Four Years Ago Tiday

Everyone started out so chipper and energized, especially George Stephanapolous, but grimness started to set in.  Terry Moran said the unthinkable: that this was starting to look like the Brexit vote which he covered in London, adding that he's having a "bad sense of deja vu" and then by repeating himself, self-correcting by removing the telling adjective "bad".  As he was saying this, panelist Matthew Dowd crossed his arms in an "I don't want to hear this" gesture and Jonathon Karl frowned and looked down at his paper.  Moran picked up on it of course and said, "I'm not saying that's happening...".

Jonathon Karl was the comforter-in-chief on the set, reminding the panel constantly over 20-minute intervals that there was this magic cache of Broward County votes that could put Hillary on top there (despite the uncounted Panhandle votes).  Wishful thinking in action.

Strategist Alex Castellanos was the sharpest knife in the drawer, seeing very early on that Trump was going to have trouble in Colorado but do better than expected in Michigan based simply on how folks were voting in Florida.

When the race was revealed to be close in Virginia, a state Hillary was expected to carry without a problem, Karl had to admit that this one was closer than he thought it would be.  Stephanapolous grew concerned that his comforter wasn't doing his job, so he swung it out to Clinton shill Donna Brazile, who offered many reassuring words about "long lines" in Detroit and uncounted votes and how confident she felt.  Stephanapolis pushed back, saying he had reports of weakness in Flint and Detroit, but Brazile said these type of voters vote late in the day, after 4 or 5pm.  But she still seemed a bit tight-faced and forced-smiling.

Virginia seemed to put the fear of God in everyone, causing even Charles Gibson to speak for the first time (prior to this he was the Clarence Thomas of the panel).

Dowd offered an unlikely scenario where Clinton could win popular vote by a whopping 5% and still lose if these tight races fall for Trump.

At 10:52 George recognizes the gravity of the situation (it felt like the dawning doom of the men on the Edmund Fitzgerald), saying if Trump wins Michigan or Pennsylvania and holds on to the other leads he has a "real possibility right there. Incredible."

He swings it to Cokie Roberts who makes her debut chime-in. "This is very different from what we were seeing earlier this evening... rural voters ready to show their distaste for the current country."  Charlie Gibson followed up with how dismaying the polarity is of the groups, of how divided this country is by sex, race, geographical location, etc...

Rebecca Jarvis announces the Dow futures down 500 points and the Mexican peso is down, further signs of the Edmund Fitzgerald's demise.

States of Confusion

The more I read about this election the more confused I get.  My comfort level with the ’20 election stats evaporated when I realized that Trump won a larger percentage of votes in ’20 versus ’16 in OH, IN, MI, PA, WI (among many others) and still he lost the last three of those states. I don’t know what to believe, like this wild stuff concerting Bedford’s Law.  I don’t know Bedford or that he had a law. Probably fake news given the preponderance of advertisements on the page but...

The voting pool was bigger this time of course.  Ohio picked up about 5.5% new voters this time versus in ’16 while Michigan picked up an astounding 14+%.  Both are Midwest battlegrounds ostensibly but very different outcomes. One might say suspiciously so as Ohio’s voting system is far more locked-down and reliable than Michigan’s, so there’s that.  

Someone Tell Noonan the GOP Is No Longer the Party of Noblesse Oblige

Yup, it was telegraphed: 

“The race is well within the margin of cheating and Democrats are much more inclined to cheat. That’s why they are against voter ID, against signature matching, for cheat-by-mail and don’t want Republicans to watch the votes being counted.” (Alex Marlow)

Peggy Noonan is resigned: 

“‘Landslide Lyndon,’ ‘Vote early and often for Curley’—these are part of our political vocabulary for a reason. JFK [won]…with the votes of the dead. A certain amount of misbehavior is in our genes, and in democracy’s. Elections are human enterprises.”

Interesting that all the examples she brings up - LBJ, JFK and James Curley - were all Democrat politicians. It seems that particular vice is mostly in Democrats’ genes.

She then goes on to applaud Nixon for not contesting the 1960 election and suggests Trump should do the same. She says fighting for the election can lead to fighting in the streets. In other words, the Republican role is to be the adult in the room and enable Democrat bad behavior. That’s been the modus operandi for many a year, with Republicans taking the role as gracious losers. Noblesse oblige. But now the parties are realigning and the working class is drawn to Republicans (more specifically, to Trump), and they aren’t much into that noblesse oblige because they aren’t that privileged. 

I’m just hoping the Democrat effectiveness at cheating will bleed into effectiveness at governance though there’s certainly been no history of that. 

Slummin’ in Politics

So it now seems pretty obvious that minus the virus and with the March economy Trump would’ve won handily. No matter what happens it at least shows the outer limits of media power and made for a decent experiment.

A close election gives one permission, so I tell myself, to glory in the storyline and to endlessly slum in politics. It’s addictive, with all sorts of plot twists like a hundred thousand Biden ballots showing up in the dark of night, or Fox News calling Arizona before it called Florida, or how they quit counting votes in one state due to “a lack of printer ink”. My kingdom for printer ink!

And the pollsters! They are like Nostradamus minus the accuracy. Think polls in ‘16 were bad? ‘20 said, “hold my beer”.

