Musings

I have to admit I've always found it curious, even odd, that we had major military installations around the country named for Confederate generals. Renaming these makes plenty of sense to me.

A pretty good argument can be made for razing the Confederate war memorials too. Monuments to losers, however brave, aren't common.

I expect even most dyed-in-the-wool Southerners, at this late date, are reconciled to, and even happy with, the preservation of the Union. Until recently, it has turned out remarkably well.

And if people want to rename the Chiefs, the Braves, and the Redskins, even though most Native Americans find them unobjectionable, why not? It's an excuse to sell a whole bunch of replacement team logo merchandise.

None of this stuff is going to help Black Americans even a little, when it happens or later. But if it helps white virtue signalers feel good, go for it. It's no skin off my nose.

However our founders - Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Franklin - accomplished so much good while not living up to the standards of our society 200+ years later. They were good men, albeit imperfect as are we all. Destroying their statues is just vandalism.

Afterthought: What moral precepts will exist 200 years from now, do you suppose, that today we violate blithely?

Huntsman Misses

Just the News reports former governor and ambassador Jon Huntsman failed to win the GOP nomination to run again for governor in Utah.

This is good news, Huntsman is a RINO very much in the Mitt Romney mold. Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox narrowly won the Republican nomination and is expected to win in November.

Cox, who has served as lieutenant governor since 2013 had the support of outgoing Governor Gary Herbert.

Cox will face off against Chris Peterson, an attorney, in the general election. Republicans have not lost a gubernatorial race in Utah in 36 years.

Arrivederci, Maestro

The Associated Press reports Italian composer Ennio Morricone has died at age 91. A prolific composer of movie scores, perhaps his most well-known works were the scores for three Spaghetti Westerns directed by Sergio Leone and starring a young Clint Eastwood: A Fistful of Dollars, A Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

I’m no judge of greatness, but I know these scores were loved around the world. The DrsC had them on cassette tapes and would play them as we traveled by RV across the American west in the 1970s and 80s. We called them the “killing music” and they were a perfect score for the deserts of CA, NV, AZ, NM, UT, TX, thundering away out of the tape deck as hundreds of arid miles rolled by under enormous empty blue skies.

Arrivederci, Maestro. Or in the sun-blasted world of the spaghetti western, it's “Vaya con Dios.”

Cold War With China

The always interesting Niall Ferguson writes opinion for Bloomberg, today concerning the reality of a new Cold War with China. His conclusion sums up his argument.

It’s not up to us whether or not we have a Cold War with China, if China has already declared Cold War on us.

He argues this has happened. Our only choices are fight or surrender, I know which I choose.

The obvious policy implications flowing from this conclusion: far fewer U.S. visas for Chinese, an end to green cards for Chinese scholars and scientists, elimination of Confucian Institutes at U.S. universities, repatriation of supply chains for essential products and materials, including rare earths, and enough military build-up to keep the war cold.

Our Media Intentionally Misleads

Did you see the video of a car ramming a couple of BLM protestors on a freeway in Seattle, killing one? Did you presume it was done by a white angry about their protest? I know I did.

As David Bernstein blogging at Instapundit notes, you have to go to an Australian source to learn this:

The suspect was later identified as Dawit Kelete, a black man from Seattle who studied business and commerce at Washington State University between 2011 and 2017.

The quote is from ABC which, in this case, stands for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Isn't it odd that U.S. sources didn't report the perp's race? They didn't want to confuse the narrative line.

Actually, racism may have been the motive, as the driver was Black and both victims were white. Some sources report he is from northeast Africa (Ethiopia/Eritrea), he probably entered on a student visa.

Headline News

The following headlines were located courtesy of Lucianne.com, and reflect what is happening this weekend.

From the New York Post:

Dozens shot, at least three killed on violent July 4th weekend in NYC: cops

From the Chicago Sun Times:

72 shot, 13 fatally, over Fourth of July weekend in Chicago so far

Now remind me, what was the rationale for defunding the police? Are cities a lost cause we should leave unpoliced?

Quote of the Day

Carol M. Swain, writing for RealClearPolitics, about the problems currently troubling our nation.

Government cannot fix the individual choices people make that cause some to prosper and others to languish in generational poverty.

Analysis: True.

Independence Day Oratory

I hadn’t gotten the chance to watch President Trump’s Mt. Rushmore Independence Day Eve speech, so I read it. If you’ve done so, you know it is easy to imagine him delivering it, his style is inimitable.

