The veep debate

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I’ve been meaning to get to this for a couple of days, so let me take a shot now.

I’ll start with this exchange about the Vance-Walz debate from the NYT’s Matter of Opinion podcast:

Michelle Cottle: And I think on behalf of exhausted Americans, people appreciated that we’ve got enough crazy at the top of the ticket that I think both of them had a very specific job. Vance needed to not look mean and cold and unhinged in order to rebrand himself from the clips and what the Democrats have been pushing his image as.

And Walz has a reputation as being a good guy, politicking on the — and I hate this term so much — “the politics of joy.” I’m sorry. That is a Christmas carol. That is not a presidential position. But that’s what he’s there with. So he needed to look civilized and genial, as well. So they both had their reasons. And I think it was a welcome break from what we are accustomed to.

Carlos Lozada: I do think that the civility thing was far more useful for Vance than for Walz, in part because I think it’s something that merely reaffirmed Walz, whereas it was something that helped rehabilitate Vance….

Yes. And of course the panelists touched upon the irony of the veep debate having gone, starting in 2016, from being a barking contest between attack dogs (while the people at the top of the tickets modeled statesmanlike behavior) to an oasis of sanity and civility in the era of Trump.

And that’s what this one was, and mostly the two men met the expectation of civility quite well — with J.D. Vance unexpectedly going a better job of it than Tim Walz. Or, to put it as I did on Twitter in real time:

I later added to that tweet, “That pose is eroding, though. Am I the only one hearing him shift tone? Less ‘Governor Walz,’ and more ‘Tim…'” But on the whole, it was refreshing.

Interestingly, the panelists agreed that Vance “won” the debate, and they noted how that differed from the after-debate polls, which were more of an even split. They congratulated themselves on their professional perspective, which enabled them to appreciate his “performance.” Which surprised me slightly, especially coming from Ross Douthat. Usually, he’s more of a substance-over-form guy. But then, he’s also the official “conservative” voice on the panel, so I guess he was trying harder than the others to praise Vance.

From my perspective, Walz neither helped his and his ticket’s cause, nor hurt it. Again, I’m not a “performance” guy. I care about substance and character. And to me, Walz stood steady on those.

I enjoyed a moment with Richard M. Nixon — the Twitter feed, not the original. He tweeted that “Walz is nervous.” I replied, “Well, so were you, sir…” Which was true. And that was the beginning of people who looked better on TV having an unfair advantage.

In his podcast, Ezra Klein maintained that it all came down to one thing: Vance refusing to say that he would stand up to Trump the way Mike Pence did, refusing to try to overturn the results of the election. And yes, that is the most substantial objection to him, among many.

At the time, though, I responded to something that I felt spoke more generally to the importance of this decision voters face:

I should probably end by saying what I have before, which is that this debate is something of relative insignificance. Y’all know that I hate all “debates” as they now exist, because they do little to showcase qualities that lend themselves to the job being sought.

And of course, I can’t remember a time when I made my own decision about a presidential candidate based on his or her running mate. So this makes vice-presidential debates even less important than the top-ticket contests. But still, we all know so little about each of these guys that I watched it, and above is what I thought.

Did y’all participate in today’s great grocery panic?

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Food Lion had restocked the water, but if you wanted chicken, good luck…

I’m thinking it started after we heard about two developments:

  1. That rising rivers might knock out water treatments plants.
  2. Longshoremen were about to go on strike.

I confess that I went to Food Lion for water and toilet paper. But they were out of water, and I forgot the toilet paper (in my defense, I was picking up several other things). I came home and told my wife, Er was geen water bij de winkel. (I’ve decided it’s kinder to deliver bad news in Dutch, which I’m still studying even though our stay in Amsterdam is behind me.)

So I went back this evening, and they had restocked the water. I bought a modest amount, plus some for my mother, and a small package of TP.

And I noticed that they had NOT restocked the empty chicken shelves. Of course, I don’t eat chicken, so…

Meanwhile, I kept thinking about getting some gasoline, but the only station near me that had any was way too swamped.

What has been your experience regarding the expected scarcity? If you’ve refrained from hoarding, congratulations. You’re a great communitarian. And if you have indulged, well, I can’t say a word…

Do you have loved ones up in the mountains? How are they?

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One of the Chinooks providing relief up around Boone, N.C.

A followup on the hurricane post…

Things are still far from normal here in the (relatively) flatlands. Trees that were removed from atop houses (like my mother’s) are mostly still lying on the ground while the tree folks tend to other emergencies. I saw Joel Lourie’s business had to stay closed today for lack of power — as did many others, I’m sure; I just happened to read about that one. And statewide, I heard yesterday, more than 800,000 people lacked electricity.

But the real trouble has apparently been up in the Upstate, and especially in the mountains. The plant where my brother in Greenville works just got power (so did his house). But as I say, the real trouble is uphill from there.

Dave Crockett told us of widespread outages in Oconee. And when you start getting up toward and into North Carolina…

  • My eldest granddaughter and her dog (y’all know Dembe) are going to try to drive home in the morning. She’s been pretty much trapped in her neighborhood in Asheville since the storm (you may have heard about Asheville). She’s the one who, as I mentioned before, saw a house float by on the rapidly rising French Broad River just below her house. She never lost power, though. So her phone is charged, she has food and water, and a full tank of gas, and now some roads have opened. But we won’t breathe easy until she’s safely down here with us. Because things are a mess up there.
  • I had a series of texts and phone calls yesterday with Samuel Tenenbaum — off and on when he was able to get to a point where there was reception. He and Inez live in the mountainous part of Greenville County now, on Caesar’s Head. Their power is out. They have a generator, but were almost out of the propane that keeps it running. They had managed to get out of their driveway, but they couldn’t come south because Highway 276 was out. He said if there was a medical emergency, no ambulance could get into his community of 90 homes, or the larger neighborhoods of Caesar’s Head. He wanted the governor to send the Guard. I checked with the Guard and found they were already in Greenville County clearing road, but only clearing roads DOT asked them to clear. It was going to take maybe a week or two to get to all the roads up there. Meanwhile, National Guard helicopters flew 28 rescue missions across the state on Sunday.
  • I went to the home of my neighbor Mary Burkett, because she’s running for Lexington Two school board, and I wanted one of her signs in my yard. I was greeted by her son Michael, who took my daughter to the prom when they were seniors at Brookland-Cayce years ago, and joined my elder son in forming their first band earlier than that. He said he and his dog — who was still in a nervous state at having a stranger at the door — had been in the mountains for five days, but I didn’t realize until I got home and read his mother’s Facebook page what a harrowing experience they had had. This was up around Boone. Their area was supplied and resupplied with water and MREs by a steady stream of military Chinook helicopters (you know, the big eggbeaters with two rotors) during that time. This morning, a road finally opened (basically, it was rebuilt after parts of it had essentially evaporated) this morning, and he got back home.

