She Coulda Been a Contender

Meet Kuinini ‘Nini’ Manumua, the woman who spent her young life training to go to the Olympics and would have done so this year except she was replaced by a transgender athlete from New Zealand. Nini was competing for Tonga this year, although she has competed for the USA in earlier youth sports having dual nationality. 

I too might be able to compete in the Olympics in the squat event, if only I identified as female. Here's the comparison changing out only male vs. female lifts. 

Doubtless there's some adjustment for age, but setting the female lifting category to 18-23, I still rate better than 99.99% 'of lifters weighing 240 pounds,' which relatively few women do with a high muscle/fat ratio. That's got to be close to the Olympic level (whereas 98% simply is not, and the best lifters outweigh me by quite a bit anyway). 

Better luck in four years. Maybe by then the madness will have passed, and the young lady will still only be 25. 

UPDATE: Shows you what I know about the Olympics, which have never interested me. Apparently they don't do the squat at the Olympics. Who'd have thought you'd leave out the most basic strength lift from competition? But it's not a thing.

Here are some women who are squatting at the top of the game, and as I suspected, the top of the game is in the 600-700 pound range. That's absolutely admirable and they work hard to get there, but the top male range is hundreds of pounds heavier. Either let's throw out the sex/gender divisions once and for all, and let the best man win; or let's keep the women's division for women, who are physically quite different. 

A Footnote to History

Thanks to 9/11, the 1993 attempt to blow up the World Trade Center is little-remembered today. However, at the time it was one of the most significant terror attacks in U.S. history, killing six people and injuring more than a thousand. If the bomb had succeeded in its intended purpose, toppling the North Tower into the South, it might have claimed tens of thousands of lives.

What is even less well-known, though, is that the bomb that nearly murdered tens of thousands was built with the help of an FBI informant. 

In fairness they usually try to roll people up at the 'I know a guy who can sell you explosives' stage these days.

Ballad of the Grey Berets

It hasn't been written yet, and given the era it will probably be autotuned, but the USAF now has a new kind of elite operator: Special Reconnaissance Airmen, distinguished in uniform by a grey beret.

Late Republic Nonsense

My friend David Reaboi has started a new Substack, which I guess is kind of like a blog and kind of like a subscription newsletter. It's called Late Republic Nonsense, and focuses more on art and culture than on politics. 

Dave is a big mid-century guy and hugely knowledgeable about jazz music especially. Jazz is not one of my interests, although much of it is pleasant enough and I can admire what was involved in the artistry. If it happens to be one of your interests, or if you're simply a lover of mid-20th century culture, cinema, music, and art, you might want to subscribe to Late Republic Nonsense. If you just want to try it out, there's a free option as well. 

Spiraling Violence in American Cities

The decision by prosecutors to increase the prosecution of police while voiding the prosecutions of looters is going to prove disastrous. 

In addition to the new threat of prosecution, police face an increased willingness among the population to simply kill them. Police killed by homicide are up over 40% this year from last year. It's a small denominator, so the big percentage increase only represents an extra eleven homicides. Still, the trend is even more ominous:

2021: 38 homicides

2020: 27 ""

2019: 24 ""

2018: 33 ""

2017: 22 ""

The stats for overall police deaths, higher obviously than deaths by homicide, are at the link. 

This is combined with cultural fragmentation, which is being pursued intentionally by the Federal government not only under the leadership of the current administration but by the bureaucracy even in spite of the Trump administration's attempt at pushback. The result is, inter alia, that this weekend when Juneteenth celebrations collided with Puerto Rico Day celebration, a couple was dragged out of their car and executed in the street. (The video at the link ought to be shocking, but it would be a good idea to watch it to prepare yourselves for what is coming in this country.)

Atlanta's mayor has an answer: the Republicans lifted COVID restrictions too early and also Georgia has lax gun laws in her opinion. They are the same gun laws Georgia has had, though, in what was until recently a two-decade halving of the violent crime rate. The spike in violent crime doesn't appear even to correlate with the lifting of COVID restrictions, but more with the imposition of them. Even that correlation is probably not causative, as the real issue is unrelated.

Readers know that I love the absence of the police locally; there are none, and I want none. That's an effective solution in an environment like this one. Citizens can self-police effectively, free of onerous government regulations and irksome petty laws. 

Cities are another animal. They're an objectively worse place to live, albeit with theaters and better restaurants. Who wants to go to the theater in a war zone, though? 

