Vic†ims of a victimless crime

 If you know nothing else about the goings-on around here, you probably know that the owner of the New England Patriots has been charged twice for giving his custom to a brothel posing as a massage parlor. The brothel is called Orchids of Asia Day Spa. It's in  a strip mall.
 You probably know this is embarrassing for the 77-year-old football team owner, as well as for the retired Citicorp muckety-muck who also sought and bought the favor of a Spa girl. And if you read the sports pages, you know a burning issue of the day is what the "league" might do to its wayward owner. Who, btw, denies everything, but there are tapes.
 Prostitution is the quintessential "victimless crime." Well, those two guys, and the other johns who have been charged up and down three counties of Florida now consider themselves victims, but of police overreach. My former Palm Beach Post colleague, Frank Cerebino, provided a run-down yesterday of what the sex hobbyists are saying on the Web (yes!) site where they discuss their likes, dislikes and preferences.
 But the johns are not really the story. The real victims are the girls, imported from China in this case, on temporary work permits.

In Chicago mayoral race, the winner is ...

... still TBD.  The election took place on Tuesday, but no candidate received (or came close to) 50% of the vote, so there will be a runoff election on April 2nd between the top two candidates.  And as I write this, both of those candidates are African American women.

A deacon's thoughts on gay priests

The recently-concluded meeting of Pope Francis with the heads of the world's episcopal conferences to consider the sex abuse crisis coincided with a publishing event: the release of a book by Frederic Martel, a French journalist.  The title of the book (in English) is "In the Closet of the Vatican".  According to reviews, it presents a portrait of widespread concealed homosexuality among bishops and priests in the Vatican, which plays out via secret sexual activity, poisonous gossip, malicious outings, blackmail, mistreatment of sex workers, and overall sexual dishonesty.

The cards are on the table. The idiots are in charge.

Just because so many countries agree that Venezuelan dictator Maduro has to go doesn't mean that it's a good idea to start a war.

The weekend's confrontation at the border with Colombia did not break troops loyal to Maduro (WashPost).  There are no signs of diplomats or intermediaries doing anything to negotiate an agreement with the military or with Maduro. How about offering Maduro a villa in Brazil or the south of France?

Our Chief Diplomat! Secy. of State Pompeo has declared that Maduro's days are numbered. But where is he doing the counting? Presumably he will be monitoring Trump's exchanges with Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, hoping that the president doesn't give away the store in exchange for license to build a golf course in No. Korea.

Instead, VP Pence (the man who will be president if Trump goes) is in Colombia to put more cards on the table. The NYTimes account of Pence's speech in Warsaw threatening our European allies if they don't get tough on Iran shows what an idiot Pence is. Apparently even Pompeo thinks so. So why send Pence?

Here's hoping the U.S. military is saying, "no way."

The Culture of Anxiety

From this article by Maria Popova:

"Few people today would dispute that chronic stress is a hallmark of our times or that anxiety has become a kind of cultural condition of modernity."

"...anxiety and its related psychoemotional disorders turn out to be the most common, prevalent, and undertreated form of clinically classified mental illness today, even more common than depression."

Saunders Raises $6 Million from 225,000 Supporters UPDATED! AGAIN!

Sanders Raised Nearly Six Million in first 24 hours

Sanders raised $5,925,771 from 223,047 individual contributors across all 50 states in the campaign's first 24 hours, and more than $6 million from 225,000 individuals in total since the launch. And Sanders' campaign also noted that the average contribution was $27, "mirroring [Sanders'] 2016 campaign's average donation," a symbolic reflection of the Vermont senator's grassroots support that was key to his anti-establishment bid against Hillary Clinton.

UPDATE: E.MAIL THIS MORNING FROM TEAM BERNIEWe are just a little bit away from being able to say more than 1,000,000 people have added their name to say they support Bernie's run for president. This is a big milestone for our campaign, and it looks like it could happen very soon.

