Glass Half Full v Glass 3/4ths Empty

The glass-is-half-full take is that the deep state not only allowed Trump to take power in 2016 but didn’t have him killed. That’s no small thing given JFK!  And it’s not like this takeover by the FBI happened just recently since even Eisenhower was aghast at it.  It’s a beast that has been alive and well since before most of us were born. 

On the other hand, the new thing seems to be this worrisome broadening of FBI’s mission statement and the introduction of the novel oxymoronic "Homeland Security".  

The 3-letter agencies used to be focused on small-ish groups or individuals (be it wire-tapping MLK or infiltrating the Black Panthers) but seem to have enlarged their scope to roughly 20-30% of Americans.

How else to view the semi-takeover of Twitter pre-Musk and the weird stuff around J6 which included no jail time for Ray Epps, nothing on the bullhorn guy, nothing on the other fellow methodically taking down Capitol perimeter boundaries, nothing on the pipe bomb planter?

This seems to be the story of our time given that in the past the FBI seemed mostly engaged in decapitating or blackmailing leaders in one way or another rather than going to war against a huge number of its own citizens. Perhaps during the Vietnam era the FBI was going after 20-40% of Americans (Vietnam protestors) but maybe not. 

Who Is Leading our Post-Democracy?

Interesting transcript of Charlie Kirk interview with Darren Beattie on the backstory of permanent Washington's influence. Beattie thinks that the declining competence of society and government in general should result in a less effective deep state. But the concerning thing is how even when information is made public it doesn't seem to have the teeth that you would think it does, which argues for the system being more robust than expected: 

CK: Ron Paul’s theory is that 11/22/1963 was the beginning of the Deep State Regime, the shot against the bow: “We can take out a president and we can cover it up.”  What do you think of that theory that in some ways the Deep State began when they were able to either kill Kennedy or cover up the truth around Kennedy.

DB: It’s a really fascinating question. As far as pinpointing when, narratively the JFK assassination is as good a time as any. Basically the emergence of what Eisenhower called the military industrial complex is concurrent with this. A lot of things were happening simultaneously to facilitate the national security state ... to the degree that now we’ve basically become a society controlled by the national security state... It's a bizarre characteristic of our so-called liberal democracy that we actually are faced with a lack of transparency around who really controls things...Subnetworks within the [government] leviathan are able to get things done, and they were certainly able to get things done in the ’60s and ‘70s. These days it’s hard to even imagine a level of competence that could sustain any theory that sinister things are happening, although maybe the sabotage of Nordstream is a rare and, in a certain way, semi-encouraging sign of competence in these quarters, who knows? It’s a question that we’re unable to fully address because of this lack of transparency, that doesn’t seem to pertain to authoritarian systems [in which we know who’s in charge].   

CK: In most countries you can kind of pinpoint who’s in charge. But who’s in charge of the United States? And if you think you know then you’re wrong. Because you can name one of the players, maybe it’s Soros, maybe it’s Obama, but it’s deeper than that. Who actually calls the shots, and by what standard do they call them, and when do they decide to intervene? Or is it created its own mob consciousness among them where there really isn’t a one decision maker but there’s some uniformity of what they want? So Darren, how do we dismantle the leviathon? 

DB: It’s very hard since we don’t have any transparency into it. It’s likely evolved or devolved since the ‘60s as everything around us disintegrates and deteriorates in terms of competency and efficacy. I don’t think there’s any reason to think it’s not the same thing in the inner chambers of power. It’s a minor miracle in its own right whenever our Deep State, as evil as it is, is able to pull anything off. Which is why the Nordstream op, assuming it was us, was so interesting.  And it’s hard to believe even the Jeffery Epstein playbook, of having him suicided in a jail cell - that required a fairly impressive degree of secrecy and coordination and it was done successfully.  And the media reporting was managed in a very interesting way because usually things like this are managed in “you just can’t talk about it” way and for a long time any discussion of Epstein working for some intelligence agency was totally taboo, but then we jumped from the taboo aspect to becoming so commonplace that it’s almost a joke and lacks any kind of real effect or teeth. Which is an interesting marker of how robust the system is, that it can absorb the publicity of something like that by just funneling it into the bread and circuses joke machine of American cultural life. Which is interesting to think about whenever you think ‘if only so-and-so thing were revealed’, well it takes a lot more than just having some information available on some corners of the Internet to make it admissible and permissible in public discourse and our collective consciousness.  