Oh, and my wife went to the dentist this morning and the hygienist told her two more storms are on our way. Looks like she might be right, although who knows there those disturbances will end up.

Anyway, what are y’all hearing from friends and loved ones up in the hills?

And I did get that yard sign, to go with my Russell Ott one.

Just checking on all of y’all. How are you holding up?

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I’d have gotten to you earlier, but I’ve been busy checking in repeatedly with family members, from my 93-year-old mother to each of the five kids, and each of the five grandchildren. The sitrep:

  • One has a tree (or a large part of a tree — see the image) on her house and water leaking into her dining room. We have a tree guy lined up, but it’s likely to be tomorrow before he gets there and gets a tarp on it, as the insurance people said we needed to do ASAP.
  • Another without power.
  • Another without internet.
  • One who is down on the coast for work; his family is at home and reports no problems, although his in-laws have no power.
  • One who flew out of Charleston this morning to Boston, on her way to Iceland.
  • Another who is sitting in her house on a mountainside in Asheville. She’s watching the river below her, which is at 100-year flood stage and still rising eight inches per hour. She saw a house float down it.
  • At my house, we’re doing fairly well. We had no water this morning, but it came back — dirty at first, but looking clear now. There are some trees down around the neighborhood, but we have power so far.

Meanwhile, I’ve heard that the Richland County jail has no power. And you know they have virtually no staff.

How are all y’all doing?

What a great opportunity! But where did all that money come from?

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I’ve mentioned a number of times this employment service that has had me on its email list ever since I was a senior staffer for the Smith/Norrell campaign in 2018.

It’s all about top jobs across the country in and around government and politics — on congressional staffs or helping run campaigns, or heading of lobbying for some big corporation. I don’t intend to pursue any of those openings, but I stay on the list because some of them are really, really interesting.

Like this one today, which you see above. Note the very first job listed. Now this is what makes it extra interesting — the timing. I received that email at 9 a.m. today.

The New York Times had sent out the following at 7:47 a.m.:

Federal Agents Search Eric Adams’s Official Residence

Federal agents searched the official residence of Mayor Eric Adams of New York, the latest move in a corruption investigation…

Then at 11:07 a.m., I received this from The Boston Globe:

BREAKING NEWS ALERT

New York City Mayor Eric Adams was indicted Thursday on charges that he took illegal campaign contributions and bribes from foreign nationals in exchange for favors that included helping Turkish officials get fire safety approvals for a new diplomatic building in the city….

An interesting sequence. Do you think anyone applied for that job online between 9 and 11:07?

I mean, the salary is attractive, but the alert we’d already received meant you’d definitely be earning every penny of it. The mayor is in serious need of some advice at the moment.

I also wonder where all that money comes from? Oh, I’m not flinging accusations or aspersions or leaping to conclusions. I just wondered…

No, this is not a ‘free-speech’ issue

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Screenshot from The Boston Globe. That’s a Brazilian flag, by the way.

I bring your attention to this local contretemps up in New England, and hope The Boston Globe won’t mind my quoting this much of it:

Flags spark a free-speech dispute in N.H.

NASHUA — One of the flagpoles outside Nashua City Hall is the latest lightning rod in litigation over free speech.

The pole, which stands next to those flying the American and New Hampshire flags, features a rotating assortment of banners contributed by community members to acknowledge special occasions, cultural heritage, and worthy causes.

But the city’s refusal to fly certain flags has sparked consternation, and a local couple, Stephen and Bethany R. Scaer, allege officials are infringing on their First Amendment rights.

One of their two rejected flags says “Save Women’s Sports’’ and promotes awareness of people who no longer identify as transgender. The other, which features a pine tree and the slogan “An Appeal to Heaven,’’ has historic roots in the American Revolution but recently has been co-opted by Christian nationalists.

Nashua’s risk manager, Jennifer L. Deshaies, rejected the applications, saying the flags were “not in harmony with the message that the City wishes to express and endorse.’’ The Scaers appealed to Mayor James W. Donchess, but he upheld the rejections.

Earlier this month the Scaers sued the city in federal court, with backing from the Institute for Free Speech. One of their attorneys, Nathan Ristuccia, said Nashua’s policy had inappropriately given city officials “unbridled discretion to censor speech they dislike.’’…

(Of course, as always, I urge you not only to go see if the Globe will let you read the story, but to go beyond that. I highly recommend subscribing. I love that paper.)

The easy thing to say about this is that the city of Nashua was asking for this — just as, say, South Carolina is asking for trouble when it agrees to issue specialty license plates for various groups and causes, from shag enthusiasts to the Sons of Confederate Veterans. There’s always going to be a moment when you regret opening that box, when you realize this is not something we need to be promoting on behalf of all the people.

Unless, of course, you feel no sense of responsibility as a steward of the public’s property and resources.

Anyway, Nashua shouldn’t have placed itself in this position. It should and must fly the U.S. and New Hampshire flags, as a true and direct statement of what holds sovereignty in that space. But that’s not the point I sat down to discuss.

My point is, the assertion by anyone that refusing to allow this flagpole to be used by anyone who wants to is somehow a denial of free expression in any way is utterly absurd.

You say the plaintiffs have been silenced? How, exactly? Who is stopping them from erecting a flagpole on their own property — or the property of someone who willingly allows it — and flying an “Appeal to Heaven” flag, or any other banner, that rivals those that wave so slowly and majestically above some promotion-minded car dealerships?

