Author Archives: Brad Warthen

A brief explanation to the reader

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In writing, ‘The main thing is to know what to leave out.’ I’m still working on that part…

I like it when writers offer explanatory notes to their readers. For instance, y’all know how obsessively fond I am of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels, and he frequently offers explanations about the history of his period, or about his writing process, before the opening of the work (here’s most of one of those). All add illumination and enjoyment to the story.

But my favorite might be this pair of notices from Huck Finn, facetious as they may be in part:

NOTICE.

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR
PER G. G., CHIEF OF ORDNANCE.

EXPLANATORY

In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary “Pike County” dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.

I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.

THE AUTHOR.

Well, I’m no Twain or O’Brian, but I think it’s nice to pause and explain what I’m doing, if only to head off some of those “What the hell is going on here?” comments. I don’t want y’all developing calluses on your fingertips.

You may have noticed lately, as I’ve gotten rolling again after the holidays, that there’s been a change in what I write about — not a huge change, but noticeable.

I used to blog like a journalist (remember the Virtual Front Page?), and specifically like a journalist who’s dealt over the years with electoral politics more than any other subject. But you’re not going to see as much of that anymore.

There are a number of reasons for this. First, nobody’s paying me to keep people informed anymore. Second, I’ve realized people aren’t that interested in being informed in an era in which we have technology that enables them to be exposed only to what they want to hear. Third, journalism — and particularly political, opinion journalism — is based on the assumption that people are rational and persuadable, and therefore benefit mutually from some civil back-and-forth on the issues of the day, which makes all participants wiser, and better citizens. That is too seldom the case these days.

Then there are the personal reasons. Putting it briefly, I’m not interested in that stuff anymore. Or at least, I’m not interested in engaging with it when everyone’s consciousness is saturated in the ocean of nonsense that they get from media today. And no, I’m not just beefing again about the deleterious intellectual effects of social media. The MSM have in these rough seas lost their own ability to sort out what’s important to talk about.

I’ve told you over the last few years of my growing disgust with what is seen as “news,” and how it is presented, as the field of journalism has rapidly decayed. I am now holding myself back with both hands from offering examples of what’s wrong, because I’m trying to get back to my point (think like Twain! think like Hemingway!)

All of these harmful trends have accelerated in the past year. And for my part, I’ve gotten less patient in my eighth decade, and I prefer to spend what little time I can find to devote to this enterprise on things that interest me, and still seem worth the effort.

That includes such things as history, of course, and offshoots of history such as genealogy. And my love of popular culture (and even occasionally higher culture) has never waned. And there’s evolution, particularly of our own species, even as it seems to be collectively leaping off a developmental cliff.

And religion, of course. That one’s going to really chafe at some of you, both among the faithful and others who just don’t want to hear about it.

And if you don’t like any of this stuff, you can just go elsewhere. On some level you will be missed, but I don’t want to make you miserable, and despite recent developments, this is still a free country. At least until this coming Monday, and possibly beyond.

Note that, as that last sentence hints, current events — even political current events — will sometimes come up. (In keeping with my belief that everything, and I mean everything, is connected.) I’ll just be focusing on it from a different angle — one that interests me more, and perhaps will interest some of you.

As for the rest of you, I wish you not only a good day, but a wonderful life from here on. God bless you.

A few words about ‘free speech’ on the Web

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In case you understandably have trouble reading the above hand-written version:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

— First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

I just thought you might want to have that handy as I raise the following topics. I put them there in case you’re inclined to get up a high horse to do battle with “censors,” or to assume unwarranted power to shut somebody up, so you can glance and see what the Constitution actually does and does not protect before you mount up.

Anyway, since his good piece that I praised a couple of days back, I’ve kept an eye out for columns and such written by the NYT’s David French. Or maybe an ear out, as I listened to both of these while walking today:

  1. The Case for Banning TikTok
  2. Texas Has a Point About Online Pornography

I admit that I haven’t had a lot of interest in, or tendency to opine about, TikTok during these years in which so many have hollered back and forth on the subject. The medium leaves me cold. I am passionately opposed to video presented vertically, in profile mode (we can discuss that later), so I’m unlikely ever to look at it.

But of course, what I think (or what anyone else thinks) of the app’s content is neither here nor there with regard to the case currently before the Supreme Court. Mr. French makes that case quite ably, and correctly, early in what he says at that first link:

But the reason why, even though I am a lifelong free speech advocate, I support the ban on TikTok, this particular law, is because the issue here really isn’t about the content of the speech on TikTok. Everything that’s on TikTok, you could put on Instagram, and it would be fine. Facebook, it would be fine. Maybe not fine from the standpoint of it being worthwhile content. There’s a lot of trash on TikTok. But constitutionally fine.

The issue here is control. Can we allow a social media company that the government believes to be under the direct control of the People’s Republic of China to have that kind of access to American data and to the American public square? And that’s the real issue, in my view. Who controls TikTok is of enormous consequence. And the Chinese government does not have a constitutional right to operate in the American public square. And in fact, there’s a lot of potential dangers and problems if we allow China to have that continued access…

In the rest of the piece, he backs up those statements quite ably. It’s not about content. And moreover, it’s not about whether you or any other American citizen is allowed to post whatever sort of video you like on the Web. You have an enormous multitude of free ways of doing that, starting with, for instance, YouTube. That site will even allow you to post vertically, blast the louts.

Of course, unless you’re among the 170 million or so Americans who delight in TikTok, you may not be passionate about that one. But you might want to express yourself — in a calm and civil manner, which is all that is allowed here — on the second topic. Writes French:

When does freedom for adults become cruelty to children?

The Supreme Court will hear arguments this week in a case, Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, that raises exactly that question. The Free Speech Coalition (a pornography industry trade association) is challenging a 2023 Texas law that requires sites offering pornographic material to “use reasonable age verification methods” to check whether a user is at least 18….

At first glance, the law is simple common sense. As Texas noted, all 50 states bar minors from purchasing pornography. Offline, identification requirements are common. Showing a driver’s license to enter a strip club is routine. Zoning restrictions can push pornographic establishments out of neighborhoods and away from schools and other places where kids congregate.

Online, though, it is the Wild West. Children have easy access to graphic and hard-core pornography. There’s a certain difficulty in writing about this issue — merely describing what children see online can be too much for adults reading family newspapers to tolerate…

Since I’ve spent half my life as an editor at some of those fussy “family newspapers,” I also have a rule against unnecessary use of profanity here on the blog. But I don’t guess I have to actually type the letters to tell you where you can stick your “right” to porn when such unrestricted availability endangers children.

Arguments to the contrary are offensively pathetic. I hope the link I gave you works for you, because French takes such arguments apart rather effectively — but I’ve already stretched the bounds of “Fair Use” in what I’ve quoted so far. I’ll just give you a few links to studies on the effects of exposure to pornography on kids. If you find those effects acceptable, then I will simply tell you that I strongly disagree.

Of course, we could argue all day about the Constitutional angle. Or you could. I’ve spent way too much of my life listening to people make ridiculous claims regarding the scope of the First Amendment.

I’ll leave you with this: If you had told the Framers that they were guaranteeing the right to expose American children to videos showing… well, one more quote from the column:

As one teenager wrote in The Free Press in 2023, in fourth grade she was exposed to “simulated incest, bestiality, extreme bondage, sex with unconscious women, gangbangs, sadomasochism and unthinkable physical violence.”…

… those Framers might have moved quickly to limit your freedom by having you locked up in one of their era’s particularly unpleasant institutions for the insane. At the very least, they’d have moved away from you there on the Group W bench.

And if you had insisted to them that their work said Congress may make no law barring a Chinese company from doing business in the United States when that business is deemed a threat to national security, they’d have wondered what had gotten into the water in our troubled 21st century.

OK, I’ve got a beef with Mr. Peabody

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As we all know, the people who created “The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show” back in 1959 were geniuses, but none of the writers and animators were quite as brilliant, of course, as one of their creations, Mr. Peabody. I refer of course to the anthropomorpic hound who is, as Wikipedia states:

…the smartest being in existence, having graduated from Harvard when he was 3 years old. (“Wagna cum laude“).

But I’ve got a little beef with him about his Wayback Machine, which enabled him and Sherman to travel back through history at will.

More accurately, my problem is with the folks who set up the website named for Mr. Peabody’s most famous invention.

Don’t get me wrong. Those folks are wonderful. The Internet Archive Wayback Machine is one of the most amazing things the internet has given us. It’s almost up there with Google Maps, which could thoroughly absorb me every minute of the rest of my life, if I let it. (Since I am the most distractable being in the universe, I can no longer read a book without pausing to look up each geographical reference to see where it is in respect to other places I know, checking the latitude and longitude, zooming down to ground level with the satellite filter and shifting to Street View to travel up and down the avenue, clicking in closer on interesting buildings… It’s ridiculous.)

The Wayback Machine may not take us back to enjoy a tête-à-tête with Cleopatra, but it does something else pretty startling. It gives us information that no longer exists (at least, not as we mere intermediate users can tell).

