My Stranger
The Virus Called “Other People’s Money”
Cliffside Trails at Torrey Pines
My brother and I hiked at Torrey Pines last Sunday. Despite two decades in San Diego, I never knew that Torrey Pines was a state beach with hiking trails. I always thought it was a golf course. (On the other hand, I do remember my now-husband and I visiting cliffs in La Jolla at night on a triple date –1993?) Anyway, I enjoyed this new experience. Pictures courtesy of my brother.
It took around a half hour of walking uphill to get to the trails. Then having chosen a path that meandered its way back down to the beach, we came to scenes like this. When all was said and done, we’d walked maybe four or five miles (and Danny went running for a mile and half or so on top of that). There was some rough going, especially with knee pain. I loved the sign that warned us there would be “100 stairs” before we got to the end.
At War with God
Versta, Photostock ID: 317290838 (Shutterstock)
We blame others. But it’s our own fault. It’s all our fault. Complaints about “identity politics,” “structural racism,” or “cancel culture” begin with us, according to Mary Eberstadt from her speech, “Men Are at War with God.” Eberstadt’s research into the storied wreckage of human lives begins with breakdown in families. She reports:
Blaming the Victim, or Who’s Really in Charge?
Difficulties in getting humanitarian aid into Gaza is Israel’s fault, according to many sources. Israel has been accused of withholding aid, delaying aid delivery, inspecting supplies to be sure there are no weapons included, and demonstrating a lack of compassion for the Palestinian people. And since UNRWA, the agency primarily responsible for delivering aid was called out several weeks ago, the denunciations of Israel have become ever shriller.
photo courtesy of unsplash.com
A Page Right Out of History
If you were to judge solely by 1950s TV, postwar America was a sunny and suburban place, with modern one-story private homes, young kids with more on the way, and a car for every happy family. Not a whole lot of racial or ethnic diversity, to be sure. Nearly every network show that wasn’t a Western had that setting.
On September 30, 1960, ABC premiered an unexpected variation on that idea by simply setting a typical sunny suburban TV comedy in the stone age, The Flintstones, with the added twist that it was an animated show. In those more innocent days, ABC’s novelty hit comedy was often called an “adult cartoon”, years before “adult” became a euphemism for “dirty”. Back then it simply meant: not just for children. (Needless to say, the closing song’s final line, “We’ll have a gay old time” was also heard very differently back then.)
Prayer – Coming to a Theater Near You
In our increasingly Biblically illiterate society, it is interesting to see which passages of Scripture maintain a high pop culture profile, particularly in movies.
Psalm 23 (The Shepherd’s Psalm) gets a fair share of shout-outs (The Elephant Man, Pale Rider, and, not surprisingly, in Jim Carrey’s The Number 23. I Corinthians 13 also is used frequently, almost always in wedding ceremonies. In Wedding Crashers a wager is made about whether I Corinthians 13 or Colossians 3:12 will be used in the ceremony. (Betting against I Cor. 13 is a sucker’s bet.)
But filmmakers’ go-to Scripture, the champion for quotation, seems to be the Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 6: 9 – 13: “Pray like this: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’” (ESV translation)
It’s Over: Biden Gets Key David French Endorsement
There are a number of substantive criticisms that can be made of Donald Trump. Most recently his utterly graceless remarks about his former GOP opponents. (I wish I had the power to make Mr. Trump watch videos of Ronald Reagan gutting his adversaries but doing so without losing gravitas or stepping away from an overriding positive vision. Showing to be followed by a quiz and assignments.) But taken individually or as a whole, Trump’s obvious defects do not justify an endorsement of Joe Biden as issued by the increasingly pathetic David French.
Pre-Obama, losing a presidential election usually meant a shift to the right or left within known parameters. Welfare and defense spending would be affected at the margins but the federal bureaucracy did not see itself as a partisan enforcer no matter who won. Public debates and litigation about sexual freedoms did not involve silencing and active suppression of dissenting majority opinion and values.
Chuck Shumer: Knesset Majority Leader
A New York Rabbi is said to have commented on Goldwater’s acceptance of the Republican nomination for President in 1964 that he always knew that the first Jewish Republican nominee for the Presidency would be an Episcopalian.
If that Rabbi were with us today, he might now observe that he always knew that the first Jewish Democrat Senate Majority leader would be an anti-Semite.
Quote of the Day: Tolerance
Beliefs that may be contrary to common sense can sometimes be transformed into beliefs that are aligned with correct thinking.
But if the person with the outmoded or incorrect thoughts is attacked, the tendency would be for that person to dig in their heels and hold on to the belief with even more persistence.
The Honorverse Sampled
The Honor Harrington series featuring a fictional space naval officer from the Star Kingdom of Manticore has been going strong for over 30 years. Set in the far future, it has expanded into the Honorverse, nearly forty linked books.
What Price Victory? by David Weber is the latest addition to the series. It is the seventh Worlds of Honor anthology, collecting short stories and novella written by Weber and other contributors in the Honorverse.