No one. Who is keeping them from posting about it all day and night to the entire world via social media — or a billboard, or a magazine article, or by stripping to the waist and painting the message on their torsos and appearing at the nearest sporting event that is being televised? Or boring their friends to death yammering about it? No one.

Who has stopped them from filing a lawsuit in the public courts in order to seek a redress of their supposed grievance? Or from being interviewed, and speaking freely during it, to a reporter covering the lawsuit for a prominent story in the nation’s 13th-largest newspaper? (Which, let me point out, gets them way, way more exposure for what they wish to express than the flagpole would.)

Again, you know the answer: No one. They have gone on expressing themselves, and no one has put them in prison. No local Putin has caused them to unwittingly ingest a deadly radioactive substance.

The only thing that has happened to frustrate these folks is that the election officials of the town of Nashua have refused to use a public resource to promote something for them. As rebuffs go, this is akin to the council declining to allow the plaintiffs to withdraw funds from the city treasury in order to buy themselves an ad in the local paper.

This story of course grabbed my attention in part because of my two decades of arguing that the Army of Northern Virginia battle flag should not be flown at the Statehouse. This was a particularly easy point to make when it flew atop the dome, with the two flags that legitimately identified the sovereign entities that held sway in that temple of lawmaking. That was ridiculous on so many levels, without even getting into what you or I thought of the Confederacy. It wasn’t a governmental flag of any kind. It represented no nation or state or constitution. It was simply a thing carried by a large military unit to identify itself to friend and foe on a battlefield.

And it was only marginally less absurd than when it flew later behind a Confederate monument that stands on the most conspicuous spot on the capitol grounds. Of course, we all knew why it was there: to flash a big middle finger at anyone who didn’t want it there. Which was something some people irrationally thought they were entitled to do with our property.

But that’s behind us.

Of course, I was also drawn to the subject for another reason that should be obvious. You may have noticed I mentioned a number of ways that the plaintiffs were free to express whatever they wished: a social media post, a billboard, an ad in the local paper, body painting. There are many other modes of expression available to the aggrieved pary, including, of course, a blog.

But if they want to say absolutely anything they wish, in any way they wish, they need to start their own blogs. When the First Amendment was adopted, such a forum wasn’t available to everyone. As my mass communications law professor noted during my school days, freedom of the press was guaranteed only to those who owned a press. That is no longer true. Now, you can start your own blog for essentially no cost, beyond your own precious time. And then you can express yourself without limit, prattling on all you like.

Of course, if that’s too much effort, you can comment on a blog that places no restriction on what you say, or even welcomes what you are eager to express.

But if a blog has standards that are inconsistent with your preferred style of expressing yourself, that blog’s owner or managers are under exactly no obligation to use their forum to promote it for you.

If any blog — or newspaper or social medium or billboard company or supplier of body paint — is willing to let you use its resource to post even so much as one comment for free, then you are receiving a gift.

Try to keep that in mind. In the meantime, I hope the court dismisses the claim that plaintiffs are being somehow “censored.” It is utterly without merit.

 

Open Thread for Tuesday, September 24, 2024

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Apparently, they let Dr. Evil name the new asteroid…

About time I gave y’all one of these:

  1. Biden Warns the World Is at an ‘Inflection Point’ Amid Global Crises — Yes, it is, and I don’t know if I’m as optimistic about the outcome as Joe is, especially with him stepping aside, leaving us with our leadership options currently ranging between inexperience and the tawdry downfall of liberal democracy.
  2. ‘Russia can only be forced into peace,’ Zelensky tells U.N. — The U.N. was the center of gravity for today’s most important news. And of course, Zelensky is right. We need to quickly sort out whether we’re going to let him make full effective use of the weapons with which we’ve provided him.
  3. ‘I’ll eat you up,’ SC man told US Marshal before biting him — This is the strongest indication I’ve seen this week that Florida Man is steadily migrating northward.
  4. Israel vows more strikes in Lebanon as death toll soars — And of course, this is the other place where the “inflection” is slapping us in the face. Does Israel need this? Was Hezbollah being this big a problem at this moment? Maybe. Or is it just that Bibi thinks he needs a new offensive to stay in power?
  5. Helene brews; SC likely to be on strong eastern edge — Y’all do your best to stay safe.
  6. A new ‘mini-moon’ comes to Earth this fall — The even better news is, it’s going away after a brief stay, assuming the boffins have done their sums right. It’s actually an asteroid, but calling it “mini-moon” is better marketing.
  7. Strange Cellmates in a Brooklyn Jail: Combs and Bankman-Fried — This may be my fave story today, like something imagined by a writer of comic books. It’s the real-life version of Gotham City deciding to put the Penquin and the Joker in the same cell. They might have done that in the old campy TV series when I was in junior high. Since then, the DC writers have been too serious to propose something that outrageously absurd…

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I am so abysmally ignorant

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The Washington Post shared this, courtesy of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

Would someone please give me a pile of money — that pile that Walter White gave to the Schwartzes should be enough — so I can support my family, but spend the rest of my life studying?

The thing is, I am so abysmally ignorant. I’m not talking about neo-Boolean math, or how to perform a bypass on a beating heart. I’m happy to leave those things to people who have devoted their lives to those areas. (And yes, I know someone right here in Columbia who can perform a bypass with the heart still beating. It leaves me in awe.) I’m thinking right now of something that has fascinated me, and drawn my energy and attention, for my whole life — history.

I’ve mentioned this a number of times, usually with regard to recent history. I constantly find that there are big, important things I don’t know about periods I’ve really concentrated on at various points — the early days of this young republic of ours, or even the Second World War.

But there are entire periods of history — things that had as much, or nearly as much, impact on the world as, say, the centuries of disorder in Europe after the collapse of Rome — about which I know nothing. Not just very little, but nothing.

And I’m not talking about ancient China, or anything that we westerners normally neglect. I’m talking about things that are fairly essential to understanding how Western civilization came about.

