Some Western Swing

Gringo's been pretty patient with all the Outlaw Country. Let's do some of his favorites.

I like this live recording because it gives a sense of the style of the band at play.

An instrumental of a classic piece, with swing elements.

You may have heard of the Fallout television show, which has become a breakout hit. I think it derives a lot of its force from its use of this kind of classic American music -- including Western Swing -- which is just objectively better than what the kids are used to hearing. It's not even nostalgic for them, because they've never heard it before. The real trick is this: they've never heard anything like it. 

C'est Dommage

The US "relief" pier to Gaza collapses in high seas. The sad thing is that they're going to put it back up.

On the Birthday of Patrick Henry

We were just discussing Patrick Henry in the context context of the flags; today was his birthday. 

In addition to his well-known sentiments in favor of revolution and liberty, he was also a staunch opponent of establishing a strong central government that would overwhelm the states. Jefferson saw the federal government's role as 'looking out' while the states 'looked in,' so that the Federal government would deal exclusively with foreign affairs or disputes between two or more states. Henry realized that it would, instead, form a competing power that would tend toward domination. 

The fate of this question and of America may depend on this. Have they said, We, the states? Have they made a proposal of a compact between states? If they had, this would be a confederation. It is otherwise most clearly a consolidated government. The question turns, sir, on that poor little thing — the expression, We, the people, instead of the states, of America. I need not take much pains to show that the principles of this system are extremely pernicious, impolitic, and dangerous. Is this a monarchy, like England — a compact between prince and people, with checks on the former to secure the liberty of the latter? Is this a confederacy, like Holland — an association of a number of independent states, each of which retains its individual sovereignty? It is not a democracy, wherein the people retain all their rights securely. Had these principles been adhered to, we should not have been brought to this alarming transition, from a confederacy to a consolidated government.... It is radical in this transition; our rights and privileges are endangered, and the sovereignty of the states will be relinquished: and cannot we plainly see that this is actually the case? The rights of conscience, trial by jury, liberty of the press, all your immunities and franchises, all pretensions to human rights and privileges, are rendered insecure, if not lost, by this change...

Emphasis added; there is a great deal more to the speech that is worth review. 

As is well known, objections such as his gave us the Bill of Rights, which has been an insufficient but necessary defensive measure. On some occasions it has been successful, and on many occasions it has provided a part of a successful legal defense. 

He also talked about the danger posed by a central state to the physical defense of liberty. Even today his words bear consideration.

My great objection to this government is, that it does not leave us the means of defending our rights, or of waging war against tyrants. It is urged by some gentlemen, that this new plan will bring us an acquisition of strength — an army, and the militia of the states. This is an idea extremely ridiculous: gentlemen cannot be earnest. This acquisition will trample on our fallen liberty. Let my beloved Americans guard against that fatal lethargy that has pervaded the universe. Have we the means of resisting disciplined armies, when our only defence [sic], the militia, is put into the hands of Congress?... Whither is the spirit of America gone? Whither is the genius of America fled? It was but yesterday, when our enemies marched in triumph through our country. Yet the people of this country could not be appalled by their pompous armaments: they stopped their carer [sic], and victoriously captured them. Where is the peril, now, compared to that? Some minds are agitated by foreign alarms. Happily for us, there is no real danger from Europe; that country is engaged in more arduous business: from that quarter there is no cause of fear: you may sleep in safety forever for them. 

I likewise think that America is not ripe for conquest by a foreign power, certainly not a European one but not any one; and it is so not because of the fact that the central government has a strong army and has managed to turn the state militias into a National Guard it can federalize at will, but because the people remain heavily armed and capable of independent action. 

Indeed, this is the chief thing that has kept all of that centralized Federal power from becoming a true tyranny. The lines they wish to cross and do not remain uncrossed because they are cognizant of the limits of their power to control the ordinary people's ideals given the ordinary people's arms. 

That is a partial answer to his concern about whether we have the means to resist disciplined armies given the lack of a disciplined force loyal to each of the states. Like the Bill of Rights, however, it is not a complete defense even if it is a necessary one. 

Advising the Virtuous Youth

I got in last night about seven. It was a 533 mile ride from Arlington back home. Of course I made the same ride in reverse going up, but my thoughts were focused on the events to come. On the ride back I had time to reflect on the ride itself. 

I left Arlington by the George Washington Parkway, then took I-66 west all the way to I-81 in the Shenandoah valley. After that, I rode the Shenandoah valley and then the New River valley to the city of Bristol, which bestrides the border between Virginia and Tennessee. From there I continued west and then south to Johnson City, south to the high wall and crossed into North Carolina there. 

The great rivers I crossed yesterday were the Shenandoah, the Roanoke, the New River, and the French Broad. Lesser rivers include the Watauga and the Tuckasegee.

While I was stopped at the Tennessee Welcome Center, I met a young man who had just purchased his first motorcycle, a Kawasaki Ninja. He was learning to ride and came to me to seek advice. He had bought the bike exactly one month ago, having talked his young wife into accepting the idea of him riding in spite of her concerns. 

I advised him as I did with my own son: to be sure to take the safety course, which would help him develop crucial skills like emergency braking without laying the bike down, and defensive driving. Also, I suggested, he might want to avoid any roads with nicknames like "Snake" or "Dragon" for at least six months to give himself time to build those skills and turn them into internal habits. 

To assure me that he was practicing diligently, he turned his bike on so I could see his odometer. It read 495. "I just bought this bike a month ago," he told me.

I told him, "I'm riding further than that today." That got his attention, so we discussed the ride and then I reaffirmed the importance of him seeking the safety training. I hope that the conversation will encourage him to seek it out. 

Motorcycles are wonderful, but if any young people are reading this and thinking about doing it as well, please do get the training first, and then do the practice necessary to internalize it into habit. As Aristotle says, developing virtue only begins with understanding what the right thing to do is in a given circumstance. Virtue isn't knowledge, he says, but habit: you have the virtue only when you have practiced doing the right thing to the point that you can do it without having to think about it again. 

It might seem odd to describe skill at motorcycle riding as a sort of virtue, because the Christian inheritance tinges 'virtue' with a moral quality that is absent in the case of motorcycle riding. That isn't true in the Greek, though: the Greek word is arete, which means "excellence" and 'the ability to excel' at any practical thing. The moral virtues are like the practical ones, and the analysis holds for all of them. You practice moderation by moderating yourself until it is habitual to do so; you practice horsemanship by riding horses. Here as there, the skill of learning and then developing a virtue is a thing you can learn, and then you can apply that skill across your life. It will help you in everything that you do.