National Review as the SNL Church Lady

Read some of the late Reid Buckley’s book (brother of William F.). He was completely immune to political correctness and had a penchant for brutal truth-telling, if'n we can handle the truth. Written around 2011, he declared conservatism and small government dead which, of course, certainly has proven to be true. He also mentions that politicians are liars, by profession, which again is true but it’s pretty amazing just how long it has taken that to sink in for me.

Some of the National Review folks are scandalized, like SNL church ladies, about MTG and others who appear to approve the Pentagon document leaker guy. I suspect part of that is simply the Boomer disconnect with what is really happening on the ground, i.e. the Fed’s role in J6 was the big wakeup call that not everyone got.  "My country right or wrong" doesn't appeal to MTG so much. David Bahnson is miffed that Tucker Carlson and his folks are far afield of “movement conservatism”. I think conservatism is a kind of a mythical creature, like distributism, that sounds good on paper but has never been tried nor ever will be, and yet we keep electing people on that fantastical premise. As Reid Buckley says, run away from any politician telling you that they are for small government. In a way,  one of Trump’s most truthful aspects was that he never tried to sell us that. 

Ultimately it’s embarrassing that I expected more from church leaders let alone political leaders. Embarrassing because it betrays a basic ignorance of history, church and secular, not to mention a monumental forgetfulness of the concept of original sin. We have to live in reality. 

The problem for conservatives is that selling anyone on conserving a system where only the first two amendments to the Constitution have any salience (per EconTalk's smart Russ Roberts) is a tough sell. Or conserving a system that is leading millions of Americans to hell via the gods of Trans. Or conserving a system in which the extra-constitutional FBI that has veto power over who the president is or if he can do his job unmolested. We're a DINO (democracy in name only). 

Tucker Carlson is much in tune with folks like Robert Novak and Russell Kirk, both of whom had a deep loathing of the deep state. Nowadays we're in this odd situation where our gov't, in the words of a former 60 Minutes reporter, “isn’t lying about little things, white lies, but huge bold lies". That presents new problems. I wish the Buckleys were still around to shed light. 

The Deep State Follies

Plugged-in deep state operative/pseudo-journalist David Ignatius helpfully ruled out Ukraine and Russia as the potential source of the leaked secret documents, by ruling them in.  He seems not to have been on the reservation though since our government today outed (or made up) a fall-guy code-named “OG”, an internal leaker with spectacular security access.  So if Ignatius thought he was helping the government deflect by blaming Ukraine or Russia that gambit failed. But likely the new goal is to blame Trump or his supporters or white supremacists or some such. 

It’s possible if unlikely that “OG” was paid to do this leaking by the US government for some strategic reason. At the very least it paints Ukraine’s situation as grim but alternative media already knew that; another case where you learn more outside the dominant media than inside it unless you’re using the press as a contra-indicator of the truth.  Interesting to learn with certainty that we are bleeding our military dry in this proxy war with Russia. I’m not sure what the point is even if we are doing likewise to Russia. To the extent the leak embarrasses the regime then I suppose it ultimately serves the interests of the American people. 

Anyway, if “OG” is real and at large then he has some huge stones. At the very least you’d think he’d have planned an exit-the-country strategy. Pro-tip would be to use the southern border, maybe. 

One thing Biden has in his favor is that he is certainly symbolic of the country he leads. As a symbol of America today, he represents us far more accurately than a Washington or Lincoln would, alas. We sure could use a leader we're not worthy of and haven't earned. 

**

On a sad note, prolific Catholic author and weightlifter Kevin Vost died unexpectedly Tuesday. As is the fashion nowadays no cause of death is listed.  Perhaps a heart attack or aneurysm.

Pope Benedict's Papal Years

It's annoying that Archbishop Ganswein’s book about Pope Benedict’s last years has not been published in English and there appear to be no plans on the horizon. Ignatius Press fail. 

It's also annoying that the World Youth Days seemed to play such a role in bringing down Benedict; I wish he'd simply skipped them. 

But here's a general timeline of the events leading up to his resignation. It feels heroic he made it that long as pontiff as he did given the stress just four months into his papacy. 

I also wonder if he'd felt he'd accomplished what he'd set out to do in terms of encyclicals, the Latin mass, and the end of the Jesus of Nazareth series. 

A timeline:

2005-04-19: Becomes pope. 

2005-08-19: World Youth Day in Cologne; insomnia begins. 

2007-07: Summorum Pontificum on Latin Mass released. 

2008-07: World Youth Day in Australia. 

2009-06: Last encyclical published. 

2011-07: World Youth Day in Spain. 

2012-01: Vatileaks first revealed. 

2012-03: Trip to Mexico & Cuba woke to find blood-soaked handkerchief. Was using strong sleeping pills and after this physician advised him to reduce sleeping pill intake.