I’ve come to realize this more as my attention has drifted away from the headlines of the moment, and more to the overall sweep of human history. For instance, the lede story today in The Washington Post was about what polls say about the presidential election. Well, I didn’t read that. Y’all know how sick and tired I am of “journalists” trying vainly to predict the future — in great detail. They should devote their extremely limited resources to reporting and increasing understanding of what is happening and has happened, and if they are opinion writers, stick to trying to express what should happen, not what they think will happen…

But I don’t want to get off on that tangent. I want to talk about the story that did interest me — the one about that sword you see above. It’s pretty fascinating. An excerpt:

More than 3,000 years ago, a long bronze sword emblazoned with the insignia of Ancient Egypt’s Ramses II — the most powerful pharaoh of the era — was set down in a mud hut somewhere in the Nile Delta.

A team of archaeologists digging up an ancient fort in the area spotted the bronze blade and cleaned it, revealing this month they had found a shimmering blade with the intricacies of an ornamental cartouche — the personal emblem used by the pharoahs — still visible. It had not lost its reflective shine under the layers of rust and grime accumulated over millennia….

My first thought was to send out a tweet with a wisecrack like “I suppose those swords weren’t much help with the Red Sea crashing down upon the pharoah’s troops.” Because Ramses II was the pharoah Moses dealt with. I figured that even people as ignorant as I am would get that.

But I didn’t do that. Because the next second, I thought, “Bronze? Was the Bronze age still going on at the point?” So I started looking things up, mostly on Wikipedia (criticize Wikipedia all you want, but if you’re looking for basics — when and where, and a rough idea of how this fits into the overall human saga — it can’t be beat).

And I found that the lengthy reign of Ramses II was at the tail end of the Bronze Age. Reading on, I learned that that period ended more dramatically than with a technological development (iron). You have to look more broadly at something called the Late Bronze Age Collapse:

The Late Bronze Age collapse was a time of widespread societal collapse during the 12th century BC associated with environmental change, mass migration, and the destruction of cities. The collapse affected a large area of the Eastern Mediterranean (North Africa and Southeast Europe) and the Near East, in particular Egypt, eastern Libya, the Balkans, the Aegean, Anatolia, and, to a lesser degree, the Caucasus…

And I’m like, what the what? The next sentence confuses me more:

It was sudden, violent, and culturally disruptive for many Bronze Age civilizations, and it brought a sharp economic decline to regional powers, notably ushering in the Greek Dark Ages…

Nope. I had no idea the Greeks — the West’s ultimate trendsetters — just couldn’t wait for the rest of Europe, and went ahead and had their own Dark Ages about 1,700 years earlier.

I mean, I sort of knew that the Greeks’ heyday was in the past by the time the Romans took the baton, but I hadn’t ever thought about how that decline happened.

(Of course, of course, of course, when you click on that Greek Dark Ages link above, you find that “Currently, the term Greek Dark Ages is being abandoned.” You know that had to happen, right? That’s what experts do. Somehow they sense I’m about to learn and maybe even to some extent understand something, and decide that they’ll start calling it something else.)

So how did this Late Bronze Age Collapse happen? Well, there were a bunch of causes, such as the Sea Peoples. And here we are again. I had never heard of these Sea Peoples. And yet they were a major thorn in the side of the established order.

So who were they? Well, there the record is pretty scarce, and the “experts” don’t know exactly. I find this a bit reassuring. They set themselves up as the authorities on the Sea Peoples, and don’t know much more than I do.

But at least they’d heard of them. I really, really need to find more time to study…

Where’s the time for it, though? Human life is so absurdly short…

‘It’s been a loooong week,’ says Tony

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The longest I ever lived in one place growing up was in Guayaquil, Ecuador. We were there for two and a half years, which took me through the fifth and sixth grades. Might not sound like much to you, but when you were a kid and used to moving annually, that was an eon.

And that whole time, my best buddy was Tony Wessler. He was there for the same reason we were — his dad was in the Air Force and part of the same military mission to Ecuador that sent my dad there. We lived about six blocks apart, went to school together, and spent the rest of our time out having adventures in that TV-free environment. I remember it as a sort of Huck Finn existence.

Anyway, it’s been good to reestablish contact with Tony via Facebook sixty years later, and I got a kick out of this bit of improvisation he posted recently. I was impressed. I initially saw it without sound, and it was perfect that way. Sort of Chaplinesque.

Enjoy…

 

 

An interesting development in House District 89

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Wayne Borders, talking in the garden today about his candidacy.

I was looking for my wife today to ask her some dumb question or other, and found her in the garden to the side of our house. She had paused in her work to speak with a young man I’d never seen before — seeing the rack cards in his hand, I realized he was out campaigning for someone, and when I saw the cards were for Russell Ott, I stepped up eagerly to join the discussion.

To my surprise, he was campaigning for himself. His name is Wayne Borders, and he’s the Democratic nominee against my state representative, Micah Caskey. I’d had no idea Micah had opposition. Wayne was just carrying the cards for Russell because he was a fellow Democratic nominee.

I was also interested to hear him speak, and my first impression was “military brat.” No accent of any kind. Then I asked where he was from, and he said “Red Bank.” So I was more confused than before. He didn’t sound much like Red Bank. But the beginning of his bio on his campaign site sort of explains that. He moved around enough growing up to iron out the regionalisms.

Anyway, we had a nice talk for a little while before I realized I needed to let him go and knock on more doors. But I’ve got his number, and I’ll set up an interview some time soon. So expect some followup.

I’ll also get with Micah. I suspect he’s not terribly concerned, given the district. He didn’t have a primary challenge from his extreme right this year, which I know was a relief for him after last time. For him in this Republican district, the primary is where the rocks and shoals lie. But however slim a Democrat’s chances are around her, this is an interesting development….

And the meme goes on…

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The first time I saw this gag was 15 years ago, when I shared it here on the blog. (Sorry, but YouTube has taken down the link to the video, but you’ve probably seen it. Here’s a spoof of the spoof.)

My friend Burl Burlingame had brought it to my attention, so I experience some sadness thinking of it now, but mostly laughs. I think that was the first time I mentioned Burl here — he and I had just recently established contact through our blogs. I hadn’t seen or spoken to him for 38 years at that point.

