Ross Douthat reminded me of that this morning with his column, “Try Canceling Joan Didion.”

The headline — which by itself made me smile, before even reading the column itself — is framed as a challenge to the self-righteous mobs of cancel culture. Noting that there’s some rumbling about canceling Norman Mailer, he snorts with derision at the idea of attacking such an easy and obvious target. Want a challenge?, he asks. Try Didion.

He notes that this may be difficult. After all, she has been so recently absolved by the ideologically correct following her death. The official story is that she may once have been the sort of confused creature who would compose a hymn of praise to John Wayne, but she later got her mind right and pounded the Reaganites, etc. A lost lamb recovered, in other words.

But Douthat notes that her best work — sharper, more focused, more brilliant — was in the ’60s when she was casting a jaded eye upon the hippies. More than that, he suggests it’s an insult to such a brilliant writer to suggest that she would ever have consented to be confined within the narrow fold of either of the two (and you’re only allowed two, remember!) sides in our perpetual cultural-political wars.

I suspect he’s right on the first point — that her earlier stuff was better — and not on the basis of ideology. While I knew a lot less when I was young, I was a better writer. This is a pretty standard pattern among members of our species. The best writers are those who are able to see things clearly and maturely when they’re young enough to write about it in an impressive manner. Didion was one of those.

And I have little doubt that he’s right on the second — that neither faction within the “ones and zeroes” crowd has any right to claim her as one of their own.

That I have any doubt and merely “suspect” he’s right is a function of the fact that I am a Didion neophyte. I only discovered her a couple of years back. I had always wanted to read her Slouching Towards Bethlehem collection for the simple reason that, like most people who have read it, I love that Yeats poem. I may have mentioned this before.

I thought I bought it and downloaded it to the Kindle app on my iPad, although Amazon says I “borrowed” it. Whatever. The point is, it’s been on my device for three years now, and occasionally I have dipped into it — say, when I’m in a doctor’s waiting room and it looks like I’ll be there for a bit.

From the first essay I read, I was rather excited. “I’ve found another Tom Wolfe!” I thought, congratulating myself. Not only in a literary sense, but politically. While I didn’t think about it one way or the other when I was adoring his stuff in the ’60s and ’70s (I was too busy just digging the writing), the man had a genius for puncturing the pretensions of the left, which was so dominant in our culture at the time.

Were celebrated writers allowed to do that? Well, yes, if they were as wonderful as Wolfe. I’ve always enjoyed this anecdote from Acid Test, in which Ken Kesey plays a role with which Wolfe no doubt identified….

… blast it. Google Books won’t show me the page I want. Well, here’s the page that leads up to it:

The good bit comes right after that. Kesey shows up for the antiwar rally and takes the stage, and instead of delivering a lecture on American “imperialism” or whatever, he takes out a harmonica and plays “Home on the Range,” delivering a few cryptic remarks that seems to dismiss the whole event in a way that kind of pops the event’s balloon. (Or so I remember it. I guess I need to run down my tattered paperback copy, wherever it is.)

Who asked this bastard, indeed? But why not ask him, they would have said in self-defense! He’s a writer! And a significant figure in the counterculture! Surely he’s one of us!

No doubt Wolfe got similar reactions when he wrote such things as Radical Chic.

But that didn’t make him the right’s boy, any more than Didion’s later work made her the left’s. Or so I gather from what I’ve read. They were both too bright and perceptive for that.

Douthat bases his judgment on “many years of reading the essays of Joan Didion.”

Well, I need to read more of her myself. I suspect I’ll enjoy it, as I enjoy anyone who refuses to become a plaster saint of either of our two narrow-minded, monolithic tribes.

I guess I need to add to that reading list…

I’ve mentioned here many times how bad I feel about all the nice, new books in my house that I never get around to reading.

I could blame Amazon, but the fault is mine.

When I was young, I devoured books. Not at any blazing rate, because I’ve always been a slow reader, but with ridiculously good retention. Whenever I had a free moment, that’s what I did. Perhaps it expanded my mind somewhat, but that’s not why I did it. I did it because it was fun.

But when I was an adult, I became lazy. I didn’t have much leisure time — wasting my days working and such — so when I did grab a few minutes to read, I kept it simple. Usually, I read something I’d read before, and which I could easily put down at any point.