But we’re also just short of another milestone — 350,000 individual donations to our campaign. And we wanted to give YOU a chance to be the one who gets us there

ANOTHER UPDATE! BERNIE REACHED THE ONE MILLION MARK OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE SIGNED UP TO SUPPORT HIM.

I think he had about 2 million people signed up the last time around 

 Of course the Media is already find ways to say this means nothing, that Bernie will never win.

Bernie Sanders Will Hit Huge Obstacles in 2020

The Atlantic 

The biggest question for Sanders is whether he can expand the coalition that he mobilized in 2016—or even, in this enormous field, maintain the advantages he displayed last time. Sanders ran extremely well in 2016 with three groups. Young people topped the list: Sanders won most voters age 30 and younger in 25 of the 27 states with exit polls. Looking across the entire contest, he carried fully 71 percent of younger voters, according to a cumulative analysis of all 27 exit polls by CNN polling director Jennifer Agiesta. That was an even higher percentage than Barack Obama carried among younger voters in 2008.

Sanders was also extremely strong with primary voters who identified as independents rather than partisan Democrats. He carried them in 24 of the 27 states with exit polls (losing them only in three southern states), and won nearly two-thirds of them overall in Agiesta’s cumulative analysis. He also ran very well among white men without a college degree—carrying slightly more than three-fifths of them overall—while posting a more modest advantage among their college-educated counterparts. 

Bernie Sanders-Was Helped by the #NeverHillary vote

Nate Silver says:

Roughly one-quarter of Sanders’s support in Democratic primaries and caucuses in 2016 came from #NeverHillary voters: people who didn’t vote for Clinton in the 2016 general election and who had no intention of doing so. (The #NeverHillary label is a little snarky, but it’s also quite literal: These are people who never voted for Clinton despite being given two opportunities to do so, in the primary and the general election.)

The #NeverHillary vote is more than a little snarky, I think it is downright misleading.

The simple explanation for Sanders popularity is that he is a populist. He ran against both the billionaires and the Democratic party establishment. Even after the success of Trump, the Media refuse to take seriously the fact that most people are fed up with all the establishments, and are looking for someone who will be on their side.

That is why the young went for Bernie, and that the independents went for Bernie. It also explains that the white men without a college degree liked both Bernie and Trump. All these people don't believe in establishments whether Democratic, Republican or Media.  Trump had the advantage in his party that the establishment was divided among his opponents until it was too late; Bernie had the disadvantage that the establishment was united behind Hillary. The #NeverHillary voters were against the Democratic establishment. There may even have been some who wanted two anti-establishment candidates, Trump and Sanders.

Again in the coming election it behooves the Democrats to go for the  young, the independents and the non-college educated (e.g. blue collar) voters if they want to overcome  an organized Republican base around Trump. If they settle back into a Democratic establishment candidate they will meet the same result as Hillary.

Stone Cold Annoying - Updated

 I will cheer if Judge Amy Berman Jackson tells Roger Stone to put a sock in it Thursday.  I say, throw the whole sock drawer at him. Roger Stone is blocked on my email now. But it took me too long to find out how to do that.
 Meanwhile, we had a hate-hate relationship for weeks. Robert Mueller has probably chuckled over the email in which I asked Stone if it was going to be necessary to come down and break his knee caps to get him to stop sending me his droolings.
 Sometime between my retirement and the time when Donald John Trump's mouth landed him in the presidential race, Stone got my email address. And he was peskier than the emailer who wants me to check out beautiful Asian women who want to meet me.
 It started when Stone hired a flack. A flack hiring a flack, or the life of Roger Stone. Anyhow the secondary flack signed his emails, so I started up a regular conversation with him. "Unsubscribe me," I would say. "Why?"" he would say. "Because, for one thing, I can't do your boss any good, and if I could I would do him harm instead." Well, that went back and forth for awhile. Finally, I said, "You are driving me crazy. Why do you keep this up?" And the flack's flack replied, "Because it is driving you crazy."
 Then I guess Stone finished the book he was making up and resumed flacking for himself, and that was about the time I threatened his knees.
 By then, I was crazy enough that I was telling people about my pen pal, and that is when someone told me he could be blocked.
 Then, wham! the pudgy guy announced that he is willing to save us, and the fake media began playing attention to Roger Stone, and he was coming through my morning paper and radio, which I can't  block.
 Eventually, he was taken seriously enough to get indicted.  Stone, in typical fashion, wrote an Instagram calling the criminal charges against him a "show trial," and implying the judge was a tool of Hilary Clinton. Then, after it was noted, he "withdrew" it and said he meant no offense. Which is why he will be before the judge on Thursday.
 Judge Amy Berman Jackson, my entire sock drawer is at your disposal.

