Author Archives: Brad Warthen

I guess I’ll go on and vote today. But I won’t enjoy it…

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You know how I used to refuse to vote early — because of my love of Election Day and the communitarian experience of getting out there and standing in line with my neighbors, yadda-yadda?

Well, I broke with that in 2020, and it’s a good thing I did. I did it, as much as anything, because of COVID. I was concerned that things were going to be unmanageable on the actual day — huge turnout was expected, and I was picturing all those masked people trying to stay six feet from each other. Also, I was worried that I might get it myself (this was before the vaccines), and be too sick on the day of.

And I had never felt it more important to vote than in that election. I knew I alone couldn’t tip South Carolina to Joe, but I had to make the effort. Every single person who cared about saving our country had to make every effort possible.

And if I hadn’t gone early, I would have — for the first time in my life — missed my chance. My brother-in-law died suddenly at the end of October, and his funeral was on Election Day — in Memphis.

So this year, I’m going to do it again. But not because I see the outcome as vital. In fact, I’ve never in my life seen a general election in which I was so uninterested in voting — or in which my vote would matter so little.

Have you looked at a sample ballot? It’s pretty depressing.

First, we don’t have a candidate for governor for whom I could vote. I don’t want Henry to be governor, and I don’t want Joe Cunningham to be governor (have you looked at his issues page? I have.). And no, I’m not going to vote for the Libertarian. Because, you know, he’s a Libertarian — which is the one and only thing I know about him.

So the one challenge for me is whom to write in. Still pondering that.

Let’s stumble our way through the rest of the ballot…

  • Secretary of State. I wouldn’t care about this even if I were excited — positively or negatively — about either of the candidates. This should not be an elective position. It’s not a position that sets policy. The secretary is a clerk.
  • State Treasurer. Same as secretary of state. A little more significant, but not much.
  • Attorney General. No choice is offered. Alan Wilson is unopposed.

You know what? This is ridiculous. Let’s skip to the ones I’m bothering to vote on:

  • State Superintendent of Education. This is about voting against someone — Ellen Weaver, who of course is almost certainly going to win, but it is my duty to stand up and say “nay.” She is not only completely unqualified to run the largest part of our state government, but she will go out of her way to harm our public schools. I’ll vote for Lisa Ellis, since Kathy Maness was done in by the extremists.
  • Commissioner of Agriculture. Yeah, it’s another position that should be appointed rather than elected, but I think Hugh Weathers does a good job, so I’ll vote for him. Of course, he would win whether I did or not. But it’s kind of nice to occasionally get a chance to vote for someone you like, and see him win. It doesn’t salvage the rest of this experience, though.
  • U.S. House District 2. As I’ve said before, I’m happy to vote for Judd Larkins. He won’t win, but I’m happy to say he should. Is he a perfect candidate? No. A candidate for congress should have a lot experience in public life, and Judd has none. But he’s a better candidate than the one who’s going to win.
  • The three referendums on my ballot. I will vote “yes” on all of them — not enthusiastically, but as long as I’m forced to engage in government by plebiscite, here are reasons to support the statewide proposals on reserve funds. And my rule is, if Lexington County actually, miraculously dares to try to raise a tax, I’m going to say yes, because it must really, truly be desperately needed…

That’s about it. If I had to pick one reason why I’m going to vote, it would be to stand up for Judd in the congressional race.

But there should be a lot of reasons for me to embrace. And there aren’t. Which is a very sorry situation. Our democracy is in serious trouble. We’ve discussed the reasons before, and we can get into them again at another time. I need to go on and vote. It’s my duty…

I was so happy to vote in 2020. Perhaps I will experience that again. But not today.

There’s no being cute in baseball!

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I’m kind of down at the moment because I’m not out trick-or-treating with my grandchildren. I’ve got some bug that’s been going through the family, and I’m not up to all the walking.

Even though I look forward to it each year.

Anyway, my wife is dealing with the mobs of goblins passing through our neighborhood, and I’m going to go down and help her — probably with a mask on — in a minute. First, I thought I’d share something Bryan Caskey shared a couple of days ago. These are, collectively, the best costumes I’ve seen this year…

There’s no being that cute in baseball!

Of course, my grandchildren are cuter, but now that they’re getting older, I’ll spare them the embarrassment of proving it.

You have to click on the picture in the tweet to get the full Jimmy Dugan effect. Oh, never mind! Here it is again…

It would be great to see some coverage of 2nd District

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“Well this has, without a doubt, been the friendliest debate I’ve ever experienced,” said moderator Avery Wilks just before closing arguments in the 2nd Congressional District debate Monday night. “We didn’t use a single rebuttal to address a personal insult, so I appreciate that from both candidates.”

Avery got that right. Of course, it was to be expected. Most of the country thinks of Joe Wilson as the “You lie!” guy, but that was very much out of character for him (at least, before he learned to pull in money from it). Sure, he’s a steady fountain of the kind of mindless partisanship that was already destroying our country before the unbelievable happened in 2016: “Republicans good; Democrats bad,” on and on.

Judd Larkins has none of those negative characteristics — neither the insults nor the partisanship. He’s a guy who wants to make a positive difference in the lives of the people of the 2nd District, and he doesn’t care about the party affiliation of the people he’d have to work with to get it done.

Which is why I have that sign for him in my yard, with all my neighbors’ Republican signs running down the opposite side of the street.

Of course, I missed a lot of the first half of the debate, but the parts I saw reflect Avery’s characterization. You can judge for yourself by watching it. Click on the picture at the top of the post, and it will take you to the video on YouTube.

Judd was polite and deferential — as he always is — and Joe was polite and mild-mannered, although at times a bit condescending to the young man so hopelessly running against him. As for his partisan stuff — there’s no visible malice in him when he says those things. He sees those as things people naturally say. Blaming Biden or Obama for all the world’s troubles is, to him, like saying “hello” to the people he meets. He lives in a community where it is expected, thanks to line-drawers in the Republican Legislature.

But those statements offer a stark contrast between the campaigns. We were cash-hungry in our campaign in 2018, what with me doing the work of five or six people (according to our campaign manager — I wouldn’t know what the norm is). But while I talked to the press and wrote the releases and the brochures and (during one awful, brief period) the fund-raising emails and about 90 percent of the social media (and would have written the speeches if James hadn’t preferred loose talking points, bless him), I was at least on hand to pump out a few tweets during debates.

Judd didn’t have anything like that. I watched for it during the debate. Joe Wilson, of course, did. And the nonsense was on full display:

I answered a couple of them. To that one, I said, “Which is exactly what he would have said had, God help us, Trump won, in which case the U.S. would have skedaddled out of Afghanistan much earlier, and much more recklessly…” I didn’t bother with the offensive nonsense about immigration. It would have required being as superficial as Joe’s campaign to stay within the 280 limit.

And I couldn’t hold back again when they put out this prize-winner: ““It’s shameless what the democrats have done with defunding the police. It’s putting the American people at risk”

My response: “What, precisely, have congressional Democrats done that could credibly be described as ‘defunding the police?’ And which Democrats in actual elected, national leadership positions would even WANT to? Nothing, and none. But does that matter to Joe? Of course not…”

I should have said, “does that matter to Joe’s campaign,” since he was personally busy on stage at the time, but I was irritated. Which is why social media are a poor way to engage in political argument.

Anyway, I’m not commenting much on this dispiriting election, but I’m writing again about this one foregone conclusion of a “contest” because you’re not reading about it elsewhere.

Avery, to his great credit, was there as moderator, but neither his newspaper (the Post & Courier) nor his former newspaper (The State) covered the event. Of course, I didn’t write about it until two days later, so maybe something is still coming. But it seems doubtful, since neither has taken an interest so far. Search for Judd’s name under Google’s “news” category, and you’ll see what I mean.