2012-05: Arrest of Vatileaks butler 

2012-09-14: Travels to Lebanon. Perhaps this was the trip that pushed him to the certainty of resignation?  

2012-09-25: Tells Ganswein he’s resigning. 

2012-11: Last Jesus of Nazareth volume published. 

2013-03: Resigns.

2013-07: World Youth Day in Brazil. 

More info:

“Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation in 2013 was largely due to chronic insomnia, according to papal biographer Peter Seewald. In his last letter to Seewald dated Oct 28, 2022, Benedict wrote that insomnia was the “central motive” behind his resignation. The pontiff had been struggling with insomnia since 2005 World Youth Day in Cologne, shortly after his election as pope.

According to Ganswein, 9/25/12 was the day he was informed:

"Gänswein says that the pope’s commitment to celebrate World Youth Day in Brazil in [July] 2013 weighed heavily on his mind. As Benedict felt his strength diminish, he behaved atypically at prayer: “On kneeling, he would take his head in his hands and almost collapse in on himself, an attitude foreign to his style.” He recalls that Benedict informed him on Sept. 25, 2012, of his intention to make way for a “new, younger, pope."

Benedict died on 12/31/22, the feast day of Pope St. Sylvester who died in 335.

The Futility of Trying to Escape Original Sin by Erudition

No one can say we don’t live in exciting times.  I'm always learning something.

Today it came in the form of Biblical studies. I’d always assumed the Masoretic (Old Testament) text was the premiere Hebrew text because it’s used by all modern translations. It’s funny how often I am bamboozled by the “new” and “expert-approved” without giving it a second thought. 

One Protestant biblical scholar recently asked the un-askable question: 

“Why should the Christian Church be committed in any way to the authority of the Masoretic text when its development extended long after the inception of the Church and was carried on within a rabbinic tradition?”

The Greek translation of the Hebrew (the Septuagint) was done before either Christian or Jewish conscious or unconscious bias could be introduced (about 200 B.C.). We now have the silly situation where St. Paul and Jesus are “misquoting” the Old Testament scriptures at least according to our modern editions. St. Augustine, meanwhile, anticipated this in the 4th century when he wrote with his great faith in God and His continuing presence that the Septuagint was every bit Scripture as the Hebrew text. 

From a scholarly article by Benedict Andersen OSB on how Jerome was imbued with a thirst for the true Hebrew manuscript (which the Dead Sea scrolls later showed did not exist): 

"The debate between Augustine and Jerome on the Hebraica veritas in some way anticipates our dilemma. In the words of Mogens Miller: 'To Augustine history has a meaning which is lost upon Jerome, who thinks it possible to start all over again.'

"Our liturgical life as Roman Catholics bears the wounds, still very raw, of a giving into this same temptation of 'starting all over again' according to a kind of pure standard, which is only a figment of the reformer's imagination."

Elsewhere, in a book on Traditional Catholicism, the author talks about Cardinal Ratzinger and it "rhymes" with that last sentence above:

"The new theological movement was deeply inspired by the errors of Teilhard de Chardin, and believed that through their learning, they could bring about a new era in the Church. It was the works of Teilhard, as Schönborn says, that created a 'fascination. for an entire generation.' The excitement was building among these men for a new era of 'Better Christianity'. 

Joseph Ratzinger as a German academic under the influence of these new ideas, would later describe how he felt in those days:

'We were lucky that we lived in a time in which both the youth and liturgical movements had opened up new horizons, new paths. Here we wanted to press forward with the Church, so that, in precisely this way, she would be young again.

'At that time we all had a certain contempt for the nineteenth century; it was fashionable then. somewhat kitsch piety and over-sentimentality - we wanted to overcome all that. We wanted a new era of piety, which formed itself from the liturgy, its sobriety and its greatness, which drew on the original sources - and was new and contemporary precisely because of this.'

"Notice what is missing in order to bring about the new era: prayer and humility, and the penance of Fatima."

The E-Bike Follies (film at 11)

A post for schadenfreude lovers...The new e-bike continues to frustrate more than it delight. My wife says that I’m “hard on things” (hopefully not wives) and certainly my baby e-bike, with just 80 miles on it, has been put through its paces. Today I was riding when the clip-on sunglasses that I clipped on to my shorts fell off into the gears, scratching up the bike body and sending the chain off its rails. Even after setting the chain back on it now makes a slight rattling noise, an omnipresent reminder of my folly. 

