Evangelical Wokeness

Sohrab Ahmari is the op-ed editor of the New York Post. Writing at UnHerd.com, he makes keen observations about the pestilential phenomenon of "wokeness."

It’s hard to deny the religious characteristics of wokeness. The woke have their own liturgies .... They believe in original sin (slavery, colonialism) and exalt themselves as a sort of secular Elect and excommunicate heretics (cancel culture). They’ve built a hieratic structure, composed of high priests (the UCLA critical theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw, say), popular preachers (Ibram X. Kendi, Robin DiAngelo) and ordinary pastors (your workplace diversity consultants). And because theirs is a messianic faith, they are hellbent on imposing it on the rest of us.

A famous New Yorker cartoon caption captures my view of wokeness, "I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it."

An Endorsement

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has officially endorsed Harriet Hageman in the Republican primary in Wyoming. Hageman seeks to replace the current incumbent, Liz Cheney, who voted for Trump's impeachment and is serving on Speaker Pelosi's Jan. 6 witch-hunt committee. The Daily Mail (U.K.) has the story. 

Former President Trump has already endorsed Hageman. House Minority Leader McCarthy is one of the two most highly placed Republicans in Congress, the other being Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). 

I'd guess we shouldn't hold our collective breath awaiting McConnell's endorsement of Hageman. It could happen but McConnell has spoken against the Republican National Committee's censure of Cheney.

Afterthought:  I doubt that endorsements carry a lot of weight with Wyoming voters.

Cruising During Covid

The DrsC have done dozens of cruises, both as paying passengers and as on-board lecturers. We haven’t done any since the Covid-19 pandemic began and I’ve wondered if we will ever go again.

Blogging at PJ Media, Ed Driscoll describes a Royal Caribbean cruise he and his wife took recently. It was likely of a week’s duration, typical for that cruise line. His description doesn’t make it sound particularly inviting, a mixture of normal cruise ship health cautions, pandemic ‘theater,’ and bureaucratic BS. 

We have a U.S. river cruise on the Mississippi booked for this October, postponed from last October, and we may cancel it. Getting sick was too easy on shipboard before the pandemic, I can’t imagine the situation has improved since.

When Friends Fight

Regular COTTonLINE readers know I follow the bloggers at Power Line and often, but not always, enjoy their viewpoints and their access to behind-paywall material I’m too cheap to pay for. Now two of the four fellows who post there - Steven Hayward and Paul Mirengoff - are angry with each other.

Apparently Mirengoff taking a dim view of someone Hayward really thinks is great was the camel’s-back-breaking issue, as seen in posts here and here. I guess commenters to the site are taking sides, I won’t do that here (or there). 

I have found contributions by both Hayward and Mirengoff useful on many occasions, and I agree with neither 100% of the time. I don’t share Mirengoff’s interest in soccer or baseball and unlike Hayward I have never tasted a whiskey I like. I’d hope that both can agree to disagree and keep doing their own things as before. 

The essence of the First Amendment is that people with whom we don’t agree nevertheless have a right to have their say. I’d estimate the two agree on most political issues but find those few points of disagreement very irritating. Since they live roughly 3000 miles apart, it shouldn’t be too difficult to operate in parallel without interacting.

BTW, my title for this post is an exaggeration, I am personally acquainted with none of the four but feel I somewhat know them having read their thoughts more or less daily for years.

Weird Psychopharmacological Science

Instapundit links to a Medical Express report of research at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine which found that treatment with psilocybin, the active ingredient in "magic mushrooms," is efficacious for those suffering from depression.

Previous studies by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers showed that psychedelic treatment with psilocybin relieved major depressive disorder symptoms in adults for up to a month. Now, in a follow-up study of those participants, the researchers report that the substantial antidepressant effects of psilocybin-assisted therapy, given with supportive psychotherapy, may last at least a year for some patients. 

A report on the new study was published on Feb. 15, 2022 in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

Good news for those with the can't-shake-'em blues. Sufferers are cautioned not to attempt such treatment in unsupervised, non-clinical settings.

Afterthought:  I have long believed a substantial portion of street drug usage is the result of psychiatrically hurting people self-medicating to either reduce mental chaos or achieve temporary oblivion. Maybe a few have inadvertently stumbled across an actual long-term palliative.