UPDATE: Judge Jackson made my day.  Full gag! He shall not blabber on TV. He shall not blabber on radio. He shall not blabber in print media. The lives by his mouth. He will die by the sock she put in it.  Amen. (But she should have revoked his bail, too; I wasn't thinking of that.)

 

Bernie Is In!

This morning I got a  long e-mail  from Bernie Sanders saying that he was running for President with all the reasons why, and an invitation to sign up.  I signed  up and sent him $100.

My recent political decision making has been very simple.

In 2008 I volunteered for the Obama campaign.  I was impressed that he had impressed college age students. I was also impressed that after Clinton had recruited all the big givers, Obama had a strategy to recruit further down on the economic scale.

In 2012 my health made it impossible to campaign for Obama.  However I noticed during the primary season  that he was building this big computerized network to get out the vote. So I did what I had never done before, contributed to his campaign. In fact the maximum amount.  I think computer systems are better than campaign adds.

In December of 2015 I got an invitation from a Hilary Clinton supporter to a private home in Cleveland to meet Hilary.The unstated assumption was that I would write a big check for Hilary. I thought about the matter and decided I was not ready to join the elite.  Besides at that point it looked like Clinton vs. Bush.  I was not ready to join a battle between two royal families.

Then in February I leaned about Bernie, he finally broke through into the mainstream news.  He was another candidate like Obama who appealled to the young (I have great respect for young people's judgment) and he had perfected Obama's money strategy, refusing to take the support of special interests and going for the little person with a $27 dollar campaign contribution.  I sent him $100, and kept sending him another $100 every time he won.  I liked this way of contributing.  I also liked the $27 idea. When I found other candidates I liked, I either sent them $27, or $127 as a subtle reminder that I am a Sanders supporter.

My decision this time was very simple. The Democrats need to find somebody better than Bernie. I am going to support Bernie until I find somebody better. Most of the people on this blog seem to be into politics more than I am, and  you are from all over the country. There are a lot of Democrats out there and perhaps some of them are better than Bernie, and perhaps some of  you will help me find out which ones are.

In the meantime my message is clear. You got to beat the Bernie standard. Appeal to the young. Forsake the Rich.

'It Is Not a Closet. It Is a Cage.’

'It Is Not a Closet. It Is a Cage.’ Gay Catholic Priests Speak Out

The crisis over sexuality in the Catholic Church goes beyond abuse. It goes to the heart of the priesthood, into a closet that is trapping thousands of men

By Elizabeth Dias

MILWAUKEE — Gregory Greiten was 17 years old when the priests organized the game. It was 1982 and he was on a retreat with his classmates from St. Lawrence, a Roman Catholic seminary for teenage boys training to become priests. Leaders asked each boy to rank which he would rather be: burned over 90 percent of his body, paraplegic, or gay.

Each chose to be scorched or paralyzed. Not one uttered the word “gay.” They called the game the Game of Life.

The lesson stuck. Seven years later, he climbed up into his seminary dorm window and dangled one leg over the edge. “I really am gay,” Father Greiten, now a priest near Milwaukee, remembered telling himself for the first time. “It was like a death sentence.”

The closet of the Roman Catholic Church hinges on an impossible contradiction. For years, church leaders have driven gay congregants away in shame and insisted that “homosexual tendencies” are “disordered.” And yet, thousands of the church’s priests are gay.