I made some new discoveries, of course — John le Carré, and Patrick O’Brian, and to a lesser extent some others like Martin Cruz Smith. And I loved all of those, but I fell into a nasty habit. When I got time to read, I’d pick up Master and Commander or Tinker, Tailor or Gorky Park yet again, rather than committing to something new.

I’d see new books that interested me, or read a good review, and put that book on my Amazon wish list, with all the best intentions in the world. And my loved ones would dutifully give them to me, and I’d proudly put them on the shelf, yet when I got a moment for reading I’d pick up a dog-eared copy of Smiley’s People or perhaps something even older such as Stranger in a Strange Land, which first cast its spell on me when I was 16.

Well, no more. I asked for several books for Christmas, and I got them, and I’m going to read them.

I am. I’ll start with the ones pictured above, all Christmas gifts. I cleared my decks by finally finishing — on New Year’s Eve — a new book (new to me) that I’d dawdled over for half of 2021: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. I enjoyed it, whenever I made myself buckle down and read any of it. I still hope to write a post about it, once I figure out how to tackle something that sweeping in a blog post.

On New Year’s Day, I started the new ones. That is, I started a book that I’d received for my birthday in October that I felt I needed to read before one of the ones below. It’s wonderful, truly. I should read new stuff all the time.

I haven’t promised a timetable or anything, but I’m going to get these read and then turn to some of the other couple of dozen I’ve got sitting around waiting. We’ll see how it goes. But I’ll definitely get to these:

• The Discoverers, by Daniel Boorstin. I actually read at least a third of this one years and years ago, and then set it down somewhere and managed to lose it. Having given up on finding it, I put it on my Amazon list way back when I first started such a list. Finally, someone has given it to me and I can’t wait to jump back into it. By the way this isn’t about Columbus and conquistadores and such. It’s about how humans invented such artificialities as the hours of the day and clocks to keep track of them. That’s what I remember from before. More interesting than you might think. Or as Wikipedia describes it, “Discovery in many forms is described: exploration, science, medicine, mathematics, and more-theoretical ones, such as time, evolution, plate tectonics, and relativity. Boorstin praises the inventive, human mind and its eternal quest to discover the universe and humanity’s place in it.”
• Agent Running in the Field, by John le Carré. This is one of two that had remained unread by me when David Cornwell died, so I put them on my list. My wife gave me A Legacy of Spies for my birthday, and that’s the one I started yesterday, because it was the earlier of the two. My younger son gave me Agent Running for Christmas. The rush I’m getting from the one I’ve started is like reading Tinker, Tailor for the first time, back in the ’70s, not least because it is about the same characters (Peter Guillam mainly, but also Smiley and Alex Leamas, with mentions of Bill Haydon, Percy Alleline, Jim Prideaux, Toby Esterhase, Roy Bland and Connie Sachs)! This is amazing. Why did I take so long to do this?
• Old Abe, by John Cribb. This is a novel about our greatest president by an author I know nothing about, except that I’d heard glowing reports about his book, so I look forward to checking it out.
• The Mirror & the Light, by Hilary Mantel. This is the third book in her Wolf Hall trilogy about the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell and others who were sufficiently unfortunate to find themselves within the close orbit of Henry VIII — Thomas More, Anne Boleyn and such. I read the first two sometime back, and have every expectation of it being good, although not so much for poor Cromwell.

You’ll note that this is a bit novel-heavy. Which presents a problem, because I’ve set myself a rule of alternating between fiction, which is fun, and nonfiction — which can also be fun but tends to be more of a hard slog, or at least easier to put down.

So in between, I’ll probably make myself finally finish reading Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton (or his Grant), or take up that massive volume I also asked for and received for my birthday, Napoleon by Andrew Roberts. I feel particularly obligated to know more about Buonaparte. I often find references in my O’Brian novels to the geopolitics of the day confusing. It’s embarrassing to know so little about such an important period in semi-recent history. I figure an exhaustive biography of old Boney should be the cure for that, if I can make it through.

In any case, I’m determined to keep this resolution. I hope y’all will hold me to it.