Anyway, it’s amusing to see that people are still having fun with that epically serious scene from “Downfall.” (It’s a sort of mini-industry itself.) By the way, if you’ve never seen that film, go do so right away. (It’s streaming on Amazon Prime, Tubi and Peacock.) It’s pretty awesome. If you don’t speak German, that’s cool. The subtitles — the real subtitles, I mean — will carry you through. It’s about Hitler’s last days in the bunker, through the perspective of a young woman who had recently become his secretary. But don’t expect any laughs.

Anyway, this one is funny, although not as clever as the Star Trek one. There’s a little too much 8th-grade humor (he seems to say things like “my dick” a lot). Actually, the funniest thing about it — and the thing that drew me to watch it — is the premise: “Trump Learns About Taylor Swift’s Endorsement.”

 

 

 

DeMarco: The work of the church is neither ‘conservative’ nor ‘liberal’

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The Op-Ed Page

By Paul V. DeMarco
Guest Columnist

If you spend a lot of time with digital news and social media (please don’t), you might think that conservative and liberal Christians have little in common and that we despise each other because of our doctrinal disputes over gay clergy, transgender people, abortion, etc.

But down here in the pews, it’s mostly about the work of the church – caring for your congregation, your neighborhood, and the wider world.

Jesus asked us to “make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19) by “feeding his sheep” (John 21:17). My layperson’s interpretation of Jesus’ commands is that he wants us to improve people’s lives – feeding, sheltering, visiting, healing – caring for them in the myriad ways that one person can show love to another. Once we do that, they will have a better idea of who he is and may be moved to become his followers, too.

The beauty of the church is that we meet every week to worship and to face human need, both near and far, together. It is a unique uniting force in society. Yes, the church has done some terrible things historically, which I acknowledge and condemn. But that same sin and corruption that drives wars and injustice and abuse also exist outside the church. In my experience, the church has been an overwhelmingly positive force.

Which brings me to my annual sojourn to Hampton County with Salkehatchie Summer Service. Since 1978, Salk has brought United Methodists and other people of faith together to spend a week rehabilitating homes for South Carolinians. The adults supervise teenagers 14 to 18, and the teens are the focus of the ministry. We want them to understand poverty in a new and provocative way and to realize their connection to it. Every summer, dozens of camps gather in various locations all over the state, involving hundreds of young people in total. The one I have attended since 2008 is fittingly housed at Camp Christian, an old-time Baptist campground.

My team of 4 adults and 8 young people were putting a new roof on an old, but well-built, 4-room home. On Monday afternoon, it started to rain (Monday rain is the bane of Salk roofers because the old shingles are off, but the house is not dried in). We tarped the roof well, but there was a deluge and the inside of the house was drenched. The homeowner couple watched despairingly as their mattress, upholstered chairs, and ruined possessions were unceremoniously thrown into a dumpster in the front yard. The couple gathered some clothes and belongings and we paid for a hotel.

The next day, deacons from two local churches came to the house to see how they could help. These were retired men who belonged to rural Baptist churches. We didn’t talk politics or religion, but I suspect that I am significantly more liberal that they are. But those differences, so prominent on social media and in the minds of many who do not understand why churches exist, did not matter at all. Our goal, about which we were completely unified, was helping the homeowners. On Tuesday, it wasn’t clear that the house could be saved. A thorough inspection by our team after the rain had revealed some previously undiscovered electrical problems that would require extensive rewiring (which was in addition to some significant rot in the floor joists about which we already knew).

For the next three days, we acted on faith. We had come to put a roof on, and we put it on. When the inspector came Friday and determined that the house was salvageable, we cheered.

What impressed me most about our week was the deacons. Every day one of them stopped by the house to check on us and the family. And not just casually. They were there to solve the problem, to love their neighbor in the most tangible and pragmatic way. “Well, we can’t pay for them to stay in a hotel very long.” “Can we find them a place that is close enough to their jobs?” (They had a single car and different work schedules). “If we knock the house down and start over, how will they afford the increase in property tax?”

The deacons, the Salk camp director, and a local Methodist minister, met to formulate a plan. Temporary shelter, better than their current home, was secured until the home could be repaired. All their salvageable belongings were packed up and moved to their new residence. The Salk camp had to end after a week, but we are committed to returning as many times as it takes to join forces with the deacons and other friends of the couple until the house is habitable again.

This is the work of the church. But no media outlet would write about this. Why not? First of all, these kinds of displays of Christian love are too commonplace to be considered news. Second, examine how you feel after reading this. Are you upset or angry? Have I dunked on a group that you dislike? No? Well, that answers the question. This is a story about ordinary people who have some differences in their world views. But those differences pale in comparison to the common ground we share. My week in Hampton was a refreshing demonstration of what happens when we focus on what connects us and try to make our corner of the world a little better.

A version of this column appeared in the August 14th edition of the Post and Courier-Pee Dee.

Open Thread for Wednesday, September 11, 2024

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Let’s go ahead and have one of these:

  1. Happy 9/11 — That may sound like an inappropriate tone (this is the more appropriate one, I grant you), but I do hope you are having a good day. A good, peaceful day. Just don’t let that become complacency, because too many people have little or no peace, from those in the wartorn parts of the world to the folks at home who lost their loved ones 23 years ago.
  2. The ‘debate’ last night — Please share your thoughts. Mine are fairly easy to express: I thought it was as useless an exercise as usual. Supporters of the vice president are crying out “Kamala won!” Well, she did very well. So did the folks at ABC, who I thought managed the mess as well as I’ve seen anyone do in recent years. But what did it accomplish? Her supporters are generally pleased. Good, but what did she “win?” Was a single supporter of her opponent persuaded? As for those “swing voters” — I find it obscene that there is anything such as a “swing voter” in the face of a “choice” as painfully obvious as this one. If you didn’t know before the “debate” began that it is essential that she win, then you shouldn’t be voting. This event went as well as anything can go with one such as her opponent on the stage. I’m glad it did. I thank her and congratulate her for doing a good job. But what was accomplished by this, or any other “debate” thus far in this century?
  3. I hope Joe Wilson gets better soon — That’s about all I want to say about it.
  4. More bloodshed in Gaza — Yes, it’s time to wrap this “war” up. I say that as an unshakeable supporter of Israel. The nation’s strategic interests are not being served. Note this, for instance. And in Jordan, of all places.
  5. What about that invasion of Russia? — Two weeks ago, I heard this piece about Ukraine’s bold and risky move to take the war into Russia itself. Since then, practically nothing. I could rant at this point about how news media these days simply don’t devote themselves to the most important news. But then, I’m not studying reports as closely as I once did. If anyone can send me a link with a decent, in-depth assessment of the situation, I’d appreciate it.