Meanwhile old Joe’s not worried. He’s like, “Let Trump wear himself out campaigin’. I’ll just print me up some ballots in the basement.” So THAT’S where all the printer ink went. I’m picturing a Schoolhouse Rock video on how a Democrat becomes a president: “when no one looks / add ballots on the books”.

Oddly, I seem more invested in Biden losing Arizona and thus making Fox News be forced to retract than rooting Trump across the finish line.  With a GOP Senate one can relax greatly and I fear that whoever wins the presidency is going to rue it given the virus, economy, etc...

But with Fox News....after Chris Wallace and the debate debacle and now this. Experience teaches that most right-leaning institutions (and SCOTUS justices) turn left over time. So when Fox sits on Florida and then jumps all over Arizona it’s like I’m experiencing David Souter PTSD.

I'm kind of amused by how the networks treat it as so scientific - pure math - in determining when to call an election. But for Fox News the head quant was a proud Democrat who voted for Hillary. Better yet, he’s been friendly and talked often with his counterpart at the AP according to a story published before the election. Collusion with the AP! Math can never compete with ambition and political bias. 

Something Other Than Politics

Was startled by beauty recently in the form of a red fox meandering along our fence line. I love the wildlife we see in our own backyard. I called the dogs but the fox was long gone. A beautiful animal, almost like a mirage or a firework - there for a second and then disappearing.

Naturalist Hal Borland writes of the “incredible wealth of beaten gold” beneath the maples, the fallen leaves (have I ever consciously connected “Fall” being called so because of the fall of leaves? Surely when I was a kid.) 

Borland writes of how dependable the movement of the stars each fall:

There is eternity in those star patterns. They have been substantially the same in each October, each April and June as well, since man invented the calendar. Caesar saw those same stars in the same places as we see them, and so did the earlier Pharaoh. The Stone Age caveman saw them and was awed by them. And they will still be there 10,000 years from now. Look at the sky, these October evenings, and see the certainty of forever. 

___

Meanwhile days list in the meager desert of politics befitting no man. The vice of the quarter-educated as Russell Kirk said. But I cling to Chesterton’s line about religion and politics being the only things to talk about... 

A wanderlust invades if only because the lockdown impends. Sure, the virus, maybe, but as much as anything the chains of really. cold. weather.  Reality has tided now, with tomato plants overnight sickened by frost. Thirty degrees with a twenty mph wind in these parts, not fit for man nor beast. Only nordic dogs and eskimos go out in the windblown frost. 

Italo Calvino: 

You walk for days among trees and among stones. Rarely does the eye light on a thing, and then only when it has recognized that thing as the sign of another thing: a print in the sand indicates the tiger’s passage; a marsh announces a vein of water; the hibiscus flower, the end of winter. All the rest is silent and interchangeable; trees and stones are only what they are.

Suzanne Noffke, OP:

     The Greek word mysterion was translated into Latin by two terms: mysterium and sacramentum. In later usage the term sacramentum emphasizes the visible sign of the hidden reality of salvation which was indicated by the term mysterium.

___

Let us now speak of famous Christians. 

I have a soft spot for Eugene Peterson, the Bible translator and Presbyterian pastor who recently passed.  Part of it was not knowing much about him and thus having the bliss of ignorance. I found where a couple years ago Peterson said he would officiate a gay wedding.  No wonder Bono loves him.  A day later he backed down after the hubbub. And not due to a high view of Scripture, as he explained. 

On the one hand, if you’re not Catholic and you’re ok with contraception then it’s hard to see what logically is bad about gay sex from a reason point-of-view. Both are orgasms divorced from reproduction. But from a faith alone/Scriptural point-of-view it’s easy because there are passages against homosexuality if not contraception. So Peterson isn’t quite as “Bible alone” as his fellow Protestants, he wants to use reason, and that got him in trouble. He’s a man without a country on that one. 

I also ponder the meaning of Bishop Barron endorsing the infamous Fr. Martin’s book on prayer. A Twitter cynic said that they made Barron a bishop to compromise him. I wonder if the leftward drift of hierarchy like himself and Cardinal Schonberg are out of a familial duty to “follow Peter.”  Barron’s starstruck meeting with the pontiff certainly was eye-opening to me at least. The pope is Bono for Barron. 

Prayer implies discernment, something Fr. Martin would seem to lack. (But who am I to judge!?) But the mystery of a “holy boldness”, if not “sin boldly”, holds within it something attractive.  As (Protestant) Eric Metaxsis said in his book on another Martin (Luther, who was another inexplicably self-confident heretic): 

“It was far better that someone try to understand God and truth with the possibility of getting some things wrong than to depend on others to understand these things. Freedom with God, with the possibility of growth and death, was better than the safe fetters of childhood.” 

The Catholic would argue that the pasture is wide open for the sheep to wander theologically, with only the far cliffs denoted by warning signs. 

Using My Algorithm to Predict the Result

So back here I tried to come up with a prediction model for winning the presidency. Tomorrow (or next week or month or...) it will get put to the test. 

I think in the modern era (1960s on), there are three components. 

 1) A feint in the opposite political direction. (Works for popes too since many thought Bergoglio was a conservative when he feinted that way years ago.) 

2) Comfort with television and/or telegenic. 

3) A lack of experience. Theoretically people’s thirst for a lack of experience must eventually find a bottom, though hopefully before we amend the Constitution and start electing pre-teens. Some would argue our current occupant is a pre-teen but that’s off topic.

