All favorite Olympic events now scheduled to be recorded (i.e., added to my library) by YouTube TV.
I fear that not many on MB will remember the First Family Album, volumes I & II. I can still recite parts by heart. Bob Booker, Whose J.F.K. Parody Was a Runaway Hit, Dies at 92 - The New York Times
I feel pretty good about abandoning Facebook and Twitter some years ago. But there’s something else I think I should abandon.
Andrew Sullivan on the “smooth, well-crafted, confidence-boosting, feel-good convention”:
Every conservative erogenous zone was fluffed: the victims of crime by illegal immigrants, World War II vets, UFC, and MaMaw with her 19 hidden handguns.
Counter-idolatry, wherein I, the Tipsy Teetotaler, attempt a contrary spin on America’s favorite hobby this week: pop theodicy.
Are political parties subject to antitrust laws?
If not, I’d like them to collude to eliminate primary elections and return to smoke-filled rooms selecting candidates with broad appeal and demonstrated ability to govern.
Neither party has the nerve to be the first to do that.
Surly, you're a heck of a butterfly
- 2016, a liberal reader of Rod Dreher’s blog, “Surly,” excitedly gifted Rod a Kindle version of Hillbilly Elegy.
- Rod got excited reading it and interviewed the author for the American Conservative.
- The interview went viral. Servers crashed. Everyone wanted a piece of J.D. Vance. Hillbilly Elegy sold 3 million copies. Ron Howard made a movie of it.
- Now it appears that we’re all going to get a piece of J.D. Vance, good and hard.
- Rod Dreher is now a friend of our likely VP, and indeed “made him” in a sense.
Niche humor: Amazon announces Orthodox Prime Day
Do we have ears to hear this?
The late Fr. Thomas Hopko wrote 55 Maxims for the Christian Life.
One at which I utterly fail again and again is “Flee … figuring things out”.
It’s likely that I’ll never have anything worthwhile to say about attempted assassination, but this is too amazing not to share: NYT photographer’s photo of a bullet whizzing past Donald Trump’s head, with accompanying story, photo metadata (shutterspeed, for instance).
Trump shot, ear grazed, at Pennsylvania rally. Network talking heads predictably said everything intelligent they had to say in the first 5 minutes, then started vamping the journalistic equivalent of scat.
Ross Douthat has a typically thoughtful column, suggesting that the revealed preference of the Democratic Party belies the “existential threat” rhetoric. (Unlocked article link)
Reading Jack F. Matlock, Autopsy on an Empire. 📚I waited until I was far enough into this doorstop to be sure I wanted to finish it.
I was lousy at history as a kid. Now I can’t get enough.
Well, Guénon was fun! Here’s one that challenges my conceit that I can be a disinterested observer of my society. And in some ways, it clashes with yesterday’s provocation from René Guénon; just as we can’t escape individualism, we can’t escape cultural Christianity.
Rather than befoul MB with a lot of political negativity, I post it elsewhere.
Four new items today. I’d say “carefully curated,” but that’s not true. It’s more “Ooooo! Good zinger! Too good not to share with the cosmos!”
Finished Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf. 📚 Much more rewarding that whatever-the-heck version they assigned in high school 60 years ago.
I watched this afternoon’s WNBA game because of Caitlyn Clark, and was well-rewarded (she got a triple-double — first ever for a WNBA rookie — in a Fever upset.). I realize that in some ways I prefer WNBA to NBA: it’s just enough slower and a lot more relatable (the NBA players do things at a blur).
If you are uneasy about IVF, as am I, you may benefit from reading this brief against it on ecumenical Christian grounds.