And I certainly understand. It was hard for an editor to devote resources to noncompetitive “contests” even back when “major metropolitan” newspapers were vital and fully staffed. Now, I’d be shocked to see it. (Yeah, there’s some coverage of the hopeless election for governor, but editors are much less likely to see that as optional.)

If you do that search, though you’ll see that again the Lexington County Chronicle stepped up and covered it, so good for them. I can’t say much for that ones-and-zeroes headline, but at least they made the effort.

I sent a couple of congratulatory messages after the debate. One was to Avery, about the good job he and the high school students did. (And let me also congratulate Lexington One for putting on the event, and providing the video.) The next day, I congratulated Judd as well. He said two things in response:

  • Thanks! Some of the Dems wanted more blood, but I think we won over the folks we needed to. Just gotta get it in (front) of more folks.
  • Lack of coverage last night really hurt. We executed our plan perfectly. Just gotta get more eyes to see it.

Of course, as I indicated above, I couldn’t agree more on the second thing. On the first, I hope he continues to ignore the people who want “more blood.” People like that, across the spectrum — the “fight fire with fire” people — are tearing our country apart. Stepping outside of his comfort zone to provide more gladiatorial spectacle won’t win the election for him. I want to see him get through this, and go on to the rest of his life — in or out of politics — knowing he did what he could the right way.

DeMarco: Worried About QAnon? Don’t Be.

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The Op-Ed Page

Yeah, THAT guy: The so-called “QAnon shaman.”

By Paul V. DeMarco
Guest Columnist

In the early fall of 2012, I was part of group organizing free community health screenings. Out of the blue, a physician who was a stranger to me called and asked if he could volunteer for our weekly outings. I was glad for the help, and over the next year or so, he and I supervised several screenings together.

After a screening in the months before the 2012 general election, he came into my office looking concerned. He asked if I had seen a YouTube video made by a man claiming to have had cocaine-fueled sex in a limousine with President Obama. He knew that I was planning on voting for Obama and asked plaintively, “What are we going to do? This is going to ruin his chances for re-election.”

When I watched the video (which is still online and currently has fewer than 7,000 views) I was unmoved. Despite my reassurances, my colleague was convinced that the video would derail Obama’s campaign. This was my first brush with the conspiracy mindset. Here was a man both intelligent enough to practice medicine and generous enough to give away his time who lacked a needed skepticism. I found out later that he was a loner who was estranged from his family. He died of a preventable cancer, perhaps another manifestation of his inability to properly weigh information.

I’ve also had a younger co-worker who was a true conspiracy theorist. He sported a bumper sticker that said “9/11 was an inside job” and published multiple books, the titles of which I will not list to spare him the embarrassment – he has taken another job and has grown out of his conspiracy phase. He was socially adept, polite but formal with me and an enjoyable conversationalist for the staff in his generation. He kept his banter light; I never once heard him voice any of the ideas about which he wrote so fluently.

Which brings me to QAnon, the absurd theory that (and this next phrase pains me to write) Hilary Clinton is the leader of a Satan-worshipping cabal of pedophiles that has infiltrated every aspect of our lives, including government, Hollywood, and the media. QAnon has gotten more press than it deserves, in part due to Jake Angeli, the “QAnon shaman,” who became the face of the January 6th attack. He was one of the handful of rioters who penetrated the Senate chamber and left a note on Vice-President Pence’s desk that read “It’s only a matter of time, justice is coming.”

The most current polling on QAnon from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) produced this eye-popping New York Times headline: “41 million Americans are QAnon believers, survey finds.” I am going to venture that this is a vast overestimate of the true sway of QAnon. The PRRI polls of approximately 20,000 Americans showed that 16% “completely agree” or “mostly agree” with QAnon’s pedophilia claim (16% of the US adult population (258 million) equals 41 million).

However, looking at the numbers more closely, only 5% completely agree (about 13 million). Many fewer participate actively in QAnon activities and fewer still participated in the January 6th attack. My guess is that if most of the 5% who “completely agree” were asked on penalty of perjury if they truly believe the conspiracy theory they would say “no.” And if the answer was “yes,” when asked to produce any credible evidence, they would fail.

QAnon’s success can be attributed to its being allowed to fester for several years without much public notice on a racist and misogynistic website called 8-chan. Now that January 6th has subjected it to scrutiny, it will shrivel. All of Q’s major predictions have failed to come to pass and the shaman and his fellow rioters are in jail.

About the only people in power who are courting QAnon are folks like Marjorie Taylor Greene and, of course, Donald Trump, who recently introduced a Q-associated anthem as background music for one his rallies and posted an image of himself wearing a Q lapel pin. The fact that he must overtly court Q supporters can only be interpreted as a sign of Trump’s waning popularity.

The best approach to Q is not to engage. Don’t bicker with Q followers on social media and please don’t lose any sleep over the movement. Yes, a very few supporters have been violent. But most adherents are harmless. Based on my limited experience with conspiracy theorists, it is possible for them to harbor fantastic beliefs while being good at their jobs, funny, and kind.

It is undeniably taxing to engage a conspiracy theorist who is trying to prove he is right. I would recommend listening carefully and asking curious questions for as long as you can stand. You will probably walk away shaking your head. But what a conspiracy theorist most needs is to get out of his echo chamber. If you provide an alternative perspective offered in a respectful way that can be heard, you may help him back toward reality.

A version of this column appeared in the Oct. 5 edition of the Florence Morning News.

HERE (not where I told you) is link for 2nd District debate

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As Rick Perry would say, “Oops.”

I told you the other day that the Post & Courier would be streaming the debate tonight at 7 p.m. between Judd Larkins and the guy’s he’s challenging, Joe Wilson.

I’d heard that, although I can’t swear where. Anyway, I was wrong. I checked with some folks at the P&C (to get the link) — the people who would know if they were doing such a thing — and they knew nothing about it.

I can’t tell who, precisely, is streaming it — probably Judd’s campaign itself. But they have the link on Facebook. Click on the image above, or right here. I hope you can get it. Somebody ought to watch.

I mean, aren’t we still pretending that we have elections for these high offices, instead of anointing people for life?

Speaking of stupid, I’m even dumber than I look

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Remember, folks, when I write about stupidity, you should listen — I really know what I’m talking about.

As bad as my score was on the Slate quiz — lower than the picked staffer’s very low score, and way lower than the average — I knew even less than the number indicates.

I got six right, as you can see above. But three of them were just blind, lucky guesses. And a fourth was a sort of educated guess. I could see a certainly likelihood that the answer I tried was right, and I got lucky again. But I had not idea on the other three.

So I basically knew the answers on two out of 12.

And having the staff guy perform poorly — but not quite as badly as I did — is little consolation. Those people at Slate have all been in a slump lately…

Hey, 2nd District — give Judd Larkins a listen

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Someone knocked urgently on the door that leads in from the garage while I was having a late lunch yesterday. It was my friend and neighbor John Culp, and he had brought me a Judd Larkins yard sign.

Well, it’s about time. I got James Smith and Jaime Harrison signs for him back in 2018, and he’s been owing me.

It also reminded me. A few months back, I had breakfast with John and Clark Surratt one morning at Compton’s, and John had brought along Judd Larkins and Marcurius Byrd for us to meet. Judd is running for office, and Marcurius is his campaign manager. Later, I got him together with James Smith over coffee, and they got along well.

Oh, you haven’t heard of Judd? Well, he’s the Democratic nominee for the 2nd Congressional District. But since everyone knows that district is drawn to provide Joe Wilson with a sinecure for life, that he inherited it from Floyd Spence, and that no one else will sit in that seat so long as Joe lives, folks don’t pay much attention to who runs against him. No matter what Joe does. Or, since this is Joe we’re talking about, no matter what he doesn’t do.

So Judd doesn’t get a lot of attention. But he should, because he is the kind of person who should get elected to public office, and Joe Wilson, by comparison, is not.