But here’s the thing: It’s not perfect. I don’t know if this has to do with different universes creating static and interfering with each other or what (forgive me if I’m getting too technical for you), but… well, it’s not perfect, Mr. Peabody.

Say, if you go back looking for something you wrote on a website that no longer exists, because (for instance) you don’t want to have to research and write that again, you may go back and connect to a site on a certain date, a date when you know the content you need was there, and you get to the home page, and you click on the page you want… and the content isn’t there, or is only partially there.

Which is a bit of a letdown. This probably doesn’t matter much to you, but it’s a big deal to me, because I see the internet a bit differently, as a result of my own particular history of traumatic experiences. You know how veterans of war or horrific natural disasters have trouble shaking the experience, sometimes for the rest of their lives?

Well, my form of PTSD results from all those decades of putting out newspapers under severe time pressure and space limitations. And while you may rightly regard that as less serious than those other kinds of PTSD, it produces some of the same symptoms. Such as dreams. For instance, I frequently wake up exhausted from what seems like hours of trying to crank out the paper in spite of inexplicable technical problems.

Anyway, the Web would be a magnificent thing, to me, even if it did nothing but eliminate this one former problem: As a reporter in the olden days, you’d work yourself half to death getting the needed info and writing it, and then the next day, it’s being used to wrap fish. I don’t begrudge readers using it that way, if fish wrap is what they need. But the thing is, after you publish that first story, you will then have to write multiple followups, assuming the story is ongoing, and most big, breaking stories end up in that category.

And since what you wrote before is now inaccessible to the reader, every single time there is a new development, you have to waste half of the few inches of precious space you have giving the background of what happened before this latest development. It’s ENORMOUSLY wasteful.

With the Web, there’s zero need for that. Give the reader an HTML link, and you’re done.

That is, assuming the frickin’ link works.

So… to put it in different terms, I cannot for a second understand why kids would waste time posting on, say, Snapchat. Or post on Instagram in that way that it goes away as soon as (or before) you’ve had a chance to glance at it.

If I don’t want it to be there and handy after I write it, why would I write it in the first place? (Even if it is something silly like this post.)

It’s not that I expect the Web to be eternal. Or at least, not exactly. I realize it could all disappear instantly if Dr. Evil figured out how to set off EMP devices over every population center on the planet. Suddenly, we’d be back in the Stone Age (or back in times before Google Maps, which, if you look at things from a geological perspective, is practically the same thing, being no more than 15 millennia or so off).

So, speaking of the Stone Age, I’d like stuff to last at least as long as something one of my Neanderthal ancestors once etched on a rock. I mean, that’s not an easy medium to store in a library, but at least it’s something.

All I want is for the Wayback Machine to work perfectly. Is that really too much to ask, Mr. Peabody?

God save the king. Meanwhile, I’m happy for the princess

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I was very pleased to see that the crown prince’s lovely wife is doing so well:

Britain’s Princess of Wales says her cancer is in remission

Those of you who were used to getting hard news at this URL in years past may moan, That’s what you want to talk about? Princesses and knights in shining armor? Will it be unicorns next?

Well, no, I’m commenting on this because I know what I’d like to say about it, which is that I’m very pleased that the lady is doing well.

I mean, if you want hard news… I think I’m probably pleased that with U.S. help in these last days of our republic, Israel and Hamas are apparently nearing a deal. But I don’t know all the details, and if anybody on the planet can trash a deal at the last second, it’s these parties.

Then, of course, there’s all that fire out in California. Well, I’m against it, and I’d like to see them put a stop to it, with minimum casualties. But I really hope the folks out there know how, because I don’t.

So I’m left with this.

You may say the princess’ condition doesn’t concern me. I beg to differ. As one of the lady’s countrymen wrote:

No man is an island,

Entire of itself;

Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less,

As well as if a promontory were:

As well as if a manor of thy friend’s

Or of thine own were.

Any man’s death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.

And the way I see it, that goes for every woman as well. It’s a better world if any young woman survives to see her children grow up. And not just when one of those children will someday be king. It goes for a simple shopgirl as well. It’s just that I don’t know about the shopgirl, and I do know about Kate, and I am pleased

Frances Trollope

I gave my wife a book for Christmas. I had been looking up something about Anthony Trollope on Wikipedia, and I saw that his mother had written a book that was well received, called Domestic Manners of the Americans, published in 1832. I ordered it from Amazon that very day, and my wife has been enjoying it and sharing what she has read with me. I’ve learned that one thing Mrs. Trollope didn’t particularly like about Americans was they way they were so stuck up about being free and independent and not having nothing to do with no kings or princesses or none of that eurotrash nonsense, and they didn’t mind telling her so, frequently.

Well, they may have been rough (Mrs. Trollope mentions what some of them smelled like as they approached), but back in those days they had room to talk. They had a great new country going, and it would produce great things for the world for almost two more centuries. And I’m proud of all that, too.

But now that a majority of Americans have gone out of their way to put the running of our country into the worst hands they can find, I’m not feeling nearly as bullish about our democratic republic as I have been, all of my life up to now. Maybe elections aren’t quite the universal blessing we once thought they were.

So if I run into any descendant of Frances Trollope who is touring our country and forming impressions of us, I won’t be nearly as smug or standoffish as some of my countrymen were long ago. I might wish her joy upon the recovery of the princess. And I might espress a sincere wish that God will save the king as well…

On Tubi and the return of the TV commercial

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The Washington Post had a mildly interesting piece today about Tubi, which reminded me of something else I wanted to muse upon.

The headline is “Tubi or not Tubi? The weirdest streaming service has the most devoted fans.”

You know Tubi. It’s that thing you run into sometimes when you want to stream a certain movie, and it’s not on Netflix, or Prime, or Britbox or any of the services you PAY for, but it is on Tubi — for free.

The Post story is about what a vast variety of material you can find on that service, from stuff so awful that it would make one of the robots on “Mystery Science Theatre 3000” blush, to gems that you would expect to pay for on Criterion — and loads of random stuff in-between.

And it’s free, it a very old-fashioned sense. As the story notes, “But Tubi is a streaming service that doesn’t feel like one. Owned by Fox, it’s free, so long as you can stomach a few ads (you know, like old TV).”

And that’s what I wanted to talk about.

Is the future of screen entertainment going to be the past — the way, way, past, going back before we first got VCRs so we could tape what we wanted to see, and skim past the commercials?

Later, moving into the current century, we thought we were really, truly free — with no ads at all. And without even recording anything on low-res magnetic tape, we were no longer slaves to the clock! Whatever we wanted to see was on whenever we wanted to see it, and in 4k! And no bloodsucking cable!

Except, of course, we had to pay new fees to a bewildering, growing array of ravenous streaming companies. And the worst part is, I for one have NO IDEA how much I spend on these services. Sure, I could look it up and calculate a figure, but I really don’t want to. How would that make me happy? And there’s so much good stuff, way better than broadcast days! You want me to get all depressed and have to drop AppleTV + just as they’re releasing a new season of “Slow Horses?” Of course not. I mean, a TV show starring Gary Oldman, with the theme song sung by Mick Jagger? What’s wrong with you?

But then an interesting thing happened a year or two back. Suddenly, the already huge selection on Prime got much, much bigger, with an amazing proportion of the new content being really top-drawer stuff.

There was just a small catch — most of this new stuff you’d just discovered came with… commercials. Commercials you couldn’t just fast-forward through (or at least, I don’t know how to).

And you know what? I don’t mind. At least, not much. Just keep giving me an expanding supply of high-quality material like this, and you won’t hear any complaints from me.

In fact… you remember when these 15-second ads were 60 seconds? Like on Captain Kangaroo? That was OK. That was our break time. Hit the loo, and come back with another bowl of Kellogg’s cereal. And when you’re back, there’s Tom Terrific!

I wouldn’t even complain about a full minute. But I want one thing — you’ve gotta bring back the Captain. Oh, and Mr. Green Jeans…

Some thoughts on God from the NYT

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So did all of you survive the latest War on Christmas (which I suppose ended with Epiphany a few days ago)? I hope so.

Do the alarmists who go on an aggressive “Merry Christmas” offensive each year have a point about the onward march of secularism in our society? Of course they do. It’s been spreading wildly since what practitioners are pleased to call the “Enlightenment.”

But sometimes the warriors are a bit off with some of their assumptions. For instance, many Defenders of Our Faith As They Understand It would probably tell you that The New York Times is practically the Seal Team Six of the secularist aggression, second only to Starbucks in its zeal to wipe out all mentions of God.

And sure, the best newspaper (not necessarily my favorite, but probably the one that does the best overall job with its considerable resources) in such a growingly secular society as ours will include all sorts of views, including those of mockers of the Almighty. Good papers do that.

But since (I suppose) relatively few faithful Defenders actually subscribe to the paper, most of them probably missed something I saw, and was impressed by over the Holidays (oops, there I go being, if not secular, inclusive…).

Several opinion columnists — including some of my favorites — undertook to celebrate the season by reflecting seriously, thoughtfully and respectfully on holy matters.

I didn’t make a study of it at the time, and I can’t tell you how many writers did this, or whether it was a group project or something each was inspired on his own to write. But I enjoyed them all.

