A Headline You Don't See Everyday

"Bolivian orchestra stranded at ‘haunted’ German castle surrounded by wolves."

I suppose it's no surprise given the year we've been having. 

Test Post #2

This post is also being written in 'the New Blogger,' which I'm told is going to become the default soon. This time I'm writing the HTML code by hand like I usually do. 

BB: "Episcopalians Confused By Strange Book Trump Brought To Church."

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, though, was nonplussed, saying she was confused by the strange book Trump had brought to church.... "No real Christian reveres a book like that. Well, maybe the Communist Manifesto or something. But not an old-looking leather book. It looks like one of those religious books, and Jesus wasn't about religion. He was about causing societal upheaval and burning things down."

Some Episcopalians suggested it was a cookbook and that Trump was only offering to bring something to the next church potluck. Others said it was a copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, a revered religious text among the Left.

There might be some good casserole recipes in there.

A Test Post

This post is being written with "the New Blogger," which I'm told will become the default soon.  I've still been using the old one; we'll have to see if this changes things dramatically.

Here's a piece on the interview Rush Limbaugh gave with a radio host called "Charlemagne tha God" (apparently the same one Biden was talking with whom he, Biden, told that 'he ain't black' if he doesn't know how to vote).  I think the author raises some good points:

RUSH: How do you stop it? (crosstalk)

CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: I have a question for you. I want to know. How are you gonna use your privilege as a white male to combat this prejudice. You got a direct line to Donald Trump. (crosstalk)

RUSH: No, wait a minute, I don’t buy into the notion of white privilege. See, I think that’s a liberal —

CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: You’re being —

RUSH: That’s a liberal — (crosstalk)

CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: You’re being delusional.

RUSH: — political construct right along the lines of political correctness. It’s designed to intimidate and get people to shut up and admit they’re guilty of doing things they haven’t done. I don’t have any white privilege — (crosstalk)

CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: Do you know what white privilege is? White privilege is that what happened to George Floyd would not have happened to a white man.

RUSH: If what happened to George Floyd had happened to a white man we probably wouldn’t have even heard about it.

CHARLAMAGNE THA GOD: Huh?

The pause lasted more than four seconds, as Charlamagne and his colleagues were caught by surprise.

Of course there have been white victims: Tony Timpa, for example, died in the custody of Dallas police in 2016. But his death did not provoke riots or become a national cause — nor did anyone take it as evidence of the conduct of police in general.

Charlamagne had not considered the problem from that angle. But what was even more revealing was that he was unwilling to discuss solutions to racism unless they involved Rush Limbaugh committing to ending “white privilege.”

In other words, Charlamagne gave power over his life, over black America itself, to a white man.

Fake News & Park Police

Did Trump clear protests for a photo op? Park police say no.

Of course they could be lying.

“An Unarmed Person Comin’ at ‘Em with a Knife”

More lessons on violence from Joe Biden.  It’s the latest in a series.

You know, Joe, severing the femoral artery reliably leads to death too.

That should do it

Ymar’s Post

We are going to try something new, whereby Ymar gets a post of his own to comment upon. He’s agreed to put all the metaphysical commentary here, rather than in other posts. Those interested in that approach to understanding current events can thus get all of it in one place.

Today’s is the first such post.

Insurrection Act

The President didn’t say it in so many words, but whoever wrote the speech knows what he just said satisfies the terms for invoking the 2002 version of the 1807 Insurrection Act. Of course, there is in fact an insurrection ongoing, but it’s still worth marking. Battle-hardened paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne will soon be deploying to American cities.

Have faith in them. They took the same oath we did.

Fake News Today

BB: “ Clever Churchgoers Avoid Arrest By Disguising Themselves As Rioters.”

Second look at home schooling

Did too many parents get a look at the public schools' typical offerings via ZOOM?

We asked 626 registered voters, “Are you more or less likely to enroll your son or daughter in a home school, neighborhood home school co-op, or virtual school once the lockdowns are over?” In response, 40.8% said they were more likely to choose one of the alternative schooling methods, while 31.1% said they were less likely to do so.