Kamala Harris and foreign policy

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Those are two concepts I don’t normally group together, which is a major reason why I’ve never been as enthusiastic about her candidacy as I always was about Joe’s.

This is where Jennifer Rubin’s other good column from the last two days comes in: “The foreign policy hawk in the race? That would be Kamala Harris.”

Mind you, it’s no great distinction, when the only other person in the race is the famously malevolent ignoramus whose name I will not mention here, as that is unnecessary.

But there’s more here than that.

Ms. Rubin notes:

Don’t take my word for it. “It is a speech Ronald Reagan could have given,” Liz Cheney said on ABC’s “This Week” regarding Harris’s keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. “It is a speech George Bush could have given. It’s very much an embrace and an understanding of the exceptional nature of this great nation, a love of America, a recognition that America is a special place.” Cheney went on to condemn former president Donald Trump’s plan for across-the-board, massive tariffs that “will choke off global trade, will likely lead us down the path that we’ve seen before, for example, in the 1930s … [to] a depression.”

Cheney said that when it comes to “fundamental alliances, when it comes to the importance of NATO, for example, and how important it is for the United States to lead in the world, we’ve seen a sea change.” In other words, those Republicans who during the Cold War ridiculed Democratic fecklessness, showed timidity toward America’s enemies and pooh-poohed the United States as a force for good in the world should now be backing Harris. Remarkably, Cheney affirmed that “if you’re talking about a national security set of issues and you care about America’s leadership role in the world, a vote for Vice President Harris is the right vote to make this time around.”…

Mind you, “Reaganesque” is not normally a word that sets my heart aflutter. If you’d known me 40 years ago, you’d understand that. To say that I was not a fan is an extreme understatement. But this is the way Republicans talk when they’re praising someone, particularly when they’re holding that person up for the admiration of other Republicans.

For me, it’s very reassuring. The column could have compared the veep to FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Clinton or Obama. What she’s saying to me is, she understands the post-1945 nonpartisan consensus of our nation’s leaders as to the role our country must play to keep from having a World War III. And it’s not just about being a “hawk;” it’s about playing the prime leadership role around the globe in economic and humanitarian terms, and championing liberal democracy everywhere.

I’d have realized this earlier, but as you know, I didn’t follow the convention.

Kamala Harris is up against someone who is determined to rend and destroy America’s role and our ability to play it. I know the veep does not want to do that, so the choice between the two is obvious. So I had seen little need to follow this race closely. Therefore I had not until now noticed much to indicate that Harris would be a positive force on this front, instead of merely a harmless, neutral one.

Now that won’t be reassuring to some of you, but you’re mostly probably going to vote for her anyway. If you’re planning to vote for the other option, you’re a lost cause anyway. Which is why you probably won’t hear all that much about it in tonight’s debate.

But it means a lot to me, because to me, this is what we elect presidents for.

Back at the beginning of 2008, we were trying to decide on our candidate for the Democratic nomination, and I was already leaning toward Barack Obama. But I was very concerned about his lack of foreign policy experience, even more than about his lack of experience in Washington.

Mike Fitts posed my main question (it’s the one we always asked first of presidential candidates) to the young senator during our endorsement interview, and you hear his answer at about the two-minute mark in this clip taken with my old low-res Canon. It’s basically what Kamala Harris said in the speech Ms. Rubin is citing.

It was good to hear then, and it’s good to hear now..

Jennifer Rubin’s right about guns

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Some guns confiscated in California in 2011 after Attorney General Kamala Harris (remember her?) announced a statewide sweep to collect firearms seized from individuals legally barred from possessing them. Now here’s a question to ponder: What percentage of those guns were once legally in the hands of responsible owners?

Jennifer Rubin, who cranks out high-quality columns at an impressive rate, had a couple of really good ones just these last two days. The first was headlined, “Punishing a shooter’s parents delivers some justice. But not enough.”

She points out that such newfangled prosecutions may be satisfying, and can be justified in certain cases, they don’t actually solve the problem of mass killings, or even address who is ultimately to blame in the larger sense for these repetitive nightmares.

Which is, as Pogo would say, us.

In America, we tend to look at these interconnected incidents as isolated, as though only the individuals who pull the trigger, or those who place the weapons in their hands, are to blame. And of course, they are profoundly and absolutely to blame. But you can prosecute each and every one of them (that is, the ones who survive the incidents), and it does nothing — or at least, too little — to prevent future such copycat abominations from happening.

Excerpts from the Rubin piece:

Moreover, prosecuting people related to the shooter deflects from the grotesque public policy failure: ready access to such weapons. Treating these incidents as individual crimes, with a subsequent search for a specific person to blame, allows the real culprits — the gun lobby and the weak-kneed Second Amendment absolutists, as well as the hyper-partisan Supreme Court — off the hook….

We do know how to reduce gun violence; Republicans simply refuse to challenge the MAGA movement’s gun fetish. The center-left think tank Third Way has documented the disparity between blue states with stricter gun laws and red states with lax gun laws. “The red state murder rate was 33% higher than the blue state murder rate in both 2021 and 2022,” the group reported this year. “2022 was the 23rd consecutive year that murder plagued Trump-voting states at far higher levels than Biden-voting states. … From 2000 to 2022, the average red state murder rate was 24% higher than the average blue state murder rate.”…

The gun problem is as much a democracy problem as anything else. Gun measures such as universal background checks and red-flag laws garner supermajorities. Even in deep-red Tennessee, for example, large majorities support raising the age to 21 to purchase an assault rifle (64 percent), requiring safe storage of weapons (76 percent) and mandating universal background checks (80 percent). When it comes to an outright ban on assault-style weapons, support is nearly as high. Multiple polls show 60 percent or more favor such a measure. But as long as heavily gerrymandered states produced hyper-conservative state legislatures and the Senate filibuster allows sparsely populated red states to dominate, the popular will is thwarted…

And so forth. But you know this stuff, right? You are people who read.