This volume has five contributions, spread from 16th Century Post Diaspora (which took place roughly 2100 our time) to 1922 PD – a range of 300 years. They also cover different themes; space opera, mystery, and family conflict among them.
On this episode, Beth and Andrew speak with author Coleman Hughes about his new book, The End of Race Politics. Hughes talks about race was never an issue growing up and then first experiencing the divisive obsession with race politics as a student at Columbia University. We discuss how the civil rights movement’s dream of colorblindness turned into today’s leftist belief in neoracism and DEI. Hughes also explains how the academic studies behind the idea of implicit bias are bunk.
Coleman Cruz Hughes is a writer and host of the popular “Conversations with Coleman” podcast. He was a fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research and is a contributor at The Free Press and a graduate of Columbia University.
Vanguard 1 Has Been in Orbit For 66 Years!
On March 17th Vanguard 1 will have been in space for 66 years! Vanguardians had suffered through the failure of their first two attempts to launch a satellite. But they had the luck of the Irish on their third try. Here are clips from their celebration in 2008.
Wernher von Braun congratulated Milt Rosen who was in charge of the rocket development. Milt’s wife Sally showed me this document when I visited them in 2009.
Quote of the Day – Diligence
Fedsurrection: Cowboys vs. Yankees vs Patriots
With a title containing “Cowboys”, “Yankees” and “Patriots” it sounds
like a post about great sports dynasties, but it is actually about a recent podcast with Jack Posobiec and Mike Benz. In this podcast, Mike Benz, who is an “internet security expert” describes how US foreign policy is driven by two factions: the Yankees and the Cowboys.
The Yankees are the financial titans in New York and London. The Cowboys are the agrarian and military industries. Benz says that the factions use their political power and tools (sanctions for Yankees and military/regime change for Cowboys) to control foreign policy to their benefit. If a country is not cooperating with the American sugar industry, then they get an upgraded leader. If a country is not trading in dollars, then the financial hammer is dropped on them. He said it basically started with the Monroe Doctrine and continues to this day.
Texas Runoffs
Thirty years back, filmmaker Whit Stillman charmed audiences with a comedy about two Americans abroad in chaotic Cold War Europe. He joins Rob, James and Peter to discuss his movie Barcelona, cinema as an artform and as a business, and reasons for hope regarding its revival as a crowd-pleaser.
Plus: Rob’s returned from Morocco, Peter’s got big news, and James has a plan for the post-CCP TikTok.
Judge: Willis or Wade Must Go
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee has ruled that District Attorney Fani Willis’ relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade did not amount to a conflict of interest that warranted dismissal of the case against former President Donald Trump.
However, due to the appearance of impropriety one of the two must remove themself from the case.
Chuck Schumer: Why aren’t You Blasting Biden Instead of Netanyahu?
Chuck Schumer has a lot of chutzpah, chastising Prime Minster Netanyahu, for multiple reasons. He thinks he has the right to tell Bibi how to run his country, how to run the Gaza war, and he is breaking the rules of how to treat an ally :
His speech is the latest in a series of high-level warnings and White House moves aimed at pressuring Israel and Netanyahu’s government to permit more humanitarian aid into Gaza and to rethink its war plans for Hamas, the U.S.-designated terror group whose bloody Oct. 7 attack on Israel sparked the war. The address also marked an unusually direct criticism of the democratically elected leader of a close ally, and sparked sharp pushback from congressional Republicans and from Israel’s ambassador to the U.S.
The Biden Administration Undermines a Beleaguered Ally
During World War II, the civilians of the Axis nations suffered greatly. Their daily lives were disrupted by bombing. Severe food shortages were common. Families were separated. An estimated 2 million civilians died in Japan alone.
Yet the Allied powers would have thought it preposterous to provide humanitarian aid. These countries had attacked us and were committed to achieving world domination. Our only hope to save civilization was to force their surrender. Instead of sending relief packages, we dropped atomic bombs on them.
The Worst Drivers
(Photo Spirit, Shutterstock. Stock Photo ID: 738738481)
I saw an article at Forbes that lists the large American cities with the worst drivers. @ekentgolding, you live in (or near, I guess) #3! Memphis is #2, and Albuquerque is ranked the very worst. Apparently Memphis has a lot of drunk driving and I know @davecarter has often talked about the frequency of drive-by shootings in Memphis.
Putting down a marker
“Army Values”
A report is out that West Point is removing “Duty, Honor, Country” from its motto. Instead it will have the words “Army Values”. The Superintendent is trying to argue that since Army values include duty, honor and country that it is no big deal.
Gilland made a point to say that West Point’s mission statement has changed nine times and that “Duty, Honor, Country was first added to the mission statement in 1998.”
In 2020 the city of New York broke 75.7 to 22.6% for Joe Biden. It’s safe to say that at least some of those Trump votes came from the city’s first responders. We’ll take a look at the reaction to NYAG Letitia James’ appearance at the FDNY promotion ceremony.
And speaking of broke, Special Counsel Robert Hur’s testimony before a House committee seems to have broken a lot of people. All that and the Parting Shot.