At the very least, watch the one and only debate in this “race.” It’s coming up Monday night, Oct. 24, and will be webcast from River Bluff High School at 7 p.m. If you’d like to attend in person, I’m pretty sure you can still get a ticket. If you want to see it on TV, I’m told you’re out of luck.

But if you miss that, don’t worry — you can go out and read some of the extensive news coverage of this election to decide who will go to Congress and run this country, such as… wait… how about… OK, I’m not finding any. No, wait, Marcurius has posted a story on Facebook from The Lexington Chronicle, and I’m sure y’all all subscribe to that, right? In case you don’t, here’s a link.

At some other point, I’ll put up a separate post asking why we even bother to pretend to have elections for Congress, since no one knows anything about these “races.”

But now, a few words about Judd, since you probably won’t see much anywhere else. First, I urge you to go check out his website. On the “About” page, you’ll learn such things as:

Judd was born and raised in a small town in Greenwood County called Ninety Six. Judd’s father is a high-school dropout turned success businessman while Judd’s mother was a schoolteacher before tragically passing away from breast cancer when Judd was just 14 years old. Judd attended Ninety Six High School where he was a two-sport star and Track and Field State Champion.

After Graduating High School, Judd attended Clemson University where he graduated Su(m)ma Cum Laude with a degree in Language (Chinese) and International Trade. While attending Clemson, Judd spent two summers in China becoming fluent in Mandarin Judd also holds a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge (UK). While attending Cambridge, Judd worked on crafting a business plan for new, innovative transplant technology and also conducted market research for a finance firm located in Dublin, Ireland. After Completing his MBA, Judd was based in Luxembourg while working for an Asian Financial Company…

Yeah, that needed some editing. And yeah, he holds a master’s degree from Cambridge. Personally, I went to Oxford — my wife and I spent six days there in 2011 and had a lovely time — but I guess a master’s from Cambridge is OK, if that’s all you’ve got.

In other words, he’s a smart kid. That he’s a kid is undeniable. If you meet him, you might think that self-proclaimed champion of the kindergarten set, Joe Cunningham, looks a bit like Methuselah by comparison. But again, Judd’s a smart kid.

More than that, he’s an idealistic, thoughtful, considerate, unblemished sort of young man who would do a lot to improve our ideology-poisoned Congress — if he could get elected.

Based on what I’ve seen, Judd’s campaign has little or no money. I don’t think he’ll do as well as Adair Ford Boroughs (who at least got to be U.S. attorney), because he’s simply a lot less visible.

Basically, his campaign seems to consist mainly of going door-to-door and introducing himself to people. Nothing wrong with canvassing, of course, but it’s kind of hard to do enough of it when the odds are stacked against you to this extent. In a congressional district, there are just too many doors you’ll never have time to knock on.

“There’s just so much ground to cover,” Judd told me when I checked in with him Wednesday. “We’re probably gonna run out of time.”

But Judd tries anyway. And generally, he’s pleased with the reception he gets. He hasn’t had anybody cuss him out, in spite of his being a Democrat and all. He doesn’t seem to do as well getting time with big shots in business and politics, but “Regular folks are generally nice.”

“Folks are like, oh, I saw you last week. Thanks for being here,” he said. “We need somebody new, somebody younger.”

I would add that they need somebody who’s all about telling you what he would do if he got the chance to serve (here’s his platform), and not about how bad that other guy is. Some of the folks out there tell him that, and Judd listens. “They all seem to be tired of the fighting. Just do something,” they tell him.

Of course, if he wanted to go negative, Joe gives him plenty to work with. Adair did a good job of pointing that out — the fact that the main thing about Joe is, he does nothing. (And don’t think it’s because he’s lazy. It’s a deliberate approach, which he inherited from his predecessor Floyd Spence, who I think got it from Strom Thurmond — do nothing as a legislator, and take care of constituent service. If you do anything, it might tick people off.)

But Judd’s not interested in that. Nor does he care to go on about what’s wrong with the Republican Party, or any of that stuff so many want to yammer about.

He wants to make life better for young and old, with a particular emphasis on the small towns all over his district, such as the one he grew up in — Ninety Six. (And by the way, when he speaks, you can tell he’s from someplace like that, Cambridge or no.) Again, here’s his platform. He can also speak intelligently about international affairs, but that’s not what he talks about.

Anyway, those are the kinds of things Judd wants to do. Y’all know I’m not big on platforms and promises. But I am a big fan of Judd’s approach. He wants to identify “universal issues” that people care about regardless of politics, and then “try to find allies on the issues,” and “find a solution.”

You know all those people on both ends of the spectrum who are all about putting a proposal out there that they know the competing party will oppose, and then running against the opponents on the basis of their opposition? It’s Plan A for so many in politics. And nothing ever gets done.

Well, Judd Larkins is sort of the opposite of that. Check him out.

Oh, and yeah, I put up that sign John gave me…

 

Top Five (or so) Samba Songs

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I’m trying to get back into my walking routine, after having gotten off-track what with my stroke and long COVID, and that means listening to Pandora while I pound the pavement. And while I’m not sure which of my many stations is my official favorite, the “Astrud Gilberto” one has been getting a good bit of play.

And yeah, I know I’ve mentioned Astrud before several times. To evoke another form of pop music, I can’t help myself.

Most of my “Top Five” lists come from the very center of popular culture — predictable stuff. Like, you know, “Can’t Help Myself.” This is one that’s slightly to the side, the thing that gets me closest to being a jazz fan (and you know, they’re all cool). It may not interest you. (It may not have interested you the many times I’ve mentioned it before — but this is different; it’s a Top Five List!) If you’re not familiar with it, at least try listening to a song or two on the list. You may find yourself rewarded.

I was first exposed to it when I lived in South America. No, I didn’t hear it on the radio in Ecuador, or from the turntable when my parents had people over to dance. That was very different. I might have missed it completely except my Dad had to go to Rio for an international naval conference, and he brought back an album or two. Not having much access to the stuff in which I would be inundated when we came back to the States in 1965, I used to listen to my parents’ albums on the Telefunken — Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Patty Page, the Mills Brothers — and these new ones really grabbed me.

When I got back to the states, I found that folks here were really grabbed by the second song on my list, and Sergio Mendes was big, but that’s about all the samba I heard back here.

The list:

  1. Mas Que Nada — Had to put this at the top because I included it on my “slapdash ‘Top Ten (plus) Songs of All Time’ list.” To save myself some typing, here’s what I said then: “If you want to evoke the 1960s in the mind of someone who actually lived through them, you’ll play this perhaps even more readily than something by the Beatles or the Stones. That’s what Austin Powers did, and it worked. Coming from me, it also represents my love of samba music from that era.” But I could easily have chosen one or more of the following on that list…
  2. Girl from Ipanema — Which introduced me to Astrud. If you’d like to be introduced to the girl who actually inspired the song she sang, here she is at the right, below. Don’t you think it was really classy of me to use one in which she’s fully dressed? There are plenty of bikini shots on the web, but frankly it would kind of creep me out to post cheesecake picks of a 17-year-old, which is what she was at the time. Anyway, this is probably the best-known samba song ever in this country. About half the singers on the planet covered it. Anybody who lived through the period will find “Mas Que Nada” almost as familiar, but they probably can’t name it.