Across Tennessee

The statuary at the welcome center from Virginia on 81, a place which unsurprisingly plays excellent music. 

Looking back at Tennessee from the high wall at Sam’s Gap, the border with North Carolina. 

Riding Back

It’s 8 AM. I left DC at six. I have crossed the Shenandoah and put a mountain range between me and the city. 

I’m stopping for breakfast at a truck stop on I-81.

Prayers answered

This has been a busy dog-rescue week. I had no business taking in another dog, with 3 of my own and 3 fosters already, but the local rescue group took responsibility for a dog in my neighborhood whose "owners" couldn't keep him once he got flea infested and severely irritated their landlord, who didn't allow dogs in the first place. The young couple casually let him stay for the last 9 months after he wandered in during a storm, but I guess they don't know much about dogs. He's shockingly emaciated, every rib standing out, and has heartworms. After the current possessors relinquished him to the local rescue group, they took on the cost of his food and medical care, including plans to treat his heartworms, but won't have a place for him until next week, so I'm keeping him briefly. Lovely dog with lovely manners, no trouble at all.

On Friday, having posted a picture of him, we got word from a woman in a nearby town that she was sure he was her dog. She'd given him away two years ago to a friend of her son-in-law who had a large property and said he could give the dog a better life. Then the son-in-law's friend abruptly disappeared without a forwarding address. The rescue group, which has custody now, is deciding whether the original owner is an appropriate adopter, having once given him up so fecklessly. That owner really would like him back, and I hope she'll persuade the rescue group that she's a safe bet now. She has convincing pictures of him as a puppy and an adult. The dog, a Catahoula-Leopard-Chocolate-Lab mix, is down to 58 lbs. from the 120 lbs. he weighed when the original owner had him.

Also last week, what looked like a Labradoodle was spotted in my neighborhood but not caught up at the time. Word circulated on NextDoor, and because someone in town had found an eager foster mom for him [her, as it happens], I felt comfortable encouraging everyone to bring him [her] to me if he [she] could be induced to be confined. Early Friday morning, a neighbor jogging by my house encountered him [her] and slipped him [her] in my gate. Sadly, I didn't see the neighbor's text message until several hours later, and never caught sight of him [her]. I was afraid he'd [she'd] jumped the fence and moved on. Then a few minutes ago, late Sunday night, up he [she] trotted! He [she] must have been in my woods for the last three days, though I never saw any sign that he'd [she'd] found food that I left out for him [her]. He's [she]s safely ensconced in a kennel overnight with food, water, and a bed. Tomorrow his [her] foster mom will take him [her] . Surprisingly enough, he's [she's]not really emaciated, just a solid matted mess of fur. [Well, fairly skinny, though.] We'll shave that off and let him [her] start over.

New Flag

Jim installed a new flag today. 

Demonstration Ride

Far smaller than the 2019 Rolling Thunder rally, the Rolling to Remember rally still fielded tens of thousands of motorcycles. Veterans from around the country and many wars were present to solemnize the holiday. 

It was executed safely by everyone I saw, and we didn’t pass any incidents from the riders in front of us. Lots of folk came out to watch. 

BLACKFIVE Reunion

The guy with the Vespa and the teddy bear is a Green Beret 

Tomorrow is the Rolling to Remember demonstration ride. I don’t think he’s going to ride the Vespa in it. There will be five of us from China Post, though. 

Riding

I rode an easy 405 miles today, according to Google Maps’ measurement. It took about ten hours, adding in stops for lunch, water, gas, and rest. I could have made the last hundred miles to Arlington, but I decided to do that tomorrow. It would have been rush hour(s) when I got there, and I’d have been tired. Tomorrow is a holiday weekend and I’ll be fresh. 

Stopped to help a biker near Natural Bridge who had a broken rear brake line. It is the Code to always stop and help fellow bikers in need. 

Like the Pirate Code 🏴‍☠️, the Biker Code is more like guidelines. But there’s honor involved in keeping the Code. 

He was a nice guy from the Roughnecks MC, Tennessee. This is a public safety MC, cops and firefighters and such. As soon as he spoke to me I knew that he was originally from New York, and indeed it proved that he was headed back there to visit his daughter this weekend. 

Tomorrow I should see old friends and have good conversations. Also, grilled meats. The holiday will be honored with feasting as well as solemn observances. 

These People Just Hate Historic Flags

They hated the Confederate flag, sure. Then it was the Betsy Ross flag. Then it was the Gadsden flag. Then it was just the plain old American flag. Then it was that flag, upside down. Now it’s this one: 

One might say, well, they don’t like Biblical language. This, though, is a partial quote from Patrick Henry’s patriotic — or rebellious — and most famous speech. “An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!"

Henry had the phrase from Locke; it was well known in the era that when a government violated its obligations and just limits, the people still had the right to ‘appeal to heaven’ by taking up arms. As, indeed, they have. 

Riding North

This Memorial Day, I think I'll attend a motorcycle rally in Arlington built around Veteran riding groups and clubs. I don't know if Joel Leggett is around and is likely to be up there this year; we missed each other at the big Rolling Thunder rally of 2019. 

I'll probably start up Friday morning.

Admire the Effort

Almost every internal combustion engine would benefit from a turbo. Superchargers are usually not necessary. Air rams? 

Maybe not.

Recognizing the Imaginary

Norway, Spain, and Ireland took the unusual step of extending diplomatic recognition to a state that does not exist. They recognized "a" Palestinian state, but not any of the two entities that claims to be a government or a territory of Palestine. They are recognizing not any state that actually exists or has ever existed, but the one they wish existed.

Ireland said that it hopes its recognition will press Israel, the Palestinians and the international community toward a two-state solution, one that includes the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state drawn on the borders as they were in 1967, with Jerusalem as a shared capital.

That long-imagined dream — the goal of generations of U.S. diplomats — has never seemed so far away.

The attempt to bring the wished-for into reality by an act of pure will is magical thinking. This sort of diplomacy is akin to holding a ritual under the full moon designed to summon an otherworldly being, except that one might more readily believe in the ability to summon demons than a workable and demilitarized 'two-state solution.' 

There's at least a chance that demons are real and able -- willing -- eager -- to be summoned. No one who might become a leader of that demilitarized second 'state' wants it or wants to be part of it. They are certainly not eager to summon it into the world. They've had every chance for decades, and have summoned this state of affairs into the world instead.

One might usefully list all the similar magical thinking going on so hot and heavy in the editorial pages: to summon 'gender' in place of sex; 'a woman' in place of a man who's on hormones; 'a vibrant President the young aides can barely keep up with'; inflation that is transitory... the incantations continue not only under the full moons but under every moon, by day as well as night.