While home schooling is often associated with conservative or religious families, surprisingly, there seems to be no significant difference here with respect to party affiliation. In fact, Democrats were slightly more likely (45.7%) to express increased interest in home schooling, compared to Republicans (42.3%).

The data gets even more interesting when you look at the breakdown by ethnicity. Only 36.3% of whites said they were more likely to choose home schooling, and just 38.2% of Hispanics. That number was much higher for blacks (50.4%) and Asian Americans (53.8%).

The Ships at Sea

The nearly-forgotten virus exposes a threat to naval forces: what if a single case aboard could disable a major warship, even a fleet? Fortunately, that is not the case this time out.

The Theodore Roosevelt has now returned to sea, and the final data offered by the Navy remains at 1,102 cases, with only one reported death. Presumably, additional deaths aboard the ship would qualify as a “significant change,” and thus we can assume that, while still tragic, only one person, 41-year-old Chief Petty Officer Charles Robert Thacker Jr., died of the virus. The Navy has not disclosed whether Thacker suffered from any underlying health conditions.

Doing some simple math, COVID-19 aboard the Theodore Roosevelt had a death rate of 0.09 percent, while the estimated death rate for the seasonal flu is 0.1 percent.

This data point offers incredibly useful insight into how COVID-19 affects a young and healthy population. Most enlisted sailors are under 30 years old.

A similarly low death rate has been seen on France’s Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, where more than 1,000 sailors contracted the virus but zero died. These death rates are even lower than estimates in a new CDC report, which estimates the death rate for people under 50 years old at only 0.05 percent.

Unfortunately, staying young is not an option. Staying healthy may not be either, although staying in shape is something most of us can do.

No Help from Police in Raleigh

At the capital of my new home state, the police chief says that she will not put an officer in harm's way to protect your property from destruction. We have to understand, she says, that it's not just law enforcement that is racist: it's the whole society. The police chief is in favor of group punishment of Americans for our collective sins.

North Carolina law currently does not allow for the use of lethal force to protect property, either, so citizens protecting their own businesses are putting themselves in grave legal peril. For the moment, at least: I expect that after the election we may well have some new laws on that subject. Also, you might have trouble finding a jury to convict someone for protecting their businesses after the police chief formally disavowed any duty to (or interest in) such protection.

Armed Voluntold

You should probably be prepared to hear this.

If the police dispatcher tells you "Do what you have to do," what are you prepared to do? You're a citizen. You have the right to keep and bear arms, and a duty to protect the common peace and to uphold the republic.

Some of you took oaths to the Constitution, but probably all of you said the Pledge of Allegiance at some time in your life. Did you mean it?

The Issue of the Day: Anarchists and Police Reform

Ah, the Russians again. It's almost nostalgic, especially since once again there are no actual Russians.

“I’m not reading the intelligence today, or these days — but based on my experience, this is right out of the Russian playbook,” Rice, who served as national-security adviser to president Obama, said in a CNN interview on Sunday. “But we cannot allow the extremists, the foreign actors, to distract from the real problems we have in this country that are longstanding, centuries old, and need to be addressed responsibly.”

These aren't 'little green men.' They're organizations that have been gathering loose armies of indoctrinated college kids for decades, and training them to think and act like Communists. Most of these people are not foreigners, although some of the funding for this (again, loose) network may be from abroad.

They're not less dangerous for being loose; the IRA was organized loosely in cells, just because it made them nearly impossible to finally break. You could shut down a cell, maybe get at two others connected to the one you broke, but there were always more.

I do take the point that there are serious issues in need of real reform, especially in terms of the relationship of the police to the community. I've written about that often, but here is a post that gets (in a calm and non-aggressive way) at what I think is the heart of the problem. Here is another post aimed at anarchists who want to protect marginalized communities. Here is a proposal for replacing professional police with volunteer citizen units. Here is a piece on why professional police tend to be non-accountable to the public more than armed volunteers.

