab costumes back then, but they were all pretty inadequate. When I was about four or five, I was excited that my mother let me get an official Bugs Bunny costume from a store. When I got it out and put it on, I was deeply disappointed. You know, one of those nylon things that covered the front of your body and tied with a string at the neck. And some rabbit ears for my head. I think the body-length covering said “Bugs Bunny” on it — like the real Bugs would wear a sign with his name on it. I knew I would fool no one. I had practiced my “What’s up, Doc?” in vain.

After that, I made my own. But I was never terribly creative. Kids today are way more creative. The granddaughter who went with “pirate” this time went as her ancestress Elspeth, the confessed witch in 17th-century Scotland. It took some explaining, but what a great concept! Her twin sister went as her own mother. At that time, my attorney daughter was a lobbyist. That took some explaining, too. But that was great — they spent time talking about people who meant something to them. And when one of them turned to “pirate” this time, it was much nicer than any pirate costume I ever put together.

My youngest granddaughter kind of blew everybody away by dressing as Walter White from “Breaking Bad” — complete with a bald cap that she got from a Halloween store (harrumph; we didn’t have such stores in my day). But the rest she did herself, and it was great.

As I say, they’re more creative. But even the kids who are NOT creative had way more options for going out and buying costumes that are worth the effort — like the astronaut kid.

I was reminded this morning of how bad we were back in the day, when “Ron Ziegler” posted a couple of pictures on the @dick_nixon Twitter feed. (I’m a big fan of that feed.) They showed the president greeting trick-or-treaters. And the costumes looked like what I might have devised — pretty lame, although they seem to be having fun:

Of course, Nixon dressed as himself, and it was pretty effective. Very scary. And nice try, bloody kid. Oh, and probably the best of those was the pirate — as I’ve suggested, it can be a good choice.

Anyway, I just wondered whether y’all notice the same things these days: Costumes that make you look back on your childhood and feel inadequate.

If so, perhaps you make up for it by being creative in your household decorations nowadays. Like some of those folks in Shandon…

Yes, those are skeletons riding pink flamingoes.
Here’s a closeup…

 

 

 

Anybody get any valuable messages via LinkedIn?

I tried asking this on LinkedIn, and I was just about to post it when I decided to check one point, and in trying to get to that information, I lost what I’d written.

So I’ll ask it here, to the best of my memory…

Have you ever gotten a direct message — or pretty much, any message — via LinkedIn that was relevant to you? I mean, one from someone you know, or need to know, about something that you have any sort of interest in?

Pretty much all I get is “cold-call” attempts to sell me some unsought service or other, sent to me by strangers. Usually the strangers are attractive young women, but they’re not like the random, unknown attractive young women who reach out to me via Twitter. These have their clothes on and everything — businesslike clothes —  which commands a bit more respect.

And I’d like to help them. I have enormous sympathy for people forced to engage in such painful, thankless labor. Also, they’re often from troubled places in the word. I got a couple recently from a lovely young lady in Ukraine, and y’all know I’m all about helping Ukraine. But I just wasn’t in the market for whatever she was trying to sell. I forget what it was. That was the bit of information I was seeking when I lost my message earlier, so I’m not going to go hunting for it now. It was some kind of business thingamabob, I’m assuming.

And since she was a stranger, I had no way of knowing whether she was legit. She said she was in Kyiv, but how was I to know? She could have been with the Russians, too. (Her first name, or the one she was using, was “Svetlana.”)

Anyway, that’s essentially what I was trying to ask, and I particularly wanted to hear from actual LinkedIn users. Maybe some of y’all are among those.

I’ll ask an additional question beyond that one, and I think I’ve asked this one before: Do you ever find LinkedIn useful? I doubt you have, unless it’s helped you get a job, or helped you hire someone else for a job.

To me, its one useful function is to be a sort of online complement to your C.V. And it’s only useful for that if the user keeps the page updated, which too few do…

Top Five Best Horror Films (or TV Shows)?