Editor’s note: I wrote this early last week. The pictures that illustrated it would not load onto the blog. Again the next day, they refused to load. I set it aside and didn’t try again to post this or anything else until now. I was busy, and didn’t need the aggravation. But rather than let it sit in oblivion, I’m posting the blasted thing now, before writing anything else. And you know what? Even though it’s now Dec. 30, I’m backdating this sucker to before Christmas.

Those of you waiting for Brad to comment on something you consider “relevant” will just have to wait a bit longer. I’m busy.

But this question is timely and urgent, so I thought I’d ask: What’s with this image meme I’ve been seeing everywhere, with the red pickup truck with a Christmas tree in it?

Sometimes the tree is decorated (for reasons that completely evade me), and sometimes it seems fresh-cut from the forest. Sometimes the truck has wooden slats added to the sides of the bed; sometimes it does not.

But it’s everywhere. In these pictures alone, you see ones I’ve encountered in widely different venues. From top to bottom, they are:

• A napkin from (I think) Publix.
• A gift bag at Walmart.
• Two other items that were at Walmart in the gift-wrap area.
• An image in the L.L. Bean catalog.
• A card placed in a live plant.
• A decoration standing in the yard of a neighbor.

The answer is probably obvious to everyone except me, and that’s fine: That’s why I’m asking you.

During my lifetime I’ve figured out most things that we see over and over and over again this time of year:

• Frosty the Snowman. (But what this has to do with Christmas, I still don’t know. I can see how it has to do with the season, but only if you live way up north.)
• Rudolph.
• The Grinch.
• Buddy the Elf.
• The Elf on the Shelf. (This one took me awhile, since I no longer had small children at home when the promotion came along, but I eventually figured it out. By the way: Marketing materials for this thing call it “A Christmas Tradition.” There’s nothing traditional about it. It was invented in 2005.)

Anyway, if you can tell me where this came from, I’d appreciate it. A cartoon? A song? A movie? A video game? Not knowing bugs me. The whole thing even seems a bit intrusive to me, since I drive an old, red pickup truck myself. I mean, if anyone knows, I should. But I don’t.

Pew Research Center keeps trying to figure out what Americans really think. I’m aware of three different sets of political “typologies” the organization has created in recent years. I appreciate that, although personally I kind of liked the first one. Maybe it’s just that I preferred where the country was politically at that time. Of course, I prefer where the country was at almost any time in our history to the place where we are now.

Anyway, I want to thank Bryan for trying to keep the blog going while I’ve been dealing with a lot of difficult things, particularly the loss of my father. And I want to thank him particularly for this post, because I had not been aware that Pew was at it again.

Bryan’s post was headlined, “Neither of the Two Political Parties Suit You? Here’s Why.” The simple answer I would normally give a question like that is, “No, they don’t, and here’s why: Because I think.” But that’s because, as you know, the two parties have been making me cranky for a long time.

Pew, as always, takes a more thoughtful and patient approach than my gut response.

To help you get engaged with the topic, take the test. See where Pew puts you.

As I said, while Pew may have gone through this process many times, I’m only aware of three times. The first was in 2014, and it tagged me as being in what it called the “Faith and Family Left.” I made a joke about how apparently Pew thought I was a black preacher or something, but I really mostly felt comfortable in that category, which Pew described this way:

The Faith and Family Left combine strong support for activist government with conservative attitudes on many social issues. They are very racially diverse – this is the only typology group that is “majority-minority.” The Faith and Family Left generally favor increased government aid for the poor even if it adds to the deficit and believe that government should do more to solve national problems. Most oppose same-sex marriage and legalizing marijuana and most say religion and family are at the center of their lives.

And yeah, while I suspect no political group in the history of the world is with me on every issue, I was mostly comfortable with that one. I think it described why I felt such kinship with the black Democrats of South Carolina who came out to save the country on Feb. 29, 2020, by launching Joe Biden toward the nomination. The Identity Politics people would look at me and disagree, but as far as I’m concerned, those are my people. They stood up and went for the right man, not giving a damn about the trendy considerations roiling the Democratic Party in other parts of the country. And the rest of the country, thank God, got the message and got on board.