The stories of gay priests are unspoken, veiled from the outside world, known only to one another, if they are known at all.

Fewer than about 10 priests in the United States have dared to come out publicly. But gay men likely make up at least 30 to 40 percent of the American Catholic clergy, according to dozens of estimates from gay priests themselves and researchers. Some priests say the number is closer to 75 percent. One priest in Wisconsin said he assumed every priest is gay unless he knows for a fact he is not. A priest in Florida put it this way: “A third are gay, a third are straight, and a third don’t know what the hell they are.”

__________________________________________________________

For the rest of this article, see 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/17/us/it-is-not-a-closet-it-is-a-cage-gay-catholic-priests-speak-out.html

(Article brought to my attention by Gene Palumbo.) 

Woe to us who are rich

This is my homily for this weekend, the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C.  The readings for this Sunday are here.

McCarrick Fallout

Theodore McCarrick Ex Cleric

On 11 January 2019, the Congresso of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, at the conclusion of a penal process, issued a decree finding Theodore Edgar McCarrick, archbishop emeritus of Washington, D.C., guilty of the following delicts while a cleric: solicitation in the Sacrament of Confession, and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power. The Congresso imposed on him the penalty of dismissal from the clerical state.

 From the Vatican Announcement 

Note: The Congresso is the executive committee of the CDF. This was an administrative trial done when there was clear evidence, rather than a judiciary trial by a subgroup of the CDF. The CDF then gave notice to McCarrick to give him an opportunity to rebut before the final vote of the full CDF which was taken last Wednesday. Pope Francis at the same time reviewed it and did the equivalent of what our Supreme Court does when it says there is no basis for further appeal.

What Rocco notes, is that for the first time the Vatican is including sins against the Six Commandments with adults, with the aggravating factor of abuse of power as a major offense. If this precedent is incorporated into policy it would be a major change, allowing clergy to be protected against sexual abuse by the bishop, and adult laity to be protected against sexual abuse by their pastors.

There appear to be some changes in the wind. Francis in lowering the expectations for the coming summit, also said that bishops need to understand what their roles are, including the role of archbishops and presidents of bishop conferences. That was interesting because right now they have no defined role, but Cupich and others have surfaced the idea of making archbishops responsible for accusations against bishops. It sounds like wheels are turning in the Vatican. Maybe a clearer set of procedures, and clearer definition of sexual abuse linking it to power (e.g. adults over children, bishops over priests, etc.) I doubt anything formal will be adopted at the meeting, but Francis may want to gauge where everyone is on the topic.

McCarrick has private income in the event of laicization 

Emergency!

Today, President Trump invoked his executive powers to declare a state of emergency at the US southern border.  His administration's aim is to make use of funds to extend a wall along the border, without the need for Congressional approval.

What our kids need to know

Thomas Friedman reports some interesting research results:

A few years ago, the leaders of the College Board, the folks who administer the SAT college entrance exam, asked themselves a radical question: Of all the skills and knowledge that we test young people for that we know are correlated with success in college and in life, which is the most important? Their answer: the ability to master “two codes” — computer science and the U.S. Constitution.

I have nothing against either branch of knowledge, but: ugh - that's it?  Contemplating an adult existence in which the yardsticks of success are familiarity with computers and basic civics, I am beset by a host of d adjectives: disappointing, dreary, dismal, depressing.  I am more of a music, drama and fiction maven myself.

Friedman doesn't define "success", but as he describes it, it seems to me something along the lines of, "the ability to change the world".  Perhaps that's an inspiring thought; at the moment, I find it a bit terrifying. 

I will go so far as to predict that knowledge of computer science and the US Constitution will not be the keys to adult happiness.

Against the College Board's best advice, I'll continue to advocate for critical thinking; emotional intelligence; self-discipline; monogamy; the Golden Rule; discerning and pursuing a vocation; an orientation toward serving others; physical and mental health; immersion in the best of human thought and art; numeric, scientific and medical literacy; and, dare I say, getting to know Jesus. 