The big ‘jump scare’ in the best on the list.

Why a question mark on the headline? After all, aren’t Brad’s Top Five lists final and authoritative?

Well, not this one. Because I am not a horror fan. This may be an oversimplification — because there some films in this genre I do like — but in general, I feel like we have enough stress and disgust and shocks in real life. I feel the same way about scary rides at the fair. I’m not paying somebody good money to make me unhappy.

In some ways this is odd, I suppose, because when I was a kid — starting when I was 9 or 10 — I was a huge fan of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories. When I lived in Ecuador in the fifth and sixth grades, I had an hour ride on the bus either way. My friend Tony and I would sit in the back and tell each other the Poe stories we’d read, to while away the time.

Which reminds me. The creepiest of all Poe’s stories was “The Fall of the House of Usher.” I was very, very disappointed to see that Netflix was presenting a TV series with that title. The very straightforward story — the meat of the narrative takes place over a single evening, as I recall, although what goes before is creepy enough — lends itself in no way to a TV series. The only way you can do that is to hire some writers who are not Poe and have them cram a bunch of excess stuff into it. Worse, it appears to be one of those execrable “updates.” Enough said.

There are so many works in literature — such as my faves of recent years, O’Brien’s Aubrey/Maturin series of novels — that call for that kind of treatment, that beg for it. The world would be such a better place if Hollywood would address that need. But no, it’s considered more profitable to ruin Poe.

You might say I’d change my mind if I watched it. That is possible, but extremely unlikely. And not worth wasting time on. I watch a lot of TV (and movies on TV), but I am selective, because I do have a life. If it looks extremely unlikely that I’ll like it, or learn anything from it, I spend the time instead on something that I’m pretty sure will be rewarding — there are enough things out there fitting that description to fill 100 lifetimes.

For that reason, I have never seen, for instance, “The Exorcist,” the anniversary of which is being so overcelebrated at the moment. I paid attention to the marketing at the time — the head-spinning, the floating above the bed, the especially gross vomiting — and moved on to other things.

So my body of experience producing this list is woefully inadequate. But I often find that I enjoy seeing what items y’all will name, and all of you are probably more knowledgeable about this than I am. So, to start a discussion, here goes:

  1. Psycho — You don’t get more classic than this, or more perfect. It might be Hitchcock’s best film, in addition to being the best horror film. Every touch is just right. Anthony Perkins is astounding, but of course the key scene is Janet Leigh naked in the shower. Doesn’t show much, but it’s pretty titillating for 1960. And it’s such a brilliant stroke to pull the viewers (the males anyway, especially the young ones) in with such a stunning woman in the altogether, and utterly shatter it with possibly the greatest “jump scare” in film history. By the way, I was inspired to write this post by a piece in the Post today assessing movies by the number of such “jump scares.” The writers seemed to think more is better. There are only three in this one — that I recall thinking back — and that’s just the right number: the shower scene, Martin Balsam climbing the stairs, and the final reveal about Norman’s mother. More than that would have ruined it.
  2. Dracula (1931) — Yep, I trend toward classics, and this, to me, is the very best of the great ones of the ’30s. It’s not about the blood, folks. It’s about the amazing creation and maintenance of a mood of dread and horror. Think of Dracula’s “brides” gliding across the room. That epitomizes what I’m talking about. That’s the essence.
  3. The Sixth Sense — This one would utterly fail that “jump scares” test I mentioned before. There’s really just one, at the end, and you build to it over the course of the film. And I’m not sure the intellectual realization of what’s been going on qualifies as such a “scare.” Probably not. Although at times it just feels like a Bruce Willis movie, only a bit darker, the kid who sees dead people keeps it in the horror genre throughout. Anyway, the director has been trying so hard for so long to be scary — even changing his middle name to “Night” when he was in college — that I feel like we should throw him a bone here.
  4. Alien — This was a great, ground-breaking sci-fi film, realistically depicting what extended life in space might conceivably be like, if it ever proves to be truly feasible. But in terms of plot, it was basically a haunted house story, and maybe the best ever. Also, it gave us Sigourney Weaver. Top that.
  5. The Walking Dead — This is why I added “TV shows,” parenthetically, to the headline. I felt obliged to include this as an illustration of when I was wrong for refusing to watch it for the longest time. I finally gave in and started, and was hooked — for six seasons. After watching the last episode of the sixth, I decided the writers had run out of ideas, and stopped. But there’s still a lot I love about it in those first seasons. Favorite character? Daryl Dixon, who adapted to post-apocalyptic life more smoothly than anyone. Least favorite character? Andrea, who never missed a chance to do the wrong thing and put her companions in danger. Finally, aside from this being a TV series, I debated most over including it because, is it really a horror movie? That whole genre seems a bit more like dystopian science fiction. But for awhile, I liked it. One reason why: Nobody says “zombie.” (I vaguely recall someone saying it and getting corrected once. Am I remembering that right?)