An Auspicious Day

Today happens to be the summer solstice (just a bit before midnight), Father’s Day, my anniversary, and an important family birthday. My son presented me with this gift for the occasion:

I assume that it needs no introduction in this crowd. 

Surprise!

In principle there's nothing wrong with Juneteenth. It's holiday celebrating some Texans kept in slavery being freed by Union troops, who arrived to inform them that their former masters had been forcing them to work after they'd been formally freed. Their freedom is good, and the fact that they were freed is worth celebrating. So too is the general idea that 'the truth shall set you free,' and that the lies of the wicked perish eventually.

As a substitute national holiday for Independence Day, however, it won't do. There's no reason not to celebrate both, but there is a definite reason to never allow the 4th of July to be replaced by it. Juneteenth is the holiday about the government freeing you. The 4th of July is the holiday about us freeing ourselves. It is the holiday about overthrowing tyrannical governments and that by force of arms. It celebrates the spirit of rebellion and lives as a defiance of all evil powers. 

That spirit is irreplaceable and ever necessary. May its flame be eternal in all free hearts; may any tyrant who ever seeks to quench that flame be scorched unto death.

The Power of HR

This begins as a long meditation on the rise of Communism and strategies for surviving it. It ends, shockingly, with the danger of Human Resources as a mode of human organization.

The abrupt ascendancy of HR as the central organizing power of society extends far beyond literature, of course. It has certainly overtaken philosophy, the academic discipline I know best. In the middle ages philosophy was said to be the “handmaiden” [ancillaris] of theology; in the modern period it became the handmaiden of science. Today philosophy is in many respects an ancillary of human resources (as here, for example).

In literature as in philosophy, we may at least comfort ourselves with the enduring existence of the treasures of the past, to which at least for the moment our information technologies continue to provide us access.

For the moment they do. Some of us still own libraries. If you don't, well, most public libraries sell older books that "nobody wants" anymore. I imagine you'll find the classics for cheap if you drop by. 

Wauking Song

Some ladies of the outer Hebrides sing merrily. 

Update on Communion

Apparently some bishops are still Catholics.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops overwhelmingly voted, 168-55, to draft a document that they hope will prevent President Biden and other Catholic politicians from receiving Communion if they advocate for abortion rights, the Associated Press reports.

Why it matters: Biden is the United States' second Catholic president and the country's most religiously observant leader since Jimmy Carter, per the New York Times. Enforcing the rule to deny Communion would be up to individual bishops.

Doubtless President Biden will find a bishop who is willing to grant him communion. Perhaps there is even one who will assure him that he is not in a state of mortal sin, such as that he should first confess (see 1385ff). Yet it must be telling that so large a majority was willing to embarrass a nominally Catholic President.

Speaking of abortion, the Southern Baptists voted to call for the outright abolition of the practice. One of my Baptists cousins told me that, only what she said was, "The Southern Baptists voted for abolition!"

"Aren't they about a hundred and fifty years late?" I answered in honest confusion. 

She's a good Christian. She'll probably forgive me someday.

If You Don't Like to Laugh

just ignore this post. Soooo... Southern quarantine:

   

A Sad Story

“Under the suggestion and guidance of the BIPOC members” of the group, a New Zealand youth environmental protest group inspired by teen activist Greta Thunberg disbanded, accusing itself of racism.

The racism is real enough. Both "BIPOC" and "Pākehā" will someday be treated as racial slurs, but they can't see it.

Prudence and Philadelphia

A good point on a reasonably good decision.

Conservative justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch were prepared to issue a sweeping decision...

To avoid a sweeping outcome that likely would have forced the court's liberal justices into dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts appears to have settled on a narrower ruling against the city of Philadelphia — one that could secure their support. That kind of consensus-building on the high court, with a potentially divisive case decided narrowly and with the broadest possible consensus, is a welcome model of how to govern in a dangerously polarized time.

But the larger reason why the decision deserves praise is that it upholds a key principle of political liberalism. The First Amendment protects the free exercise of religion.

This is the same point I was making about Manchin the other day, only applied to the conservative side trimming its wings in order to have a more prudential (and less destabilizing) outcome. 

I think the Court has also adopted this model because of the Biden court-packing scheme: unanimous decisions undercut the case for court-packing. If you believe you could add 2 or 4 new Justices and win every time, the non-prudent but tempting move is to pack the Court. If they're producing 9-0 decisions even on controversial social issues, it suddenly looks less realistic as a way of ensuring you get your way.