Status Update

We've not wintered over in the desert before this year, though we have RVed in Palm Desert and AZ in those months. Yesterday here in eastern Nevada we made a midday grocery run in short sleeves and were comfortable. 

N = 1 is too small a sample from which to generalize, but at least this year what passes for 'winter' here on the eastern edge of the Mojave was the months of Dec. and Jan. Even then, except when the wind was blowing hard, a long-sleeved denim overshirt was all that was needed. 

Meanwhile, this webcam photo shows what it looks like today at home in WY.

It is definitely worth the hassle of changing residences twice a year to avoid that much winter and the 110℉ summers in NV.

Ukraine Update

As we noted here earlier, there were predictions of war in Ukraine starting as soon as today. As I write this, it is already early evening in Eastern Europe and no invasion has been reported. 

The Beijing Winter Olympics concludes in four days, on the 20th. Some have speculated Russia would not want to steal ally China's spotlight by attacking during the Olympics.

If by the 22nd or 23rd there has been no attack I would judge the odds begin to shift in favor of a continued cold peace, in effect a Russian stand-down. We'll see what happens.

P. J. O’Rourke … RIP

A great American humorist - P. J. O’Rourke - has died, at age 74. The loss to American conservatism is hard to overstate. 

O’Rourke’s columns wrapping up our nation’s absurdities in each of the last several years were gems. At Power Line, Scott Johnson quotes a favorite O’Rourke put-down of American progressivism, of which he wrote:

Let us all salute (and be sensitive to the needs of) the shiftless, the feckless, the senseless, the worthwhileness-impaired, the decency-challenged, and the differently moraled. And hello to their leaders — progressive, committed, and filled to the nose holes with enormous esteem for themselves.

If those words don’t remind you of Mark Twain and H. L. Mencken, of their shared disdain for the ass-hats who elect to screw up their own lives and the bleeding hearts who celebrate and enable that folly, you haven’t been paying attention.

If It Can Happen in SF....

Voting today, the citizens of San Francisco have recalled the three members of their 7 member school board who were eligible for recall. The three losing their jobs are Alison Collins, Gabriela López and Faauuga Moliga.

It wasn't at all close, in each case more than 70% voted for ouster. The anti-woke parent revolt we saw first in the Virginia races is alive and well on the Left Coast. 

Some have designated the school board recall in SF as the year's most important election, happening as it does in a deep blue jurisdiction. I expect Republicans running in November to lean hard and often on the issue of dysfunctionally woke public schools.

Remembering Selket

From 1976 to 1978 we were living temporarily in a Maryland suburb of DC. I was doing a visiting stint as a government internal consultant, on loan from my university. Meanwhile my dear lady was doing PhD coursework at U. of  Maryland.

At that time there was a traveling display of King Tut's tomb artifacts at the Smithsonian we wished to see but the lines were notoriously long and tedious. On a Super Bowl Sunday like today we took a chance nearly everyone was watching the game, went and the wait was only a few minutes.

I write as this year's game is being played in Los Angeles and once again I'm not watching the game. But I am remembering the King Tut materials we saw that afternoon, and saw again at the Egyptology museum in Cairo roughly 30 years later. 

Both times I was particularly struck by a gold statuette of Selket, Goddess of Magic and the Underworld (photo here, scroll down). Amazing that notions of feminine beauty haven't changed a lot in 3300 years.

The Winds of War

The Daily Mail (U.K.) reports the U.S. will evacuate its embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, as quickly as possible. DM quotes German source Der Spiegel predicting the attack can come as early as Wednesday. 

It has been suggested Russia would wait until the Winter Olympics finished in Beijing on Feb. 20, in order to avoid stealing ally China's spotlight. Perhaps that will not leave enough time to overrun Ukraine before the spring thaw.

The article includes a map of the region with likely invasion routes marked. We haven't seen its like for decades. 

Hat tip to Herman Wouk for loan of this post's title. I wonder if there are any Pug Henrys left to save our bacon. It's damn certain Joe Biden is no FDR.

Later: Several European countries have urged their nationals to leave Ukraine, following the U.S. lead in doing so. And neighboring Poland is permitting free entry with valid passport and, the State Department claims, proof of Covid vaccination.