The House Rent Blues

Yeah, Elvin Bishop. Sounds like he'd fit in here, or show up in a Grim novel. From Tulsa, studied physics at U Chicago, joined the Butterfield Blues Band. Got mentioned in a Charlie Daniels song, too.

A Genuinely Shocking Finding

The most astonishing thing in this congressional report on government conspiracy to censor and silence right wing media and views is that the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) was apparently an effective and enthusiastic part. As far as I know, this is the first time it’s ever been effective or enthusiastic; turns out they were really taken with silencing American citizens instead of doing their actual job. 

The GEC is assigned by Congress the role of aligning all American foreign communications in pursuit of national interests. This means diplomatic messaging aligns with Army psychological operations and CIA special activities of a communications sort; broadcasts of American state media align with the values and policies of the administration. 

Especially when Republican administrations have existed, the GEC is wholly uninterested in its mission. But even when Democratic heroes have held the reins, they’re ineffective. For one thing they’re entirely too small to actually perform the job effectively; for another, they are at State. Most of the communications infrastructure we have is military, and the military doesn’t respect the State Department. More, the State Department itself views actual diplomacy as its real job, and “public diplomacy” — that is, talking to ordinary citizens instead of other diplomats — has a lesser stature. 

So it’s a second-rate sinecure for bureaucrats who lack prestige, resources, or interest in doing the crucial job assigned to them. Occasionally they take meetings and accomplish nothing, which normally makes them one of the less harmful government bureaucracies. 

Give them a chance to play secret police and violate the constitutional rights of their own citizens, though, and apparently they were hot to trot. 

Broomstick on the Throttle

Flower of Scotland

Dad29 sends the story story of a priest from the Society of Jesus who ministered to his flock during those hours when Catholicism was banned in Scotland, then joined the Jacobite army that invaded England in the '45.

Fr. Alexander Cameron was a convert to the Faith who served the exiled Stuart king of England and Wales at his court in Rome. Cameron later became a Jesuit priest and returned to Scotland to minister to the illegal and underground Catholic Church in his native land. For four years he served as a “heather priest” in the Scottish Highlands, risking arrest and the harshest of weather conditions to provide spiritual succor and the sacraments to his outlawed flock. 

The "harshest of weather conditions" just means that he was a priest in the Highlands of Scotland.

The rest of the story is impressive, though.

The Frost-Giant’s Daughter

From The Sword, a piece of metal named for one of the great Conan tales. 

An Act of Justice

Following an absurd court case, the Texas governor pardoned a deserving man. 

"White People" and Spicy Food

Via Instapundit, a blog post from a Chinese girl person*** in the San Francisco area who has a German boyfriend. It is, as she(?) herself says, patronizing* about white people's inability to eat spicy food, which is a stereotype that I notice is employed pretty frequently. 

Like many stereotypes, it is not completely without justice: my in-laws from Indiana are incapable of handling any sort of spicy food. My wife, over the years of our association, has learned to handle fairly hot foods -- far hotter than anything made in China, where we lived in 2000-1 -- though still not as spicy as I like them. 

But also like stereotypes usually, this one has limits. There's the usual fault of stereotypes generalizing too much. A German isn't "white" the same way someone from Ohio is, and Cincinnati chili isn't much like Texas red chili, which isn't much like New Mexican red chili. 

More, though, there's a real corollary to this stereotype: while many white people don't like spicy foods, the white people who do like spicy foods like the spiciest food in the world. In fact the hottest chilies were mostly developed in the US, UK, or Australia. There's a reason that the second hottest chile pepper in the world is the Carolina Reaper, not something made in China (although this is obscured by the fact that all of them are part of the family capsicum chinense, which is due to a misconception by early Spaniards that the habanero and Scotch bonnets were from China; they were actually native to South America). 

In 2001, Paul Bosland, a researcher at the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University, visited India to collect specimens of ghost pepper, also called the Bhut Jolokia or Naga king chili,** traditionally grown near Assam, India, which was being studied by the Indian army for weaponization.

We put it in food, bred hotter versions of it than nature ever dreamed, and put those in food too. If you go to any festival around the South, there will be a booth selling hot pepper sauces and/or pastes. These will definitely include not just habanero sauces, but sauces made out of Reaper peppers, Scorpion peppers, Viper peppers, and so forth. The super-hot peppers are new, but the love of spice in the South is not. Even when I was a boy, every truck stop restaurant had three kinds of pepper sauces on the table, including one that was just packed with hot peppers and white vinegar. In Smoky and the Bandit, from the same era, the sheriff orders a "diablo sandwich" in a hurry.

A friend of mine down the road was born in Acapulco, and married a Cherokee woman up here; his son is thus half-Mexican and half-Cherokee. That son ate chili with us exactly once, and then pleaded that he was full and wanted to take the rest home. He offered it to his father, who declared that it was too hot to eat; my wife likes to point out that I'd made that batch mild because she had a stomach bug. 

* She's also wrong. The heat of the chile isn't in the seeds, and isn't removed if you remove the seeds. Usually if you're going to be patronizing on purpose, it's a good idea to make sure you know what you're talking about.

** There's not a universal standard on the spelling. Around here we use "chili" for the meat stew made with peppers we call "chiles," which is eaten whether or not the weather is "chilly." It's actually good in hot weather, as it makes you sweat, another reason that spicy food has long been popular in the South -- it's cooling. 

UPDATE: 

*** I assumed it was a girl because of the story being about a boyfriend, but I forgot how different San Francisco’s community standards are from the ones we have here. 

UPDATE: 

Back on the “part of this stereotype is justified” hand, I found this cookbook on the “Free! please take it!” shelf of a used bookstore in Waynesville, North Carolina. Apparently there was limited interest. That is too bad! It’s a fantastic cookbook that has great stuff from around the world. I recommend it highly. 

Honky-Tonk Ladies

A few classic pieces by greats of the genre.

High Angle Training in Paradise Gorge

 

I imagine Mike G. knows of Paradise Falls and its attendant gorge. There are innumerable waterfalls around this part of western North Carolina, but this is one of the most dangerous for several structural reasons. It's also very popular among risk-seeking college kids who obey no safety precautions whatsoever, drink and smoke dope, and sometimes try to leap from the top of the falls to the pool below (not always successfully). 

Naturally, therefore, we train there regularly and operate there regularly as well. Tonight a high-angle team came into the district for a training exercise, which we were invited to join. 

What Could Go Wrong?

