The atypical range of arcane knowledge exhibited in posts and comments on Ricochet is enjoyable and oddly comforting.  It reflects a disposition towards the sheer enjoyment of learning and the acquisition of knowledge itself, a disposition that may be eroding.

The aboriginal peoples of Australia had no written language. The entirety of the mythology, history, art, and survival technologies had to be contained in a single mind to be passed on orally over a lifetime for younger members.  I watched an interview with an elderly Australian woman who explained that there were no categories, separate subjects or specialists in the indigenous culture.  The closest word for that body of knowledge was “the law.”  Possessing that body of language defined one’s identity, membership, occupational skills and the source of meaning.

My father-in-law has told me of his early medical education, “back when there were 48 chromosomes.” As he explains it, “People see what they want to see, so for years, everyone who counted 46 assumed they had got it wrong. Until someone, at some point, counted and recounted. And then, quickly and quietly, all the medical texts were updated. It turns out there were 46 all along.” Huzzah! *

But I was also reminded when I saw just how many near-misses there have been at Reagan National:

Like a cruise ship steaming toward an iceberg, America’s economy is headed for disaster.

The federal government reports an interest-bearing debt of $37 trillion. However, the actual unfunded obligations of the government, according to the Medicare and Social Security Trustees’ reports, are an unfathomable $158.6 trillion.

James Lileks is on the road so there’s no new edition of The Diner this week. Of course, his familiar place at the long turquoise boomerang-patterned Formica® counter is being held in reserve for next week. See you then.

I felt like I should say something important.  So I’ve been stalling.  My plan was to read through all my previous 999 posts and produce a carefully constructed hunk of opposition (Or is that piece of resistance?  Not sure – my French isn’t very good…).  My critics suggest that I should use more editing and less bourbon.  I intended to give it to them, good and hard, and see how they like it.  But that seemed a lot like work.  So I wrote less unedited incoherence and drank more bourbon.  And I got more and more messages, asking what was going on.  You just can’t please some people.

Some Ricochet members seem determined to persuade others to think like they do.  I’ve never felt that impulse.  I was very clear from the beginning that I was here to learn.  My fundamental problem was that I found myself in constant disagreement with a group (Democrats) that I simply didn’t understand.  Which meant, in my view, that I really didn’t understand my own perspective as well as I thought.  I explained my uneasiness with this problem on the Dave Carter Show – how can I criticize that which I don’t understand?  So I came here to read and to write.  Not to convince others of my wisdom, but rather to seek understanding.  Fathers of little girls will understand my efforts to understand, such as in the picture above.

I’ve come to view leftism as more of a religion than a political movement, just as Islam is more of a political movement than a religion.  But the religion of leftism lacks two very important things:  An underlying ideology, and a system for repentance for sins.  Sort of like the French Revolution all over again – screaming mobs who believe in whatever they’re supposed to believe in this afternoon.  If you wonder about the ethics of all this, that makes you a conservative.  Humility is a conservative impulse.

Are Surveys About the Economy Really About Political Views?

The headline writers pounced on the plunge in the University of Michigan’s (UMich) much-watched index for consumer sentiment on April 11th.

Hennepin County (the largest county in Minnesota) Attorney Mary Moriarty is at it again.  Deemed the most “woke” prosecutor in America, she is refusing to charge state government employee Dylan Bryan Adams, a Minnesota Department of Human Services analyst, with any crimes after he was caught on camera by police vandalizing six Teslas in the Minneapolis area, causing over $20,000 worth of damage.  Instead of being charged with a felony, Adams isn’t being charged with anything.  Instead, he has been placed in a non-criminal “diversion” program.  No jail, no criminal record, and won’t even lose his job.  He remains free to vandalize again.

A strong message has been sent: it’s open season on Tesla, and any other business or individual that refuses to align with the Left’s agenda.  Last year, the offices of conservative Minnesota think tank, The American Experiment, as well as two other conservative organizations, were firebombed.  Amazingly, in a congested metro area where security cameras abound, neither Gov. Tim Walz’s state authorities nor Biden’s FBI and ATF could come up with any leads.  The crimes remain unpunished.