So using this criteria: 

1) Biden has not impressively feinted in the opposite direction. He gave the VP slot to a California radical instead of someone like Amy Klobuchar. There has been no Bret Baier or Tucker Carlson interview, no Biden appearances outside the bubble. Trump is different as he has feinted a bit in the opposite direction, trying hard to woo Black voters by criminal justice reform and funding Black colleges. And of course he’s gone on leftwing outfits (see “60 Minutes”).  So I give this one to Trump.

2) Trump is of course supremely comfortable with television. Biden less so, although he didn’t come off as poorly as anticipated during the debates. (Short-term anti-senility drugs work!) Advantage Trump.

3) Both candidates have experience now. Trump has had four years in presidency and Biden has had 4,781 years in D.C.  So this is a push given that it feels like Trump has been in office for 4,781 years. 

So the advantage goes to Trump 2-0-1.  It’s possible this model will not work this time due to the unprecedented advertising campaign of NYT, CNN, ABC, etc...  For the model to be proven ineffective I think I need to predict correctly only about 85.7% of the time so it will live to see another day regardless of outcome. But I may need to tweak it to add a “propaganda factor” in which I acknowledge the power of Pravda. I would use the combined ratings of ABC-CBS-MSNBC versus that of Fox News and compute a rough factor of media influence. 

C’mon Man

It’s kind of humorous to see some American bishops bending over backwards to try to justify potential votes for Biden. I mean, “c’mon man!. That doesn’t pass the smell test. Or the “laugh test”. 

John Martignoni pointed out the obvious, that is: 

“Let’s say that instead of supporting abortion, a candidate was a staunch supporter of laws that allowed for the lynching of a million black men a year. Could you still vote for that candidate? Would their position on healthcare or immigration outweigh their position on lynching?”

Hell no. 

Everybody would be a single issue voter if a million 10-year old Americans were killed every year due to laws recognizing the right to kill 10-year old kids. It’s the invisibility of the unborn that dooms them. Would Bishop Barron honestly say that you could vote for a candidate who supported killing a million ten-year old kids annually, just as long as you had some other reason to vote for that candidate? 

I can think of a few reasons why we’re continuing the fiction: 

1. Gov’t monies and funding for Catholic charities require Democrat help. 

2. Evangelistic outreach to nones in Democrat party; we don’t want to have one party associated as the “religion party” and the other as the non-religious party. 

3. Don’t want to lose 501c3 tax exempt status. 

4. Hoping to protect religious liberty by not upsetting Democrat leaders. 

5. Bishops want to maintain the delusion of power, of having influence over elected leaders.

6. Millions of American Catholics proudly vote Democratic and it would be ill-advised to piss them off. 

I get that, so there’s a prudential case to be made on that basis. But it’s getting increasingly difficult to suspend disbelief.

Morality in CoronaLand

Billy Cunningham of WLW radio fame asked Gov Dewine a blunt question: “My producer says covid overblown. He says over 99% of people don’t die from it and he’s going to live his life the way he wants. What do I tell him?” Dewine says, “tell him it’s not about him. If someone wants to get in a car and do 90mph on a deserted road and they get in a wreck, that’s okay, that’s their choice. But if they do it with children in the car that’s different.”

It’s an interesting question because you could look at it two ways: one is the DeWine way, that you should want to protect others by protecting yourself. The other way though is compelling too - it is that other people should not be so afraid of death and that you are not responsible for that overblown fear and that preserving one’s life on earth is not the most important thing.

My own selfishness is mostly that I don't want to get the virus for myself, alas. Not the most noble of reasons.

Missing the Pre-Internet Amnesia Days

Meyers-Bridges has me as INTJ, the J for “judging”. That seems a particularly bad fit in the internet age because I can easily get stuck with nursing injustices simply by the transparency of google searches and social media. The evil thrive, the psalmist says, but before the ‘net I could always assume that justice had been done and I’d missed it. It’s hard to imagine now, but one couldn't simply type into a computer and find out, for example, how the career of Cardinal Farrell is going after his being mentored and living with disgraced Cardinal McCarrick and proclaiming he hadn’t a clue about McCarrick’s proclivities (answer: swimmingly, Pope Francis’s right hand man). Or how Cardinal Toobin of “nighty, night!” fame can be googled and found immediately that he says, “hey you can vote for Biden with a clear conscience!”. Or you could obsess (er, I could obsess) over how it was that Epstein got the sweetheart immunity deal which let him off the hook for years and abused countless other young girls. The people most responsible for that, of course, are doing just fine as Google search will attest. Pre-Google I could assume they were living a chastened, austere life in the metaphorical equivalent of upper Siberia.

So there’s an upside to the forgetfulness that the old media environment induced. A little amnesia is a good thing. Because justice in this world is rare enough, and my own thirst for justice isn’t a good thing for a Christian who believes in forgiveness. One translation of a line in Romans 3 is: “God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world from sin.” And another translation Rom 2:1: “So, friend, if thou canst see thy neighbor’s faults, no excuse is left thee, whoever thou art; in blaming him, thou dost own thyself guilty, since thou, for all thy blame, livest the same life as he.”

Bottum's Twitter Exchange

Interesting to see two bigtime journalists for bigtime publications sneer at Jody Bottum on Twitter:

Wesley Yang: “Interesting to see Joseph Bottum writing for the Epoch Times”

Joseph Bottum: “They asked.”