Actually, the speech harks back to the stem-winding Independence Day orations once made all across our great land, full of hope, optimism, and, candidly, a bit of braggadocio. And why not, we’ve built a colossus out of a polyglot immigrant population, provided amazing opportunities for millions who came here to improve their lot, and so often succeeded brilliantly.

Those who chose not to grasp the opportunities offered, and discovered that they ended up downtrodden, miserable and in trouble of various sorts are now tearing down statues and burning cities. That the society offers more a hand up than a handout, that equality of opportunity is no guarantee of equality of outcome apparently comes as a shock.

So be it, defunding police is no solution to their problems. No society can guarantee equality of outcomes regardless of inputs, nor should it.

Fireworks

I wrote Friday that the fabulous fireworks in Idaho Falls weren't "on" this year, Covid-19 being blamed. So we caught the fireworks in a small WY town much closer to home and they were almost as good!

Honestly, I was amazed. They did a heck of a job, spent some serious coin on all the good stuff they lofted, too. We had a great location and we never got within 6' of anyone while watching. Ya gotta love the natural social distancing of rural life.

If the locals keep doing fireworks this good we'll probably not go back to IF for fireworks again. The drive afterwards, arriving home about 1 a.m., was tedious.

Avoiding PTBO Hires

Zero Hedge summarizes a study published in the refereed Journal of Business Research. It looked at people with a high "proclivity to be offended" (PTBO). It found they make terrible employees. Some key quotes:

What is PTBO? According to the study, it's "a state-like tendency to be sensitive to customarily innocuous societal events and traditions," such as "playing of the United States' National Anthem," and is the "tendency to view an array of events and/or traditions as offensive."

The study found that easily triggered people are less productive, are prone to view their organizations as "less fair," and "consume a lot of time complaining about trivial matters." They also make terrible team players.

PTBO negatively correlated with task performance and positively correlated with counterproductive work behaviors, suggesting not only that these individuals engage in fewer citizenship behaviors but also engage in behaviors managers and organizations want their employees to avoid.

I cannot imagine anyone familiar with task environments finds these results in any way surprising. Firms may avoid hiring liberal arts snowflakes even more than they have in the past.

However, Murphy's Law tells us doing so becomes a selling point for Antifa and Democratic Socialist recruiters when snowflakes cannot find career positions commensurate with their education levels.

Of Wright and Wrong

Robin Wright writes foreign policy for The New Yorker. She is one of a long line of women reporting on international relations, which has included in my memory Georgie Ann Geyer, Martha Raddatz, and Christiane Amanpour.

Wright does not add luster to that group of intrepid women. Her left wing suffers badly from overdevelopment, making her a lopsided bird indeed.

She writes that the U.S. is viewed overseas as racist and pitiful. That has been true in some quarters since the 1920s, mostly among those who wish us ill.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if people stopped coming here illegally because they believed it to be true? Fat chance of that happening.

We have now an openly nationalist President who views our "allies" as taking advantage of us. He has held that view since he was interviewed by Oprah in 1988, over 30 years ago. Go see for yourself.

He was right then, he's right now. Funny thing about people taking advantage of you. When you stop letting them do it, they experience its end as a diminution in their well-being.

Helping allies made sense in the aftermath of World War II, it hasn't for decades now. The "help" ending does not make them happy, quite the reverse. So ... we should care? Why?

Most of the world's countries would be happy to trade their problems for those of the U.S. As a partisan Democrat, Wright deliberately chooses not to recognize this reality.

Patriots vs. Democrats

USA Today asked the pollsters at Suffolk University to poll Americans concerning their feelings about our nation, on the eve of the celebration of its birth. The findings are disquieting.

In the spirit of the upcoming holiday, this poll solicited registered voters’ opinions of America’s “greatness” in the world, asking if they thought America was the greatest country, one of the greatest, average, or worse.

Among Democrats, only 38 percent believe that the United States is one of the greatest countries or the greatest country on earth. Meanwhile, 66 percent of Republicans believe the U.S. is the greatest nation, with many more following close behind in the “one of the greatest” category.

These findings prompted some to suggest the following policy Rx: "America, love it ... or vote Democratic."

What Worries Hymowitz

Interesting material frequently finds its way into City Journal. Today an interview with Kay Hymowitz who often writes for CJ, and in response to a question about what worries her most in today's America, she replies:

I worry most about the profound disenchantment of the younger generation. Recent college and high school graduates have been educated, if that’s the right word, to think of the United States as uniquely unjust. Firsthand experience with two steep recessions and the shaky promise of a college education in an era of diminishing career possibilities will provide seeming confirmation of those lessons.