You probably also know that there are 333.3 million people in the United States, and 393 million guns in private hands.

It’s a matter of arithmetic, regardless of your philosophical bent. And know that no matter how responsible you are, some of those guns you hold so responsibly are inevitably going to fall in far less responsible hands at some point — when your house or car is burglarized, or after you’re dead, or even after your heirs are dead. They are very durable implements.

There are just too many of them. The problem is simple, and obvious. Solutions are not, and Jennifer has pointed out some of the reasons for that. But that’s no excuse not to try to address the actual, larger problem, while we’re rightly composing our criminal charges for individuals…

You see, ‘outside’ is the place where you find bears…

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I saw the above spare-tire cover on a vehicle parked in a Food Lion lot over the weekend. In case you can’t read it clearly (it’s not the best angle; I shot it from the Lizard’s Thicket drive-thru queue), it says:

GO OUTSIDE

WORST CASE A BEAR KILLS YOU

Now if I had put that on my vehicle, it would be an ironic warning. I would be responding to all those people who urge us to spend time outdoors by pointing out what a terrible idea that is.

I don’t think that’s what this driver was doing. This was a forest-green (I think) SUV with a rack on the roof for carrying skis or some other kind of adventurous gear that Hemingway would have bought at the original Abercrombie & Fitch (the macho, outdoors version of a century ago, not the clothing store you know from the mall).

Yeah, I know I’m reading a lot into it, but that was my impression. To me, this driver was being ironic about people like me, and saying essentially, What the hell? Do you want to live forever? Go for it!

But I’m not going for it. I like sitting right here in my home office, except when I’m out taking a walk around the neighborhood. And I’ve seen zero bears around here in the 27 years we’ve lived here. Lots of deer (and of course plenty of copperheads) but no bears.

Anyway, I thought about posting the picture after I shot it Sunday, and forgot, but I was reminded a couple of days later when an email notification pulled me over to look at a couple of videos on Inez Tenenbaum’s Facebook page. You can see a still image from one of them below.

Yes, those are three bear cubs exploring the area around Inez and Samuel’s woodpile. The Tenenbaums live up in the mountains these days. I wish they didn’t so I could see them more. But we don’t always get what we want.

And now I’m going to be worrying about them, just a bit. No, there’s nothing scary about these cubs, as you see them here. And their innocent, but greedy, curiosity is even cute and engaging. Here’s what Inez had to say in her caption to that video:

These three bear cubs have gone through the recycle box in our patio but did not find anything to eat!

Harmless, right? But see what she said in posting another clip of the cubs that same day:

These three bear cubs ate the bird seed on the patio and are making their getaway. Their mother tore down the feeder—again!!!

Yeah. The mama bear. The one that tears you apart if she finds you showing an interest in her cubs. Although I do appreciate her trying to improve the character of her offspring by removing temptations from their path. But look at how she did it — she tore it down! Very bearlike.

Anyway, my point is, stay inside! And if you must go out commune with nature, be careful!

That’s all for now. I’ll get back to you when I have another report on copperhead movements in the vicinity…

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What do we need cash for, really?

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I hadn’t intended to bring these home. I just couldn’t get rid of them.

I hadn’t tweeted in I don’t know how long, and I had forgotten how Musk had screwed things up.

I got a notification about a story in The New York Times magazine, and used the link to write this reaction:

You’re right. We shouldn’t spend millions minting the silly things. Or, for that matter, nickels, dimes or quarters. Or printing paper money. What do we need cash for anymore?

Before Musk screwed with Twitter, that would have appeared above the headline with an image from the story. Since that no longer happens, I looked and saw that my reaction would make no sense. So I’m writing this post.

What I was reacting to was this:

America Must Free Itself
from the Tyranny of the Penny

The piece begins:

I was disappointed to learn, recently, that the United States has created for itself a logistical problem so stupendously stupid, one cannot help wondering if it is wise to continue to allow this nation to supervise the design of its own holiday postage stamps, let alone preside over the administration of an extensive Interstate highway system or nuclear arsenal. It’s the dumbest thing I ever heard. I have come to think of it as the Perpetual Penny Paradox.

Most pennies produced by the U.S. Mint are given out as change but never spent; this creates an incessant demand for new pennies to replace them, so that cash transactions that necessitate pennies (i.e., any concluding with a sum whose final digit is 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 or 9) can be settled. Because these replacement pennies will themselves not be spent, they will need to be replaced with new pennies that will also not be spent, and so will have to be replaced with new pennies that will not be spent, which will have to be replaced by new pennies (that will not be spent, and so will have to be replaced). In other words, we keep minting pennies because no one uses the pennies we mint.

A conservative estimate holds that there are 240 billion pennies lying around the United States — about 724 ($7.24) for every man, woman and child there residing, and enough to hand two pennies to every bewildered human born since the dawn of man….

And so forth. You get the idea. Pennies are a huge waste; you’ll get no argument from me.

But what about other forms of cash?

I used to carry small amounts of cash in my wallet, 20 bucks or less at a time. Since COVID, I haven’t even done that. The only cash I regularly need is a quarter — one quarter — to pay for a shopping cart each time I go to Aldi. But when you put the cart back, you get your quarter right back out of the slot attached to the handle. One quarter, used over and over. (The system seems to work. The carts are in better condition than those at most stores. Ze Germans are clever…)

Sure, I know other needs arise — such as when you do business with someone seeking to avoid taxes. But that sounds like the stupidest reason in the world. Why should the government spend millions — nay, billions — to produce something that abets tax evasion?

I also realize that a lot of poor folks don’t have bank accounts, or debit cards or anything of that kind. But can’t that be worked around? Don’t the cards that have replaced food “stamps” suggest a way to address that need?

Of course, that means everyone would have to be more fully in “the system,” which might offend the sensibilities of our libertarian friends and neighbors. But why would a libertarian, of all people, want the government to waste his tax money on something as wasteful and inefficient as cash?