Two were written by folks who make enough of a habit of writing on faith that there was no surprise at all about it. They were Ross Douthat and David Brooks. I enjoyed their pieces, as I usually do, but there was less in them that I hadn’t read before. They’re still worth reading, though, especially if you don’t read them all the time. Douthat’s piece was headlined “Religion Has Been in Decline. This Christmas Seems Different.” Brooks’ was “The Shock of Faith: It’s Nothing Like I Thought It Would Be.”

But the ones that really impressed me were by Nicholas Kristof, one of my favorite liberal columnists, and David French, an evangelical conservative with whom I am less familiar.

Let’s look first at the French column, “What if Our Democracy Can’t Survive Without Christianity?”

Some of our more reflexive “liberals” are already bristling at that headline, saying Just like an evangelical to come up with something like that! But the thing is, he’s right, and he’s not the only one saying it here. In fact, this is less a “column” and more a transcript of a dialogue French had with his friend Jonathan Rauch, described here as “a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an atheist.”

In fact, the conversation was inspired more by Rauch, who has an upcoming book that I now hope to read, titled “Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain With Democracy.”

That’s something French has been thinking about, too. As a real Christian conservative, unlike the many we see gathering around Donald Trump, he has been appalled at what he has seen the last few years and wondering why he himself had been unable to see it coming. As he puts it:

Now we’ve finished a third consecutive presidential election when evangelicals voted overwhelmingly for one of the most immoral and cruel men ever to run for president.

This experience taught me something: Sometimes critics outside a community can see the community more clearly in some ways than those who live inside. They can see its virtues, how it interacts with the rest of the public in ways that we would admire and want to emulate, and we can also see the flaws that can demonstrate moral failings….

So he turned to Rauch. And Rauch’s point, though he is an unbeliever, is that what our country really needs is for Christians to act like… Christians:

What really needs to happen to get our country on a better track is for Christianity not to become more secular or more liberal, but to become more like itself, to become more truly Christian.

I came to that for a few reasons, but one of them is knowing people like you and other Christians who showed me that the three fundamentals of Christianity map very well onto the three fundamentals of Madisonian liberalism. And one of those is don’t be afraid. No. 2 is be like Jesus. Imitate Jesus. And No. 3 is forgive each other. And those things are very much like how you run a constitutional republic.

I agree with both, as this is something I’ve been thinking about for years, and contemplating writing a book of my own about. In fact, I hope to rough that book out this year, if I possibly can. It’s something I want to write whether anyone is interested in publishing it or not.

I’ll tell you more when I actually get something written. Now, let’s move on to Kristof.

His piece is called “A Conversation About the Virgin Birth That Maybe Wasn’t,” and as you might guess from that, it is also less of a column and more of a transcript of a conversation. Kristof calls it “the latest in my occasional series of conversations about Christianity, aimed at bridging America’s God gulf.”

This conversation is with Elaine Pagels, whom Kristof describes as “a prominent professor of religion at Princeton University and an expert on the early church.” She also has a book coming out, which I’ve already put on my Amazon gift list. It’s called Miracles and Wonder.

This is one that will quite provocative to many Christians, including many of my fellow Catholics. Ms. Pagels points out that some of the Evangelists — Mark, for instance — don’t ever mention a Virgin Birth. And here’s the most provocative bit:

The most startling element of your book to me was that you cite evidence going back to the first and second centuries that some referred to Jesus as the son of a Roman soldier named Panthera…

It’s not that much of a shock to me because I’ve read about that before — and even, as Kristof and Ms. Pagels mention here, that the Roman soldier raped the woman we see as the Mother of God. That’s horrifically painful to contemplate, but when we have more time, I’ll explain to you why I would revere Mary just as much if such a shocking thing turned out to be true.

In other words, I believe in the Virgin Birth, in a way that might remind you of the way the young Jewish protagonist of the Philip Roth story “The Conversion of the Jews” does. But it’s not as central to my belief in God and Jesus and Mary as it is to a lot of my co-religionists.

What I try to focus on is what Jesus came to tell us all about what another atheist writer, Douglas Adams, facetiously referred to as “Life, the Universe and Everything.”

Which is what Kristof and the lady he’s talking with do as well. As she says,

A professor friend said to me: “I’m an atheist. How can you believe all that stuff?” First of all, as I see it, “believing all that stuff” is not the point. The Christian message, as I experienced it, was transformational. It encouraged me to treat other people well and opened up a world of imagination and wonder…

That’s putting it more mildly than I would. In other words, as Jesus explained, the two greatest commandments are as follows:

36“Teacher,* which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37j He said to him,* “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38This is the greatest and the first commandment. 39k The second is like it:* You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Or as French’s atheist friend put it, it’s about Christians acting like Christians — real ones.

I can recommend the comic con if you’re interested

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I went to my second comic-con ever today, and it was quite enjoyable, which I thought I would mention in case you’re interested and wondering whether to go.

Not that the opinion of someone who’s only been to one of these before should count for much, but I had something nice to say about it, so I figure I’d say it. What I’m talking about is the Central Carolina Comic Con, which is going on at the state fairgrounds this weekend.

I had a good time, which among other things means it wasn’t too crowded. But attendance was respectable, which is good since this was the first year for this particular event. At least, I think I remember hearing that. Again, I’m no expert.

Personally, if I go to such events in the future — and I probably will — I hope they’re like this one. I think I would find San Diego a bit much. This one had sort of a Goldilocks level (not too much, not too little) of pop culture celebs; cosplay enthusiasts (including a huge proportion of young wannabe Harley Quinns); vendors of posters, stickers, refrigerator magnets and all sorts of plastic or foam fantasy weapons. And a very respectable percentage of the kiosks were devoted to straightforward, out-and-out vintage comic books — which to me is what this sort of event should be about.

Comics — what it should all be about, if you ask me.

The theme was … well, let’s just say there was a sort of Marvel-D.C.-Harry Potter-Walking Dead-Ghostbuster-manga-Star Wars-Star Trek-Lego character vibe going on. And General Lee from “The Dukes of Hazzard.” You know, eclectic.

I had four all-day passes — for myself, a son, a grandson and a granddaughter for Saturday. The same sort of pass is available, I believe, if you’d like to attend on Sunday the 12th. And if you’re worried about getting hungry at an all-day affair (11 a.m. to 5 p.m.), there were foodtrucks parked outside.

Mid-range pop culture figures met fans at tables about the periphery…

My only previous experience at such an event was at the Columbia convention center in 2018. It was for work. James and Mandy were circulating in the crowd, just as they did at, say, Gamecock tailgating, and I was along to shoot pictures and tweet them out.

The moment I remember best was when they visited with Mike “Luke Cage” Colter, which I documented — being on the spot while it’s hot, and first with the burst, as always.

Good times….

A sober reflection on ‘Flowers for Algernon’

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Happy New Year, folks.

I often hear people talk about teachers who opened their minds and transformed their lives during their schooldays. This is usually in the context of extolling education in general by offering a heroic figure for everyone to admire.

Well, I had a lot of great teachers, and still do, although school is far behind me. But I’ve never been able to point to one that had that sort of “I was blind but now I see” impact on me. I do have some more modest stories about teachers who turned me on to something.

Like Mr. Kramberg, down in New Orleans when I was in the 7th grade.

I’m sorry I don’t have his full name — and maybe I’m even misspelling his surname, after all this time. I’ve tried researching him on the Web, without success. And that worries me. You see, toward the end of that year, we were told that Mr. Kramberg wouldn’t be returning to Karr Junior High School after that 1965-66 school year, because he was going into the Army, and as I remember it, he was going to Vietnam (as my Dad did the following year). I assume (possibly wrongly) that since he was a teacher he would receive a commission, and while I may not have known then about the survival chances of second lieutenants in the infantry, I know more now.

Anyway, I remember him fondly, and not just because of the novelty of him being my first teacher who was a Mister and not a “Miz.” He had that quality that you find in “Conrack” (I never read The Water is Wide, but only saw the movie) and other books and films about teachers who made an above-the-call-of-duty effort to connect with students. And here’s the example of that I remember best…

For part of that term, he spent a few minutes each day reading a short story to us. I was a fairly voracious reader as a kid, but this story was different from any written work I had ever encountered. I had a habit in those days of letting my attention wander far from what was going on in English classes. I couldn’t help it. Classes in which the teacher went over and over rules of language that were second nature to me as an avid reader practically put me in a coma. But I was riveted by every word that he read aloud from “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes.

Yes, I said “short story.” That’s all it was, initially, when it was written in 1958. I later found out about the novel version published in 1966 and read and enjoyed that, once I realized it was the story Mr. Kramberg had read us.

Aside from the story being compelling, the unique (to me at that point in my education) way in which Keyes told it was what grabbed me. It’s told in first person by a retarded man named Charlie Gordon who wants more than anything to be “smart.” He studies hard, and his motivation causes him to be singled out for experimental surgery to greatly increase his intelligence (yes, the story was published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1959, and won both the Hugo and Nebula awards).