Logic

ANTIFA desecrated their own memorial, or something.

Kubrick got it right

The High Feast of Pentecost

WHEN Arthur held his Round Table most plenour, it fortuned that he commanded that the high feast of Pentecost should be holden at a city and a castle, the which in those days was called Kynke Kenadonne, upon the sands that marched nigh Wales. So ever the king had a custom that at the feast of Pentecost in especial, afore other feasts in the year, he would not go that day to meat until he had heard or seen of a great marvel. And for that custom all manner of strange adventures came before Arthur as at that feast before all other feasts. And so Sir Gawaine, a little tofore noon of the day of Pentecost, espied at a window three men upon horseback, and a dwarf on foot, and so the three men alighted, and the dwarf kept their horses, and one of the three men was higher than the other twain by a foot and an half. Then Sir Gawaine went unto the king and said, Sir, go to your meat, for here at the hand come strange adventures.

The Quest for the Holy Grail began on Pentecost, and it was also the day when every year that King Arthur would have all his knights re-swear their oaths.

The king established all his knights, and gave them that were of lands not rich, he gave them lands, and charged them never to do outrageousity nor murder, and always to flee treason; also, by no mean to be cruel, but to give mercy unto him that asketh mercy, upon pain of forfeiture of their worship and lordship of King Arthur for evermore; and always to do ladies, damosels, and gentlewomen succor upon pain of death. Also, that no man take no battles in a wrongful quarrel for no law, ne for no world’s goods. Unto this were all the knights sworn of the Table Round, both old and young. And every year were they sworn at the high feast of Pentecost.

In Malory's day, such oaths marked out the duty of a knight; in our day, the duty of a citizen. We now are the ones with the right and the duty to keep and bear arms, and the duty to decide what is treason and by whom.

It may well be that this year more than any year we have to consider carefully what that duty entails.

“Police Erupt in Violence Nationwide”

What’d you think you were paying them to do, Slate?

The ongoing protests following the killing of George Floyd were caught up in violence again on Saturday, as police all over the country tear-gassed protesters, drove vehicles through crowds, opened fire with nonlethal rounds on journalists or people on their own property, and in at least one instance, pushed over an elderly man who was walking away with a cane.

“At least one instance.” But probably more, right? Cops were likely hunting for opportunities to shove old people down stairs, too.

Longtime readers know that I have long held a dire view of American policing; I’d like to see all SWAT-type units disbanded, all military weaponry reassigned, and the police move back to a more traditional “peace officer” rather than “law enforcement” model. Certainly the police in Minneapolis behaved disgracefully, and many others have over the years. There’s a lot to criticize.

But come on. They could have been clearing streets with fire all weekend. Overall the response has been remarkably restrained.

Home delivery favorites, lockdown-style

We haven't ordered any home-delivery meals during the lockdown, mostly because practically no one around here will deliver to our location in the boonies.  It's interesting to see what's trending in different states.  I confess I had never heard of "Bubble Tea," a favorite in three states.  Apparently it's an iced tea-based drink with milk and tapioca pearls, sort of milk-shakey.  Spam musubi also was a new one on me, as were boo buns (sweetened bread rolls).  Poke bowls (sushi salad) look good, but I've never encountered one.

Everything else on this map is something I'd seriously consider ordering if I were in a city where it was available and I was stuck in a hotel room or something, without room service, which is more and more often the case these days.  Hamburgers, chicken wings, Asian food of various sorts, sure.

Crawdads were a Texas favorite, though not with us.  I mean, I like crawdads, but it wouldn't occur to me to order them for home delivery.

All depends what you're angry about

Protest the lockdown?  Expect to be arrested, because no matter how angry you are, safety first.

Protest the murder of George Floyd?  Expect to be coddled, because we understand how angry you are.  Also because we don't want you to burn the city down, which we can be pretty sure those anti-lockdown types won't do.

If DeBlasio wants to make it 100% clear it's about the control, not about public health, he's doing it right.