Graeme Wood: “Do you ever say no?”

Joseph Bottum: “Never to the outlet. Sometimes to the topic, if I can’t see an approach. Often, if it pays little. And always to the take proposed, if I don’t believe it. Is that bad? Maybe, since I’m still an unsuccessful writer, scribbling away at pennyeach pieces at my rickety deal desk.”

(Later):

Joseph Bottum: “They are pushing, I think, toward an attempt to measure the ad-hominem fever of the age: Must we appear only among those we agree with on most everything?  You can see it in the lack of support for @nypost in battle with Twitter: Political sides are more important than fellow journalists. Even "fellow" has a dated and outmoded feel. These days, it’s more like “If you ain’t got the right politics, you ain’t no fellow of mine.”

The Journalism Mafia Wins: or Don’t Fight With Those Who Buy Ink by the Barrel

Looks like the Hunter Biden story is not going to have much of an impact. Most voters are kind of resigned to politicians getting rich by making contacts and doing favors. Rounding error difference between what Biden did and what Bill Clinton did by giving speeches for millions. My initial gut instinct was that this wouldn’t be a big enough story and I could’ve trusted my gut. 

The National Review editors all gave the story a 3 on a scale of 1-10 as far as political impact. Part of that is due, of course, to the mainstream media not touching the story.  They say Trump could kill a guy on Fifth Avenue and not lose his supporters; similarly Biden could sell state secrets for millions and it wouldn’t bother his reporters.

The whole fraught relationship of Republicans to the media goes like this: Reporters are the mafia guys who do nothing in the neighborhood but collect some “protection” money. You give them their due, some attention, a story now and then, don’t get out of line in your politics, and they’ll slant your coverage only a little. Keeps them honest more of the time. 

But, as usual, people get greedy. The “arrangements” get more pricey. Eventually the Republican voters (if not officeholders other than maybe Newt Gingrich) decided they’d had enough of the racket. They got themselves a fighter who wouldn’t pay any protection money. And it worked enough to get him the presidency, no small thing, although with help from a media that was blindsided. 

But what happens when you get uppity and refuse to pay protection money? You get killed. Or you go to the police and the bad guys get put in jail. Of these two scenarios the second was never going to happen. There’s no check on bad journalism and in fact it’s rewarded. 

So back in ’16 the Trump win was a pyrrhic victory, a thumb in the nose of the do-nothing bully on the corner. And now we Republicans get to pay the piper.  If Trump loses, the Republican officeholders will crawl on their knees to their mafia dons, ask forgiveness, and pay a much steeper price for the trouble they caused.  

Scoring Your Confirmation Battles, Scully & Sasse

I'm working on an algorithm to determine how difficult a given confirmation battle will be. Kavanaugh's situation was basically a perfect storm while Amy Coney Barrett's a comparative romp in the park. 

So let's award points based on the political landscape. A score over 10 makes for a difficult journey while under 5 is a breeze. 

Are you male? Add 3 pts. Sexual harassment by a woman is much less believable, thus removing a tool from the progressive arsenal. 

Are the GOP votes lined up prior to start of confirmation? Subtract 2 points if so.  Barrett gets -2 while Kavanaugh had fence-sitters like Sen. Collins which encouraged desperate Democrat tactics. 

Are there Democrats on the Judiciary committee currently running for president? Add 3 points for each one. Kavanaugh adds 9 points while Barrett none.    

 Is there a Spartacus in the building?  Add 2 points. Both ACB and Kavanaugh add 2 points.   

So overall Kavanaugh scored 17 points while Barret sat at 0.Sen 

___

So Sen. Ben Sasse, talked about Trump in a (self-leaked?) phone call. His gripes, and he has a few, are perhaps numbingly familiar and unpersuasive to most non-liberal voters. You can say he's heroic in the Kasich mode for that, or politically tone-deaf.  Here is a breakdown of his complaints: 

1. "Trump mishandled the coronavirus." Well Trump was mediocre on it but I'm not sure a "C" grade represents "mishandling". The course of covid runs through individual actions, not government actions. The fault, dear America, lay not in the star (of the Apprentice), but in ourselves. For a conservative like Sasse to expect Big Daddy gov’t to "handle" a novel virus is Sad!

2. "Kisses dictators’ butts" Well, who cares? Does not kissing dictators’ butts change the behavior of dictators one iota? Does it bother Sasse so much that some foreigner the senator doesn’t like is getting his/her butt kissed? This is a primo example of a nothing burger. 

3. "Sells out our allies." I'd like a bit more specificity on this one. It's certainly possible but I'm hoping this doesn't simply mean "we're making our NATO partners pay their fair share". 

4.  "Spends like a drunken sailor". My understanding is that Congress is in charge of the budget. To the extent he signs expensive bills, so did Obama and G.W.Bush. Unlike Bush, Trump actually had a mandate to spend because the American people voted with the understanding he would not cut spending. See "the fault, dear Brutus..." above. 

5. "Mistreats women." Some women yes. Some men too. He's got character flaws no doubt. I understand my local garbage collector also mistreats women sometimes. Should we fire him? 

6. "Trash-talks evangelicals behind their backs." Who cares? He’s done more in actions for evangelicals than evangelical George W. Bush. Is this actually supposed to be persuasive? Everyone in Washington and in media trash-talks evangelicals.  

