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.

I don’t intend to go on about politics all day, but for someone who’s not a Democrat I’m feeling suspiciously lighthearted this morning.

Generally speaking, on the morning after the party in power in the White House suffers defeats across the board in state and local elections, elected officials of the president’s party seek to “distance” themselves from the president or make plain their “disagreements” with parts of the president’s “agenda.” We will see some of this.

What is different about this particular set of circumstances is the Trump White House expects and demands total loyalty to and compliance with Mr. Trump’s “agenda.” The Trump White House (meaning Mr. Trump himself) will threaten to punish those who waver. He will be eager to do so immediately, to intimidate others who might be (or are) wavering.

This will cause significant stress for the Republican leadership in Congress and GOP officer-holders across the country. They may think distance is necessary for survival (especially in purple-ish states and Congressional districts). They fear retribution. At some point, they will have to choose.

John Ellis New Items.

(This is especially noteworthy because (a) Ellis rarely editorializes on news items and (b) he is kin to the Bush family, with deep GOP roots.)

Those Democrat blowouts yesterday should give GOP redistrictors pause: the only way you create more GOP districts is by trimming the GOP margin in current safe districts. When the political winds are against you, you could easily see net losses in Congress.

Resolved: That my next book will be a re-read of this underrated gem:

America has … become less traditionally Christian across the last half century … But certain kinds of religious faith are as influential as ever … [T]o the extent that there’s an ongoing crisis in American culture, the excesses of the faithful probably matter more than the sins of unbelievers.

…

For all its piety and fervor, today’s United States needs to be recognized for what it really is: not a Christian country, but a nation of heretics.

Ross Douthat, Bad Religion

Sunday, November 2 – Tipsy Teetotaler ن

DST: Stayed up late for a Charity fundraiser and unwinding thereafter. Woke up according to when my biological clock said to.

Silver lining: an unusually relaxed Sunday morning schedule before Church duties.

Dissenting opinion: I’m more worried about an AI crash than I am about demonic super-intelligences (not that I make promiscuous use of it, or any use at all for personal advice).

Quantity is a quality of its own.

Shyam Sankar, CTO of Palantir, on the United States advantage in WW II. German stuff was engineered better, but we made up for it with more stuff, much more stuff.

(Via Ross Douthat’s Interesting Times podcast) (Gift link)

It’s the end of the month and I haven’t shared 10 New York Times articles yet this month. Fortunately, I’ve got a good one: David Brooks, Hey, Lefties! Trump Has Stolen Your Game

I couldn’t help but notice that the cost of the newly-completed largest Orthodox Cathedral in the world was less than the projected cost of the new White House ballroom. (The gold in the cathedral is more tasteful, too.)

Abandoned Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow. 📚I took no pleasure therein.

Reading Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul. Love it so far.

Pro Tip: If you start your unsolicited text to me with “‼️ URGENT‼️Woke Liberals in California …”, I’m likely to read it and (a) send no money and (b) do the opposite if I do anything at all.

It grieves me that we now have Lying Lawyers dominating the Department of Justice.