I later spent a good half-hour trying to see if there was some combination of presses that would reset the trip odometer on the bike because I thought, “gee, it would be nice if I could tell how long I rode without having to note the overall mileage, write it down, and then compare to the finishing mileage.”.  In a perfect world there’d be an app for that -- and that’s where I should’ve looked, for a phone app. But the presence of that trip odometer on the LCD display sort of taunted me. It was saying, “nah, nah, nah-nah, nah, you can’t set me!”.  

So I checked the user’s manual without success (other than pointing out that number 14 represents the taunting trip odometer, which I already knew).  I scrolled through twenty carefully saved Youtube links that describe all the various features that you might want to use on your e-bike and watched two: one was describing an LCD screen on a different model than mine but I watched anyway thinking it might be similar. No dice. Then I watched the right one, for my model A, but alas there was no mention on how to reset the mileage.  So I used the chat feature on the e-bike website and a helpful fellow named Sean said that you were to press up and down arrow at the same time and this would result in flashing numbers that would reset things. But I’d tried that before at least a hundred times and by now an old veteran at two presses. In fact I tried every combination of two presses there was: “up and on/off key", “down and on/off key” and a long press and short press in every combo available as well. I was like the kid who asks for a horse for Christmas and got a pile of manure and kept looking through it saying, “I know there’s a horse in here somewhere!”  I kept thinking, "I know there's an odometer reset in there somewhere!" 

Sean said that the trick was the bike had to be on for longer than 20 seconds, but I’d been trying these combinations for 20 minutes, so I had that covered. To paraphrase the ol’ Elvis song, “some things, like odometer resets, aren't meant to be.” 

Another issue was that a few weeks ago I had decided that it would be nice to see behind me. This too became a dream deferred. I ordered the part but the casing immediately cracked. I tried using electrical tape to hold it together but when riding the mirror flops more than a fish out of water. (I did find that if I’m in a perfectly straight stretch on brand new pristine asphalt, it would hold steady. Few and far between in Ohio.) I suppose the goal wasn’t to have it too tight so you could make hand adjustments on the ride. Mission accomplished there!

**

Ultimately e-bikes are an e-headache.  I’m not sure what possessed me to buy an electric bike given I have the mechanical skills on the level of my six-year old granddaughter.

Electric bike are complex, complicated machines. Like women, with fewer operating instructions. Just learning how to turn it on took time back when I got it, let alone taking the battery off and putting the battery back on. There was a lot of trial and error until I latched on to the proper way to latch it. Hopefully muscle memory will improve my dexterity but I’m not particularly hopeful.  Next week or next month I assume I’ll be trying to put the battery back on after about twenty attempts.

Other complexities involve a willfulness on the part of the “pedal assist” feature. This is what gives you the power boost; otherwise you’re just riding a regular bike. Pedal assist is something that can suddenly go off. Poof! I’m thinking there’s a setting on the LCD screen that I accidentally hit sometimes causing it to be defaulted to “off”.  Other times, when just starting a bike ride, the pedal assist will take awhile to engage, maybe three minutes. I think this is a separate issue from the LCD screen having a pedal assist option ticked off but who knows? E-bikes are complex, complicated machines.

One thing I’ve learned is to always carry a tool kit on a bike ride. Today, I rode even though I would have no power on my bike. I stopped a couple times to tighten the steering. There are, I kid you not, at least 6 screws randomly scattered around the handlebar stem that may (or may not!) be the cause of the loose steering. I was on my way when I had to stop again to find the elusive screw that actually tightened it.

Despite my long and checkered history of anti-mechanical ability, last week I grew so bold as to try taking the front tire off. I wanted to do this because it’s theoretically a game-changer: I could then store my bike in my SUV (otherwise the bike's too big). I was excited I was actually able to take the wheel off, and even more excited that I was able to put the tire back on. That was harder, as a spring sprung out and so I had a 50-50 choice on which side of the bike to put it on.  Seems I chose well since it worked after I tried it out.

The downside is that the motor would no longer turn on. The LCD quit working. I tried charging the already-charged battery. I tried taking the battery off and back on, thus giving me additional practice on a skill that takes the precision of a surgeon.

Exasperated, I finally emailed Electric Bike Company with the issue and provided pictures of the bike in its distress. They emailed back saying that one of the wires was undone. Apparently I had taken the tire off but caused one of the wires to become detached.

Let history record THIS was the eureka moment I realized I am not a good candidate for an electric bike.

To quote Billy Joel who wrote of women but also applies to e-bikes: 

She is frequently kind

And she's suddenly cruel

She can do as she pleases

She's nobody's fool...

She’s always an e-bike to me...