    Helo Pinheiro

  3. Desafinado — Another one with an extremely familiar tune, but most can’t name it. Hey, I might not be able to name it — or classics below such as Corcovado or Agua de Beber, if you just play the tune. But I’ll know them, and love them. I’m bad about that. Songs that I hear in Portuguese are like instrumentals to me. I’m terrible with instrumentals. I can tell you it’s John Phillip Sousa, but not which tune. And I’m terrible with Big Band music. I’ll say “Hey, is that Begin the Beguine?” and it’s “In the Mood.” Embarrassing. (Although I sometimes do better if it’s Ellington.) Anyway, Portuguese is enchanting to here in this form, but it might as well be instrumental. I grew up speaking Spanish, which is a great help in understanding Italian — but little help at all with Portuguese.
  4. One-Note Samba — I’ve brought this one up before, asking Phillip and other music wizards how in the world it works. He explained it. I still don’t understand it. I can’t tell you why I like the Beatles, either. When it works, music is magic to me. Maybe Gandalf would understand it, but I don’t.
  5. Corcovado — Some of my gringo friends may know this as “Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars.” But whatever you call it, it’s beautiful. It makes me want to go to there.
  6. Agua de Beber — And again, I don’t have a lot of commentary on this one. It’s just awesome.

Yeah, that’s six. But who’s doing math here? It’s samba. And I just couldn’t decide which one of these to drop. In fact, if I poked around a bit more, the list would be a lot longer. For instance, I can’t believe I left off the song in the video below. Some of you modernists may note that they’re all from the ’60s (and a couple date from 1959). Well, yeah. To me, that’s the era of samba.

By the way, before someone who knows way more about music than I do points to one of these and says, “Technically, that’s not samba!”… I thought I would go ahead and say I don’t pretend to be an expert. If it’s Brazilian, and from that era, I call it samba. If I get it wrong, don’t look at me. Blame it on the bossa nova.

I labored a bit to set up that bad joke, didn’t I?

World’s just falling apart, innit?

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I responded to this tweet from my friend Steve Millies:

But I didn’t fully express what I was thinking, because I figure that since Steve’s in Chicago, most of his followers probably wouldn’t get what I was really thinking about .

I mean, the tie is neither here nor there. I don’t wear ties much anymore. Most working days, I dress as though I were going out to work in the yard. And while I do miss Lourie’s, I think Mast General Store is quite nice as well.

But I had this on my mind:

Yeah. I mean, I’m glad it’s not going to be empty, but a chain? At least it’s one I’ve never heard of, so maybe some folks around here won’t know it’s a chain. So, you know, less embarrassing.

I mean, nothing against chains. Y’all know of my love for Starbucks. But in Yesterdays?

Back in the day: the Yesterdays 30th anniversary party, in 2008.

My stupidity problem

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Watch out, folks; here comes the news of the day!

Yeah, I know: “Brad, the problem you have with stupidity is that you are burdened with far too much of it!”

Thanks, but no, that’s not it.

It has occurred to me that I’ve typed “stupid” a lot lately. Such as here and here and here and here and here.

For some reason, that stuff bothers me more than it used to. It’s why I can hardly bear to read most “news” these days, as I’ve mentioned. It’s just too stupid — what’s discussed, how it’s discussed, the deeply disturbing enthusiasm that so many people bring to the discussion. I’d give you examples, but I don’t like dwelling on these things long enough to type even brief descriptions.

So I push through those things in the various newspapers and magazines to which I subscribe, and try to keep my eyes and ears open, and look for the things I can stand to discuss. Like you, know, Scrooge McDuck and Richie Rich. Or weird artworks of the Renaissance. Computers generating art. Views of the Earth from across the universe. The funeral of King Edward VII in 1910. And no, I’m not trying to give the impression that my topics are more elevated than most “news.” That’s why I started with Scrooge and Richie.

Of course, sometimes I break down and say something about the stupid stuff. I couldn’t help myself here. That one was directly and obviously about stupidity as most folks would define it — and how we live in a time when it is considered smart, in politics, to embrace that stupidity. A postscript on that post: A while ago, I saw a notification that Walker and Warnock were having a debate tonight (I’m writing this on Friday, 10/14), and it could decide the race with early voting about to begin.

You realize what that means, don’t you? The New York Times is saying that there are people in Georgia who would actually consider — who are actually considering — voting for Walker over Warnock. And not just a few people. There are enough of them that the outcome is uncertain — so uncertain that the twitch on someone’s face during one of these spectacles we absurdly call “debates” could decide the whole thing.

Now that’s either stupid in the sense that the editors of The New York Times have lost their minds, or they’re right and this is true. These people who would vote for Walker are not patients under sedation in the most disturbed areas of an insane asylum. They are people to whom we actually grant the awesome power of deciding who will run this country.

What does that say about the rest of us? I’ve stood up for this democracy thing my whole life — proudly proclaimed it, defended it fiercely. And this is what it comes to?

OK, I got sidetracked there. I wasn’t even going to say anything about this kind of stupidity. (After all, as I moaned, “I don’t like dwelling on these things…”.) I was just going to use it as a departure point for what I really wanted to talk about, which is a different kind of stupidity altogether. I was going to go on about it at some length. But not now. I’ve already written more than 500 words. I’ll come back to my actual point in a separate post.

This, by the way, is my kind of stupidity — the kind that actually does overburden me. I let this stuff get to me. I let my mind get boggled, and go off on these digressions. I don’t know of any remedy for it, except to just stop myself when it happens. See you later…

You don’t have to ‘celebrate’ anybody; just know what happened

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The start of the Columbian Exchange. It will not be a good deal for the folks on the shore.

I don’t think I ever have — but then I don’t work for the Post Office.

I mean, I worked yesterday. I’m pretty sure everybody at ADCO did. Although I just realized I can’t swear to that, since I don’t go in to an office any more.

But did you? And whether you did or not, what did it mean to you?

Yeah, I know the “holiday” for those who take one was yesterday, but the real day is tomorrow. Anyway, I write about it now because Hunter Limbaugh got me to thinking about it on Facebook this morning:

Columbus Day? Indigenous Peoples’ Day? Put me down for the latter. My take on Columbus is pretty simple: There was courage in the sailing into the unknown thing. Pretty much nothing else about him or what transpired as a result of his trips is worthy of honor or celebration. One doesn’t have to fret about judging historical acts by contemporary standards in order to conclude that even without demonizing the person, his actions ought not be celebrated.
(NB: America was only “discovered” from a Eurocentric perspective. The people who lived here were well aware of its existence).

Hunter, as y’all probably know, is a conservative Republican who served in the Legislature back in the ’90s (when being labeled “conservative” meant you were conservative, and not a lunatic who doesn’t think about anything, ever).

I wrote a response to that on my iPad at breakfast, but now I don’t see it. I was having some trouble on Facebook this morning. It’s not a straightforward, rational platform like Twitter. But enough about that.

Anyway, I’ll try to reproduce what I wrote here…

My own take on Columbus isn’t really “simple,” except in this regard: I don’t know why everybody has to react in terms of how they feel about the guy, or in ones-and-zeroes moral terms: He was a good guy, or he was a bad guy. He is my hero — or no, the “Indigenous Peoples” are my heroes. Stop worrying about whom you’re going to celebrate. You don’t have to celebrate anybody.

I think in terms of the significance of that moment in history, the start of what is known as the Columbian Exchange. Its effect on life on Earth was more than phenomenal, more than monumental. It was the biggest thing to happen since we had started speaking of years in Anno Domini terms. And when I say “life on Earth,” I’m not just talking about Homo sapiens. I mean all life — animals, plants, insects, microbes, and how all of them affected each other — sometimes in good ways, sometimes in horrific ways.

The quibble over whether he “discovered” America seems silly. He had never seen it before; the people who backed his voyage had never seen it. None of them had a clue this place even existed. So yeah, when he ran into those islands down there, he “discovered” them.

Not that he knew it. His whole expedition was based on an idiotic misconception. Far from being the sage who alone knew the world wasn’t “flat” — all educated people knew it — he was the doofus who thought it was way, way smaller than it is. He never let go of that belief, which is why these continents are named for someone else.

So why was his “discovery” a big deal? Nobody had made such a fuss about the Vikings when they came here, or the Irish monks who came before them. And of course, the world wasn’t taking note when some prehistoric Asians wandered across the land bridge from what would someday be Russia. It was 15,000 years ago (or whatever date you choose), and notes hadn’t been invented.