7. "Flirts with white supremacists."  He's also condemned them numerous times but is understandably annoyed liberals never get called out for flirting with black supremacists. 

___

Steve Scully I hardly knew ye! The ghost of Brian Lamb is quaking, only Lamb's not dead (bring back Lamb!).  

The mini-scandal is interesting on a number of levels. 

First, who knew that someone so placid and with such admirable self-control when taking crazy calls on C-Span (what a poker face!) was taking himself so seriously that he had to ask Anthony Scaramucci for advice? I mean there's the real scandal. 

Let's recall more about the sage of New York that Scully called upon. Scaramucci was let go by Trump two weeks into his term for attacking Reince Priebus, calling him a "paranoid schizophrenic" in a conversation with a reporter, and after also directing profanity-laced insults at Steve Bannon that are too spicy to post on a Catholic blog.  

Then Scully doubled-down, with the hackneyed lie, "I was hacked!". A very subtle hacking based on his timeline. 

The larger issue is that Trump is an unwitting revealer of character - just ask the many "journalists" who have been outed as frauds and hacks by him. You could call Trump a one-man honest-broker detector, a tester of character, like whether your house can stand up to really strong winds. In Catholic parlance, Trump is a near occasion of sin for reporters.

Reading the backstory, it appears that Trump got under Scully's skin by accusing him of not being objective which, ironically, led to Scully outing himself as not objective. But that's exactly the human condition. Our idols smash us. Mine do all the time. 

Biden's coming victory, despite the semi-hidden (by some media) corruption inherent in his fabulous wealth on a modest salary and his son's play-for-pay scheme that apparently required him to dole out some of the dough to "the Big Man", shows that it's more important to hide your flaws than that they be easily seen. He who hides them best, wins. I would argue that Trump's flaws are so transparent that he is less to be feared than the many ambitious pols who are more subtle. The devil's lies are subtle, not like the jester's lies. 

Ultimately the story goes: in 2015 and 2016, those conservatives wise in their own estimation were shamed by the simple, by the mass of Republican primary voters who gave their vote to Donald Trump. 

Excerpt from Peggy Noonan Column

 The Barrett hearings were almost as strange. They were, as usual, not really about her and her views but the senators and theirs. But it seemed to me that slightly more than usual they treated her like a piece of furniture. There were bizarre questions. From Mazie Hirono of Hawaii: “Since you became a legal adult, have you ever made unwanted requests for sexual favors or committed any verbal or physical harassment or assault of a sexual nature?” No, Judge Barrett said. Ms. Hirono says she asks this of all nominees, but it would have been nice if she’d said it with a hint of doubt.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse delivered a Rachel Maddow-style monologue on “dark money.” His data board linking “phony front groups” was wonderfully John Nash-like. The not-funny part, the sadness of it, actually, is that you could do a mirror-image chart of Democratic activism and money surrounding court nominees, and it would have been a public service if he had.

I don’t know Judge Barrett’s deeper thoughts on the Second Amendment, but by the end of the hearings I was hoping she’d pull out a gun. 

As for her Republican supporters, some of them went on about her large family and motherhood in a way that seemed, subtly, to obscure the depth of her intellect and the breadth of her command of the law. I think some of them couldn’t quite grok a mother of seven who’s their intellectual superior, so they reverted to form and patronized her. And competed with her. Sen. John Kennedy seemed especially eager to save the drowning woman, not noticing she wasn’t drowning and appears, as a lawyer, to swim better than he. 

They lauded her large family in a way that lacked finesse, by which I mean at times they sounded like Mussolini advancing pro-natalism as a matter of state. If Judge Barrett were single and childless like David Souter, she would still be a deeply impressive nominee. If she were married and the parent of nine like Antonin Scalia, she would be impressive. It is not irrelevant that she is bringing up seven children. “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions,” said Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., and every child is a new experience. But when you focus on the personal at the expense of the public, you wind up with Mr. Kennedy asking, “Who does the laundry in your house?” I remember when a senator asked Scalia that and Scalia laughed in his face. Oh wait, no one ever asked Scalia that. 

Guys, did you not notice the immediate recall with which she summoned, and the depth with which she analyzed, the history of American jurisprudence? Say thank you, God, and move on. 

She will be confirmed. Having spent a long time reading of her and her decisions, what strikes me is a story she told last spring, at Notre Dame. It is personal but sheds light on her thinking. She and her husband had suddenly received a call saying a baby had come up for adoption. But she had just found out she was pregnant with her fifth child. She threw on a jacket, took a walk, and wound up on a bench in a cemetery. She thought, “If life is really hard, at least it’s short.” They adopted the baby. 

There have been many men on the court who seemed deep and were celebrated for their scholarly musings but were essentially, as individuals and in their conception of life, immature. But this is not a child, a sentimentalist, an ideological warrior. This is a thinker who thinks about reality.

She’s not what you expect when you open your handy box of categories. People who understand conservatism in a particular, maybe limited way—they don’t know what they just got. 

Modern, a particular kind of Catholic, a woman, with a lived emphasis on people in community—this is not a “standard conservative.” In her independence from partisan politics, in her lived faith in higher persons, spirits and principles, this is rather a dangerous woman.

And she’s sane.