There are a lot of forces tearing our country apart and directly menacing our republic right now. One of them is what I’ve come to think of as the “ones and zeroes” problem. This was actually a serious problem 20 years ago, but it is far, far worse now than it was even then. I mean the increasingly blind members of the two tribes, and particularly the utter insanity that has gripped the Republican Party, followed by the failure of the opposition to coalesce consistently behind the one rational alternative, which Joe Biden represents. (If Democrats could shed the woke crowd and the Bernie Bros and demonstrate that the approach Joe embraces and personifies was the path it embraces without hesitation, I believe Trumpism would melt away as the vast center got behind the rational alternative. But we’re just not that kind of country right now, are we? More’s the pity. At least the Dems did the right thing long enough to get Joe elected.)

Then, in 2017 — when the nation had gone stark, raving mad, and more than ever needed a non-binary way of thinking about politics — Pew tried creating a new system, and utterly failed. It was awful, worse than useless. It put me in a bin full of obnoxious strangers, the “New Era Enterprisers.” The description it provided of that group made it sound like I was Martin Shkreli  or something — you know, the Pharma Bro.

I’d never seen Pew get anything as wrong as that before. But hey, it was 2017 — every thinking person in the country (and much of the world) was traumatized, when it came to politics.

Things are still awful, but they’ve settled down a bit.

And now Pew has a new model, the one to which Bryan called attention.

This one I like, although I’m not sure whether I like it as much as my “Faith and Family” designation. I liked that group. Still, this one has much to recommend it. It’s called “Establishment Liberals.” I like “establishment,” because as a communitarian and a traditionalist, I cherish the institutions that hold our civilization together — and were doing a great job of it until these last few years. But, I must confess, I don’t like it quite as well as “Faith and Family.”

As for the rest, well, I never was comfortable with “Left.” That sounded like they were making me out to be some sort of Bolshie, and I’m anything but. Not my sort at all. I much prefer “liberal,” but that’s because I use the word as a political scientist would, not the way it is so popularly used among the general population today — as a cussword among the GOP base, and as a badge of honor among the folks who see themselves as the sworn enemies of any “conservative.”

I wish Pew would steer clear of both those words — liberal and conservative — because of the way they’ve been corrupted by the in or out, good or bad, “my team or the enemy” crowd, which sees everything in tribal absolutes.

They’re both fine words, or were, originally. I can embrace both and apply them to myself, depending on the issue and the context. “Liberal” meaning generous, open, fair-minded, tolerant, and “conservative” meaning traditional, respecting core institutions and established ways. They’ve both fine things.

So I embrace the new label in that sense — the sense that Bret Stephens is using it when he laments the ways that both ends of the current political spectrum are eroding, even trashing, the liberalism that has made it possible for our country to live up to its finest aspirations. Stephens defines it this way:

By “liberal,” I don’t mean big-state welfarism. I mean the tenets and spirit of liberal democracy. Respect for the outcome of elections, the rule of law, freedom of speech, and the principle (in courts of law and public opinion alike) of innocent until proven guilty. Respect for the free market, bracketed by sensible regulation and cushioned by social support. Deference to personal autonomy but skepticism of identity politics. A commitment to equality of opportunity, not “equity” in outcomes. A well-grounded faith in the benefits of immigration, free trade, new technology, new ideas, experiments in living. Fidelity to the ideals and shared interests of the free world in the face of dictators and demagogues.

All of this used to be the more-or-less common ground of American politics, inhabited by Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes as much as by Barack Obama and the two Clintons. The debates that used to divide the parties — the proper scope of government, the mechanics of trade — amounted to parochial quarrels within a shared liberal faith. That faith steadied America in the face of domestic and global challenges from the far right and far left alike….

So yeah, I embrace liberalism in that academic sense, a sense that respects the meanings of words. I always have.

So “Establishment Liberals” sounds pretty good. Kind of like “Conservative Liberals,” in a way. It sort of cocks a snook at the people using words to try to tear us apart. I like that.

But so far I’ve dealt only with the name. Let’s look deeper. Pew provides a lengthy description, but let me just quote some of the bits I like best:

… Establishment Liberals are some of the strongest supporters of the current president … of any political typology group.