Aside from that premise, the story was decidedly down-to-earth, particularly because of Charlie’s very humble writing style. The doctors involved in the experiment have asked him to keep a journal, and he does his best, even though his grasp of spelling and composition are at best marginal. The story — in both short and novel form — is told entirely through that journal.

It’s a very compelling way to tell Charlie’s story, and that’s what grabbed me from the beginning Mr. Kramberg’s class. He did a great job of conveying Charlie’s challenges as a writer, and it really pulled us along. Or at least it did me. Since then, I have read and enjoyed the novel quite a few times.

If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it.

After this, though, if you have not read it, I must give you a SPOILER ALERT. You probably shouldn’t read beyond this sentence…. Even though I suspect you would still enjoy it even if you knew how it ends. The appeal of the work is more in how the story is told than in the outcome itself.

But if you hate spoilers, read no further.

Those who have read it know the sad fact that this is, as Keyes described it, “a classic tragedy.” After the initial chapters, Charlie undergoes his “operashun,” which he assures us “dint hert.” It is a dramatic success, and the following journal entries showcase a process — gradual at first, then rapidly accelerating if I recall correctly — of a simple man becoming a genius, and discovering things about the world and himself that he had never suspected.

Those chapters are exhilarating. Unfortunately, the effect is not permanent. And once he becomes far smarter than everyone around him and has thoroughly studied and absorbed the data that underly the procedure he has undergone, Charlie is the first person to realize that he will soon return to being the way he was. The doctors who are so proud to have transformed him reject the suggestion that their project will fail, but Charlie knows. And then the journal entries start sliding down from brilliance to the stumbling level where they started.

Which is painful to endure, but it’s still a great story. In fact, if I can’t find that old paperback around the house, I might go buy myself another copy.

But if I read it again, I’m a bit worried that I might identify with those latter chapters a bit more than would be pleasant.

Everyone declines if one lives long enough. Sometimes in ways that don’t matter very much. For instance, I was a bit alarmed 20 years ago when I suddenly realized I no longer had perfect recall of every lyric the Beatles ever wrote or recorded.

Somehow, though, life went on, and in fact I still remember most of them. So what, me worry?

I got somewhat more alarmed this week. Remember how I theorized awhile back that studying Dutch had sharpened my language skills, even in English? As I wrote in early November:

Also… back when I was doing 10 and more [Duolingo] lessons a day, before the Europe trip, an interesting thing happened. I suddenly was really, really good at the NYT word games I play — Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections. I mean crazy good. There was one week when I got Wordle in two tries three days in a row, and also hit the “genius” level — which means I “won” — three days in a row [on Spelling Bee].

It was a bit like experiencing in real life what Charlie went through in the period after his “operashun.” I was still digging that, even though I had stopped doing the 10 Duolingo lessons a day, and was only completing one or two, to avoid breaking my streak (which now stands at 297 days).

Well… today I decided to step up the pace to three or four lessons, and may do more before the day is out.

That’s because suddenly, I’ve hit a wall on Wordle. I did not complete the puzzle on Tuesday. But that’s OK, right? It was just because I forgot to go back and complete it. That happens occasionally — it happened one day when we were in Europe over the summer. And on Wednesday, I got through it just fine.

But then on Thursday, I failed entirely. Six tries, and no cigar. It had been awhile since that had happened.

Then today, it happened again.

Two failures in a row? I don’t think that has ever happened to me before. Sure, these were both of the kind of puzzle I hate — the kind in which it’s not at all hard to come up with a five-letter word using the letters that are still available. The problem is that it’s too easy — there are far too many possibilities, so it’s more about guesswork. Luck comes into play.

But enough excuses. I’m looking toward Saturday with some degree of dread. And I’m thinking I not only need to do more Duolingo lessons each day, but maybe it would be more mentally stimulating to start tackling a whole new language. Italian might be fun. And Russian would be challenging…

Anyway, I just thought I’d give y’all a warning in case, as I start posting on the blog more with the holidays behind us, my posts start to read like the later chapters in Flowers for Algernon.

I don’t think that will happen, but you never know. Meanwhile, I thought it would be nice, for any of you who have not read it, to turn you on to that book, so many years after Mr. Kramberg did me that same favor.

And more importantly, if anyone who reads this knows Mr. Kramberg and where he can be found, I’d like to send him a nice “thank-you” note…

 

 

 

 

Remembering Jimmy

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a Jimmy in 1976

Gerald Ford was a pretty decent guy. I would have been fine with him continuing as our president back in the mid-’70s. But he never had a chance of getting my vote in 1976. That’s because he was up against Jimmy Carter.

I had voted for the first time in 1972, and I had a terrible time getting the job done. I must have been in that booth — and we had actual booths back in those days — at least 15 minutes. The holdup was voting for president. I didn’t think much of McGovern. He had run a lame campaign. I was still mad at him for dumping Eagleton. Eagleton had actually been treated for his mental problem. Think what a comfort that would be to us today as we look forward to the inauguration in the coming month.

Mostly, I thought McGovern’s blundering incompetence was an indicator he’d be terrible at the job. Meanwhile, I knew Nixon at least knew how to do the job — but I didn’t trust him one bit. I was sure, even at that early point in the investigations, that he was involved in Watergate. Fortunately, there was a solution — I was sure McGovern was going to lose. So I voted for him, as a protest vote against Nixon. I suppose I finally pulled that lever just as the election volunteers were contemplating sending a search party in after me.

I was happy to have no such problem in ’76. I was for Jimmy all the way. I liked everthing about the guy, mainly that he was different. No, and not “different” like the excuse people use today. He was different in that he was not a crook like Nixon, and a more inspirational figure than poor Ford. And I’m not going simply by the influence of that new show, SNL — which had told me Ford was a klutz, and Carter was the coolest presidential candidate ever — a guy who could, if called upon, talk you down from a bum trip on Orange Sunshine (the cure involved listening to the Allman Brothers).

And it was more than the fact that he had that million-watt smile, which made us feel like everything was going to be fine. Jimmy was here, and we were done with all the crap the country had just been through.

There were more serious reasons. I liked what I had read about what he had done as governor of Georgia. I liked how that might translate into performance as president.

I liked the fact that he was a smart guy — one of Admiral Rickover’s nuclear Navy whiz kids. And he spoke to us as thought he thought we had brains, as well. He leveled with people, even if it set him up for embarrassment, such as when he told Playboy that he had “lusted in his heart” after women other than his wife — and everyone mocked him. At the very peak — or perhaps I should say nadir — of the sexual revolution, he dared to speak of right and wrong, and admit his own failings.

He dared to speak of God, and inspire us by living his life as a man who loved God, and wanted to live according to the wisdom that faith brought him.

I was a copyeditor at The Jackson (Tenn.) Sun at that early point in my career, fresh out of school. I had just joined the paper in the fall of ’75. I was frustrated not getting to write, and looked for anything that could add that enrichment to my dull routine. I volunteered to review books, and our managing editor — who was also our book editor, because that was something he loved — funneled to me any books about this exciting novelty, Jimmy Carter, who had just burst upon the national scene. That fed my enthusiasm.

Being a copyeditor, a desk man, I understood that reporters couldn’t go around with candidates’ bumper stickers on their cars, but cloistered as I was in the newsroom, I saw myself as an exception. And I really liked his green-and-white sticker scheme — a departure from all the blue and red I’d seen in my life, signifying that Jimmy, too, was a departure, and a welcome one. So I put one on the bumper of my orange Chevy Vega.

Probably the clearest (and least relevant, I realize) memory I have of that sticker was on one of my volunteer writing assigments. One weekend I went to Memphis for a book fair, attended by a number of prominent writers of that moment. The organizers set me up to take Mary Hemingway (How It Was) to lunch, and asked me if I’d pick up historian John Toland at the airport. I did so, but as I had not read his new biography of Hitler, we didn’t have much to talk about — except Jimmy Carter. He liked him, too, and therefore liked my sticker. He went back to my bmper and autographed it when I dropped him off at the hotel. By the way, I later read his book, and I recommend it. I learned a lot from it.

Early in the campaign, I got a chance to meet Carter — by, of course, volunteering to go cover a campaign event in Memphis. Since I was there in a journalistic capacity, I knew I wasn’t there to make like a fan. But I did shake his hand. I remember debating with myself whether that was OK, and I think I eventually decided it was. At least, I hope I decided that. It would pain me to realize I passed up that opportunity.

I remained a huge fan for the rest of his life. And it affected me. In the ’90s, I would become president of the board of our local chapter of Habitat for Humanity. That was totally due to Jimmy Carter.

At this point I should probably be running over things he did in office and analyzing them in detail. But while I thought Jimmy did a great job, that’s not why I was such an admirer. I liked and respected Jimmy Carter because he was the best human being to become president of the United States in my lifetime.

And now I thank God for letting him stick around here with us for as long as He did…

 

One area in which I am glad SC lags behind

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This is not about national politics. It’s about insanity right here at home. But in defense of South Carolina, it’s insanity that people are trying to stir up from the outside.