When God Made Me Born a Yankee He Was Teasin'

Off with the dogs - we left the dogs out* - to points due south to our Laughing Gull spot in Seapines. We drove by a couple of interesting kayak opportunities: one, the Ohio River at Ravenswood; there’s a feeder river/confluence not far from route 33. The other was the Scioto near Grandview Avenue, and near where I-670 cross over it.  Driving to Hilton Head makes me want to do a dozen more vacation-type activities.

And it didn’t take long for Max to provide trip log material.  I stopped at a rest stop and Steph and I went to the bathroom. I got back first, and rather than climb in, close the doors, put the dual leash on the dogs and then take them on a quick potty break, I tried to simply corral them at the door.  Maris got on the leash fine but Max is deceptively quick (or I’m getting reflexively old). He squeezed through with a head fake and skipped across the Wendy’s drive-thru lane without a care in the world. The only thing that allowed me to stay with him was his frequent marking-his-territory moves, like peeing on the Wendy’s menu sign.  He went up to the drive-thru window and looked briefly up as if begging for food, and there was a car waiting for food, so he was sandwiched in the small area between car and window. I ran frantically, trying to make sure the driver wasn’t preparing to drive away and flatten Max. Meanwhile I had only one hand free (because I was holding Maris on leash) and my pants were coming down since I had loosened my belt on the car ride. Eventually I got him, only to later trip and fall on a hole and get dirt all over my leg and forearm. Fun stuff. 

But we arrived to our palm-shaded Shangri La. A new place this time that allows dogs and has balconies off just about every room. Windows galore. 

Sunday: 

Slept like a rock and woke up with these age old songs in my head. 

One was arguably the worst lyrics found in a Catholic hymn: “Our priest is presiding / with love we are abiding”.  I like the song but “our priest is presiding” seems a bit lame. I haven’t heard it in decades. 

The other song is one I heard in grade school. It went something like this, to tune of “On Top of Old Smokey”: 

On top of old coney

All covered with cheese

I lost my poor coney when somebody sneezed...

Google adds where memory faileth. Turns out it was a hit song from 1963, "On Top of Spaghetti”:

On top of spaghetti

All covered with cheese,

I lost my poor meatball

When somebody sneezed.

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Cold and cloudy alas.  Temp at 64, 70 by noon. Not really beach weather given the 13mph winds.  Max continues to feral. He pooped in the house last night and again this morning. He also thieved Steph’s breakfast sandwich we’d had delivered thru Panetta bread: Steph bought two, one to eat and another to save for tomorrow but she forgot to put it away after breakfast and Max helped himself. 

(Later): He’s up to three poops in the house, one of them 15 seconds after we got back from a walk. I saw him literally pooping as I was putting away the leash. 

Monday: 

Morning dog walk past some exquisite beachfront homes. Ours is valued at 1.2 million, but the neighbor’s is 4.6m and another on our street is over $8 million! “House porn”.  Some dream properties around here.   

It’s like living in a terrarium - or a glass tree house - given all the beautiful variety of plants and trees flooding the dinette windows.

The official island song is that of the morning leaf blower. From 9 to about 11:30 this morn. Makes the need for AirPods.  

Come 11:30: pool-side. Exquisite sun and very nice temp. Idyllic echo of Miami’s early Septembers. The water gently gesticulates with the noiseless jets; Maris is loose but lying on deck while Max is leashed and resting next to the water. Tall pines and medium-sized palms fringe the pool area. A nice variety of vegetation with bushes and flowers to the south, the tall trees on the east and west. The sublime feel of Monday, the earliest era of a vacation. 

I got sidetracked by Malachi Martin of all people, via the ’net. The exorcist and exposer of Vatican scandals died in 1999 under the mysterious circumstance of a demon pushing him off a stool in his New York apartment, leading to cerebral damage and death. So he told a friend before he died. Killed in the line of duty one could say. Scaring and humbling. But he was a mysterious character with a lot of scandal. 

Headed to the beach around 1:30 and read leisurely 20 pages of book on Justice Kavanaugh nomination. Off-and-on clouds and windy, but good running weather and I did 25 minutes while listening to a YouTube video on Martin. 

Then took the dogs to the beach and got in the waves with them, although after they got smashed by one they seemed less than eager and stuck to the shoreline. But fun to see them as puppies, with Maris loose as a goose running timing patterns and Max on a long leash that that we let go and he didn’t have a yen to wander (just ambush Maris).  Really decent privacy and plenty of beach space to romp. 

A second 10,000+ step day.  And I need it as I tend to eat more junk snacks down here (chocolate muffins, pumpkin pie and Fritos to name three). Read a bit of a Stephen King novel and learned my height is perfectly normal:

“He stood up to his perfectly normal height (five-ten and a fraction)..”

Tuesday: 

Cloudy and rainy but warm enough and had enjoyable run on beach despite the weather.  Made better by having taken a WatchOS update that allowed the AirPods to work without iPhone, so I could “run free”, hands-free, this time.  Third hard run in a row and I’m feeling it, whew! 

Took the dogs to the beach and Max was as tired as I was, while leash-less Maris gave into temptation and trotted off to join three other lab retrievers nearby. You could tell she was torn between obeying Steph’s voice and the thrill of playing with dogs more playful than dud Max. 

It’s enriching to drink in all the beauty here, the fecund Low Country landscape as well as the artfully designed house. This morning caught a Bishop Barron video on his new Bible and heard a quote that seems apropos. He said, “The beautiful does not merely entertain. Rather, it invades and changes the one to whom it appears...For God is not one beautiful thing among many, rather God is Beauty itself.” 