…Establishment Liberals are the typology group most likely to see value in political compromise and tend to be more inclined toward more measured approaches to societal change than their Progressive Left counterparts. Like other Democratic-oriented groups, most Establishment Liberals (73%) say a lot more needs to be done to ensure racial equality. Yet they are the only Democratic-aligned group in which a majority of those who say a lot more needs to be done also say this can be achieved by working within the current system….

Establishment Liberals stand out for their current satisfaction with the direction of the country and optimism about the future. Roughly half (51%) say they are satisfied with the way things are going in the country today, compared with 36% of Democratic Mainstays and even smaller shares in other typology groups….

An overwhelming majority of Establishment Liberals approve of Joe Biden’s job performance as president as of mid-September, including six-in-ten who strongly approve….

You see where I’m going with this: Joe’s our boy. Always has been, is now, and probably always will be (because, thank God, I don’t see him changing at this point).

Some of the rest, like the fact that folks in my group are strongly Democratic, doesn’t work for me. For instance, Pew says “On a ‘feeling thermometer’ ranging from 0 to 100, where 100 represents the warmest, most positive feelings, Establishment Liberals give Democrats an average rating of 77.”

Not me. I gave the party a score of 30. Of course, I gave the GOP a zero, so I guess by comparison a 30 is kinda “pro-Democratic,” at this moment. Whatever.

The point is (yep, I’ve again taken 1,500 words to get to the point) that it’s great that Pew keeps trying to find ways of explaining the way people really think about politics in this country. They need to keep doing this, and the rest of us need to join in. Because too many — far, far, too many — of us have been buying into the stupid, insulting idea that there are only two ways to think (using the word “think” extremely loosely), and you’ve got to choose one and hate the other. Up or down. Left or right. On or off. Black or white.

This sickness, this “ones and zeroes” thing, is destroying us. It’s tearing us apart. It’s destroying any chance we have of living together peacefully, with all our differences, and continuing to build a civilization that cultivates and embraces real, thinking human beings.

And Pew’s helping us see that, however imperfect its changing models may be. Bottom line: Good for Pew for trying.

By Bryan Caskey

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is a case in front of the Supreme Court concerning a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Since Roe, all the court’s abortion decisions have upheld Roe‘s central framework — that women have a constitutional right to an abortion in the first two trimesters. However, the Mississippi law is counter to the core of Roe, setting the stage for the Supreme Court to modify Roe, or do away with it altogether.

If you want to hear the oral arguments, the Supreme Court’s official audio transcript is here.

You can’t always tell from oral arguments what Supreme Court Justices are thinking, much less where they will land in a final decision, but it’s nice to hear the questions they ask. You learn much more about the Justices actually watching them do their job at oral arguments than you get from the Senate confirmation hearings that are essentially an opportunity for Senators to grandstand and audition to be President.

I have no idea what the Supreme Court will do.

Churchill at age 21 (1895)

By Bryan Caskey

Today in 1874, Winston Churchill was born in  at his family’s ancestral home, Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. Considered by some historians to be the greatest man to occupy 10 Downing Street, he was the larger than life man who guided Great Britain through WWII. After Dunkirk, he gave one of his most famous speeches. He was a skilled craftsman with the English language. Here’s the soaring conclusion:

I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty’s Government-every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

Little known fact: His mother was an American.

By Bryan Caskey

In 1863, just a few weeks after the bloody Battle of Gettysburg, President Lincoln issued what some view as the beginning of a national day of Thanksgiving. At the time, hundreds of thousands had died in the bitter Civil War, and the nation was as divided as it has ever been. At the time, Lincoln requested the “…Holy Spirit to subdue the anger what has produced and so long sustained a needless and cruel rebellion, to change the hearts of the insurgents, to guide the counsels of the Government with wisdom….”

This idea rings true especially in today’s time as we feel can feel divided and frustrated. Reading back through President Lincoln’s proclamation, perhaps we work anew each day to find that sense of “union and fraternal peace”.

The Hunters’ Supper – Frederic Remington

By Bryan Caskey

Happy Thanksgiving Week, campers. I hope you enjoy the time off. I have always liked Frederic Remington’s works. Since it’s Thanksgiving week, I thought this painting of the hunters cooking was somewhat appropriate.

Feel free to use the comments to talk about any other art (any medium) that you relate to Thanksgiving.