The recent movie Oppenheimer pointed out that they set off the Trinity test bomb knowing that their calculations showed a non-zero chance it would destroy the atmosphere and kill all life on Earth. Turns out, that wasn't the craziest idea that came out of the Cold War.

The idea of Project Retro was simple: 1,000 huge rockets, normally used to launch nuclear weapons and spacecraft, would generate so much thrust that Earth’s rotation would briefly pause.

This would mean that Soviet nuclear missiles would overshoot the missile bases they were aimed at.

That's true, it would have meant that if it were technically feasible. But also...

[T]here were several flaws in the plan, Ellsberg realized.

The ‘angular momentum’ of rocks, air and water on Earth’s surface would mean that everything on the planet would continue moving sideways at enormous speed (at the equator, the speed of Earth’s rotation is just over 1,000mph....

'An awful lot of stuff would be flying through the air. Everything, in fact, that wasn't nailed down, and most of what was as well, would be gone with the wind, which would itself be flying at super-hurricane force everywhere at once.’

Ellsberg explained that cities on the coasts would be wiped out by huge tsunamis, and the apocalypse unleashed by Project Retro would, ironically, be as bad as anything that thermonuclear weapons could do to our planet.

Ellsberg wrote: ‘The Minuteman launch control officers, safe in their capsules deep underground, would have even less reason than in the foreseeable conditions of nuclear war either to launch their missiles or to come above ground, since there would be nothing left to destroy on the surface of the Soviet Union, or the United States, or anywhere.

‘All structures would have collapsed, with the rubble, along with all the people joining the wind and the water in their horizontal movement across the face of the earth, into space.’

Fortunately, it wouldn't have worked anyway. You'd need a lot more than a thousand rockets to stop the earth. 

VDH on Collapsing Legal Protections

This is another article on the rampant corruption and unfairness attendant to the multiple lawfare attacks on a certain Republican presidential candidate, but it's by VDH and has his usual care. I think he raises some very important issues, especially his first three points: the vacating of statutes of limitations in virtual bills of attainder; violations of the Bill of Rights being allowed and entertained -- even encouraged -- by the courts; and what he calls "the invention of crimes," which I have described here as "very novel legal theories" about what exactly the crimes are supposed to have been.

It's likely as not that these failures of our normal legal protections will end up hurting the rest of us too. It probably won't be the case that these weapons are cast aside once they've been used against their intended victim. If they prove powerful, those interested in power will continue to want them.

"Female Self-Pity"

I was reading a column by Heather MacDonald last week that contained this striking phrase. (I admit I don't always look at the author's name before reading the column, so it was only at that point that I realized I must be reading a female author and went back to check who it was: probably no male journalist would dare to have used those words.) 

She was talking about the wave of hysterical protests on college campuses that have gotten so much attention lately.

The female tilt among anti-Israel student protesters is an underappreciated aspect of the pro-Hamas campus hysteria. True, when activists need muscle (to echo University of Missouri professor Melissa Click’s immortal call during the 2015 Black Lives Matter protests), males are mobilized to smash windows and doors or hurl projectiles at the police, for example. But the faces behind the masks and before the cameras are disproportionately female...  Why the apparent gender gap?... [note] the sex skew in majors. The hard sciences and economics, whose students are less likely to take days or weeks out from their classes to party (correction: “stand against genocide”) in cool North Face tents, are still majority male. The humanities and soft social sciences, the fields where you might even get extra credit for your intersectional activism, are majority female....

Student protests have always been hilariously self-dramatizing, but the current outbreak is particularly maudlin, in keeping with female self-pity. 

The phrase struck me, though, and I've been trying to decide whether or not -- or to what degree -- it is fair. On the one hand, I think that social media is responsible for giving women a skewed view of reality that leads them to conclude, on the basis of that skewed information, that they ought to view themselves as genuinely oppressed. 

For example, I saw a short clip on Facebook of Taylor Tomlinson talking about how women have to fear never getting home alive when they go out at night. I often see social media stuff that repeats that memetic point: women are in grave danger from men, who by contrast are happy-go-lucky in going abroad in the dark. 

Yet, as is often pointed out in this space, the statistics show the exact opposite: men suffer much higher rates of all forms of violence than women, including rape if our society's prison violence is included in our count. Indeed, the male experience of violence is so different that it can account for why some sex between men and women is thought consensual by one party and rape by the other:

My guess is that this didn't seem like violence at all to him. She invited him in, she didn't fight, she didn't curse or spit, perhaps she didn't even argue when asked "Why not?" In the morning she made him breakfast and carried on as if there was a romance. He may well have no sense of her experience of the evening at all, and can't be expected to without having it explained to him.

The markers that he would rely upon to know that he was entering the territory of violence are not present. In the world he likely lives in, if it's anything like my world, violence and force are accompanied by clear markers of rage and reaction. She showed no sign of either.

These female rage "sessions" are, I think, the product of a similar market function. There's money to be made teaching women they ought to be angry (and therefore pay for what the seller is pleased to describe as "therapy"). People tend to believe what those in authority tell them, and "therapist" is considered a position of authority even when the therapist's training is that they practice yoga and provide "intuitive," psychic, and speak-to-the-dead medium services on the side. (I personally know such a therapist, one highly praised by Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop network.) So of course they ought to be angry: their therapist says they've got a lot of anger to "heal." 

On the other hand, women aren't helpless victims of social media: they're active participants in telling each other these stories about how miserable their lives are. This Mother's Day weekend produced an endless stream of videos by women complaining about how horrible motherhood is, especially while the children are young. There does seem to be some self-pitying going on there, one that doesn't acknowledge or accept that the tough parts are shared by fathers too (another person I know, a younger father, spent ten hours in the ER with his son after a baseball injury this weekend). 

Women aren't given the data fairly, but the data is there for them to see and reflect upon if they wish. 

There's doubtless male self-pity as well, especially among younger men (as younger people in general are more neurotic and therefore less happy; and what makes people happy is weird anyway). It doesn't have the cachet, though: crying women at protests may move mountains, but crying men aren't going to persuade anyone of anything except that they're losers. That may explain why we see a lot less of it on social media: not that men are less inclined to self-pity, but that it doesn't help young men to display it in the same way that it seems to be an important part of advancing the displaying young women's agendas, whether on Climate Change, anti-Zionist, or pro-Progressive/Socialist/Communist. 

In any case, it caught my eye in MacDonald's piece, and I wondered what the rest of you thought about it. 

Big Bear

I finally saw my bear. Conan alerted me. The bear is big and beautiful, 350 pounds at least. 

I’ve been protecting him from bear hunters for five years, and I’ve often seen his scat, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen him. He’s obviously thriven wonderfully under my protection.