Of course, we all know that South Carolinians have always had their own mental problems in the realm of politics. Looking back, Tillmanism stands as a good example. An even better one is the matter of starting the Civil War. And no, we haven’t completely put such problems behind us. So we really, really don’t need loonies from outside trying to involve us in their nonsense.

This is occasioned by my receipt a couple of days back of this text:

Hi, this is Annie with American Action Fund.

Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers, but State Rep. Micah Caskey voted with the Democrats to elect Murrell Smith as Speaker of the South Carolina State House instead of a conservative Speaker candidate.

2 more years of Murrell Smith as Speaker means that Democrats will continue to chair powerful subcommittees and that key conservative legislation like closing the primaries, income tax repeal, and medical freedom are dead on arrival.

Please call Rep. Micah Caskey at xxx-xxx-xxxx and let him know you’re disappointed in his vote and demand he votes for a conservative Speaker in the future.

You probably don’t really see just how crazy that is until you know a few more of those old-fashioned things called “facts” as they bear on this matter of the re-election of the speaker.

Yes, I know facts are out of fashion in the Trump era, but Micah’s kind of like me in that he has little means of fighting back beyond, you know, the truth. I guess he and I are kind of retro in that way.

Shortly after I received that attack, I received this from Micah:

This is your State Rep. Micah Caskey.

You may have received a text message earlier today from an out-of-state, dark-money group critical of me and my support for our conservative Republican Speaker of the House.

The facts are pretty simple: of 88 Republicans, 71 of us voted to re-elect Speaker Smith. Our Speaker is a lifelong conservative who has proposed a strong conservative agenda for our next session.

The text message you received was from the so-called “Freedom” Caucus who seem hellbent on lying and misleading voters.

If you ever have any questions about my votes, please call me directly at xxx-xxx-xxxx. I’m always happy to chat with you directly about my conservative voting record.

Merry Christmas to you and your family!

STOP to end.

(A quick note: You’ll notice that I Xed out the phone number from both texts. I had originally not planned to do that, since the outside nuts were just giving the same number Micah himself shared with his constituents. But he was sharing that because he is fully willing to talk to anyone to whom he has an obligation to answer. The group attacking him wants him to be overwhelmed by angry people who have zero legitimate claim on his time.  I’m not going to help them with that. Micah will get more than enough response from his constituents. If you’re a constituent and for some reason didn’t get his text, check with me.)

So as you see, the out-of-state group not for “conservative Republicans,” but for a small fringe group (by this measure, 17 out of 88, although some of those may have had other reasons for opposing Murrell Smith), generally called the “Freedom Caucus.”

Why would these people think the actual “conservative Republicans” (whose lives the “Freedom Caucus” does everything it can to make miserable) would cave in and go along with the crazies?

Well, did you see what happened last year? An even smaller percentage of nutballs in the U.S. House managed to intimidate the rest of the GOP caucus into dumping their speaker. These people have been feeling their oats, especially since Trumpism’s big win in November. So why, by their way of “thinking,” should South Carolina be any different?

And the Freedom Caucus has no reason to love Micah Caskey. He constantly criticises, goads, mocks, and otherwise harasses that bunch on his Twitter feed. His feed, for instance, was the first place I saw the news that the leader of the Freedom Caucus was, according to the feds, to face criminal charges.

But it goes beyond Micah. He is but one of 71 GOP House members to support Smith. Consequently, I later saw similar texts received by friends who are not residents of Micah’s district.

Anyway, the good news is that the GOP caucus — which has controlled the S.C. House since 1995, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future, no matter what you or I or anyone else says or does — is still able to resist the worst forces in our national politics, at least on the matter of whom they want as their leader.

We don’t get many reasons to cheer South Carolina for lagging behind the rest of the country. But this is one very good excuse to do so. I will enjoy it while I can…

DeMarco: What We Can Learn from Jimmy Carter’s Time in Hospice

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The Op-Ed Page

By Paul V. DeMarco
Guest Columnist

As a general internist who also does hospice part-time, I have been interested in Jimmy Carter’s experience since he entered hospice in February of 2023. When I read the news, I expected he would die in a few months. But more than a year and a half later, Carter is still with us, and he is still imparting wisdom.

Public figures such as Carter help us understand aging and dying in a way our close family members often can’t. Most of us see our aging relatives frequently enough that their decline is gradual and sometimes invisible. But our connection with the famous is generally more intermittent. I have three sets of mental images of Carter – the handsome Georgia governor-turned-president with the endless smile, a slightly older but still vigorous 60-something climbing on roofs with Habitat for Humanity, and the most recent image of a ghostly centenarian being wheeled into his wife’s funeral.

A lucky few of us will live as long as Carter. But if we do, we are guaranteed to undergo that same decline. Some people still die suddenly, but most of us senesce. Like old cars, we roll along on wobbly tires, faulty suspensions, and sputtering engines until one day, the wheels stop turning.

Carter’s choice to enter hospice and announce it publically was a final act of service to his country. In choosing hospice, he acknowledged that he was near death, something that is difficult but essential. I have seen much unnecessary heartache in homes where everyone knew death was coming but no one was willing to admit it.

Carter’s tenure in hospice demonstrates that hospice is not a place. It is a type of care which is rendered almost exclusively in a residential setting, either someone’s home or a nursing facility. There are hospice houses for the small minority who prefer not to die at home, but most don’t want or need them.

Without hospice, dying can be a daunting task. Most of us are only closely involved in a few deaths in our lifetimes, and we get only one chance at our own death. There is a steep learning curve. Having caring and competent help through dying can make what is always a sad and difficult experience worlds easier.

Every family in hospice is surrounded by a circle of loving support. The team that cares for them always includes a physician, a nurse, a social worker and a chaplain. It can also include an aide if needed. Hospice aides are sometimes the most important part of the team, since they provide intimate, hands-on care that physically expresses the love the rest of the team has for the patient. My hospice team meets weekly to discuss our patients. During that meeting, we discuss how to best manage their symptoms such as pain and shortness of breath, and also how to comfort and sustain families through their loved one’s dying process. Although the patients’ needs are paramount, those of the caregivers are also always in focus.

Carter is not unusual in defying his physicians’ prognosis. Their assessment in February 2023 was that he would die within six months, which is one of the admissions criteria for hospice. However, prognosis is as much an art as a science. In a career of estimating prognosis, I have missed the mark many times. Sometimes patients enter hospice with a prognosis that seems months long but die quickly and unexpectedly. In a few cases, they improve or stabilize to the point that their prognosis is no longer less than six months, and they are discharged.

I tell medical students who rotate through my office to consider hospice sooner than later when they begin their own practices. Waiting until the last week of patients’ lives to accept they are dying creates a chaotic end. Hospice rushes in, the nurses do their best to relieve symptoms and educate the families about what’s coming, but patients are gone before anyone is prepared.

Hospice works best with long stays like Carter’s. When he dies, there will be no chaos. At the very end he will comfortable and unconscious. His family will be ready. They will have been able to say bittersweet goodbyes and express all their love and gratitude. There will be no hurrying, no regrets, nothing left undone or unsaid. Whatever your political leanings, whatever you thought of his presidency, we can all celebrate Carter’s extraordinary life and find inspiration in his courageous death.

A version of this column appeared in the November 20th edition of the Post and Courier-Pee Dee.

The pardon: Bad for the country; but maybe good for the soul

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Our old friend Doug Ross, being the ray of sunshine and Biden despiser that he is, posted this on an earlier string:

Joe Biden pardoned his son for felonies he plead guilty to. Joe Biden said he would not pardon his son. Joe Biden is a liar and will leave office as an embarrassing, mentally and morally compromised man. A fitting end to a consummate political animal. A failure whose ego and ignorance gave us Trump 2.0.

But I approved the comment — ignoring his over-the-top ranting about what an awful person Joe is — because he’s talking about a matter that we should address. Of course, the WAY he talks about it begs me to disapprove it. Instead of addressing the very real and practical concerns Joe’s action raises, which should be addressed — he wastes the entire comment after the first sentence heaping calumny upon ol’ Joe. And that’s another reason I have for allowing it — I couldn’t find a more perfect illustration of the kind of ad hominem comments that are not welcome here.

So what should he have said? Well, there are a lot of reasons for everyone to be very concerned about this pardon. Here are a couple:

  • He couldn’t have given Trump and his supporters a better Christmas present. A lot of people are saying this is something Trump would do, the very kind of thing he has been roundly condemned for doing — undermining the Rule of Law for his own purposes. Never mind that there’s a huge difference: Joe’s action is done out of love, and Trump loves no one but himself. He pardons people because he sees something in it for him — money, power, what have you. There is NOTHING in this for Joe, except whatever satisfaction he can derive from sparing his son any more of what he’s been through the last few years. In fact, it is absolutely NOT to Joe’s personal advantage. It will be sharply destructive to his reputation, and do something that will be even more painful if you’re Joe — undermine respect for our system, the one that Trump just can’t wait to destroy.
  • And it will be destructive. I don’t think that can be prevented or avoided, no matter what anyone says or does. From now on, when Trump does or says something completely outrageous (you know, like promising to eviscerate the constitution, or whatever, or nominating a Cabinet that looks like a list devised by The Onion), he’ll say, “This is just like what Biden did when he pardoned his kid, so don’t look at me!” And people will swallow it, especially the ones who want to. (Which used to be about 30 percent of the population, but now is a verifiable majority.)

