Hoosier MAGA ghouls have taken to SWATting Republican State Senators who declined to redistrict the state. Four instances and counting ….

Local TV News says it’s National Utility Scam Awareness Day, but my wife didn’t get me a card.

Confession: I cannot listen to a good performance of Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms without weeping repeatedly.

Corollary: It’s unusually hard for me to sing Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms (which I’ve done a few times and hope to do at least once more).

Ruth Graham is a very solid religionbeat journalist, and she hits few of the tripwires most journalists stumble over when reporting on religious topics: Orthodox Church Pews Are Overflowing With Converts (gift link).

(Matthew Heimbach moved to a pseudo-Orthodox group, not “another branch.”)

So far as I can tell, I’m the first to identify one of Tucker’s obsessions with the specific heresy of Marcionism. I float it here since I know that there are some smart people who’ve studied theology formally who can set me straight if I’m just off on a stupid tangent.

More reasons why James Comey is gonna walk.

Today, I have confirmed by looking at a 1997 calendar, is exactly the 28th anniversary of my reception into Orthodox Christianity.

Indiana will NOT be gerrymadering its Congressional Districts this year. The Senate President Pro Tem counted noses and there’s not enough support among Republicans in that house, so they won’t even come back for a Special Session.

Kinda sorta proud to be a Hoosier today.

Reading Thomas Sowell, A Conflict of Visions. 📚 H/T Shilo Brooks’ Old School podcast for calling it to my attention. I read Sowell’s columns for years, but never before picked up one of his books.

Finished Giuliano da Empoli, The Wizard of the Kremlin. 📚Recommended (I gave it 5 stars), though it’s hard to say just why.

Yes, it’s paywalled, but Damon Linker’s The Intellectual Right Goes to War (with Itself) helps clarify what’s going on with “conservatives” in the U.S. today.

Got a chuckle out of this.

Fr. Stephen Freeman speaks slowly, with a Tennessee drawl, and he writes simply.

But don’t underestimate him. He’s smart (ThM, Duke Divinity). He’s penetrating.

His latest strikes me as a succinct Orthodox apologetic, complete with illustrations and contrasts. The Abbreviated God

That Rastafarian who got his head shaved by rogue jailers?

It isn’t before SCOTUS to decide whether that was wrong. It’s more like deciding whether the courts can imply a cause of action for money damages for him and others who suffer such wrongs. No such cause of action appears in the statute.

I saw a news item claiming that SCOTUS was “debating” whether to take a case to reverse same-sex marriage. I’ll bet this rejection of that case was 9-0 with little debate.

SCOTUS doesn’t debate about unjust 6-figure verdicts, even if Chicken Little fancies they do.

When I saw a local obituary with a photo of the decedent next to a dead bear and the archery tools he took the bear with, I thought he was a macho jerk.

Then I read in the obit that he was born with Spina Bifida, used a wheelchair, ran a prosthetics business, etc..

Context matters. I’m the jerk.

Reading Giuliano da Empoli, The Wizard of the Kremlin. 📚

Finished Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul. 📚 I’m glad I don’t have to be young, undisciplined and directionless again.

The Sierra Club Embraced Social Justice. Then It Tore Itself Apart. - The New York Times (gift link).

The problem is pretty clear, yet leadership persists in its folly.

There was a time I’d have felt schadenfreude over a story like this. But:

1. My wife and I were members of Sierra Club for a number of years early in our marriage.
2. We can ill afford the self-destruction of liberal-coded institutions when there’s a formidable and seemingly cohesive MAGA movement.

Just as we need (at least) two healthy political parties (currently we have zero), so do we need healthy parapolitical institutions of various stripes.

I review this once a month. Then I relapse. Wash, rinse, repeat.

There are excuses for why this happens, but they don’t really excuse anything.

How should we live?

1. First, live as though in the coming of Jesus Christ, the Kingdom of God has been inaugurated into the world and the outcome of history has already been determined. (Quit worrying)
2. Second, love people as the very image of God and resist the temptation to improve them.
3. Third, refuse to make economics the basis of your life. Your job is not even of secondary importance.
4. Fourth, quit arguing about politics as though the political realm were the answer to the world’s problems. It gives it power that is not legitimate and enables a project that is anti-God.
5. Fifth, learn to love your enemies. God did not place them in the world for us to fix or eliminate. If possible, refrain from violence.
6. Sixth, raise the taking of human life to a matter of prime importance and refuse to accept violence as a means to peace. Every single life is a vast and irreplaceable treasure.
7. Seventh, cultivate contentment rather than pleasure. It will help you consume less and free you from slavery to your economic masters.
8. Eighth, as much as possible, think small. You are not in charge of the world. Love what is local, at hand, personal, intimate, unique, and natural. It’s a preference that matters.
9. Ninth, learn another language. Very few things are better at teaching you about who you are not.
10. Tenth, be thankful for everything, remembering that the world we live in and everything in it belongs to God.

(Fr. Stephen Freeman)

Saturday, 11/8/25 – Tipsy Teetotaler ن. Some public affairs, some culture, and some humor.

When I was given 4 Apple Air Tags for Christmas, they sat in the drawer (albeit a drawer I open and look in regularly) for a very long time until I figured out how I could use them to good effect.

Ditto with Kasa SmartPlugs. Given these, I froze. When I finally used them, it was easy and I’m very happy to have, in effect, timers that know when days are getting longer, when shorter. This week, I added this to control landscape lighting (the electrician-installed photocell was leaving them on all the time).

So: I recommend Kasa SmartPlugs if you’re looking to dip your toes in IoT or in having better timers than the old mechanical ones. (I schedule them through an app, not Alexa or Siri.)

David Brooks, Imagining What’s in Trump’s Brain (gift link).

In case there’s any doubt, I’m a card-carrying member of the “venomous coalition.”

Or something like that. I very briefy feel envy for those pundits whose Discord and Chat groups have all been re-named “Venomous Coalition.”

Kevin Roberts’ defiant defense of (and carte blanche to) Tucker Carlson seems to have gone over poorly with his own subordinates at the Heritage Foundation.

Heritage, formerly reputable, still is too MAGA for me, but Roberts’ forced apology is progress.