Now let me begin by saying that we must draw a distinction between being happy about Trump and being Trump Happy. If I had thought that a scheduled surgery tomorrow was going to take my right leg off above the knee, and the doctor came in to announce a change of plans, meaning that he …
Code of the Salty Dog
Introduction: So you may consider this a quick round-up of my thoughts thus far in the aftermath of a very weird election, and my medium-warm hot take on how the presidential transition is going. But quite apart from how it might actually be going, I do have to say that I am enjoying the transition …
Hypocrisy on Stilts and Steroids
So then, Fidel Castro, fixture of my Cold War childhood, has now gone where Manhattan elites can do nothing whatever for his reputation. St. Peter does not take the Times. At least not anymore. Viewed from any conceivable angle, that man was a murderous thug and a one-man poverty-dispensing F5 tornado. And the reality that …
Not How the Game Is Played
I would like to propose a toast to the Electoral College, one of the very best things the Founders put in the Constitution. Not only so, but in order to amend the Constitution, it would require the consent of all the states that would be promptly disenfranchised by the move. What this means is that …
Babylon and the Bolshevik Buttercups
People divide up in two different ways. One way is when they differ on the substance of the debate—shall we go to war or shall we not? Shall we raise the minimum wage or shall we not? Shall we pursue an aggressive campaign against climate change or shall we not? Shall we appropriate big-time federal …
Viewing the Game Film
The morning after the Clinton Debacle appeared among us, I was walking somewhere in our little town. The sun was shining, and everything was bright and calm. Our little town is divided, but as the primaries here in Idaho showed, it was more of a Sanders/Cruz divide than it was a Clinton/Trump divide. In the …
On Kicking the Can’t Down the Road
I was not surprised at the election of Donald Trump. I was actually expecting that. Neither was I surprised at the decisiveness of his win in Electoral College terms. I was expecting that also. And neither was I surprised that my preferences remained in place—I knew that I would much rather have Trump in the …
Trumpsit. Golly.
Introduction: So a number of officio-pundits are gobsmacked, flummoxed, pole-axed, and otherwise discomfited. Brexit. The Cubs. And now this. What a year. My initial reactions run along the lines of jumping Jehoshaphat, land of Goshen, and oh, my stars and garters. But let me make a number of other snapshot observations, perhaps a tad more …
Hunker Down, Everybody
Introduction: Yesterday I exhorted the saints at Christ Church to remember their down ballot duties. I did not mention any specific candidates or issues there because worship is not the place for partisan politics. But it is a place for God’s people to be reminded that their presence in this society is inescapably political. And …
The Night of the Rude Post-It Notes
Introduction: Satire is now almost officially dead, because anything one in the satire line might make up in order to paint a little bit purple will be discovered, almost immediately, to be something that was seriously proposed within the last 48 hours by some leading and well-respected pointy-head. I have therefore decided, in an attempt …