He’s a good neighbor. Never bothered me, or my flock, or my garden except to roll the logs back from the raised beds to eat the ants, to which he is wholly welcome. 

Hiking the Graveyard Fields

For Mother’s Day, I took my wife hiking. We ate sandwiches on my fresh-baked bread to eat at the midpoint of the hike. 

The Graveyard Fields is a mile-high valley full of waterfalls and, of greater interest to my wife, innumerable species of trees and flowers that she can identify and lecture me about. Lecturing on her various passions is her very favorite thing; I only wish I were a better audience. I do try to listen politely, but even now I am sure I don’t remember all the details she was telling me about all the different plants. 

Fortunately the hike was pleasant and the motorcycle ride to and from there was also. This is a very popular area right on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but the crowds quickly winnow if you take the steeper hikes. Soon you will hear nothing but birds and, occasionally, the highway noise of the Parkway itself.  

The Last Chance Saloon

So in the comments to a post occasioned by one of Janet's comments back in February, an anonymous commenter asked me if I'd been to the Last Chance Saloon outside Walhalla, South Carolina. I said that I knew the place but didn't have time to stop when I saw it on a ride. Today I made a trip down through the gorge country that divides North and South Carolina, so on the way back I stopped in.

It is formally a member's only establishment, but that's only a formality; they let us sign in and served us as guests without any issue. It's a great place to drink cheap beer or pretty much any other kind of drink you might want, shoot pool, and like the Bobarosa Saloon in Tennessee, you can camp or rent a cabin if you want to stay over. 

I can see why you might if you didn't live up here, as it's on a great road in amongst quite a bit of good riding country. SC 28 goes south to Walhalla where it picks up SC 11, a good road for riding below the mountains and looking up at them until you decide to try the ascent; or  you can take SC 28 north to Highlands, NC, or to Cashiers, NC if you take the split at SC 107. This would be a good place to base a weekend of exploring the region on the back of a bike.

Parking for bikes along the front as well as the side.

Walhalla's museums house many Confederate relics, so it's no surprise to find the local biker bar flying the Rebel flag. Note, however, that it is in the subordinate position to the American flag, as is usual among those who fly it for reasons of heritage.

I liked the poker-themed lamp, but the picture didn't come out well. Lots of inked-up dollar bills stapled from the ceiling and other places, as is common in the best dive bars. The TV was playing Turner Classic Movies, which seemed to be doing a film noir weekend.

A very reasonable selection of drinks are available. 

Recommended. 

The Cult of State

David Wurmser, Senior Analyst for Middle East Affairs at the Center for Security Policy, asks and answers a question about our government's about-face.

How did the United States turn 180-degrees from supporting Israel in the first days of the war to where it functions now as a shield for Hamas, from understanding its paradigm had collapsed along with the parallel reigning paradigms in Israel – “they now get it” or as the Israelis say, “the token dropped” – to seeing the United States appearing to double down on policies that seem to emanate from those failed paradigms.... First, let me set aside ideology and the particular way in which this administration reacted to the collapse of paradigms – it just doubled down in its imagery. It saw October 7 confirming the imperative of establishing a Palestinian State under the PLO and the necessity of reaching a strategic condominium with Iran to stabilize the region[.]

If you read the whole article, you'll find that he doesn't actually believe that the Biden administration ever supported Israel, and in fact that they saw the greatest threat from the beginning as Israel actually crushing its enemies (or, as State likes to call them, "partners for peace"). The bureaucracy just carried on doing what it could to undermine Israel until the President finally caught up with them. 

What I want to focus on, though, is this 'doubling down' in the face of clear evidence that the earlier belief was false. A "Two State Solution" was never viable, but it was pursued lovingly for decades by State Department diplomats and Democratic politicians. October 7 should have been the moment 'the token dropped,' and everyone realized that there was just no peace to be had with a politics like the Palestinians' embrace of Hamas or the PLO. However, that's not how human brains work.

Have you ever noticed that when you present people with facts that are contrary to their deepest held beliefs they always change their minds? Me neither. In fact, people seem to double down on their beliefs in the teeth of overwhelming evidence against them. The reason is related to the worldview perceived to be under threat by the conflicting data.

Both of those articles draw their examples from a left-leaning perspective, but the point is well understood. It's not just cultists who return to their belief in the coming spaceship or apocalypse in the face of clear evidence that their initial prediction was wrong. It's a cognitive bias that afflicts most people, maybe all of us.

In the grip of such an irrational, though perfectly normal, impulse to reaffirm a worldview proven false, it is no surprise that irrational decisions are made. Here is a partial list of the ones being made right now. I would add to that list the fact that they claim to be concerned about innocent suffering, but they are denying Israel precision weapons that would limit innocent suffering. Israel has plenty of dumb bombs they can drop if we won't sell them the smart ones. If you want a really ugly war, like the one we just had in Syria, reduce their ability to be discriminate. The Israelis are not going to stop fighting just because they have to use less precise weapons, not against an enemy that could do an October 7, not against one that has promised to keep doing it over and over if they can. This is a betrayal of the Israelis, but also of the noncombatants under fire in a war they can't escape.

Some are talking about how this is an impeachable offense, since Trump was impeached for a lesser version of the same thing. It's not, though; Trump was impeached for being Trump, and not a member of the establishment in good standing. There's no way Congress will hold Joe Biden to the same standard, especially since it's what State really wants him to do. The establishment will back this most establishment of ideas, irrational and destructive though it is. That's the real standard, membership in the club, which you obtain in large part by fidelity to the club's ideas and values especially when those ideas and values are disproven by the facts of the world. That's how you show your real loyalty. Anybody can do things that work; you're proving that you'll do stupid stuff that emphatically and repeatedly fails in pursuit of these things. 

If any of them read this, which they won't, it wouldn't matter at all. They'd just come up with another story about why they were right after all, and this was the only way.

Still The King

"No disrespect to Bob Wills, who used to own this place, but to me, Waylon Jennings is still the king." 
-Charley Crockett

I wouldn't make a competition out of it. Either way le roi est mort, vive le roi. It's nice to see one of Waylon's classic guitars back in service, though, even if for just one night. 

They put it on over their hat just the same way.

Storms

The storms that swept the South last night had us out clearing fallen trees until 4:30 AM. One dropped on my truck, busting the passenger side headlight assembly, rear view mirror on that side, and damaging the quarter panel. Oddly it didn’t hurt the hood that I can tell; somehow in the hard wind it struck sideways. 

I’m luckier than my neighbor, who woke up to a tree on his house as well as two of his vehicles. All of us escaped injuries, though, which is the main thing. 

