Bungalow Bill

“I got diagnosed with PTSD within 48 hours. I got put on trauma leave, not because I think of the shooting, but because you could — you saw it in the eyes, the reaction of the people. They were coming for us,” MacFarlane continued to quiver. “If he didn’t jump up with his fist, they were going to come kill us.” CBS Reporter Scott MacFarlane about being present at the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.

The Beatles were on this years ago.

The children asked him if to kill was not a sin

"Not when he looked so fierce" his Mummy butted in

"If looks could kill it would have been us instead of him."

 

In War (or Even Political Argument)

As regards his more general attitude to the war, you must not rely too much on those feelings of hatred which the humans are so fond of discussing in Christian, or anti-Christian, periodicals. In his anguish, the patient can, of course, be encouraged to revenge himself by some vindictive feelings directed towards the German leaders, and that is good so far as it goes. But it is usually a sort of melodramatic or mythical hatred directed against imaginary scapegoats. He has never met these people in real life—they are lay figures modeled on what he gets from newspapers. The results of such fanciful hatred are often most disappointing.  (C. S. Lewis The Screwtape Letters, Ch 6) (Italics mine)

Now let the names drift by you. 

Trump...Putin...Biden...Khamenei...Zelenskyy...Netanyahu...Starmer...Musk...Harris...

Thompson, blog

I haven't been over to David Thompson's site for months, and the first entry did not disappoint.  He rescued some impressive bits from the archives.

Feeling Puckish

Is quilting an art or a craft?

What do you think the gender breakdown would be on the answer? 

Linear Pottery Culture (LBK)

 

"The LBK might be named after it's pottery, but they'd be better-defined by their buildings."

I had not run into this prehistory channel before, but have liked the other offerings I have tried as well. Dan Davis History. 

The "1939 Project?"

I had not heard of this, not even informally with no name. I have heard rumblings, and throughout my postliberal days have run into anti-Israel conservatives. But this new development is alarming.   

I will make some distinctions right off the bat, because this is an area where people of good will might misunderstand each other, largely because people who are not of good will are shoving them into corners. There is an entirely reasonable point of view that says Israel is one nation among many, whose objectives sometimes coincide with ours and sometimes do not, but American policy favors them more than is strictly necessary for our own interests. My objection to this is not to the idea itself, but to the reality of listening to a large percentage of these people who rapidly reveal that there's something they just don't like about Jews. Whether they are lying to themselves or to me is not something I am going to get into here, I only note that it shows up in surprising places. 

The first clue is they regard those who disagree with them as having been bamboozled by Jewish interests, by Jewish media influence and Jewish propaganda. Whatever facts you counter with, they remain convinced that no rational person could want America to favor Israel's position in the Middle-East unless they had been tricked.  It becomes a circular argument, where every point is dismissed because its source is poisoned, and we know the source is poisoned because their facts are wrong. There are sites on my sidebar that have regular commenters who believe this.

Let me assure you that if your default is to regard me as someone who has been fooled you are going to have to marshal a good deal of evidence on the point, not merely accuse me smugly. There is an evangelical/fundamentalist core of support for Israel that is founded on end-times and prophecy theologies, that Israel is about to become the center of the final conflict and we had best be on the side of God's Chosen.  One can disagree with that theology, but it wasn't given to them by Jews.  In fact, lots of Jews are uncomfortable with it. It is also counterbalanced by an opposing tradition of antisemitism among American evangelicals and fundamentalists.  Think Jimmy Carter.

As for media influence, American Jews have had a lot of intelligent writers.  It's called persuasion. If you think their persuasion is overrepresented in media, then write your own counterpersuasion, don't just accuse me of having been fooled or not seeing the obvious reality. It may just be uncomfortable for you to acknowledge that your arguments just aren't that good.  The pro-Israel Americans assert that they are deserving of our allegiance because they are the most stable, reasonable, and Western nation in the Middle-East. The counter is often that they aren't that great, they are deceptive with us at times, and there are other considerations, such as oil, positioning, territory, and waterways that should influence us to favor other nations at times on a case-by-case basis.