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Me in 2016: “wow, Trump’s election seems a cry for help by those left behind in global economy.”

Me in 2020: “wow, Biden’s election seems a cry for help by those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and other anger and psychiatric issues.”

Anger makes you stupid and the more angry and thus stupid our opponents become the more the threat to us as far as self-righteousness. The Pharisees were right about a lot of things - they believed the Resurrection of the dead unlike the other Jews, and Jesus said that everyone should follow their teachings but not their example. But the problem with being right is that it just leads to self-righteousness. And there’s really no credit it all in “being right” in saying that riots are misbegotten and that liberal groups are trying to wreck the country. It’s like saying “fire is hot” and feeling self-righteous about your smarts. 

It was brought home how deeply destructive the Left is in a recent NY Times piece that said many urban public school districts in Democrat-run cities closed down their schools in part due to pique over Trump and in reaction against his wanting to open the schools. Certainly it helped stop pushback against teachers’ unions wanting to cancel school. But the issue is that many kids, poor or black, are only going to suffer more due to lack of in-school learning.  Whites and the rich can afford private schools, where teaching actually goes on in person. 

I suppose there’s a case to be made that Trump losing in 2020 would be good for the country in the sense of alleviating the mental disease (or at least a trigger, if not the root cause) of liberal hatred. 

St. Paul wrote of disregarding your own rights in order to save your opponent: “Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak...Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother or sister to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause them to fall.”

It’s surely a moot issue now that Trump has a nearly impossible climb to make to win. 

Wednesday:

Cardinal Sarah writes, “Love does not impose itself; it cannot impose itself...Precisely because God is present everywhere, he hides himself all the more carefully so as not to impose himself...But we can never create intimacy with God; it always comes from above, and our responsibility is to build the setting in which the encounter can take place.”

Which, if you think about it, is one thing the old 19th century spiritualists and ouji board people would agree with - even they have to do their dark arts with patience and a receptivity. 

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Third secret of Fatima has to be the most anticlimactic message. It already happened (i.e. pope got shot, apparently murdered, that is JP2), nothing to see here.  

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Hard to overcome laziness and fatigue and go to 8am Mass today! Woke around 7:25, took Max on a 3 minute walk (Maris still in bed) and then rode bike 15+ minutes there. Almost sacrificial given the sacrifice of coffee and morning creature comforts. Made more difficult due to fatigue due to all the running the last few days. Coffee crave. 

I do kind of got the pine today of taking another week down here mostly at the prospect of visiting Savannah on my own along with boyhood home of Clarence Thomas and Flannery O'. Could see his homes and then hit Savannah churches and walk Savannah squares. Steph not overly excited about spending the money, nor at all pleased at the prospect of her working down here and me being footloose and fancy free. 

Today was the first rock star summer day!  There were glimpses and moments before, but today 80 degrees and full sun. The weather in Hilton Head in October is just really pushing the envelope of fall I guess. The vacation already feels perishable even though ostensibly we have three full days left! I anticipate ends too much, not enjoying the means.  

So here it is Wednesday and our first extended beach time. Did an hour or so on Monday but nothing Sunday or Tuesday. It’s the sort of thing that you don’t miss until you experience it and then realize how missed it was.  Hard to believe but we didn’t get down to Beachland until 2:30 today. We stuck like glue to the pool area although Steph not so much, as she did a bike ride and then a virtual indoor workou. I was lazy and clung to the loungers, trying to make up for last few days of too much activity.  

Thursday:

So, what goes up must come down. Steph’s political awakening and newfound enthusiasm got crushed by the weight of cruel reality. For one, the polls show Biden with a giant double-digit lead. For another Trump unilaterally pulled out of the stimulus package negotiations which makes him look like he was at fault.  Third, he decided not to do the next presidential debate. So all told it feels like Trump has thrown in the towel. 

We watched the VP debate last night and it went well at least. Very watchable, unlike the painful presidential one.  For one thing, Susan Page was 1000% better than Chris Walleye. And Kamala Harris was a poor debater.  One pundit said that Amy Kobuchar would’ve killed Pence in this debate but Biden went with Harris as VP pick because “diversity is strength!”  Even when it’s not. 

What goes up must come down for me too. I tried to extend the rental on our place but they said it’s rented out starting Saturday. So if my side trip to Savannah is going to take place it needs to either today or Friday. I really want to do some city sightseeing, walk those squares, and see cathedral where Flannery O’Connor went to Mass. But how to leave this beach, with its magnet of sand, sun, water and beer?

I’m a liberal Democrat when it comes to vacations - always want more! Never enough!  

Steph thought next time we do Hilton Head we could leave a day early and I could do Savannah.  So that’s definitely a possibility I hadn’t thought of.  But I just feel like this 2020 year has been without sightseeing and I feel the dearth.  It’s been since a weekend Chicago trip last July, only a year and three months, but it feels longer somehow. 

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I feel the wistfulness of a fast-flung vacation. Absurdly fast this year. No doubt partially a function of age since time goes by faster as you get older so a week at age 20 feels like 2-3 days at my age.  Maybe also the lack of proper reverence for time, in not using it most profitably mentally and spiritually. Social media and news erodes the gains you make in that department.