We All Need Some Silliness in Our Lives

 Kid's better than me.

Another crooked cop, busted.

Hoplophobia

The Swiss Army Knife will soon be available without a knife.

“In some markets," Carl Elsener, the fourth-generation CEO of Victorinox explained, "the blade creates an image of a weapon." 

Anyone who has ever owned a Swiss Army Knife -- I've had one since I was 12, and joined the Boy Scouts -- knows that it is not in any way a weapon. It's below three inches in length and the blade doesn't lock. It doesn't even look like a weapon, it looks like the simple tool that it is.

Knives are one of the most useful tools ever invented, which is why literally every human society has always invented it. Some people are so scared of weapons that they want to eliminate things that don't even look like weapons but might be imagined to look like weapons, even though they're not functional as weapons.

Firefighters and Cancer

Via Instapundit, a small part of a big problem.

By federal law, the interior of these vehicles are required to contain flame retardants, or chemicals that make it harder for them to combust in a crash.

These chemicals have been a legally mandated part of modern cars since the 1970s, when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) passed a law requiring their use.

It’s arguable how effective this protection is. 

Patrick Morrison, of the International Association of Firefighters, said in a statement on the study that these chemicals do little to prevent blazes — but instead simply make them “smokier and more toxic.” 

If you are burning a hydrocarbon, which includes wood as well as fossil fuels, what you're doing is oxidizing a chemical made of of hydrogen (H) and carbon (C). Since you're combining that with oxygen (O), the main -- almost the sole -- byproducts of combustion are going to be water (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2). If combustion is not complete, you'll also get carbon monoxide (CO), which unlike the other two is toxic because it blocks your blood's absorption of oxygen by combining with the hemoglobin instead of oxygen (O2). 

All these additional chemicals get into the smoke and cause a cancer risk, as well as other risks. Hydrogen Cyanide (HCN) is especially deadly because it bonds to your hemoglobin even more effectively than CO, meaning that you can go home feeling a little woozy and die in your sleep. It'll look like you over-exerted yourself at the fire and had a heart attack, but what really happened was that progressive oxygen starvation killed you by causing organ failure. This is why anyone who dies within 24 hours of fighting a fire is considered to have died in the line of duty by law, to make sure families aren't denied compensation just because the firefighter went home apparently safe and sound.

Cancer is a longer-term problem, and one we're learning more and more about. Getting some of these chemicals out of our homes and cars is an important start on addressing the issue.

Man or Bear?

Apparently there's a thing going on around the internet right now in which women are asked if they'd rather encounter a strange man or a bear out in the woods. Women are often choosing the bear, and some people don't like that. 

I have three things to say about that.

1) I heard one woman ask how men felt about the same question. I have to tell you, meeting a bear on a hike in the woods is 100% of the time the high point of the hike. I love to see a bear. If I see sign of a bear, I'll often stalk it in the hope of seeing the bear. Black bear or grizzly, seeing a free bear in the wild is awesome. Seeing another hiker, by contrast, kind of diminishes the experience of being alone in the woods. I prefer to avoid that.

2) It’s a plausible answer to prefer the bear if you're worried about being subject to violence. Many of us who’ve spent part of our lives learning to kill weren’t doing it out of concerns about bears. We were always thinking of the danger of other men. 

3) That said, social media in especial seems to have inflated people's idea of how risky life is. There's almost no murder in most of America. You can be excused for not knowing that if you watch or read the news, because they try to sell you on murder. But mostly America is very safe.

Men suffer from violent crime at higher rates than women across the board, just as they commit suicide at higher rates and die younger. For some reason social media wants to make women afraid, and definitely doesn't want them to take the obvious pragmatic step to deal with dangerous men. That would help against bears, too, if you're careful in your selection of arms and ammunition. (I like a double-action revolver in .45 Colt or .45LC/.454Casull, or alternatively .44 Remington Magnum/.44 Special. Well, I actually prefer a single-action, but that's not for amateurs.) 

So on points 1 & 2, I agree; but I would add the caution of point 3. There's some reason they want to make you afraid and drive us apart, and I'd be more cautious about that than even of a strange man in a forest -- especially if you've purveyed for that matter in the sensible and obvious manner.

A Kind Word for DOT

I heard a song tonight with unprintable lyrics -- but a trucker song, so I'll link it with a stern language warning for those of you even a little bit sensitive about such things -- that was very hostile to the Department of Transportation. I think mostly people are, remembering punitive regulations and endless, slow construction. I had a good experience with them this weekend, though, so in the spirit of fairness I wanted to point it out.

We got a call on Sunday about a tree down on a mountain road up here, within two minutes of another call for a medical emergency. I went to clear the tree, as my ability to lift and move heavy objects is greater than my ability to help people in medical necessity. We have several EMTs and a couple of paramedics on our crew, but I am not among them. Lifting and carrying I can do OK.

The tree was across one lane, and it had brought down several other entangled trees such that the lane was blocked vertically as well as horizontally. I did what I could with a Stihl chainsaw, dragging the stuff I could cut out of the way, when thankfully DOT showed up as well. They had a pole saw and what is locally called a "trackhoe," meaning any sort of excavator -- a smaller, towed one in this case.

As a result we were able to transition to traffic control while they used the excavator to pull the high branches down low, where the pole-saw could trim them out of the way. In less than an hour, the thing was cleared from the highway and we could all go on our way.

So, you know, they're not all bad. Spare a thought for the highway crews that keep the way clear, however awful the bureaucrats are. 

Divisions

Any of you who participated in the recent wars know that the basic unit of the US Army is the Brigade Combat Team (BCT), which the Army adopted based on the success of the USMC's smaller Regimental Combat Teams (RCT). Though they had historic relationships both higher and lower, to divisions or battalions, the BCT was the basic maneuver unit. It might be 3/3 ID (3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division) but it could deploy without the 3rd Infantry Division headquarters and work with any division HQ that happened to be in place. Battalions might have historic resonance as well -- many regiments only include one battalion, and the Army now even explains regiments (falsely) as just a historic term for Ranger and armor units. More famous regiments, like the 505th of the 82nd Airborne, include more that one battalion. 

Wretchard points to this article from the Army Times that suggests that the wheel is turning again.

But, as the U.S. shifted its focus toward adversaries such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, the Army had to examine its role, and how it would fit into the new strategy. The Army sees its role as providing major ground combat power for large-scale combat operations. To do that, they’ll have to fight with divisions and corps — which range from 12,000 to 45,000 soldiers, respectively. Those formations’ headquarters units will orchestrate the battle, striking deep with long-range fires, attack aircraft and hooking into joint capabilities from the Air Force, Navy and Marines.