When, of course, it isn’t the same thing. First, what Joe’s doing is exercising a specific power deliberately granted to him in that Constitution that Trump wants to do away with. He’s acting completely within the rules. He is doing something that is highly objectable — but it’s politically objectable, not legally or morally or in any other way. Ditto with the people Trump has pardoned. They are sometimes highly objectionable to me, but pretty far down on the list of objectionable things Trump does on any given day. Which is why you haven’t seen me going around talking much about Trump’s pardons. On his rap sheet, even in a merely political sense, these sins are hardly worth mentioning.

But let me point out one one huge difference even with actions that are similar. Think about motivation. Do you think Trump has ever issued a pardon that was contrary to his own interests? One that was based in pure compassion and forgiveness?

Oh, you think this action was in Joe’s interest? How, exactly? After so many factions rose up to force him from office, it was all over for him. His whole career was down the drain, and this would be — for millions upon millions of Americans — the final nail in the coffin of his legacy. And of course, at this point, a legacy was all he had walk away with after his 54-year public career.

And it’s an excellent legacy, although people across the political spectrum have endeavored to trash it at every opportunity. And now they can heap this last-minute bucket of mud, the pardon, on him as he walks away.

And he handed them the bucket. He essentially said, Here ya go. Do with it as you will.

And he did it for his son. Let’s consider that for a moment.

As deeply grateful as I was and am to Joe for coming out of retirement and doing all he could to save the country from Trumpism, I always felt kind of guilty about it. I can think of no one who has more richly earned the right to turn away from public life and enjoy whatever time he had left in the company of his family. There’s no greater joy than spending it with your children, unless it is spending it with your grandchildren. If I’ve learned anything from life, I’ve learned that.

Being close to politics, it has always concerned me to look upon the families of successful politicians. The cost to them is enormous, especially to children. All those endless hours of work, all that travel, leave you nothing to give them, beyond a famous name.

And Hunter Biden is near the top of the list of children who have been persecuted unmercifully, unrelentingly by his father’s enemies. Yep, he committed offenses, some pretty shameful. And if you don’t think he’s already been punished enough, you haven’t been paying any attention. He wasn’t being pursued by baying, slavering hounds because of the hounds’ moral indignation over the things he had done. The hounds weren’t even after his blood — they wanted to damage his father. They wanted to damage him because that same career on which his father had lavished so more time and energy than he had on his family. Pain heaped upon pain.

Be as indignant as you like about the pardon. It will do significant harm to this republic, no doubt.

But for once, his half-century of selfless service to the country (at the expense of his family) contemptuously stomped upon, Joe put his son, his family, first.

I am personally glad he has had the opportunity to do that, and did it, on his way to the exit.

Joe Biden is a people person. I’ve watched him campaign, and been deeply impressed at the way he focuses upon, and cares about, the strangers he meets on the trail.

I’m pleased that now he has found a way to turn that compassion, finally, upon his own son. I hope it brings him, and his whole family, some satisfaction, and personal peace. Maybe it won’t, but it’s one thing Joe could do.

Another way to put it is, it may be — will be — bad for the country. Almost anything you can say about how bad is probably true. But it might be good for the soul. I hope and pray so.

DeMarco: To All the Baptist Ladies

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The Op-Ed Page

President Jimmy Carter addressing the SBC in Atlanta in 1978. In 2000, Carter would break with the SBC over its position on the status of women.

By Paul V. DeMarco
Guest Columnist

Although I am a United Methodist, I have known many, many sweet and skillful Baptist women in my time. My children went to Marion Baptist Kindergarten prior to entering 5K in the public schools and were taught by two of the sweetest, a pair of beloved elderly sisters. Baptist women can organize church events, cook the best caramel layer cakes you have ever tasted, and I’m going to wager that most are smarter than their husbands (that’s no crack on Baptist husbands; it’s true in all denominations and certainly in my household).

I expect that most Baptist ladies of a certain age will stay put and keep doing important work for their congregations and communities. But after the Southern Baptist Convention’s recent annual meeting, I’m not sure how the SBC thinks it’s going to hold onto young women.

Since 2000, the SBC has had a nonbinding statement of faith banning women from the pulpit. At the annual meeting this past June in Indianapolis, the SBC came close to formalizing that ban into the denomination’s constitution.  The ban received support from 61% of the delegates, but it failed to achieve the required two-thirds supermajority. Still, the vote demonstrated that more than half of the delegates hold this outmoded view.

I remember watching my mother struggle with the restrictions placed on women by the Catholic church in which she was raised and educated.  I think she might have been the first doctor in our family if Fordham, the Jesuit university she attended, had allowed her to major in chemistry. However, in the early 1960s, Fordham’s chemistry degree was offered only to men.  As opportunities expanded for women in the secular world, the idea that women could not be priests or use birth control became insupportable to her. Eventually, she and my father found a happy home in the Episcopal church, where men and women are treated equally.

I remember as a teenager meeting a brilliant Mormon high school senior. She had been selected as a Presidential scholar, one of only 100 young people in the country to receive that annual award. To my surprise she was already engaged to be married. She had been admitted to college and had a bright future ahead. But when I asked how she would respond if her husband wanted her to stay home with the children they were sure to bring into the world, she said without hesitation that she would drop out.

My point is not that staying home with children is a bad choice. It’s a wonderful choice. I am grateful to my wife for choosing to stay home with our two when they were young. As a brilliant master’s prepared nurse, she could have decided she wanted to pursue a high-profile academic or administrative position.  How could I have denied her that?  Using a few verses from the Bible, a book written two millennia ago exclusively by men at a time when women were considered property?

The Bible contains great truths, but it must be interpreted (and whether we want to admit it or not, every reader of the Bible interprets Scripture. There is no objective reading of a text so voluminous, complex, or contradictory). As a physician, one of my favorite examples of bringing a modern interpretation to the Bible concerns the Gospel writers’ descriptions of Jesus casting out demons. Today we would diagnose the afflicted as having epilepsy or perhaps psychosis. Building a church infrastructure around exorcism of demons would be foolish based on today’s understanding of the brain.  Likewise, building a church infrastructure to uphold another antiquated idea, that woman are not men’s equals in the work of the church — including, teaching, preaching, and leading — is similarly foolish.

The SBC was founded in 1845 by men who wanted a denomination that would allow its members to own slaves, twisting the message of the Bible to accommodate that view.  It took 150 years for the SBC to formally apologize for that. Ladies, I am confident that at some point in the future, the SBC will recognize that it has made a similar mistake with its treatment of women. But why wait a century and a half for the apology?

If you’re a young or young at heart Baptist woman, consider moving to a denomination that fully recognizes your God-given worth. There are many, but I am partial to my own, the United Methodist Church, where women are viewed as equals in every way and hold every leadership position, including pastor and bishop.

Women lead men successfully in every secular aspect of life-in our homes, in the workplace, and in government.  Does God really want them to remain subservient in the church? Mike Law, pastor of Arlington Baptist Church in Virginia and author of the constitutional amendment banning women pastors argues, “Our culture may see this prohibition as harsh, but our God is all wise, and wrote this word for the flourishing of both men and women.” Reverend Law, let me respond for all the women rolling their eyes right now, “Well, pastor, bless your heart.”

A version of this column appeared in the October 16th edition of the Post and Courier-Pee Dee.

Throwing away all (well, MOST) of those old notes

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Some of the notes I’ve kept — there are very, very few.

When I was subpoenaed to testify in Jim Harrison’s trial in 2018, I was first asked to meet with the prosecutor, David Pascoe. He wanted me to testify about a long-ago (2006) blog post regarding an interview with Rep. Harrison.

Also, he wanted my notes from that interview. I told him that really wasn’t practical, and wouldn’t be helpful even if I produced them. First, there was thge problem of my handwriting. Second, I seldom wrote down full direct quotes (unless something the speaker said was so obviously a quote I would use that I thought it worth the time), because I was a slow note-taker for a journalist. My notes were so sketchy that I always had to write within a day or two of taking them to remember what they referred to. They would mean very little to me now, and nothing to anyone else.

Finally, I seriously doubted that I could produce them before the trial, even if I quit James Smith’s campaign and did nothing but search through the pile of boxes in my garage until I found what he thought he wanted.

So he dropped that idea, to my great relief.

Soon, I won’t have to worry about such subpeonas, because I’m getting rid of most of the notes.

The end of last week, we bought a car. A new car. Believe it or not, it’s the first new car we’ve bought since 1986. Yep, at least 38 years. We’ve gone with “previously owned” on every subsequent purchase. We were sick of the stress of constantly having to come up with money for repairs, and we wanted something with a warranty.

It’s a middle-of-the-road — in terms of cost — Toyota, but in unadjusted dollars, it cost more than the first house we bought, back in 1980.

So we want to take good care of this vehicle — which means parking it in the garage. Which we use for other purposes now, mostly (measured by cubic feet) storage.