Oh, yeah, a heard about that somewhere

 Who is more credible -- President Trump of the United States or President Ivanovich of Freedonia?
 Poll results show that, by 56 percent to 33 percent, Americans find the president of Freedonia more credible.
 OK, so Freedonia is a fictional country popularized by Groucho Marx. But I wanted to get that out there on the Internet before someone else does. I was on one of my frequent rants this morning about how all the editors took buyouts because they were making too much money, and all synapses, public and  private, have stopped working.

Shutdown Averted?

It appears that a tentative agreement to avoid another government shutdown has been reached.
From this article on the Huffington Post site:
WASHINGTON (AP) —" Congressional negotiators reached agreement to prevent a government shutdown and finance construction of new barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, overcoming a late-stage hang-up over immigration enforcement issues that had threatened to scuttle the talks."

Without Benefit of Clergy

 A convicted murderer with the unlikely name of Domenique Hakim Marcelle Ray went to his Maker last Thursday in an Alabama prison without his Imam at his side, by the disdain of the Supreme Court of the United States.
 Those two stalwarts of religious liberty and the right to life, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh helped it along.
 Aside from saying Mr. Ray deserved to die, David French, a man of unquestioned conservative credentials, is clear on the gravemen of my own complaint:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-supreme-court-upholds-a-grave-violation-of-the-first-amendment/

Let me see some I.D.

 I am the 11th Earl of Sandringham. I was told that when I was young, and I never was able to get any member of my father's large family to deny it. Nor could I get them to tell me how it came about that my grandfather was the 9th Earl, although they insisted to the last aunt that he was.
 So, in the absence of a challenge, I am. It's not important, but it may have a bearing (if you squint at it) on the remainder of these musings.
 Elizabeth Warren's family legend has American Indians in the family ancestry, which is a whole heck of a lot more likely, btw, than my earldom. I note that the Tribes mentioned were Delaware and Cherokee, which are more exciting than basket-weaving and pot-throwing Hopi. In fact, white folks I know who claim Indian blood are more likely to be related to tribes that looked flashy in the movies. Just like people who know about their previous life were cup bearers for Charlemagne or asp ropers for Cleopatra, not Chinese rice farmers.

An Orthodox Consistent Ethic of Life

For decades now I have often attended Vespers on Saturday and Feast day evenings at the local Orthodox Church.  The pastor considers me an associate member of the parish, so I am on their e-mail list.

Ohio is part of the Midwestern Diocese of the Orthodox Church in America. The bishop is located in Chicago. Bishop Paul, who was trained as a social worker before becoming a priest, was chosen as its bishop a few years ago.  He puts his social work background to good use in his weekly post on his website called Orthodox Family Life.  I get it as part of the local parish's weekly e-mail.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BELEIVE IN THE SANCTITY OF LIFE?

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?  If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and that temple you are” (1 Corinthians 3:16-17). 

There is a depth to these words from Saint Paul that leads me to see that the Sanctity of Life is much more than what one believes regarding Roe vs. Wade. At Saints Peter and Saint Paul Church on Sunday night, in addition to prayers related to abortion, we prayed for those on death row, the elderly in institutional care, victims of gun violence in schools and neighborhoods, those overcome by various addictions, refugees seeking a home, victims of war, and those contemplating suicide.

It is important that we embrace a sanctity of life ethic that covers the entire span of life — from conception to death. Even in cases in which those in the military and law enforcement take the life of another while dutifully protecting citizens from danger, I would expect that any Orthodox Christian who serves in that capacity, who has taken a life, would go to Confession before going to Communion. We don’t justify the taking of a life, but we understand that, given the fallen nature of this world, the act of taking a life to protect another may be necessary. But this is not what we were made for. “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

So, if we want to bring about an end to abortion, we must consider how we would respond to a mother who needs support because she chooses not to abort. This is a far more challenging question to address than merely stating that one is “against abortion.”