The last time the service fought with a division was in the 2003 Iraq invasion. Before that, the last major combat operation of that scale was in 1991 during the Persian Gulf War.

The Army, at least, is expecting more and bigger wars in the years to come. I keep seeing similar worrying signs from our European allies. They all seem to think that there's a big war coming, and that we'd best be preparing for it. 

Send You Back to Georgia

Heaven forfend. 

I’m happier in the high mountains than in the state where I was born because my father had descended out of them seeking work. All the same, there are parts of Georgia I wouldn’t mind seeing again — at least from October through March. 

Oh

I don’t want to spend my time blogging about Trump, but it’s really important to say something about this level of corruption. If we don’t, who will?

Cannon unsealed a trove of new documents in the case that also revealed that an FBI agent had testified that the General Services Administration (GSA) was in possession of Trump's boxes in Virginia before ordering Trump's team to come get them. The same boxes that the GSA had been holding and ordered Trump’s team to retrieve ended up being the boxes that contained classified markings, raising questions about whether the Biden administration had set up Trump.

"So an entire pallet full of boxes that had been held by GSA somewhere outside of DC is dumped at Mar-a-Lago," independent journalist Julie Kelly noted. "Apparently these are the boxes that ended up containing papers with 'classified markings.'"

Its like the J6 cases. Republicans like law and order as a rule. They’d have let those people go down without complaint, if only the prosecution had been evenhanded and applied the ordinary law. Instead, we’ve seen novel theories of law applied to them at the same time that administration-friendly protesters have been let to walk free. 

So the FBI maybe seeded the residence with classified documents, then leaked its raid to the press, to whom it announced having found classified documents. Trial was scheduled for the height of the Presidential election campaign season. One of several. 

Don’t think we don’t see what you’re doing with the rule of law. Do fear the consequences of convincing ordinary people that the laws are corrupt. 

Irony in the Court

I was reading this bit on the fact that the judge in the Trump 'hush money' case worked for the DNC before this trial, and donated money to Biden, and that his daughter is now raising money for Biden, and I suddenly realized a significant irony at work. 

This trial is based on a very novel legal theory, as Reason magazine points out. Even heavily excerpted, it takes a long explanation to convey what they think constitutes the felony here.

Contrary to Colangelo's spin, there is nothing "pure and simple" about Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's case against Trump. To begin with, Trump is not charged with "conspiracy" or "election fraud." He is charged with violating a New York law against "falsifying business records" with "intent to defraud."...  Ordinarily, falsifying business records is a misdemeanor. But it becomes a felony when the defendant's "intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof." Bragg says Trump had such an intent, which is why the 34 counts are charged as felonies.

Bragg had long been cagey about exactly what crime Trump allegedly tried to conceal. But during a sidebar discussion last week, Colangelo said "the primary crime that we have alleged is New York State Election Law Section 17-152." That provision says "any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means and which conspiracy is acted upon by one or more of the parties thereto, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor."

In other words, Bragg is relying on this misdemeanor to transform another misdemeanor (falsifying business records) into a felony. But the only "unlawful means" that he has identified is Cohen's payment to Daniels.... [and] Trump was never prosecuted for soliciting that contribution. There are good reasons for that. The question of whether this arrangement violated federal election law hinges on whether the hush money is properly viewed as a campaign expense or a personal expense.... proving that allegation beyond a reasonable doubt would have been hard, as illustrated by the unsuccessful 2012 prosecution of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.... Given the fuzziness of that distinction, it is plausible that Trump did not think the payment to Daniels was illegal.... 

The fact that Bragg is relying on an obscure offense that apparently has never been prosecuted speaks volumes about his eagerness to convert the Daniels hush payment into 34 felonies. That strategy will prove "twisty," Connor said, because "you're having an underlying crime within an underlying crime to get to that felony."

If Trump did not recognize the hush payment as "unlawful," it is hard to see how his "intent" in falsifying business records could have included an intent to conceal "another crime." And that's assuming a purported violation of federal campaign finance restrictions counts as "unlawful means" under Section 17-152.

So the issue is that there's a twisty path by which one alleged misdemeanor could have led to another alleged misdemeanor, assuming mens rea can be proven for both, which allows one to aggravate the other into a felony. The felony is that there's an conspiracy to "promote or prevent the election of any person." 

The gag order in this case, however, is plainly an undisclosed campaign contribution to Biden, by a judge who has also made disclosed campaign contributions to Biden and who is a long-time DNC affiliate. Gagging Trump during the campaign is an undisclosed in-kind contribution, and part of a rather open conspiracy to "promote" Biden's election and "prevent" Trump's. 

In other words, while it is difficult to say whether Trump is guilty of the offense he is charged with, or even if it's a plausible thing to charge someone with given the circumstances, it's abundantly clear that the judge in the case is guilty of the very thing he's being asked to judge. It is the case he is judging that is itself the vehicle for his own apparent offense against the very law he is adjudicating. 

How ironic. 

The Fall Guy

I took my wife to dinner and then to see The Fall Guy in the theater last night. I don't often go to the movies anymore, but this one came up with a trailer that convinced me that it would reward being seen on the big screen. 

Ironically but cleverly, most of that footage didn't make the final cut of the movie, including the song overlay, so you don't really feel like they put all the best parts in the trailer. The trailer is another good part.

Now I also thought I'd like this movie because I remember the old television show it was based upon. That show was made at a time when Hollywood stunts were still all real, and it was an ode to stuntmen and their work as much as anything else. This movie is like that too. It celebrates stuntmen publicly and visibly, and rather pointedly notes in the movie that there is no Academy Award for stuntwork. As such, it's exactly the kind of celebration of the labor of the unknown hard working man (and woman) that I like to see. 

Speaking of the old TV show, there are several points in the film that pay homage to it. The two stars, Lee Majors and Heather Thomas, have a prominent cameo at the end. They have what looks like the original truck to drive around in scenes set in California, and new-model trucks done up to look like it in the Australia scenes. As the ending credits roll (the cameo scene actually follows them), they play a slightly-altered version of the original TV theme song.

The major alteration is that they removed the names of the actors mentioned in the original, of whom only Clint Eastwood would still be known to younger audiences today. Rather than substitute new actors and actresses, they wrote substitute lyrics that would be timeless in character. 

The plot is not groundbreaking, and if you can't see the plot twists coming you haven't been watching movies long. Still, it's nice to see Hollywood produce a workmanlike product in the old style while celebrating the hard work of the people who take the hard hits to make it all look so fine. Oh, and as you might expect, the stunts are really good.