Those couple of dozen boxes have got to go. They’ve been piled up in a sort of uneven ziggurat right next to the steps leading into the house. They’ve been covered with a big sheet of heavy plastic, which (I’m now finding) didn’t protect them as well as I’d hoped.

The going is slow, because I’m going through every sheet of paper in each box. (I’ve never been a person for blithely throwing things away.) I’m doing it fairly quickly, but it still takes maybe an hour per box. I was discouraged by the result on the first box, because I eliminated less than half the contents. But that was stuff from college days, and my decade at The Jackson (Tenn.) Sun, right after school. Which means I had winnowed through that several times before.

One thing that amazes me is the time I spent on administrative matters while putting out a newspaper — especially the correspondence from the days before we had printers that produced something of letter quality. Letters to readers, letters to prospective reporters (I was over all the news reporters at the Sun), letters to people running some conference I was about to go to. All produced on a typewriter. All that time spent on things that I really don’t care about now (which make up most of the stuff I did toss out). Wow, the energy I had in my late 20s.

Since that box, things have gone much better. I’ve thrown away something like 90-95 percent of each box. And a LOT of that is notes from the ’90s and double-aughts. Still haven’t run across those Harrison notes, though.

But I have run across a few notes here and there that I’ve pulled out to keep. Sometimes because of the interesting topic, but mostly because of the people being interviewed — people I like or enjoyed talking with (Joe Riley, Fritz Hollings, John McCain, Joe Biden), people I found completely appalling (Grover Norquist, for instance) or people who have subsequently become more widely interesting (like Nikki Haley).

I put a few of those together on my scanner so you could see the kind I’m talking about. I have a long way to go — including the dreaded box of an odd shape (like a cubic yard) that I know is nothing but notes. Who knows what I’ll find next?

In any case, I’m making gradual progress. But I thought I’d tell you because while there are always a lot of things preventing me from having time to blog these days, this is one of the bigger ones right now…

As of right now, I’ve eliminated 11 boxes. This is what’s left of the pile…

Hey, y’all, help me check something out

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See if you can tune in the signal…

Lately, I’ve heard it said a couple of times on NYT Audio that their content — or some of their content — is free to nonsubscribers.

It might just be the blogs, like “Matter of Opinion,” and “The Ezra Klein Show.” I’m wondering whether it might also apply to the newspaper’s other content (like The Daily and Headlines), and to some of the stuff they carry from other publications, such as The New Yorker.

This matters to me because so much of what I read and hear — and would like to share with you, so we can have a fully informed conversation about the things I’m thinking about. Which is, you know, what a blog is about — unless I just cut off comments and write a “personal journal” that I simply allow others to read. Or not. Which I’ve thought about.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that I include quotes to an extent that some might say goes beyond Fair Use (I would not say that, but we all have our own views, don’t we?), too often the conversations don’t go any deeper than the headlines, which means they don’t go beyond the usual conversations people have about politics or culture or anything in this social media age. And every statement is drawn directly from the current talking points from the two sides — the only two sides too many people perceive.

And if we don’t get beyond that, there’s little point to blogging.

So… let’s see if this works. Here are links to some recent items from NYT Audio. I initially tried to give you something from each category — blogs, opinion and news content from the paper (some read by the writers, some by ersatz voices), and some from other sources.

I’ve also tried to share a variety of topics. But after the first two or three, I ran into a bit of a challenge. Read on:

OK, that was more complicated than I thought. I couldn’t even find links to most of the dozen or so items I wanted you to listen to. And I’m pretty sure that the last of those three goes to the text content, not the audio. NYT Audio doesn’t give, on the app, direct URLs to specific content. So I was trying to grab those from the browser on my Mac. And even then, I couldn’t find links to outside content that appears on the app, such as The New Yorker and Foreign Policy.

Bottom line: You may have to download the app onto your phone or other device. It’s obvious they want everyone to do that. It’s worth the effort if they give you free access, because there’s good stuff there on a wide ranged of topics and interests. Here’s where you download it.

You would be rewarded by being able to listen to some of these other pieces I was originally going to link to here:

  • Carlos Lozada: Stop Pretending Trump is not Who We Are
  • The New Yorker: The Improbably Rise of JD Vance
  • The Culture Desk: Why Was 1999 the Best Movie Year (No, that’s not a typo; the second 9 wasn’t supposed to be a 3. But as silly as the proposition sounds, it’s an interesting listen while walking.)
  • NYT Interview: Al Pacino is Still Going Big
  • Foreign Policy: What a U.K. Labour Win Means for the Global Left
  • Hard Fork: Apple Joins the A.I. Party, Elon’s Wild Week and HatGPT
  • The Daily: A Conversation with President Zelensky

Or maybe you’d be thus rewarded. I can’t tell from my end, since they recognized me as a subscriber. But still, if you have any success with anything I’ve offered above, please let me know. I’d really like this blog to feature deeper and more intelligent discussions about … whatever the subject at hand might be… than are likely to be fueled by free media…

Nice playlist, YouTube!

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When I first listened to this, I was initially going to try to say something about how impressed I was that artificial intelligence had gotten so much better.

Screenshot

But then, I realized that such a preference-driven thing as this wasn’t really artificial (or any other kind of) “thinking” at all. It’s more of a case of you press button A multiple times, and the machine keeps showing you A — not even something as smart as “thinks like A,” but A itself. In some way or other, you could probably have built a machine that could do that a hundred years ago. Press these 12 buttons; get these 12 results. Duh…

It wasn’t even as “smart” as the thing I admired Pandora doing several years back — long before, say, ChatGPT and such. That’s when I noticed that, based on the tunes I had elected to hear, the algorithm was intuiting that I would also like this other tune, of which I had never heard. And it was right. I made some really happy discoveries through that process. I was impressed because Netflix had been presented at the time as being able to do that with movies and TV shows, and it failed miserably. I wasn’t sure whether that was because there are fewer variables with music, or because Pandora was just that much smarter than Netflix.

Anyway, this is nothing like that. I’ve chosen at some time or other to call up every clip on this list (except perhaps one), and YouTube just put them together and played them back for me.

But as dumb and obvious as that may be, I really enjoyed it. So I thought I’d share. Maybe you’ll dig it, or some of it, too. Here’s what it presented to me under the “My Mix” heading:

  1. “New Lace Sleeves,” Elvis Costello and the Attractions — What kind of music would you call this? I would have called it “jazz,” based on what that rhythm section is doing. But Wikipedia doesn’t say “jazz” once, which I guess shows yet again that I am a musical ignoramus. It puts both Elvis and the song under “New Wave,” which is hard to argue with. I says Elvis himself said it was inspired by Devo‘s cover of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and Stevie Wonder‘s “Superstition“. I can see the Devo, but not the Stevie. At least Wikipedia admits that Elvis’ wife plays jazz.
  2. “Tired of Being Alone,” Al Green — No mystery here. I listen to the Rev. Al quite a bit. As should everyone. And this one may be the best, although, to quote Ed Grimley, it’s difficult to say…
  3. “Elenore,” the Turtles — I love the story people tell about this one. The Turtles wanted to get all creative and produce a Sgt. Pepper or a Pet Sounds, but their label just wanted another “Happy Together.” So they decided to write the worst piece of crap they could think up, and that was “Elenore,” and the studio recorded it, and it was fantastic. Another big hit, because it’s simply an awesome pop song. Even the Turtles had to admit it. It’s even creative — I like the rhyming with the first syllable: “ELenore, gee I think you’re/SWELL and you really do me/WELL..” and so forth. Yes, the lyrics are moronic, but in a clever way, I always thought. I thought the dumb words were a way of saying that Elenore blows the guy’s mind to such an extent that he is rendered incoherent….
  4. “Use Ta Be My Girl,” the O’Jays — Not sure why this is on here. Not that I hate it, but I don’t remember having deliberately played it.
  5. “I’m an Old Cowhand,” Gene Autrey — I know why this one’s here. My mother was talking about enjoying the singing cowboy when she was a child, so I was showing her how to find some of his stuff on YouTube…
  6. “New Amsterdam,” Elvis Costello and the Attractions — Played this a lot before we went to Europe, especially since we’d be spending close to half the time in Amsterdam. Talk about fun, goofy lyrics… “New Amsterdam it’s become much too much/Till I have the possession of everything she touches/Till I step on the brakes to get out of her clutches/Till I speak double dutch to a real double duchess.” Maybe ol’ Declan is saying something super-deep about New York. I dunno. I just dig the wordplay. I listen to it the way I do “I Am the Walrus” — although this is better.
  7. “King Harvest,” The Band — I’ve mentioned my appreciation of this many times before, and this is a great time to listen to it — the most autumnal song by the most autumnal band ever. I first found this video of the guys playing it live in the studio years ago, and consider it a bit of a treasure.
  8. “Happy Together,” the Turtles — Hey, you can’t put “Elenore” near the beginning of a playlist and leave this one out altogether. As Nick Hornby said about making a mix tape, there are a lot of rules. And apparently YouTube’s algorithm follows them.
  9. “Sulky Girl,” Elvis Costello — I’ve mentioned how impressive I found this one before, so of course YouTube puts it in.
  10. “Delta Lady,” Leon Russell — This clip is another classic in the “live in the studio” genre. And of course, this was a time when musicians were fond of putting glitches and restarts on vinyl, to give listeners an illusion of being there. But this is special. When Leon starts, and stops everyone and starts again — twice — you are hearing the Master of Space and Time himself, an actual leading member of the Wrecking Crew, at work…
  11. “A Day in the Life,” The Beatles — No need for explanation here, is there?
  12. “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding,” Elvis and the Attractions — One of the great things about this is that it comes across as the quintessential Elvis Costello song, suiting his persona perfectly. And yet it’s not. Nick Lowe wrote it… but he could never bring it to life as well as Elvis. Nick sings it too gently. When Elvis does it, he says the title in a way that sounds like he’s ready to fight, and daring you to tell him what’s so funny about it…

So there you go. It’s been a rough week, folks. Enjoy…

You know who inspired “Delta Lady,” right? Rita Coolidge.