There are some honorable mentions in my limited repertoire, such as “An American Werewolf In London.” And if I had insisted on keeping the list to movies, the best of the zombie apocalypse genre was “28 Days Later,” which of course starts the same as “The Walking Dead.” And the same as the last great music video, “Party Rock Anthem.”

Some lists included “Young Frankenstein.” That is a great pick for any list — the best Mel Brooks movie by far — and if I included it in the five above, it would probably top the list. I love it. But I’m gonna be pedantic here, and admit it’s not a horror movie. It’s a brilliant comedy that mocks horror movies. That suggests another sort of list, which would include “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and “Little Shop of Horrors.” (Or should those two be on a sub-sub-list, “musical horror comedies?” It’s difficult to say.)

Anyway, ideas?

‘Alien’ gave us Sigourney Weaver. Top that.

If you’re going to stock Halloween candy, stock THESE!

Just thought I’d mention this, in case any of y’all are purchasing agents for any retail stores operating in the Columbia area.

To help you plan ahead to next year.

I had a lot of things to do today, but my daughter was going to Walmart. I wanted to go with her, despite the workload, but I simply asked her to please, if they had any left, get me some of the above-pictured product: Brach’s Mellowcreme Pumpkins. And if they did, to get two bags.

This was an urgent request, because we only have three days left before any that are left disappear, to make room for the Christmas candy. I’ve mentioned this problem before.

And I haven’t found any in the last few days.

You’re probably thinking (if you’re still with me), Oh, those are all over the place! I see them everywhere I go…

No, you don’t. You may see bags that look somewhat like that, but those contain candy corn. There are millions of bags of that within a few miles of my house. I don’t know why. Do you like candy corn? Does anybody you know like candy corn? I doubt it. Because way back in August, when all this stuff appears at Walmart, there are plenty of pumpkins, and of course I always think (fool that I am), Oh, Halloween is months away! I’ve got plenty of time! So I maybe buy a bag when I’m there, but I fail to stock up.

Then, about this time of the season, I start getting panicky. And the Walmarts start running out of the good stuff, and only have candy corn. Well, and those bags of stuff called “Autumn Mix” — which are, just eyeballing the bags, maybe 20 percent pumpkin by mass. The rest is candy corn of various colors.

Something else you might be thinking at this point: Those pumpkins look like they’re made from the same stuff as candy corn, so don’t they taste a lot alike? Maybe they do. But more than a half-century ago, I did extensive research on this point. And I decided very early in life that I did not like candy corn. And from the time I was a toddler, people offered me a lot of candy corn, because it was one of the few kinds of mass-produced Halloween candy to which I was not seriously allergic.

Then, when I was a little older, my grandmother sent us a care package — probably when we lived in Ecuador and didn’t have access to such things, but maybe later. And it contained a bag of the pumpkins for me, and they were fantastic! And when I was back in this country, I conducted a great deal more research, sometimes eating like half a bag, or a whole one.