If Israel were in the middle of Europe I would say that is spot on. The French or Italians sometimes deceive us, or each other, and we them. Nations do not always play straight with each other and we balance that in our considerations.  But Israel does not border Switzerland.  It sits among tribal, aggressive low-IQ nations that found oil and have shipping lanes. This is not a tirade against Islam, BTW.  I think that area remains essentially tribal and Islam has had some unifying moral effect. However, there is still too much shame culture that it's not wrong if you don't get caught and loyalty to clan transcends any permanent moral claim. A lot of the 70's evangelicals who became pro-Israel because of Hal Lindsey remained pro-Israel because their basic sense of of decency and fair play was activated when they paid attention. 

I will again say that if you are one who says "But it's gone too far.  Israel does terrible things as well and its enemies have some valid complaints," then we can weigh one thing against another in our discussion of American interests.  You might move me to your point of view and remind me of things I should have remembered.  Make your case. Just be ready for the counter that your own arguments sometimes betray more of your real intent than you are willing to admit. The door swings both ways.

The Icelandic Phallological Museum

The promotional video has only women in the museum, often giggling. It's a serious scientific endeavor, though.

Car Talk

Just for nostalgia. Both these guys went to MIT, and their first business was creating a space with tools where you could come in and work on your own car for a fee. That is very useful in the city.

 

 Is this real, or is this an excellent storyteller?  Either way.

Negotiations

 I still read DeepNewz and prefer it. Every time I go to the page I see more about Trump threatening to do A or B, interspersed with stories that he is now willing to negotiate C and D. The complaints that one day he says this thing and the next day he says that seem to fundamentally misunderstand that this is all part of the negotiation. 

He likes negotiating.  He is sure he is very good at it.  Is he very good at it? We will never know until later. But do not look at this as a strategy on his part so much as something he just likes doing, and so easily talks himself into the idea that he is good at it.  Obama had something similar: he liked getting everyone together so that he could listen to them all and then make a decision.  If people didn't go along, he made them do it anyway, by any means necessary.  In his mind they had their say and now it was his turn - even when other branches of government had a role, he didn't care. But it wasn't a strategy on his part as much as he just liked it. He liked getting everyone together to talk, then going off and doing what he damn well pleased.

George Bush thought he could reason with everyone.  Was he good at it? Meh.  Sometimes. But the point is that he liked trying to solve problems by reasoning with people. You can have a try at every president on this. Reagan liked persuading people with the golden generalisation. Clinton liked giving the person in front of him what they wanted and tricking his way out of the contradictions.  I don't know what Biden liked doing, other than getting up and talking about things and taking credit while other people did the work.  I think he was like that before becoming demented. The dementia just accentuated it. You might have different descriptions of what all of them did, and your assessments might be better than mine.

But today's insight is that these things are strategies primarily because the presidents are comfortable solving things a particular way and feel on weaker ground doing it any other way.  They are going to go back to what they believe is their strong suit.  At this point in their career, whether they succeed or fail at that method doesn't matter to them very much.  They will revert to form. 

Reunions

Brief observation from back-to-back reunions: when people are asked to give a summary of what they have done, it is further schooling, careers, (current) spouses, and number of children, in no particular order. When you speak with them live, it is children, where do you live now, and "do you remember?" Careers were seldom mentioned at one, not at all at the other.

Who Knows Where The Time Goes

 

I had completely forgotten that it was Sandy Denny who wrote this.  A female singer at my college mentioned it when she sang it herself one night at Uncle Morris Coffee House.  I thought it was very cool that the Fairport Convention girl had written it, and filed it away for later - like 52 years later.

Armenian Script Revisited

I went back to the cemetery for unrelated reasons and but took the time to locate the headstone with Armenian Script again. There were Armenian names on the surrounding stones, but nothing on the back of the one I saw.  However, lying flat behind the stone and to the left was this stone

So it was a T, not an R.  I had only said vowels, not diphthongs for letters 2, 3, 5, & 6, but if you had forced me to choose I would have said I, not O, which looked too impossible, so I evaded the issue. So... Tootoonjian, Charles M 1858-1933. There are some Tootoonjians in NH who look to be one and two generations later, and two in Massachusetts as well. There are Tutunjians on Long Island who may have simply had a different recorder at Ellis Island or something. If I remember it while I am the city library sometime, I will look them up and see the street addresses for the three. I am betting it will be South Manchester. 

For those who like this sort of old Manchester history, Charles is not far from Milton and Plato Canotas, who started the Puritan restaurants, some of the centers of old Manchester culture, and still prominent, even though I never run into people there like I used to.  