 

 

The day after…

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The view out my home office window at 7:28 a.m. What a bright, sunshiny day, huh?

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

— W.B. Yeats

Well, we know what rough beast. He’s been rending and tearing at the very meaning of our country for eight years now. We know him. And yet all those millions of people, who were right here through it all, actually went out and voted for him. To me, it remains unimaginable that even one person did. (I mean, have you ever seen this guy? Have you ever heard him speak?) But you see what happened.

As for Kamala Harris — well, it would be dishonest to pretend I was her biggest fan, but I was very impressed at the race she ran under such difficult circumstances. And in the end, I was happy and proud to vote for her and Walz and put a sign for them in my yard.

It’s a great tragedy for our country that she didn’t win. The contours of the tragedy are yet to be fully defined, but here’s a starting point: We were the great hope of the world, the greatest force for liberal democracy in human history (and if you’re one of those people who don’t understand the meaning of the word “liberal” in that phrase, please go do some serious reading). Now what will we be?

Whatever it is, there is no reason to think it will be in any way good.

But you know, as much as I mourn for the country I love, I’m even more immediately worried about people in other parts of the world — you know, those people Trump and his most fervent followers really don’t give a damn about. I could write about that from now to the day I die, and only partially describe the horrific likely effects. Just to mention one: I can’t tell you what will happen next in Ukraine, but it’s logical to expect that thousands more innocents will die, and the survivors will spend the rest of their lives being oppressed by Trump’s friend in Russia.

America can (I still hope and pray) bounce back, eventually. I’m not able to be as hopeful for Ukrainians.

Of course, other than that, some things went well, although that sound like I’m saying, “But aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, didn’t the play have some fine scenes?”

But, no longer being the public man I was, here’s my personal view. I had five signs in my yard. Here’s how things went with the folks other than Harris/Walz:

  • Mary Burkett — This is very pleasing, as she seems to be the biggest vote-getter in the Lexington 2 school board race. There are four winners total, and I also voted for two of the other three — Liz Chitty Castles and Craig Aull. My fourth choice was Brian Habing, and he didn’t make it. I have little or no objection to Tre Bray, who did. Three out of four is hard to complain about.
  • Micah Caskey — No surprise there, of course. But there’s a slightly interesting thing about the result. As I said in a previous post, his opponent was a very pleasant young man, and I enjoyed talking with him. But it would be hard to find anyone who seriously thought he had a chance in this Republican district. And yet — according to SCVotes, he got 39.63 percent of the vote. Let’s just round that up and say 40 percent. Of course, that could be because this is a fairly moderate Republican district, but still pretty good. Here’s why that matters: Fatalists are constantly saying there’s no point in voting in SC if you’re a Democrat, but take a look at the numbers. No doubt some people wanted Kamala Harris to win, but stayed home because soneone told them to be “realists.” (Alas, far, far too many Americans turn out only for the presidential contest.) And yet she got 40.42 percent of the vote statewide. Just because a state, or a district, is considered “safe” for the other party does not mean anyone has an excuse to stay home. Every vote counts. Every vote. Always.
  • Russell Ott (for whom I had two signs). This is the one candidate I tried most to help elect, as ridiculously minor as the help may have been — introducing him to friends, knocking on doors to talk a very few neighbors into putting up a sign for him. Make no mistake — the guy who made this happen was Russell himself. He worked as hard as I’ve seen anybody work for a state Senate seat. He made his case, and it was clear that he was the better candidate to any objective observer. But there was reason to worry. His district went for Biden in 2020, but Biden wasn’t running, and I never saw much similar enthusiasm for Kamala Harris in these parts. Congratulations, Russell. I’m glad to see you will be my senator.

That’s about it, from where I sit.

Election of the Body Snatchers II (with a possible answer)

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At first, I thought it was maybe a sign of lack of specifically Republican interest that so few voters were at the polling places I mentioned previously in Lexington County.

For a comparison, since I had to go into town anyway, I ran by several over in heavily Democratic Richland. Most were places I used to drop by each Election Day when I was at the paper:

  • A.C. Moore Elementary
  • Rosewood Elementary
  • Sims Park
  • Dreher High School

The first two I just drove by, and confirmed that there no visible lines stretching out the doors. At Sims, I went in, and found one or two people waiting to vote — just like at my own precinct back near Lexington Medical Center.

Finally, at Dreher, I went in and engaged the workers — who weren’t what you’d call busy — in conversation. And maybe I got my answer, although it’s an answer I brought up and immediately dismissed in my last post.

One of those signing people in (occasionally) told me not to be “fooled” by the light trickle of voters. He said 600 people from Ward 16 had voted early. That didn’t impress me until he explained that was half the registered voters (as least I assumed he was talking registered and not voting age population, because he would have had those data at hand — but I neglected to ask) in that ward. And, he said, while it might not look like much at any given moment, 300 had already voted there today. He said that at about 1:15. Conceivably, that left open the possibility that the remaining 300 could vote by the end of the day.

I don’t know, but the same could be true at the other places thus far mentioned, and at the Saluda River precinct I drove back by on my way home.

Huh. Those lines for early voting hadn’t looked very long, particularly when you consider these were people from precincts all over that part of the county. But when you stretch that out over a couple of weeks…

So, maybe folks are voting after all. I may not like the way they vote on this or that race, but I suppose I can’t accuse them of slacking off. Or maybe I can. We’ll see. Dreher was the only place where I went in and got some numbers, and maybe it was different at the other places…

Uh — where are the crowds?

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Normally, there are loads of campaign signs in this spot. This time, they had all been stripped away. Voters were almost as scarce in this location…

I get up, and I read how painfully excited everyone is supposed to be across the country, which was to be expected — right?

But then I go check out the action at my own polling place, and — there’s nobody standing outside. And I drive by my Mom’s a couple of miles away, and — it’s the same.

Which is a shock. I mean, here’s what it looked like at my polling place in 2008, which is the year I think of when I think “big turnout.”

You may say, “Yeah, but it’s raining right now.” Yes, very lightly. And an almost identical rain was falling when I took those pics in 2008, too.

But thinking of that, I went back to my own precinct to see if the crowd was all jammed up inside the building.

No. Nothing. No lines at all. I talked briefly with a school board candidate who was standing out greeting people at the door, and he said the workers told him it had been like this all morning — one or two voters at a time.

I stood there and talked to him for several minutes, and during that period that description of the trickle was borne out — one voter went by us and entered.

It wasn’t like this at early voting, as you can see from my previous posts. But at the same time, while the early crowds were good-sized, they weren’t big enough to tell us there would be virtually no turnout on the Day.

What are y’all seeing?

 

This was pretty good, but the Mick Jagger one was funnier

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Several news sources mentioned last night’s SNL skit with Kamala Harris and Maya Rudolph, so I checked it out. (You say I should have watched it live? What do you think this is, 1975?).

It was pretty good. It was a fine execution of an established skit, both carried it off well, and they didn’t try to do too much with it — they stuck to the simple gag.

Possibly the most practical thing they accomplished was helping me remember how the veep pronounces her own first name. They played around with it a bit, as The Washington Post described:

Rudolph and Harris then exchanged a set of jokes riffing on Harris’s first name.

“Now Kamala, take my palm-ala,” Rudolph said to Harris. “The American people want to stop the chaos.” “And end the drama-la,” Harris said. They concluded: “Keep calm-ala and carry on-ala.”…

Beyond that, though, I have to say I still prefer the original — when Mick Jagger did the same mirror shtick with Jimmy Fallon. Of course, part of what made that funny was the way Jagger himself kept cracking up at Fallon’s mockery of him. Remember?

Of course, when I first thought of it, I was thinking “that skit that Mick Jagger did with Mike Myers.” But my memory slipped on that one. Myers did the one in which he played Jagger, and Jagger lampooned Keith Richard. That was fun, too, even though Jagger managed to stay in character…

Anyway, while last night’s skit was enjoyable, the other thing keeping it out of the winner’s circle was that I see nothing funny at all about this election. I think SNL has figured this out, which is why their mockery seems to have less fire than in the past, and is less funny. The Post has noticed this as well…

Mick cracking up over Jimmy’s impression…