About Wearing Masks

It is currently fashionable among us on the political right to be anti-mask. I had an atypical experience with face coverings and thus hold a divergent opinion. 

The other DrC doesn’t like masks (honestly, who does?) so she purchased clear plastic face shields for us to wear in lieu of cloth masks. We did so through the early months of the Covid mess. 

We quickly discovered we both speckled the lower front inside of the masks with tiny droplets of saliva, which dried and looked gross. We ended up Windexing the masks at the end of each outing. Eventually we tired of cleaning the shields and wore masks.

I doubt that we are unusual spit-sprayers, chances are most folks do it without noticing. I believe the main benefit of masks is intercepting the wearer’s spray. I have close to zero faith in the masks’ ability to filter inhaled air. 

As long as most folks wear masks, there is much less airborne saliva mist about, and that has to reduce contagion. When most no longer wear a mask, I’ll probably stop too since me wearing it was mostly to protect the others in my vicinity as their masks protected me. 

I haven’t seen this view written anywhere. As noted above, my opinion is both idiosyncratic and divergent.

Afterthought:  People who oppose face masks have called them "face diapers" as a putdown. Actually, if my conclusion above is correct, that is largely why they're useful. Like a diaper, they don't protect the wearer, but those around the wearer who don't want to be exposed to what the wearer is shedding.

About Ukraine

You are going to see people drawing analogies between Afghanistan and Ukraine. Quite simply, geographically and developmentally the nations are not analogous. 

Foreigners in third-world Afghanistan were more or less trapped when flights out couldn't handle the demand. Ukraine is a (relatively) modern country with passenger rail connections to 2-3 adjacent NATO countries, most directly to Poland. Flights are also available.

American citizens have been warned by our government to leave Ukraine, straight out with no qualifiers. Doing so is within the power of anybody who wishes to go. Those who choose not to leave stay at their own risk.

There may be a handful of people who are hospitalized or otherwise physically unable to travel and perhaps some minor effort to extract those should occur. 

I am disinterested in the plight of those U.S. citizens who claim their business or family obligations prevent leaving. If business or family obligations are more important than one's physical safety, so be it. That is a choice which, once made, absolves us of responsibility. 

Such individuals should expect the Russians to imprison them as CIA stay-behinds with local covers. It's what a Russian GRU sector commander would choose, and sometimes he'd be correct.

Mitch Vents, Mollie Disapproves

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) recently spoke against the RNC censure of Reps. Cheney and Kinzinger and by implication supported Pelosi's Jan. 6 witch-hunt committee on which both serve. While I don't agree with his sentiments, I was disposed to cut him some slack.

The Federalist's Mollie Hemingway writes a quite good column taking issue with his claims and has, I have to say, convinced me to cut him no slack. She doesn't defend those who actually rioted, trespassed, etc. They are under arrest and if found guilty will experience the law's penalties.

Some key points she makes:

All Republican elected officials should be working for the Republican Party and against Pelosi, not for her. McConnell not questioning the legitimacy of the committee, which has not a single Republican-appointed member, is insane and inexplicable. No reasonable person thinks the January 6 committee is conducting an inquiry but an inquisition.

Republican voters would like their leaders to meet the simple test of not calling them terrorists for engaging in peaceful political protest. They would like their supposed leaders to meet the simple test of not accepting the media’s routine lies about them but, instead, to fight vigorously against those lies. That McConnell failed so dramatically in this regard does not bode well.

I understand McConnell and Trump both found working together difficult, their styles are so different. Both are inclined to let that irritation show on occasion. 

Their mutual vendetta is unhelpful for the GOP, which I believe both wish well. In the phrasing of Archie Bunker, they both need to "stifle" the sniping and take their frustrations out on the Dems.

Hunkering Down

MSNBC and other sources are reporting that a Russian-owned super yacht - the Graceful - was in a German yard for luxury upgrades. The yacht, reputedly owned by Russian President Vladimir Putin, suddenly left the Hamburg shipyard yesterday before the work was finished. It transited the Kiel Canal and sailed for a Russian Baltic port, Kaliningrad or St. Petersburg.

It is speculated this was done to put it beyond the grasp of NATO seizure in the event that Russia again invades Ukraine. Obviously no announcement of owner's intent, or identity, was forthcoming. 