Which is kind of like Cool Hand Luke eating 50 eggs (why 50? Because it seemed like a nice, round number). I mean, it’s practically suicidal. I’m always happy to share my pumpkins with my wife, because I love her and would give her anything, and… because she never eats more than one. Why? Because she is a sane person. I’ve written before that these things possess “a density approaching that of a black hole,” and most of that is sugar, corn syrup and honey. First, they’re practically indigestible. Second, two of them could probably cause a diabetic coma among some people.

So, you know, I could repeat the experiments of my youth, but I’m 70 now, and want to live a little longer. Far as I’m concerned the science is conclusive.

And others must agree. because they buy up the pumpkins and leave the candy corn. And it seems the people who stock the stores never, ever notice this. I guess they’re too busy buying 12-foot skeletons, or whatever.

I keep mentioning Walmart. That’s because, aside from the Walgreen’s in Five Points (which used to be an auto parts store, and before that a Winn-Dixie), I haven’t seen them anywhere this year but at Walmart.

And I was at the Walmart out on Harbison a couple of days ago, and they were out. Hence my request to my daughter, who was going to a different one.

And when she texted me to tell me the closest thing she had found was “the mixture of pumpkins and candy corn” — Autumn Mix — I started brooding, and wrote this in my head while running my other errands.

First the Phillies lose the pennant, and now this.

But… when I got home, and decided to console myself with the last pumpkin or two in the cabinet, I opened it and… there were two bags of pumpkins.

Happy ending! So, you know, never mind. But seriously, why doesn’t everybody stock these, and stock a lot more of them?

Three of these boxes — at the Walmart in Harbison — contain candy corn. The other is Autumn Mix. Typical…

Just a little something upbeat. Enjoy…

Having read my various papers this morning, and finding nothing to write about that would make anyone feel better about anything, I’m going to share something I stumbled across last night, just before heading for bed.

I had opened the YouTube app on the Apple TV, and as always, it was offering me videos it thought I might like. One of them showed a young woman sitting at a piano. She didn’t look familiar, so I hadn’t watched anything featuring her before. The words appearing in the video frame said, “Ladyva’s Epic Boogie Woogie Piano Per…”

“Ladyva?” Did someone try to enter “Lady Gaga” and it got garbled? And when have I ever watched a Lady Gaga video? But what grabbed me was “Boogie Woogie.” But how would YouTube know that the only thing my fingers still retained from when I took guitar lessons as a kid in Ecuador was this one short boogie-woogie riff that my teacher taught me? (I remembered nothing else. He kept trying to teach me chords and I didn’t understand why, and didn’t learn them until years later, but the boogie-woogie stuck. Not that I play it well or anything.)

So I clicked on it, and wow. Just watch it. It should brighten your day.

My wife was already reading in bed, so I took my iPad to her and got her to watch it. And I told her, “If I could do that, I’d never stop doing it all day.” Not just the boogie-woogie. Obviously, this woman could play anything that came into her head, and improvise and just run all over the place with it, and how would that ever get old?

We have one person that I know of in our little community who can do things like that — Phillip Bush. So Phillip, how do you ever stop? Do your fingers cramp up, so you have to rest?

Still, until that happens — what joy!

Oh, one last thing. You see this was an “international” music event. So what nation do suppose Ladyva is from? Nope, not this one, even though this is where that kind of music came from. And not… well, you’re not going to guess, so I’ll just tell you.

Switzerland.

Really. Obviously, not all Swiss music features yodeling. Mind you, I didn’t think that, being a worldly, cosmopolitan sophisticate, but some of you might have been thus misled by stereotypes.

Certainly, we all have access to the internet, even up in the Alps. People are exposed to all sorts of music. But where did she hone the skill to play this kind of music like that? Well, obviously, the roadways of Switzerland are loaded with juke joints. Who knew?

Anyway, enjoy…