And that’s the thing. That’s what made it a big deal — the biggest of its kind that had ever happened. He didn’t just land and live the rest of his life here, or go back and forget about it. He went home and told everybody, and then came back. And multitudes followed him. And then people started zipping all over the globe, back and forth. I think of the way Charles Mann describes the moment, in his book 1493, when the globe fully became a village: It was quite a few years after Columbus’ voyages, but it wouldn’t have happened without him (or wouldn’t have happened as it did, when it did). In 1564, some Spanish ships met up with some Chinese vessels in the Philippines, and worldwide trade got started. Before long, you had Italians eating tomatoes and folks in India putting hot peppers in their food, and potatoes basically ending famine in Europe — and all of those things came from this hemisphere.

And yes, the American Indians (yes, that’s how I refer in the aggregate to the many cultures who lived here — I’m not going to second-guess Russell Means) suffered — far more than most people realize. It was so horrible, it’s hard to wrap your head around. It’s way bigger than a guy named Cristóbal Colón coming over here and being mean to the people he met. The people of this hemisphere had never encountered smallpox or other European diseases, and contact killed about 95 percent of the population from Alaska down to Tierra del Fuego — the microbes spread way, way faster than the white intruders did. Until recently, historians didn’t realize how populated this side of the world was in 1491, because it took several centuries for Europeans to spread to all parts of it, and by the time they encountered most of these cultures, everybody was long dead and gone.

Was this some demonic plot on the part of Columbus? Did he think, “Man, I hate those indigenous peoples over there, I think I’ll go kill them all?” Nope. He didn’t know how to be that evil. Not that he didn’t do his share of awful things in his life, in his quest for gold and glory. But not that. The germs just caught a ride, and unleashed hell on millions of unexposed people.

Bottom line, the whole thing is way more complicated than Italian-Americans making a hero out of this guy in the 19th century, or modern folks making him out to be a monster. He’s just this guy who stumbled into something, and changed the whole world.

And all of us should take note of these changes, if we’re to understand the world we live in. It’s not about the guy. It’s about what happened…

 

What did ‘rich’ mean to you as a kid?

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I don’t think I’d ever dive into a vault full of coins. Paper, maybe…

Yeah, I think it’s a silly question, too, but I saw it on Twitter, and saw an interesting response or two from folks I know, and decided to respond myself… and thought y’all might want to get in on it.

It came from this feed I had never seen before. I only saw it because people I follow responded:


Here’s what Sen. Katrina Shealy said to that:

I never thought about it. We were not rich but we were comfortable and we had friends and family that had more and those who had less. I never noticed, until I I read all these responses.

A few minutes before that, our friend Lynn Teague had written:


As y’all know, I’m generally not that interested in money. (A sure way to lose me is to steer a thread toward a discussion of the economy.) Unlike someone whose Twitter handle is DelyanneTheMoneyCoach, when the subject comes up I usually run the other way. But I responded this way:


Elaborating on that diving-boards-and-pools theme, I suppose I should throw in the Clampett’s cee-ment pond.

Another model for me was the Howells on Gilligan’s Island. Which reminds me of something else, so I might come back to them in a later post.

In other words, the models were silly, and the things that distinguished them as “rich” were even sillier. Nothing basic, like a washer and dryer. (Maybe that’s what drove her to be “the Money Coach.”)

When I was a kid, I saw us as living sort of outside that whole money universe, since my Dad was in the Navy and therefore outside the private-sector rat race thing. We usually had a washer and dryer in our homes, but I owned my own house before my parents bought one. We were just always moving around too much. My folks bought their house after he retired.

Not that I never think about money, as an adult. I think about it way more than I want to. That’s why my fantasy about being rich is simple: I’d like to have enough money that I would never again have to think about money. I’d hire what in Regency Period terms (all those historical novels I read, you know) would be called a “man of business” to deal with all that. All bills would go to him, and he’d take care of them. I’d also engage the services of someone clever to watch him, and then maybe a third person to watch her. And I’d instruct them all not to bother me with it.

I think that would be way better than a pool full of ginger ale…

I couldn’t find an image with ginger ale. But I’m sure I read a comic that mentioned it…

DeMarco: Trump 2024? Ask Your Grandchildren.

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The Op-Ed Page

Sure, we all know I voted for Biden, but I thought I’d show a HANDSOME grandpa voting.

By Paul V. DeMarco
Guest Columnist

Scene: It’s the autumn of 2032. Jessie, an 8th-grader excited about her government project, stops by her grandparents’ house.

Jessie (big smile, kisses him on the cheek): Hi Grandpa! I’m doing a project about the 2024 presidential election. Would you help me?

Grandpa: Sure, honey. What would you like to know?

Jessie: OK, first, who did you vote for in 2024?

Grandpa (smiling broadly): Donald J. Trump!! I voted for him three times! Best president in the history of America!

Jessie (crestfallen): But Grandpa, he was a liar!

Grandpa (scoffing): Who told you that! What are they teaching you in that school?!

Jessie: No one from school had to tell me that. Literally everyone knows he lied about 2020. His own attorney general said so. There’s never been any credible evidence he won.

Grandpa: That’s why he said the media was the enemy of the people. Don’t believe everything you read, sweetheart.

Jessie (excited): Oh, I didn’t realize. So tell me the real scoop, Grandpa. What really happened? Where can I go to find the real truth?

Grandpa: Well, I can’t point you to a single place. I just know there were lots of irregularities and inconsistencies.

Jessie (disappointed): Oh… everything I’ve been able to find says he lost. No conspiracy was ever uncovered, he lost over 60 court cases challenging the result, and none of the recounts showed any fraud.

Grandpa: All I know is that he was winning when I went to bed and losing when I woke up the next morning. Who knows what the Democrats could have done while I was sleeping?

Jessie: Election experts expected that to happen. More Trump voters voted in person and more Biden voters voted by mail. It took longer to count the mail-in ballots

Grandpa: Well, there was something fishy about that election.

Jessie: But Grandpa, how could you have voted for him in the first place? The way he talks about women! You wouldn’t have stood him talking about Mama that way.

Grandpa: That was just locker-room talk.

Jessie: Is that the way you talked about Mama in your high school locker room?

Grandpa (embarrassed): Well, no…

Jessie: I just don’t understand, Grandpa. He acts so ugly. I’ve heard you say you want a Christian in the White House, and I do too. I know how much you love the church and the special things you do for people.

Grandpa: Trump is a Christian! He got Roe v. Wade overturned.

Jessie: Being a Christian and being opposed to abortion are two different things. This Sunday when Reverend Jessup talked about the fruits of the spirit – let’s see if I can name them all – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness – and there’s one more…

Grandpa: Self-control.

Jessie: Right, self-control. You and grandma have all of those, but Trump doesn’t have any. There were so many better choices in 2024. Why not Nikki Haley or Tim Scott? They’re both from South Carolina. Or what about Mike Pence? I was sure you were going to say you voted for him. He’s so much more like you than Trump.

Grandpa: Jesse, you’re young, you don’t understand. The president isn’t our minister. He’s got to be tough to protect America.

Jessie: I get that he’s not our minister, but in 2016 and 2024 there were candidates whose policies were just as conservative as Trump but so much more decent.

Grandpa: But they didn’t fight like Trump.

Jessie (red-faced): So you didn’t want a minister, you wanted an MMA fighter! Grandpa, the rioters he sent up to the Capitol on January 6th almost prevented an orderly transfer of power. That’s the bedrock of our democracy. Trump acted like a spoiled brat, not the president. And then he lied and lied and lied about it. Is that the way you wanted me to act when I lost the election for class president?

Grandpa (voice rising as Jessie turns away): Jessie, honey, we’re not talking about middle school. We’ve got to keep the left from ruining the country!

