Bret Stephens, Harris Needs a Closing Argument. Here’s One. is very appealing.
With Harris I’m pretty sure there will be another Election in four years, not at all with Trump. But with Trump at +16 in my state, I have the luxury of voting for neither of them.
That does it! No more customer satisfaction surveys!
They’re intrusive.
If you’re not effusive (seriously: effusive about auto service?!) you may end up on the phone with a supervisor asking “what did we do wrong?” (I just finished that call.)
Just ignore them. That’s my motto from now on.
The Repair Shop from Great Britain is one of my favorite TV shows, but I have often thought the stories of why this item means so much a bit over the top.
Yesterday, my living brothers and I were going through the personal effects of our deceased brother. We found an Elgin pocket watch, which my younger brother remembered was given to our father (as to each of his brothers) by his father at 18, with thanks for not having taken up smoking.
None of us really wanted a pocket watch, but I noticed a Phil Delta Phi legal honorary society “key” on the watch chain, so I took it for my son, a third-generation lawyer, who conveniently had worn a three-piece suit to his uncle’s funeral. He was a “1L” when the first-generation lawyer died.
So no, I now see that the stories aren’t over the top. (And yes, when I wound the stem a turn, the old Elgin started running.)
It’s really happening. Some sensible churches are fleeing the “Evangelical” identity because of the equivocal meaning of the term and the toxicity of one meaning.
My childhood Church is having a congregational meeting to change from “Evangelical Covenant Church” to — well, just about anything.
I love my family, but I’m an introvert and all the wonderful family time (at our home, surrounding my youngest brother’s funeral) was exhausting.
I learned surprising things about neurodivergent baby brother from the stories of people who went through his visitation line.
17. SpaceX pulled off a feat of technical wizardry on Sunday, not only flying a 233-foot rocket booster back to its launch site, but also catching it out of the air with two giant mechanical arms. It occurred during the fifth test flight of the Starship rocket and was a huge step forward for the ambitions of SpaceX and its founder, Elon Musk, which include one day transporting people to Mars. (Source: nytimes.com)
I’d kinda just like to have pure contempt for Elon Musk now that he’s allies with DJT, but I must ruefully admire this sort stunning competence.
Miles Smith, Perdition. Potent.
Now: off to the Funeral Home.
Everything except language
knows the meaning of existence.
Trees, planets, rivers, time
know nothing else. They express it
moment by moment as the universe.
Even this fool of a body
lives it in part,
and would have full dignity within it
but for the ignorant freedom
of my talking mind.
(Murray, Les. New Selected Poems (p. 215). Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Kindle Edition.)
Tomorrow, we will bury my youngest brother, who died Tuesday. So it has been a busy and stressful week.
Jonathan’s life on earth was, by upper-middle class, first world standards, unusually afflicted, and he was not afraid of death. We, his surviving brothers, all practicing Christians of varying traditions (our parents did well), see God’s gracious hand in this in many ways.
If you do such things, pray for God’s servant, Jonathan, who has “fallen asleep” in hope of resurrection, though in his tradition he would have called it something else.
I sing in a serious semi-professional chorus. Rehearsals end at my desired bedtime, but serious singing requires some unwinding before bed, at least for me. Last night, it was 90 minutesworth, with two nightcaps.
I still bring something to the collective table (intonation and general musicality), but I’m not sure it’s worth the toll on my circadian rhythms any more.
Bias is having a rooting interest in a dispute. Propaganda is allowing your rooting interest to define your understanding of reality.
… Most mainstream media is biased; most right-wing media is propaganda.
For the third cycle in a row, the Democrats have been freed up to run a mostly substanceless campaign that boils down to “Vote for us so Trump will lose.”
These seem to be serious people having a serious disagreement, not just swapping bullshit and platitudes. It’s a habit most of us, myself included, could benefit by emulating.
I cannot recall a hurricane wreaking such devastation so far inland. The wondrous Earth site (H/T @Miraz ) actually showed the vortex of winds, usually seen only over water, well ashore.
No trips to Asheville or The Laughing Seed for a while, I guess.
The Senator Warning Democrats of a Crisis Unfolding Beneath Their Noses helped me understand why people would vote for Trump: they’re not trying to destroy; they think liberalism is already destroyed (or irrevocably failing) and they’re voting for one postliberal future. (No gift articles to give.)
On my smart phone, I can:
I am not evangelizing, but I am explaining why you’re not going to shame me out of my smart phone.
It’s surprising how little live TV there is to watch on Autumn Sunday afternoons in the USA if one is resolved not to watch teams of gladiators trying to inflict chronic traumatic encephalopathy on one another.
“This hasn’t happened in 40 years,” he said, referring to Walter Mondale, the Democrats’ 1984 nominee, who declined the dinner. The cardinal helpfully recalled the outcome: “He lost 49 out of 50 states. I don’t wanna say there’s a direct connection.”
Archbishop Timothy Dolan on Kamala Harris skipping the Al Smith Dinner (via Peggy Noonan)
54% of respondents in a Harris/Axios survey agreed with the statement, “I’ve disengaged from politics because I can’t tell what’s true.”
Via John Ellis
Apropos of some discussion going on among @ayjay @JohnBrady @ablerism @tinyroofnail , this interesting piece: Wheaton-to-Anglican Pipeline: Why Are Young People Turning Anglican? - Juicy Ecumenism
What got my attention was how utterly bereft of liturgy and tradition these arriving “Wheaties” are.