Empathy Revisited

It seems to be the flavor of the month, or perhaps the season, on the internet at present. As disagreements often are, this is about the meaning of words. When people are coming out against "empathy," they are not coming out against compassion, but they are being treated as such. It may even be true of some of the accused - there are still some social darwinists among us.

I can't tell you what everyone means.  I can tell you what I mean.  Empathy is dangerous because it is an imitation of compassion and generosity. Putting yourself in another chap's shoes might be a spur to helping him, and expressing your understanding to him might help him to feel less isolated and forgotten. Those are good things. But just feeling someone else's feelings is not actual help. For one thing, you may have it wrong.  You may think you understand when you actually don't. I am remembering the anti-war people who identified with the Middle-easterners hating Bush (or whoever) because they hated him too. Except Americans like Michael Moore hated him for unrelated reasons of their own, that the Middle-easterners were barely aware of.  He empathised, but it was false.

Then also, what if the material help is never produced? What if empathy just stops at the feeling? James 2:16 You shouldn't just say, "I hope all goes well for you. I hope you will be warm and have plenty to eat." What good is it to say this, unless you do something to help? Those I hear insisting on empathy seem also to be insisting that this must mean political response they prefer, else you are no Christian. Does that seem an unfair accusation, that I think that might happen?  It already has happened. A lot of energy from one side of that argument is spent in loudly condemning the other side as heartless and uncharitable. "You saw me hungry and naked, and cold, yet you did nothing." "But Lord!  Didn't we tell those others that they were hypocrites?  Didn't we tell 'em and tell 'em and tell 'em at the top of our voices that they were unworthy of you?"  "Yes, but they gave more than you. You spent your energy on self-righteousness."

There are those who will argue that private charity is not enough, we must influence those we can to behave toward the poor as they should, because it feeds more people.  It is more efficient. That is not a terrible argument, and I have some sympathy with it.  Justice in a land is important. Forced generosity and mercy is a bit trickier, as it involves giving away other people's treasure (like citizenship, a not inconsiderable treasure that belongs to the people to bestow). Yet even that might be worked around, compromised on, hammered out among those who disagree. I admire efficiency, and I admire us all be in this together. Yet if you are so big on the bare fact o feeding more people, isn't the free market the best engine we have yet discovered? It is imperfect and always will be, but is anything its match? The countries that have robust safety nets, such as the Scandinavians, are not especially socialist in all things. They make their money with strong work-ethic capitalism abroad and distribute that to their cousins back home. 

Balancing that can be a fruitful discussion. Bring it on. The US is already quite redistributative. How to target that, modify that, improve that is on the table. But if one side cannot acknowledge any good on the other side - and I have heard that in Sunday School classes and private conversations, it's not just the most extreme people on Instagram or YouTube - then they are clearly interested in something other than helping the poor. I think I know what that is, but leave that off for the moment. It is enough to point out that the phenomenon is there. If you reject some proven solutions out of hand, then something other that fixing things is your primary objective. 

Empathy is a way of convincing ourselves that feeling good is enough, because it focuses on what we feel, not what the other person needs.
 

The Undercurrent

Natasha Burge writes at The Undercurrent on Substack.  I liked this as it went by on a feed and went over to read her.  She seems to be a British Catholic feminist writer in her 30s with a PhD who describes herself as a rogue academic currently living in Saudi Arabia. I liked her stuff 

 

I Can't Grow Peaches On A Cherry Tree

 I have sung this one to myself for many years.

 

Recent Links

 The Return of Trade-Offs. Not just in economics.  Trade-offs apply in everything. Also, you can't always fix things.  Trading up is sometimes the best you can do.  And that's fine.

Mass democracy does not create prosperity. In each case, political liberalization came only after state institutions had been established, the economy had become diversified and a broad middle class had emerged. Democracy was not the engine of development. It was the outcome. Something similar happened with gun laws. Europe's homicide rate declined long before the restrictive gun measures came in. 

 Everything is Palestine to the European left.

Physics demonstrates that increasing greenhouse gases cannot cause dangerous warming, extreme weather, or any harm.   Lindzen of MIT has been saying this for years, Happer of Princeton I had not heard of.  I don't have the chops to tell you whether they are completely right, partly right, marginally right, or complete cranks. I only point out that they exist, they have excellent credentials, and to my generalist brain their arguments seems coherent. Related: We can't really think in climate scale, but we talk as if we do.