Jessie (slow turning back to face him, quietly): Grandpa, what if I am the left? I haven’t made up my mind on a lot of issues, but I’m OK with gay marriage and I’m comfortable talking about both the great and the terrible parts of American history. I respect your view that abortion is always wrong, but I’m not sure that I’m willing to support making it a crime.

Grandpa: You know I’m not going to change my mind about those things.

Jessie: I’m not asking you to. Just remember, most of the people who disagree with you are a lot like me. You don’t need to elect someone like Trump to protect the country from us.

Grandpa: I’ll never apologize for voting for him.

Jessie: I know. Just vote for someone less dangerous this time. Have you decided who you are supporting this year?

Grandpa (smiling): After what you just put me through, you think I’m going to tell YOU!?

Jessie (laughing); Chicken!!

You think THAT’S weird? Check this out…

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The Washington Post runs this regular feature in which an art critic takes an extended look at an interesting painting. It’s a feature I frequently enjoy, but this one particularly grabbed me. The headline was “This Renaissance portrait is even stranger than it appears.”

Which was true enough. As the critic, Sebastian Smee (a name that sounds as though his parents really, really wanted him to be an art critic, so congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Smee), notes, regarding this painting by the Dutch artist Dirck Jacobsz:

You might assume it’s a self-portrait, showing the artist at his easel, putting the finishing touches on a portrait of a woman, perhaps his wife… In that fiction, you, the viewer, would be in the position of the woman posing for her portrait, admiring, perhaps, the artist’s skill (or wishing you had thought to smile more). But you would also know that, in reality, it must have been the painter who stood where you stand. He painted the picture, after all….

But that would be an inaccurate impression. Here’s what’s going on:

To begin with, it’s not a self-portrait. It’s a portrait of the artist’s father, Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen (c. 1472-1533), who was also a painter. The picture on the easel is the artist’s mother. So it’s really a picture of the artist’s father painting his wife, the artist’s mother. What’s so disarming about it is the way both subjects — father and mother — stare out at their son, for whom you, the viewer, are now a substitute….

The painting is even odder than that, in several ways Smee goes on to mention. But you get the idea — it’s not what you expect.

So yeah, that’s pretty weird. And even weirder once you look at it more than a second. But the reason the article grabbed me, since it was about Dutch Renaissance art, was that made me think, Yeah, Dutch art was weird, back in the day, but that’s not the weirdest!

OK, I was slightly off on that. What I was remembering was a Flemish painting. I think. But gimme a break — the memory was from a long time ago. And we’re still talking Low Countries, right?

Thanks to the miracles of Google, I managed to find the painting I was thinking of. It was in one of my high school textbooks, I think when I was living in Tampa (I attended three high schools, in Bennettsville, Tampa and Honolulu). I don’t know what kind of textbook — maybe history or literature. I never took art appreciation in high school, so it wasn’t that.

In any case, I didn’t appreciate this one, by Jan van Eyck. It creeped me out every time I opened the book to that page. Fortunately, I didn’t open textbooks all that often in high school, but a couple of times was enough.

Look at that thing. It’s called by a number of names, one of them being “The Arnolfini Wedding.” But that can’t be right unless the wedding was held way, way late — given the condition of the “bride.” Of course, anything is possible. I don’t know much about Netherlandish marital conventions in the 15th century, and anyway, her “groom” appears to be a space alien.

Look at that dude! It’s supposedly the Italian merchant Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini, but I don’t think I’ve ever met an Italian anything who looked like that. And it’s not just his hat.

According to Wikipedia, the experts say the lady isn’t pregnant. Yeah, right. Maybe this is why Trumpistas don’t listen to “experts.” (No, I don’t think that explains them, either, but I keep trying.)

I say I was in Tampa when I had that textbook because I have a vague memory of having been alone in a house late at night and seeing that picture, and being really creeped out. But maybe it doesn’t bother you. It’s funny, at least to me, that seeing such an unrelated picture in the newspaper would kick off a memory like that from more than 50 years ago. It’s sort of like when I was at an event the other night and some madeleines were set out on the table, which made me think of Proust. Go figure. I make this allusion in case you think it’s weird for me to write 860 words about that old picture. Hey, at least I didn’t write a 4,215-page cross between a novel and an encyclopedia.

I was thinking about turning this into a Top Five Weird Paintings From History, but all I could think of was this one. Oh yeah, I’ve seen plenty of weird paintings, but they’re mostly intentionally weird. Like Hieronymous Bosch, and this. And this and this.

But these folks apparently paid to have this portrait done, and probably hung it on the wall proudly. And I’ve never been able to decide whether that means Flemish people were all weird in 1434, or just the Andolfinis. Anyway, we’re expected to believe that somebody thought this was a good look.

Anyway, do any of y’all know of any painting that was more unintentionally weird than this? If so, I’d like to see it. But probably not more than once…

 

If I were inclined to be a pessimist, here’s what I’d worry about

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I hope Gary Larson doesn’t sue me for using this. I just saw it on Pinterest, and thought it a way better illustration for this post than the boring shot of Putin I originally put here.

Well, these are some of the things I’d worry about. Not all are even near the top of the list. These are just things that were in the news today — actually, all three were in one of the several papers to which I subscribe — so they’re on my mind at the moment.

So worry away, folks…

  1. Classic American tragedy — The headline was “Teen sought in Amber Alert dies in shootout after running toward deputies.” Basically, a 15-year-old girl that authorities were seeking to rescue from her armed-and-crazy, murderous father is now dead — shot by, well, authorities. So your initial reaction is, there go the stupid cops again. But then, if you care at all, you actually read about what happened. And you see it’s not so simple. What happened (so far as know at this point) was, shots were fired near a school. The school is placed briefly on lockdown. Then cops find a woman with multiple gunshot wounds, who is pronounced dead at a hospital. The call goes out to look for the husband, Anthony Graziano, and the couple’s young daughter, Savannah. Graziano’s Nissan is spotted, and pursued. He starts shooting, putting several rounds through a police car windshield. With bullets still flying both ways, someone, “wearing protective equipment, including a tactical helmet, emerged from the passenger side of the vehicle, ran toward sheriff’s deputies and then fell amid the gunfire.” When it’s all over, it’s discovered that someone is Savannah, and she and her father are both dead. What do you think should be done to prevent such things? This is very much like what happened to Breonna Taylor — someone with the victim starts shooting at police, and the victim is killed in the crossfire — but since she was black, a lot of people simplified it to “racism.” With Savannah being white, one is tempted to simplify by saying, “guns.” For instance, since I watch at LOT of British cop shows, I think, why can’t our cops go unarmed, like them? But of course that ignores the fact that there are 393 million guns in private hands in this country, and a lot of those hands belong to people who like to shoot first, like Graziano. So no, I don’t know that answer, but I’m pretty sure it can’t be summed up in one word.
  2. A big AI advance — I often sneer at artificial intelligence, noting that it may be artificial, but it certainly isn’t intelligent. Well, something like this makes me take a step back, and have “Matrix” thoughts. See that block of images below. None was taken by a camera. And they were generated not by hours of work by a CGI artist, but by “the artificial intelligence text-to-image generator DALL-E.” The one at the upper right came into being in response to the phrase, ““A woman in a red coat looking up at the sky in the middle of Times Square.” The only human input for the one at bottom left was, “Red and yellow bell peppers in a bowl with a floral pattern on a green rug photo.” I don’t know what the prompt was for the boy in black-and-white, but this is scary. Note that I say, “the phrase,” “input,” and “prompt.” Each time, I almost wrote “command,” but dare we speak of issuing orders to our future digital overlords?
  3. Ukraine dilemma — If you don’t spend too much time thinking about it, you can conclude that the thing to do is simply cheer for Ukraine to win, and Putin to lose. And I do. But I also worry. As I have since the start. Those of you who think Brad is just this wild warmonger — because I would sometimes use military force when you would not — may have been taken aback by the way I worried when all this started. I was running about like Neville Chamberlain, wringing my hands — sort of, anyway. Once it started, I continued to worry, while following the above formula. But while I rooted for Ukraine, and was pleased by that country’s recent successes, I continued worrying about the big picture, which goes like this: Putin needs to be humiliated, so he stops doing this. He didn’t pay a price in Georgia, or for his early moves on Ukraine. This has to stop. He needs to go. But he’s got all those nukes, and what will he do with them on his way out the door? Anyway, I urge you to read this piece, “Putin is limping toward an endgame in Ukraine. Should the West go along?” Read the whole thing, if you can. It basically asks, if fixing “elections” so he can save some face by annexing part of Ukraine — again — should we let him do this disgusting thing, to prevent a nuclear holocaust? My gut, of course, says the hell with him. But I don’t want nuclear hell unleashed on the rest of us, either. What’s the right move?