World's Strongest Man

Speaking of strength sports, and Strongman in particular, the WSM competition is going on right now in Myrtle Beach. The same Strongman friend who sent the picture told me that he knows the American competitor, who used to rep 750-pound deadlifts in sessions lasting as long as three hours. That puts his 1RM north of a half a ton, and indicates a lot of conditioning as well. 

I know one of the competitors who didn't make the final cut but just narrowly missed it, Marcus Crowder. I never competed against him because we are in different divisions as well as different weight classes. I am in the Masters division, meaning 'old' not 'great'; he is, obviously, in the open division. Likewise, I compete in what Strongman considers the Middleweight division, although it would be Heavyweight in boxing or pretty much any other sport. Crowder is a Super Heavyweight.

He is very strong, and if he's not in the finals this year, likely as not he will be one of these days. 

Good luck to all, and may injuries be avoided in spite of the limit-pushing seeking of excellence.

In Praise of Tulsi Gabbard

American Greatness is making the argument for Tulsi Gabbard as a running mate. I'm sure everyone here knows what they think of her already, good and bad.

I will say this for her, though: when she ran for the Democratic nomination, suddenly she found herself deployed as a serving military officer just when it would derail her campaign, and she never once complained about it. She went and did her duty honorably, and made no attempt to avoid it.

A lot of observers, including myself, thought the sudden call-up to deploy looked like a motivated favor by the brass to remove her from the race after she brutally derailed Kamala Harris' campaign in the first debate. Washington insiders get payoffs like that, because sitting Senators have a lot to say about military appropriations. 

I don't like Tulsi's position on gun control (she has at least rhetorically seemed in favor of it) nor her support for Assad in Syria (although that is tempered by an understandable desire to limit the instability in the Middle East, and a generalized opposition to us getting into more wars). I do like many other things about her. 

Honor, though, is always the main thing. She has shown that she has this quality, and I don't know of another politician today that I would say that about. 

UPDATE: I see she has a new book out, which suggests that she may have been thinking about timing it’s release with this moment. So maybe she is interested in the job. 

Marine Sets World Record in Deadlift

This story's headline surprised me. The deadlift is one of the big, compound lifts that involves a lot of muscle groups. Marines, however, are held to strict BMI standards, and as such will tend to have less muscle mass than other competitive deadlifters at their same height who are unencumbered by BMI. 

Part of the mystery evaporated when the story explained that the record was for a particular weight class, which means that the muscle mass differential was somewhat controlled. More of it evaporated when it turned out to be a female Marine. Women normally have higher fat in their body complex, so if this female Marine had managed to get lean and muscular they would have a little more play in their BMI than would a male Marine. 

But then I read that the deadlifting world record was broken by 40 pounds. That's extraordinary. The interview explains that “Honestly, it kind of felt kind of weightless,” she said. “It was not easy, but not the strain I thought it would be.” 

I did not really notice at first that the interview was only granted on the condition that this female Marine not be named. I did ask around my Strongman community if anyone had heard anything about it. One of them had a photo. 

I'll put it after the jump.

The Spirit of '76

You've heard of the North Carolina frat boys who rushed to hold up the American flag to keep it off the ground until it could be re-hoisted. They were pelted by the anti-American, pro-Hamas mob as they strove to keep our flag from falling. The story reminds me of that of Sergeant Jasper, a famous figure from the American Revolution, who made his fame securing the flag of a newly independent South Carolina that fell under fire; and who died securing the American flag also under fire. Fortunately the fire at UNC was not deadly, but there is a parallel in the spirit. 

Giving a sense of how the public feels about all of this, an effort to raise money to throw them a proper fraternity party is closing on half a million dollars. A right-wing-themed beer company is promising to provide free beer, so that will leave quite a budget for the other aspects of the party. (Perhaps they might wisely use some of it to retire any student loans they've undertaken.) 

The event reminds me of an old Doonesbury cartoon from the Reagan era, where one of the old radicals went to a college campus only to find himself among frat boys with no sympathy for "pinkos." The radicals have returned, but the frat boys are still there like always.

The Spirit of '68

An article linked by Instapundit reminds me of something I once knew but had long forgotten.

The most powerful and influential form of radicalism in the Western world today has no real name in the United States. It does in France, or at least its adherents do: les soixante-huitards, “the ‘68ers.”

The reference is to a series of riots, very similar in form and complaint against the United States and the West, that swept the Western world in 1968. In one of those moments that reminds of the remark that history repeats itself 'the first time as tragedy, the second as farce,' this year's Democratic National Convention will also be in Chicago, allowing a repeat of the 1968 protests of that same event in that same city by those of that same ideology.

That event ended with police crackdowns that the media boldly criticized and bravely put on camera for the whole world to see, only to be disappointed when it turned out that the American world broadly approved of police crackdowns on these radicals.

The American national news media, whose correspondents had been among the victims of police brutality at the convention, were at the forefront of criticism of the Chicago police. According to journalist Barbara Ehrenreich: "In a rare moment of collective courage, the editors of all the nation's major newspapers telegrammed a strong protest to Mayor Daley." National NBC newscaster Chet Huntley announced to the nation on the evening news that "'the news profession in this city is now under assault by the Chicago police'."

However, to the surprise of the news media, and many of the people who had witnessed the Chicago "police riot", the general public did not take their side. "Polls taken immediately after the convention showed that the majority of Americans — 56 percent — sympathized with the police, not with the bloodied demonstrators or the press." A poll taken for the New York Times "showed an 'overwhelming' majority respondents supported the police in Chicago." CBS reported that 10 times as many people had written to them disapproving of their coverage of the events as had written in approval." Dailey himself received "scores of letters", praising him and especially attacking the press and demonstrators.

One aftereffect of this "backlash", was soul-searching by the "media class" who "spent the next few years" in "almost reverent" examination of the white working class/middle class, mostly non-coastal strata of population dubbed "the silent majority" (by soon-to-be-president Richard Nixon) and "Middle America".

Trump stands in the place of Richard Nixon this year, which is part of the farce; although he'd really like to be Reagan, and to reprise the 1980s, which he would do in a farcical way. The historical rhyme is clear enough, however, even if it's only a near-rhyme.

This is CNN

Seventy Democrats to only 21 Republicans voted against a bill to oppose Antisemitism. So who did CNN make the face of the story? And now it’s a story about Republican antisemitism. 

Never Thought I’d Say This…

…but Roll Tide. 

UPDATE: That was the Crimson Tide; whereas at the Harvard Crimson, the most normal thing was the streaking. 

Requiescat in Pace Duane Eddy

Lukas Nelson

A nice tribute.

The Survivor