Prudence is one of the Aristotelian virtues, and in these unstable times we can see why it is. In more stable times it can seem like the vice of irresoluteness, a lack of firmness in pursuing a just cause. Yet here we stand on the verge of civil war, and these little acts of prudence help hold things together for a while longer. Perhaps, in the end, they will save things; but even if not, they gave us a chance to save things.

Fall Guys in Fulton County

The Georgia Secretary of State -- who has been steadfast in trying to prevent an audit of results -- has assembled a litany of problems in the Fulton County election. If you read through it, it's clear the results from Fulton are totally unreliable; however, it's also clear that they intend to claim it was just a combination of needing more resources and bad management decisions. 

Georgia needs a full, Arizona style audit. 

Austin Shooting

Fourteen shot in Austin, apparently by two people trying and failing to shoot each other in a large crowd. Reportedly the Bandidos MC secured the area so the defunded police — present for the crowded festival, but in much reduced numbers — could concentrate on rendering aid to the victims. The news reporters don’t confirm it explicitly, but I do see a whole lot of Harleys in the background of their shots. 

More on Atlanta

The neighborhood of Buckhead, in north Atlanta, by some measures the wealthiest (although it is definitely inferior to Druid Hills, a much older neighborhood designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, now merely the ninth richest). I have walked through Buckhead many times though it wasn't really my kind of place. I once saw Concrete Blonde at the Roxy theater there.  

It's full of restaurants and very expensive hotels, the city's wealthiest shopping district, a few very rich churches, and the kind of trendy nightclubs that you normally wouldn't see in the South. 

And now it's trying to secede from Atlanta over sky-high murder rates.

Homicides were up 63 percent across Atlanta from January 1 through May 23 and rape rates increased 108 percent.

Shooting incidents rose 45 percent, robberies were up 2 percent and aggravated assaults jumped 29 percent.

Adjusting for population, a person living in Atlanta is more likely to be a victim of a serious crime, including murder and aggravated assault, than in Chicago, where crime rates are higher, reported 11Alive....

The sharp increase in crime rates has prompted residents in the wealthy Buckhead neighborhood to form the Buckhead Exploratory Committee to create its own police force and look into the possibility of breaking away from Atlanta, after around 200 officers left the city's police force in the wake of the shooting death of black man Rayshard Brooks by a white cop in June 2020.  

There are now two bills in the Georgia State Legislature to have Buckhead secede from the city, but city officials have opposed the idea of separating the wealthy, largely white neighborhood from the rest of Atlanta, which is predominantly black, arguing it would siphon away much of the city's tax base.

Rich people are going to have their police, one way or another. The rest of the city might not be able to pay for as many services, but I suppose they can cut the police budget to make up the shortfall. 

John Stewart on the Lab "Theory"

He has a couple of pretty excellent points here.

The tent-peg

Isaiah (22:22-23) had a way with words:

{22} And I will put the key of the house of David over his shoulder, and he shall open and there be none to shut, and shut and there be none to open. {23} And I will drive him in as a tent-peg in a firm place, and he shall be a glorious throne for his father's house.

Biden Denied Communion

Wow.

President Biden, who is in Europe for several high level meetings, is taking off the morning of June 15 to meet Pope Francis as President of the United States for the first time. The President's entourage had originally requested for Biden to attend Mass with the Pope early in the morning, but the proposal was nixed by the Vatican after considering the impact that President Biden receiving Holy Communion from the Pope would have on the discussions the USCCB is planning to have during their meeting starting Wednesday, June 16. The U.S. bishops are slated to vote on creating a committee that would draft a document about Eucharistic coherence. 

It's not just about the impact blah blah blah. The Vatican refused to have the President of the United States take communion with them. This is not the first time he has been denied communion, but it is a denial by the mortal head of the church.

For non-religious people, this isn't a big deal; it's a ceremony that didn't happen (or will, but without the President present). 

In fact, it is a big deal. I hope President Biden's soul is not endangered by persistent refusal to reform, though ultimately that is his choice and not my own. We should pray for him, as we ought to do for political leaders even when they are in less danger.

We are Not Amused

This Arizona business is getting interesting. When the state governments turn against the Feds, well, in our system they're more properly the sovereign ones. That is why the general police power resides with the states, not the Federal government.