The first and the third problems are very similar. Any intelligent, or merely satisfying, response to either has enormous barriers in front of it. Get rid of those 393 million guns (the only thing that would really fix the problem)? Good luck. And imagine Joe Biden, in this poisonous political environment, trying to steer a course that does something enormously sickening to all sides, in order to avoid Armageddon. Forget about the consequences in the midterms — would it even be possible to do it?

Maybe we should stop worrying about 1 and 3, and let 2 happen, so the algorithms can make the decisions.

Anyway, as I said, if I were inclined to be pessimistic about life, the universe and everything, I’d spend all my time thinking about things such as these…

The upper-right was generated by “A woman in a red coat looking up at the sky in the middle of Times Square.”

Open Thread for Tuesday, September 27, 2022

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It’s about time for one of these:

  1. Joe Cunningham really doesn’t want me to vote for him — I need to write a separate, full post about this, but I wanted to mention his latest before it falls off my radar: Now, he wants judges in S.C. to be directly, popularly elected. You know, you can say all kinds of sharply critical things about our system of judicial selection, but I can’t imagine anything more likely to make it worse than this. It’s one of those few things about the way we run this state that makes me look at other states and be thankful that at least we don’t do that. “Popular” judges, being motivated to make only popular decisions. Wow.
  2. Recruitment officer wounded in latest attack on a Russian draft office — This is awful on so many levels — that Putin is calling these people up for his indefensible war, that this officer who was just doing his unsavory job was shot, that the guy who shot him couldn’t think of any better way to express his outrage (so someone gets shot, and the shooter has ruined his own life), and that the shooter’s friend got drafted despite not being one of the experienced troops that Putin had said this draft was limited to. No winners here. But you know what’s worse? That same day in another part of Russia, a gunman shot up a school, killing 17 people, 11 of them children. Remember when the Russians just wanted to get their hands on American blue jeans? That was fine; blue jeans are great. Now they’re importing the very worst things our culture has to offer…
  3. The dollar is surging. The pound is falling. — Wow, we should have postponed our 2010-11 trip to England until now. Anyway, the dual link is to NPR talking about what a rising dollar means, and The Washington Post discussing the pound. I’m sorry that this is happening right after the passing of the queen. Now folks who don’t understand how things work are going to blame King Charles III, and the guy’s just getting started. Of course, we know this is really the responsibility of the new PM and her team.
  4. USC postpones football game because of hurricane — Excellent idea! I hope every other football team in the country gets inspired and does the same thing — whether they see a hurricane coming or not. I mean, you never know with these things — they’re even hitting Canada now! My recommendation is to postpone all football until, say, 2042. And keep watching that weather! If it still looks menacing, put them off a bit longer…
  5. Thousands evacuate as Hurricane Ian barrels toward Florida — I hope they all get out safely, because one way or the other, it’s coming…
  6. NASA smashes into an asteroid — I think this is awesome, and I look forward to finding out whether it worked — in terms of altering the rock’s course slightly. It’s good to see us doing cool things in space. Now, back to the moon!

Now I have TWO vaccine cards! Take THAT, COVID!

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I don’t mean to lord it over the rest of you with my conspicuous consumption of preventive medical care, but there it is: I got the bivalent shot on Friday, and now I have not one, but two vaccine cards.

This is due to an error someone made on my first card, and had to scratch out. I don’t understand what the problem was, but it eliminated a vacant spot on the first card. Also, I’m just noticing that a space was skipped on the front, because the little stickers they put on were too wide. Anyway, I had to get a new one Friday.

And now, I’m finally protected against the variant that I probably had back in January. Better late than never, right?

I meant to boast about this on Friday itself, but I didn’t feel like it. I was doing OK until I took my usual post-stroke afternoon nap, then woke up feeling like someone had hit me in the arm with a baseball bat. And then I felt lousy generally, as though I had a minor bug of some sort, for the next day or so.

That pain thing is weird. I don’t understand it. As someone who got a lot of shots as a kid — I started on allergy shots as a toddler, and got a truckload of vaccinations before moving to Ecuador when I was 9 — this doesn’t fit the pattern.

In my experience, the world record for soreness is held by the typhoid shots I got that summer of 1962. If I remember correctly, it was a series of six, and we got them about a week apart. I specifically remember getting one at the old state health department office on Market Street — next to the hospital where I was born, which is now long gone — and then getting into the car, and having trouble closing the door because my scrawny arm was already so sore.

Seems like someone once told me that the soreness had to do with the viscosity of the fluid being injected into the muscle. So it makes sense that the typhoid injections hurt immediately.

Then… why do COVID shots not hurt right away? I’ve had five of them now, and the pattern seems to be: Get the shot, feel some relief over the next few hours because it doesn’t hurt, then WHAM! It starts hurting not quite as badly as a typhoid shot, but it’s not great, either. This is weird because it seems that the alien substance would have spread out by that time, and therefore hurt less.

Anyway, it’s way better now, so I’m not complaining…

It occurs to me that maybe so many Trumpistas avoid vaccination because there’s so much Spanish on the card…

I’m sort of glad they can’t see us as we are right NOW

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When astronaut Bill Anders took this one in 1968, he was only looking back 1.3 seconds…

Hunter Limbaugh posted a link on Facebook that initially caused me to answer facetiously, as is too often my wont. (Don’t blame me; blame the Rabbit Hole!)

The headline was, “What does Earth look like from across the Universe?” Of course, I replied, “I dunno. Like images of broken light, which dance before me like a million eyes?”

But the thing was, it was a good article, and worth reading. Based on the fact that the farther away something is in space, the farther back in time you’re looking when you see it. Because, you know, even though light is known for its celerity, it does observe a speed limit.

Of course, when Steward Brand finally got his picture of Earth from space, the time factor involved was too small to be interesting. But if somebody’s looking at us from as far away as we ourselves have recently gained the ability to look, it gets interesting.

So he calculated what would have been happening on Earth when seen from various cosmic distances. For instance, seen from Sirius, it would be February 2014 and Barack Obama would still be president. Which would be nice. Any time we could go back to before 2016 would be nice in the same way.

But my fave distance was the one that seems most relevant and likely (using “likely” loosely): from “TOI 700, the first stellar system with an Earth-sized exoplanet discovered in its habitable zone.” An excerpt:

On this world, Earth appears as it does just after the end of the year 1920. The very first radio broadcasts from our planet are just arriving in the TOI 700 system, beginning with station 8MK from Detroit, Michigan. The CO2 levels in Earth’s atmosphere have barely crested the 300 parts-per-million level, sitting at 303. The beginning of the transformation of our atmosphere from industrial activity would be detectable from this exoplanet. 85% of Earth’s surface is still wilderness; only 15% has been modified, largely for food production. Earth is definitely inhabited, and the first signatures that a technologically advanced species lives upon it are appearing. A round-trip message would take more than 2 centuries; in a single human lifetime, you’d never live to hear a response to a sent message….