An alternative explanation might be an intent to send a further gray-area threatening-but-short-of-war signal to the West and to Ukraine, amping up the pressure. And of course moving the yacht could serve both ends sequentially.

TMI Follies

Not everything we post here has to be deadly serious. Ed Driscoll, a frequent poster at Instapundit, has a fun item. It seems the mayor of Hudson, OH, disclosed more than he intended when the topic of permitting ice fishing on a nearby lake arose. He said:

If you open this up to ice fishing, while on the surface it sounds good, then what happens next year? Does someone come back and say ‘I want an ice shanty on Hudson Springs Park, for X amount of time?’ And then if you then allow ice fishing with shanties, then that leads to another problem: prostitution. And now you’ve got the police chief and the police department involved.

God forbid a married guy should have a shanty where his wife is unlikely to go. You just know he’ll have a snowmobile-riding tart on speed dial. 

I’ve never wintered over where ice fishing is a “thing.” Is commercial sex standard fare for ice fishermen, illicit fun while waiting for a bite?

Degrees of Connectedness

At his Insanity Wrap column for PJ Media, Stephen Green documents ugly stuff that has recently happened to Zuckerberg's Facebook and its parent company Meta, and more ugly is threatened by the EU. Somewhere the Winklevoss twins are sharing a high five. 

Full disclosure: The twins' dad - Howard (pictured in linked bio article) - and I were doctoral students at the U. of Oregon in the late '60s, and would go drinking together in the omnipresent rain. Later, the other DrC and I visited Wink and Carol in Philly where he taught at Wharton, before the twins were born. 

Wink's Wikipedia entry says his doctorate was in mathematics, which doesn't agree with my memory of him getting a business Ph.D. I know he studied with the B-school’s insurance guru Mark R. Greene, before Greene moved to U. of Georgia. Still, it’s over 50 years ago so (a) my memory can be faulty and (b) it no longer matters.

Weird Psychological Science

The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology carries peer-reviewed research which shows the following not-very-surprising finding.

We investigate the consequences and predictors of emitting signals of victimhood and virtue.

Individuals with Dark Triad traits-Machiavellianism, Narcissism, Psychopathy-more frequently signal virtuous victimhood, controlling for demographic and socioeconomic variables that are commonly associated with victimization in Western societies.

They forgot to add that Dark Triad individuals - claiming virtuous victimhood - are instinctive Democrats. Perhaps that observation was considered too obvious to mention.

One View: War Probable

Are you up for reading a thoroughly pessimistic analysis of the Russia-Ukraine conflict? One that sees war as essentially inevitable? I’ve got your link, at RealClearDefense. As a result of an analysis the major points of which they spell out, the authors reach three conclusions excerpted below.

First, there is not simply a possibility of war but a high probability of war.

Second, NATO should prioritize the capabilities that most disrupt Putin’s plans, specifically UCAVs, anti-air and anti-tank missiles, medium-range rocket and missile launchers, and electronic warfare equipment.

Third, Putin’s incentive structure favors broader escalation if an attack fails.

This third point raises a chilling implication. If NATO does support Ukraine during conflict, Putin will broaden the conflict, attempting to escalate his way out and break NATO's will.

A betting person would not risk a lot of money on the proposition that NATO survives this sort of challenge intact and invigorated. The temptation to throw Ukraine and the Baltics under the bus will be too great for some member states to resist.

N.B.: I present the ideas above for your consideration. I neither endorse nor dismiss them.

Two Scofflaw Policies

Writing for RealClearPolitics, political scientist Charles Lipson notes the logical way two seemingly separate issues become merged in the public consciousness.

It’s not just urban centers where law enforcement has collapsed. It has shattered along the southern border, thanks to Biden’s policies.

Voters now see this combination of open borders and open doors for shoplifting, smash-and-grab, carjacking, armed robberies, and murder as intertwined policies. Dangerous ones that disregard our laws. The public associates them with the Democratic Party, concludes that the administration is failing, and says it expected something far different, far better, far more moderate from Biden, given his campaign promises.

Most presidents see their party in Congress take a beating in the midterm election two years after their own election. Is it because most presidents are a disappointment; having over-promised to get elected, and consequently underperformed once in office? That’s my working hypothesis.