Finished reading Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time of Gifts. 📚
David Frum’s podcast with Peter Strzok, is outstanding, if only for laying to rest the idea that government can always be “efficient” by DOGE’s idiotic standards. E.g., the guy in the ICBM silo, reading paperback books most of his day, and never once in his career firing a missile.
I shudder whenever I see someone ask “Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?“
Nevertheless, a deep breath and once more into the breech.
[Passage of time.]
Well, that was the least cringe, most Orthodox, answer I’ve yet seen, but I’m starting to think it’s a lousy question.
Orthodox H: “Huh! John MacArthur died.”
Christian Reformed W: “Who’s that?”
Orthodox H: “He was a very big-deal evangelical preacher.”
Christian Reformed W: “I’m Reformed, not Evangelical.”
She stays in her own lane better than I ever have.
I’m not sure I had ever encountered the poem “Good Bones” before yesterday. I am better for having read it.
Well! @millinerd has visited the Holy Mountain, which prompted some reflections (especially about icons).
Put Not Your Trust in Princes
[T]he Trump administration’s decision to bury the Epstein story is one of the biggest Mask-Off moments in history. Americans’ confidence in our government or our democratic process may ever recover.
And that’s okay.
Trump is not our populist messiah. He is our final, most painful lesson in the dangers of political messianism. “Do not put your trust in princes,” King David warned, “nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help” (Psalm 146:3).
In many ways, this is a tremendously liberating moment. The system is rigged; there’s no doubt about that. We can’t beat this system. All we can do is wait for it to collapse.
Put Not Your Trust in Princes (likely paywall, but an outstanding little piece).
Some video editor with too much time on his hands has made a impressive mash-up. I recognize Ray Charles. I see signs that the shirtless ones may be Van Halen. Van Charles - “Hit the Bottoms Jack” - YouTube (H/T Andrew Sullivan)
Religion Clause: Bishops Excuse Those Who Fear ICE Raids from Attending Mass
Like Home Depot parking lots, Catholic Churches are low-hanging fruit for the goons who promised a million deportations in 2025, and who can’t do it if they’re too particular about how.
I nominate Ross Douthat for the Nobel Prophecy Prize:
If you dislike the religious right, wait till you meet the post-religious right.
I read obituaries for several different reasons. Some of them are for colorful characters I didn’t know about. Julian Heicklen, a “Cantakerous Civil Liberties Advocate,” for instance. (Shared link)
Wife went to Amazon’s “Haul” page (super-discounts), and the first item was a nose-piercer for $5.
A potent reminder that it’s not really a bargain if you don’t need it.
Appropriate Role for AI:
- AI should be viewed as a tool that assists human judgment rather than replacing it.
- It can help process information, identify patterns, and generate options.
- But it cannot replace the nuanced human work of managing values, trade-offs, and uncertainty.
Partial summary WSJ
I surf an awful lot of news and commentary every morning. After a few weeks’ use, I can recommend the Voilà browser extension, which provides very good AI summaries of articles where writerly art is unimportant to me. It has been a delightful timesaver.
Reading Ephraim Radner, Mortal Goods. 📚
After his introduction, I’m wondering how he stretches his worthy point to so many pages and words. I shall see.
*Christianity Today* reports that the Trump Administration is targeting Iranian Christian migrants for deportation
Christianity Today reports that the Trump Administration is targeting Iranian Christian migrants for deportation …
If deported back to their country of origin, Iranian Christians face severe persecution at the hands of Iran’s radical Islamist theocracy. That persecution has actually intensified in recent years, and includes criminalization of the promotion Christianity, and severe punishments for Christians considered to be “apostates” from Islam. This persecution makes Iranian Christians obvious candidates for asylum or refugee status (for which applicants are eligible based on persecution on the basis of religion, among other possible criteria). At the very least, those who have filed such applications must not be deported until those applications have gotten proper consideration.
I’m old enough to remember a time when conservative Republicans saw themselves as defending Christians against radical Islamism. Today, a GOP administration wants to deport Christians to persecution by a radical Islamist regime. The only people Trump considers worthy of refugee status seem to be white Afrikaner South Africans. While they may have a plausible case (and I don’t oppose admitting them), that of Iranian Christians - and many other severely oppressed groups - is much stronger.
…
People who genuinely oppose socialism and radical Islamism would not close the doors against those regime’s victims. Doing so is both unjust and harmful to the US economy (to which these immigrants contribute) and to America’s struggle in the international war of ideas against these regimes. It’s hard to credibly tell people we are better than these brutal despots when we callously deport their victims back to them, thereby facilitating the very oppression we claim to oppose.
Finished Philip Sherrard, The Greek East and the Latin West. 📚
@JohnBrady I loved it and recommend it, though there were a couple of chapters I read with eyes glazed over: Plato versus Aristotle and, later, some guy named Plethon.
Other chapters full of surprises and nuances I’ve long missed.
Is Alexandra Petri always this good at satire?
I guess I’ll give Cooper Flagg a pass for not being able plausibly to wear a suit and tie, though I was doing that long before I was 18.