I was impressed that after quoting Saint Paul which could be used in a very sharp and devastating way against anyone who is pro-choice, he focuses not upon death and destruction but upon life long reverence for the living temples of God throughout the life span.

I was even more impressed that he summoned up the ancient Christian tradition that even when one committed manslaughter, accidentally or in self defense, or in public service that one should be purified by confession (and in the early church that mean public confession accompanied by a period of fasting from the Eucharist). That ancient attitude stands in the way of modern attempts to be against abortion but for war, and the death penalty.

I am not sure how other Orthodox bishops express themselves on this issues, but typically most of them do not stray far from tradition even if they may emphasize different aspects of it.

Humanitarian Crisis in Venezuela

The situation in Venezuela  continues to descend into a humanitarian disaster. From this article:

"CARACAS, Venezuela — The international effort to rush food and medicine into this collapsing socialist state was rapidly transforming Thursday into a high-stakes standoff between President Nicolás Maduro and the U.S.-backed opposition, essentially holding hostage lifesaving shipments of humanitarian aid at the border."

Andrew Cuomo says he was an altar boy.

Apropos of our Douthat discussion earlier in the week, re Andrew Cuomo, Catholic?, the governor steps up to the plate on the question in the midst of a NYTimes op ed piece defending New York's new late-term abortion law.

Cuomo:  "Some states, like New York, feel an urgency to protect the rights of their citizens. Mr. Trump and the Catholic Church are opposed to state actions like the Reproductive Health Act — even though they merely codify existing federal law and firmly established practices."

Me:  Roe did not legalize abortion after the point of viability, which the New York law now permits. But never mind!

Cuomo:  "As a Roman Catholic, I am intimately familiar with the strongly held views of the church. Still, I do not believe that religious values should drive political positions.

Cuomo:  "While Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, and the Catholic Church are anti-choice, most Americans, including most Catholics, are pro-choice. The 73 percent of New Yorkers who support Roe includes 59 percent of Catholics. While governments may very well enact laws that are consistent with religious teaching, governments do not pass laws to be consistent with what any particular religion dictates. 

Me: check out those data points! Supporting Roe does not mean 73 percent of New Yorkers support the new law. Most don't yet know what the new law entails.

Cuomo: "I was educated in religious schools, and I am a former altar boy. My Roman Catholic values are my personal values. The decisions I choose to make in my life, or in counseling my daughters, are based on my personal moral and religious beliefs."

Me: An echo of Mario Cuomo, but hardly a glimmer of his intelligence.

Off with His Head...further thinking

I am not a citizen of Virginia, so Northam's War has seemed somewhat remote--maybe filling in the hysteria vacuum left by the complexifiction of the Covington Boys Scandale.

So...here's a  piece of thinking that gives some bones to my disquiet over how the Northam War has gone: "How Society Uses Politics to Decides What's Racist."

Theodore Johnson of the Brennan Center, asks: "The reaction to Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s past use of blackface shows how racism gets defined by politics, not morality. Is that a good thing?" 

Some points: "Northam’s decades-old racist behavior does not inherently suggest he lacks the moral acuity to govern now. If he is to be taken at his word—that he is not racist, ardently supports civil rights and is genuinely horrified by his past attitudes and actions—then his growth and maturation could be seen as evidence of his fitness for office.

"This distinction, however, is immaterial because his moral failing in the past is a political liability today. And, especially on matters of racism, politics—and the defining of what is and is not a liability—polices the boundaries of what we’re willing to accept as a society."

As Tom Blackburn said on his post, impeachment is the proper disposal method. Johnson takes that up. He also observes, "bipartisan agreement that Northam should leave the executive mansion is not a public punishment for a decades-old moral failing, but a political reaction by those with vested interests in his resignation." An obvious point but none of the hyperventlaters have said so.

It now takes a week for the tortoise of reason to begin the race against the hysteria bunny.

Through the intercession of St. Blaise, bishop and martyr

... may God deliver you from every disease of the throat, and from every other illness.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

I probably said those words 500 times this past Sunday.