And if you understand the history of money — going back all the way to King Croesus of Lydia, who developed the very first standardized gold coins — the whole idea of money that everyone would accept (which is what makes it “money,” rather than, say, barter) was that the government issued it, granting something close to universal legitimacy. Back in the 6th century B.C., coins demonstrated that by having the king’s image on the “heads” size. Or, today, George Washington’s. Or the queen’s. And I saw some with King Charles on them in England this summer.

(This is why you see some libertarian fantasists today going for Bitcoin. Which indicates that they don’t fully understand what money is, and how you make sure it has lasting value.)

So why not some nice, neutral electronic credits instead? Oh, we could call them “dollars” if you like. We already do, with our bank accounts and debit and credit cards. Remember, only about a tenth of the real-life money we spend in today’s world is backed up by actual, physical coins and banknotes. This in no way inhibits commerce. Ask Jeff Bezos.

In fact, we’re not far from cash becoming passé. Europe is ahead of us on that, though. I had a terrible time getting anyone in Amsterdam to accept Euros. I came back with 50 euro or so in my wallet, and I had not meant to. I just couldn’t unload them. Dutch merchants generally wouldn’t accept contant geld; they preferred my debit card from Palmetto Citizens, and they particularly liked my Target credit card, which has tap capability. They’re really into tap over there.

A few days before, I’d had little trouble getting the English to take pounds. But in Amsterdam, forget about it.

So how long do you think we’re going to be minting and printing and in many cases carrying around these filthy things?

And how long should we?

‘Historic?’ More of a footnote, but pretty interesting…

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From the bottom of page one of The Boston Globe today.

I dunno if it’s “historic,” though. That’s one of the more overused words we see in headlines these days, although not as overused as “iconic,” of course.

But it’s pretty fascinating. And nice work by the photog. Makes it looks like he’s magically changing uniforms in the middle of the same swing. Cool.

As history — well, it’s one for the record books, all right. But as history, it’s only maybe slightly bigger than Moonlight Graham’s major league career consisting of a brief appearance in one game in 1905. Which was interesting enough to appear in Ray Kinella’s book, and the movie based on it.

And I found today’s picture interesting enough to share…

Your thoughts on the Democratic National Convention?

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Hey, look! Another post less than a week after the last one! Not exactly the same as when I’d post ten times each day while getting an editorial page out, but I do what I can.

Which hasn’t been much, this week. Just before going to the lake last weekend, I picked up a new laptop at Best Buy. It’s a beauty, and I know I’m going to love it — already do, in some ways. But for the moment it presents a bit of a challenge. For more than three decades, I was a rather intensive user of Microsoft machines, for a wide variety of purposes: writing, editing, paginating the newspaper, processing photos, creating videos, and so forth. Writing a blog. Building a family tree that now has almost 10,000 people on it.

And my new machine is a MacBook Pro.

So now, a simple thing like writing a press release for ADCO and getting it to the right place presents a bit of a challenge. Different keyboard, different file structure, different assumptions about the way to do the simplest things, things my fingers used to do without being told to do them…

I’m getting the hang of it, though. Now, late on a Friday, I thought I’d create a space for folks to discuss the political convention that I haven’t had time to follow. But I’m going to try to get through moderating those waiting comments before posting this. I understand that you’ll hardly be tempted to “discuss” a thing when your thoughts don’t get posted.

I still intend, at first opportunity, to watch Joe’s address from Monday night. I expect it to be a rather emotional experience. I’ve watched a minute or two of the speech Walz gave, and he seems to have done quite well, aside from the usual things people say at party conventions that drive me nuts. He appears to have been a very good choice. I need to see the rest of it.

And then I must listen to Kamala’s speech, when I’m up to experiencing all that, from what I hear, youthful exuberance. I figure she did pretty well, too. Or I’d have heard otherwise. Stuff — stuff, that is, in the realm of political news — generally filters through to my consciousness even when I’m not paying attention. Or deliberately ignoring from across the ocean.

I haven’t heard anything bad, so she must have done OK. After all, I saw a notification this morning from The Wall Street Journal saying that “In a bracingly normal address, Kamala Harris delivered a triumphant capstone for the Democrats and defined their new reality.” Here’s that full story, in case you have access.

I liked that: “bracingly normal.” In this political environment, we all could use some bracingly normal rhetoric and behavior. That’s what Joe has been giving us since 2020, and it’s been wonderful. If some of that has rubbed off on Kamala, good on her. And good for us all.

Anyway, everything seems to have gone far better than the last time the Democrats met in Chicago. But as I say, I suspect most of y’all followed this better than I did. Thoughts?…

This one went WAY better than the last one. More orderly, anyway…

Give us joy of our 50 years!

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Excuse the archaic language from my beloved Patrick O’Brian novels, but I enjoy that way of saying that today marks 50 years of marriage to my true, original, and eternal beloved, Juanita!

It just means “congratulate us.” Even lubbers should know that.

It’s been quite a celebration, and it will continue through the day. But it’s not just today. We’ve been celebrating since July 10. We have celebrated in England, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. We came back, and almost immediately ran off to the beach for a few days with the whole family — or most of it. In between those things, I crammed in what little paid work I could. At the moment, I’m sitting in an AirBnB that our kids rented at Lake Murray for today’s family party. The two of us spent the night here, and we’re waiting for the first of the kids and grandkids to arrive in the next hour or so, which is why I have a few minutes to send you this.

I still haven’t gone through email from July. I tell you that so you know why I haven’t been blogging.

Anyway, I’m going to go in a minute, because even though the kids are in charge of this, there are things to do. I don’t have time to tell you of my love for my wife — which would take something like Proust’s magnum opus. I’ll just note the obvious: longevity speaks to commitment, and commitment like that comes from the heart. I cherish every moment of it.

Gotta run. The picture at the top was taken on our wedding day. Juanita’s maid of honor had driven us from the reception to the parking lot of her mother’s condo, which is where we had parked the actual car that we were taking on our honeymoon from Memphis to the Grand Strand. We did this to keep Juanita’s four brothers from “decorating” it. It worked, which was good, because that was a long way to drive covered in shaving cream or whatever. Anyway, the version you see above was one in which I dropped out the background in Photoshop and added hearts to turn it into a Valentine a few years ago. Yeah, I know I look like a goof. It was the ’70s.

And here’s a picture from Amsterdam…