After that, the distances get so great that you’re talking times when Neanderthals walked the Earth, or before any of the Homo species did, or even before there was an Earth to walk on. All of which are a little harder to identify with. I mean, I may be getting old, but I don’t know anybody who was around then.

No, I don’t have any big point to make, beyond the one I made casually in the headline. I just thought it an interesting intellectual exercise, and thought you might, too…

Remembering (or not) the royal funeral

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Of course, I refer to the funeral of King Edward VII, on May 20, 1910.

Y’all remember that one? It was a biggie. I cite the first paragraph of The Guns of August:

I don’t mean to disrespect Her Majesty’s funeral yesterday, by any means. Based on all I’ve heard and the few photos I’ve seen (the reverence, the solemnity, the dazzling colors — except for the two disgraced princes in mufti), it was splendid — as it should have been.

I’ve just got this one on my mind because a couple of days back, I started re-reading the Tuchman book. I’m using the term “re-reading” loosely here, because I didn’t finish it the first time. After it shifted to the Eastern front, it seemed to bog down. All I remember about it was the incompetence of the tsar’s government (sort of like Putin’s in Ukraine), which gave me a bit of insight into why the revolution happened.

So I decided to start over, partly because I knew the first chapter was awesome, beginning with that portrait, excerpted above, of the old world that was about to end — that ruled by closely related kings, attending the funeral of their kinsman. He was known as “the uncle of Europe,” which Mrs. Tuchman explained thusly:

Anyway, I had remembered all that — not each and every relationship, or even the precise number of royal highnesses and such in the cortege. But I had remembered the main points — the pomp and splendor, the significance of this last gathering of the fam, and the general reasons why this was all to come to an end.

But I didn’t remember everything. And that’s my point. When I was young, I remembered any book I had read — no matter how much earlier — in absurd detail. Not photographic memory exactly, but I remember details clearly, and could quickly find them. Long before Google, I could in a brief moment find a quote I wanted in a book read 20 years earlier, by leafing through it thinking, OK, it was in the upper part of a left-hand page, and it was before this… but after that… a couple more pages… there! And when I got there, it was as I had remembered.

To some extent, that’s still there. And I remembered there were certain alarming ideas current in Germany at the time, and how I was impressed when I first read about them, thinking, As much as we make of Nazi ideology, this stuff didn’t just come from the twisted mind of Hitler a generation later….

But I had forgotten her portrait of the most prominent of those foreign cousins riding in the cortege — Kaiser Wilhelm II. “William” was glad his uncle Edward was dead. It meant, he thought, he — and Germany — would get more recognition, more respect. Note the way the author describes the kaiser’s reaction to Edward’s triumphant visit to Paris a few years earlier:

(Sorry about all the long screenshots, by the way. I would copy and paste much shorter quotes, but Google Books won’t let me, so I do this. I know it’s rather unsatisfactory. I don’t do it just because I’m lazy; retyping introduces a greatly increased possibility of errors.)

I’d forgotten what a cranky, needy child the Kaiser was. Of course, he comes across a lot like Trump — all that whiny me, me, me. Maybe it strikes me more strongly now because I first read that chapter pre-2016, when Trump was still this ridiculous figure from the 1980s whom we are all free to ignore.

Now, I think, Well, as messed up as our democracy not is, and as much as I like and will miss the queen, here’s another reason to appreciate that we don’t have a monarch. Think about it. As much as Trump tried to become king — on Jan. 6, and so often before and since — he failed. But imagine how much more awful things would be were he a sovereign, and his identification with the country were such that he was the country and the country was him? (Yes, I know this isn’t the Middle Ages and things were different by 1914, but there’s still the psychology of identification that lies at the heart of the idea of monarchy.)

Of course, if we had a monarchy, Trump would never have been the king. But let’s not get lost in speculative details.

Anyway, that’s not my point. My point is to bring up one of the few fun parts of getting older: It’s forgetting things, and enjoying the delight of rediscovering them.

It’s not that I’ve become a goldfish. I remember most things, and since I’m an intuitive type, I pretty much always remember, and can accurately describe in general terms, the forest. Which is what matters to someone who thinks the way I do. But I let go of a lot of the trees.

I first saw this coming on maybe 15 or 20 years ago (or, from my perspective, a few days ago) when I suddenly realized that I longer remembered all of the lyrics of every single Beatles song. I had always taken that knowledge for granted, and now there were many holes in it. Big deal, I was able to say to myself — those weren’t details I needed in my life. Still, it was a loss.

Then, about the time I entered my 60s, the delightful thing came along: I didn’t retain any new TV shows I saw. Oh, I remembered what Jethro did in “The Beverly Hillbillies” back in the mid-60s. But I could watch an episode of some British murder mystery and enjoy it in 2012 or later, and then come back in a year or so with NO idea whodunit, and enjoy it all over again. Because my personal hard drive was no longer adding this stuff to the database.

Which is awesome. Lately, my wife and I have been rewatching “Endeavour” from the beginning, and having a great time. Oh, something about a scene will be familiar; I might even say “I know this scene; this is the moment I realized the writers were basing this episode on ‘The Great Gatsby’.” But I still won’t know what’s going to happen. And there are episodes I don’t remember at all.

Which is great. It’s so much easier to be entertained whenever I want to be. I don’t have to look so hard for “new” content.

For some time, I’ve been thinking, What if this could happen with books, too? I mean, what if I could completely forget O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series, and start over and experience it for the “first time” again? That would be bliss.

I’m not there yet, by any means. But this bit of forgetfulness with the Tuchman book is a promising beginning…

The sad thing is, someone thought it would be smart for him to say this

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The even sadder thing is, the person who thought that may have been right. If, of course, your definition of “smart” is whatever wins an election, even if along the way you’re destroying America.

Unfortunately, one of the things wrong with our republic these days is that it’s full of people who think that way. Using the term “think” loosely, of course.

Here’s an excerpt from The Washington Post‘s coverage on this:

A highly anticipated debate is scheduled next month in the U.S. Senate race in Georgia, and Republican nominee Hershel Walker is already trying to downplay expectations for his performance.

“I’m a country boy. I’m not that smart,” Walker told reporters Friday on a campaign stop in Savannah, Ga., according to an account from the Savannah Morning News.

Walker, a former football star, also noted that his opponent, Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D-Ga.), is a preacher.

Warnock “is smart and wears these nice suits,” Walker said. “So, he is going to show up and embarrass me at the debate October 14th, and I’m just waiting to show up, and I will do my best.”

In a healthy representative democracy, a candidate who actually realizes he’s not as smart as his opponent bows out and lets the opponent have it — unless the opponent possesses significant character flaws. In which case you talk about the character flaws, rather than your own inadequacy. (Or you emphasize policy differences — although for a smarter person to be advocating worse policies than your own, he would have to possess the aforementioned character flaws.)

But as we all saw in 2016 and have been painfully reminded many times since, we no longer live in a healthy representative democracy.

So it is that someone in Mr. Walker’s campaign thought it would smart for him to admit he’s not smart. There’s nothing new about lowering expectations before a debate of course, but something like this lowers that old tactic to new depths.

Because in today’s sick politics, you can win by convincing people you’re the dumb guy (which, in Mr. Walker’s case, would not be difficult), and proud of it. Or the outrageously cruel guy, if you’re Ron DeSantis.

Of course, the person who devised this strategy would say Mr. Walker is just stressing his identification with Mr. Average. Hence the stuff about the opponent’s “nice suits.” Which means, of course, that the strategist openly believes Mr. Average is dumb, and likes being pandered to.

Which is something that works, a lot of the time.

I think some of y’all wonder sometimes why I have such a low opinion of populism. It’s because for our country’s entire history, it’s always had a close relationship with anti-intellectualism, in both its sincere and exploitative manifestations…