Alternative News; An Alien Spaceship

Harvard’s top astronomer says an alien ship may be among us

I found this article very refreshing.  Typically, I am very skeptical of flying saucers, etc. But this guy seems to have credentials.

Before he started the whole alien spaceship thing last year, the chairman of Harvard University's astronomy department was known for public lectures on modesty. Personal modesty, which Avi Loeb said he learned growing up on a farm. And what Loeb calls "cosmic modesty" — the idea that it's arrogant to assume we are alone in the universe, or even a particularly special species.

 What you can’t call Loeb is a crank. When astronomers in Hawaii stumbled across the first known interstellar object in late 2017 — a blip of light moving so fast past the sun that it could only have come from another star — Loeb had three decades of Ivy League professorship and hundreds of astronomical publications on his résumé, mostly to do with the nature of black holes and early galaxies and other subjects far from any tabloid shelf.

So now he is famous, styling himself as a truth-teller and risk-taker in an age of overly conservative, quiescent scientists.

“The mainstream approach [is] you can sort of drink your coffee in the morning and expect what you will find later on. It’s a stable lifestyle, but for me it resembles more the lifestyle of a business person rather than scientists,” he says.

Antidote for this evening

If, unlike me, you're planning (steeling yourself?) to watch the State of the Union speech, you need to prepare: depending on the great man's effects on you, lay in some Alka Seltzer, ibuprofin, or a tawny port.  Or, if the nerves need some soothing, you could listen to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH3GSrCmzC8

Voters, schmoters

 The news over the weekend was dominated by calls -- make that screams -- for elected officials to "step aside." The elected governor of Virginia is supposed to step aside because of a photo taken 34 years ago. Or maybe not that photo but another one. The elected president of Venezuela is supposed to step aside to make way for his self-appointed interim successor.
 OK, the last time Nicolas Maduro won an election in Venezuela it wasn't much of an election. And Juan Guaido did say he will  call an election to confirm his self-appointed job. But promised Latin American elections have a history of being a long time coming once the caller thereof has the presidential sash.
  I don't have a lot of faith in democratic elections since this country showed in 2000 that, under favorable conditions, good lawyers and noisy spinners can evade the will of the voters.  But what is the difference between a coup backed by the colonels and a coup backed by the President of the United States, and now the heads of important European states? Just askin'.
 The constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia provides for impeachment of a governor. It might look a little silly to impeach a newly-elected governor for something that happened 34 years ago, But it would be no sillier than getting rid of the governor through calls to "step aside" from other state politicians (some of whom have pasts that wouldn't bear much examination either) and national Democrats falling all over themselves to get tribally correct for 2020. Which seems to be the inevitable outcome.
 Did social media noise replace elections while we were snoozing through the half-time show?
 
 

Douthat patches a seamless garment

  Young Douthat, the New York Times's apology to the Catholic Church, has found it necessary today to provide a history lesson. As usual, his history leaves a lot to be desired.
 I don't want to go into detail about his whole vision of a Tucker Carlson presidency (and Russ Douthat  archbishopric?), and not even into abortion per se. We just talked about abortion and the Democrats' id. I just want to call him on a fact, and I want to do it here because Margaret knows much more about this than Young Douthat (or I) ever will.
  Douthat finds it deplorable that abortion has become a tribal party identifier. As do we all. He thinks Cardinal Dolan can fix the problem (which some of us might doubt) by excommunicating Andrew Cuomo and by putting forth a new vision. Quoth he:

That vision isn’t the “seamless garment of life” beloved of certain liberal Catholics, which effectively makes every issue a “life” issue, downgrading abortion to salve uneasy consciences. Rather, it’s a more tailored seamless garment, one that would put the goal of outlawing abortion at the center of a web of pro-family policies — adoption support, child allowances, wage subsidies for breadwinners. The goal would be to make the end of abortion seem less utopian by making the burdens of motherhood less daunting, and to link the pro-life cause to a larger revolt against sterility.