This would’ve been an ideal 2-weeker given the creature comforts, the dogs (they make it more like home), and the thus far mere 2 days of prime-time weather.  I feel the miss, the miss of heat already.  It’s always tougher in October knowing this is the “last chance saloon” of vacations. Nothing afterward as far as the eye can see. The restlessness is surely the zephyr of God reminding me of the eternity that is placed in our hearts, of the futility of seeking natural means to quench supernatural ends. There are not enough beach days to fill me up. 

It does make me wonder at how irreplaceable it feels, being at the sea instead of just being at home on a summer’s day.  What is so special about this environ? The feel of camping out? The little canopy of shade, the cooler of beer, the wide open, treeless country, the lull of sea and caress of sea-winds?  

There is something special about the elements here that serve to focus one’s attention: the lapidary light, the massage of sun on skin, the aural sea, the blue band of water making the straightest line ever seen in nature against the horizon. It’s as primal as it gets. 

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My workout today consisted of a 40-minute, 6-mile bike ride. Easy compared to the run-hells. Up North Seapines Dr. and around a winding path and then back via the beach. So I got a decent amount of beach ride and some tree paths.. Listened to Marshall opine about the Vatican 2 church (verdict: unfavorable). He is all Aquinas, all the time. 

Late to beach again, about 2:30.  Just hard to leave the sublime pool area. It’s more open and sunnier than our last Seapines place. In some ways, best of both worlds, beach and pool!  But only if pool is used only for a few morning hours, otherwise it steals from the stage largess, the ocean. 

Read some of novel about Savannah area called Minnow and another Low Country novel called Seagrass. The lush natural descriptions just make me want to live here. Imagining myself Walker Percy with a cigar at the pool and IPA at the beach.

We brought Max & Maris down to the beach but I needed to exercise so I almost immediately took Max back up and then did my bike ride. Maris stayed with us, as cool as a cucumber even as a parade of dogs passed by. Steph put up a tent-like structure to provide shade for her.  She’s laid in that shade all late afternoon, only picking up her head with a passing dog. Not a sound heard, nor a complaint raised. 

It’s silly how I want to put a “face with a book” as far as associate someone reading on the beach. Nosy. It’s like I can’t help but look up a book someone is reading on the beach. I suppose it’s akin to be obsessed with the books people have on their shelves when you’re there for a social gathering. 

A kite lazes in the middle distance; at the rainbow’s end of it slides a beach parasailer.  Not unlike the sun which is also parasailing down the west edge signaling my beer-lack and time-lack. Three ol’ black guys stroll by. Authentically black, I think, given one wears a mask and has white socks with his sandals. And he looks good doing it, thank you very much. Not many could pull it off. Another has a “black and gold” t-shirt which may refer to the New Orleans Saints given their colors. Or the Steelers. Blessedly apolitical, just jaunting on the hard-packed sand. 

Friday:

Low Sea Bike Rental rules. They said if bikes aren’t there when they come by they’ll come by later! So we snuck in a morning ride to escape the siren call of the native species (the leaf blowers). I ended up doing extended small rides, enjoying the sight of the Spanish moss hanging like tinsel on old oaks. Fountain froths of palms reminded me of summer vacations of yore, which lie still beneath my skin. Jeweled greens of jade rising up. The dizzying variety of plant life.  Calypso paths, needle laden. The in-suck of drink, the tableau of freedom amid the canopied wonders. Saw a dolphin leap, his whole body briefly airborne. 

This wealthy side of the island seems to require an army of worker bees: landscapers, bug guys, bike rental trucks, pool cleaners... Seems a never-ending chore to keep these properties pristine. 

Back pool-side, Steph gave me a float and I urged the dogs to join me in the water but no takers. Getting out, I felt a sharp pinch on my arm and there was a bee stuck to my skin, with the stinger still in there. I dug it out and a welt and painful itch started so now I’m wondering if I’ll be allergic to it and have to emergency care it. Oy. (Later: It swelled up like a weightlifter’s forearm but went away within 2-3 days.) 

So I tried to squeeze in another run but it was exhausting and probably would’ve been better to have skipped given all the stuff we have to do tonight to be ready for morning drive. Beach time came late, just after 3pm, where I finally had time to read - specifically Minnow, an atmospheric novel set in the area. The author had me at “pluff mud”. 

Song going thru my head is James Taylor’s “Up on the Roof” only it’s the ocean is what “puts on a show for free”.  

So another “Maxident” in the form of an escape. We had about 75% of the pool area fenced and I thought I could guard the 25% but he’s a really sharp dog and seems to have known this from last time and so shot right by me to freedom. I got him, a house or two away, so it was no sweat. One thing I know is the folly is to run towards him since that only motivates him to run away (and much faster). He may be smart but not smart enough to forgo the distractions (hmm...sounds like me) of bushes and dog smells nearby which cause him to stop and smell and thus for me to catch up. 

Vacation Fridays are a frantic - if fruitless - attempt to suck more out of the day than the day can hold. So I was trying to do a bike ride, go to the beach, float in the pool, even possibly hit Savannah.

My welt now is the size of a baseball.  My thought is you “ought to see the other guy” (the bee, now lying dead).

* - That song sticks in my head like glue. Similarly, I can’t see the biblical book of Baruch and not think: “Baruch, Baruch, Baruch is on fire...” to the tune of some godforsaken ‘80s tune.