Young Americans were already delaying marriage and children, and our fertility rate is at record lows—as is trust in the future. The combination of nihilism about the future and ignorance of history is a dangerous one.

Some have found their way into Antifa, others have become alt right or white supremacists. The balance are apathetic, a sort of latter-day "lost generation." None of these reactions is in any way a useful response to their plight.

Praising the Devil

The late Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) was in his youth a member, and leader, of the Ku Klux Klan and later a segregationist Senator. Katie Pavlich has rounded up video of former Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praising the late Senator Robert Byrd, at his funeral.

In a column for Townhall, she has embedded the videos and you can watch them for yourself. Watch Biden say of Byrd the following:

To me...for a lot of us, he was a mentor and a friend, and for a lot of us, he was a guide.

Watch Pelosi say of Byrd:

Senator Byrd's service and leadership are more than worthy to be remembered for many generations to come. He was a great American patriot.

If we're going to bad mouth Washington and Jefferson, what should we say of Biden and Pelosi when they praise Byrd who founded a KKK chapter? Isn't that a lot like erecting a statue of him?

The Democrats are so blatantly two-faced they give hypocrisy a bad name.

Independence Day

Tomorrow is Independence Day, the anniversary of the date in 1776 when the Continental Congress declared the 13 colonies united and free - no longer dependencies of King George and Britain. We celebrate it as the nation’s “birthday,” when this nation began.

In spite of all the ugliness going on at the moment, both medical and political, it is still one heck of a great place to be from, to be proud of, and in which to spend one’s life. The other DrC and I have visited well over 100 countries, some for a day, others for weeks or a month, and we know of nowhere we’d rather call home.

There are other places we’ve said we could probably live comfortably, including Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia and Canada. And yet others we admired but probably wouldn’t choose for a residence, often for reasons of language incompatibility, Corfu comes to mind.

At the end of the day, returning from overseas, it always feels good to put feet back on U.S. soil. We’ve visited all 50 states and most of its overseas dependencies.

We’ve not just visited but actually resided in each of its four continental time zones, and currently split our year between the two western zones. We don’t particularly identify with one locale, but feel most at home in or west of the Rockies.

So I write to celebrate the United States of America. It’s no coincidence that it draws immigrants - legal and illegal - from all over the world.

Later ... the fabulous fireworks display Melaleuca puts on in Idaho Falls each 4th of July is not happening this year, cancelled by the Covid-19 unpleasantness. Maybe next year?

Remember Hydrochloroquine?

Instapundit links to a story in The Detroit News which reports research done locally on hydrochloroquine and Covid-19.

A Henry Ford Health System study shows the controversial anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine helps lower the death rate of COVID-19 patients, the Detroit-based health system said Thursday.

The study analyzed 2,541 patients hospitalized among the system’s six hospitals between March 10 and May 2 and found 13% of those treated with hydroxychloroquine died while 26% of those who did not receive the drug died.

We attribute our findings that differ from other studies to early treatment, and part of a combination of interventions that were done in supportive care of patients, including careful cardiac monitoring.

Some entities in Michigan refuse to use the anti-malarial drug, the article reports.

Later ... Writing for Just the News, Sheryl Attkisson reports this HFHS research has been published in the peer-refereed International Journal of Infectious Diseases. For those who don't know, "peer-reviewed" means we should pay additional attention to the findings. Scientists in the field not involved in doing the research have examined the report and find it worthy.

McEnany

Columbia Journalism Review runs an article describing White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany as a "media critic." That is certainly a fair description.

For over 3 years the press has shown that they come to the press briefings intent on making the President look bad. McEnany comes to those same briefings intent on making the press look bad.

Neither has much interest in telling the story of the executive branch of the Federal Government. This is okay, most of the time, because it can tend to be boring.

Let the record show that the press started the donnybrook. Trump decided to play their game, play by the same rules they play by. McEnany is his chosen champion in this battle, for a battle it most definitely is.

Let's treat it as a gladiatorial contest and enjoy the rhetorical 'bloodshed.' Pass the popcorn.

Snark

The Congresswoman is so easy to burlesque.

Hat tip to Ed Driscoll at Instapundit for the image.

Looking into the Abyss

Instapundit poster Stephen Green links to a Stephen Kruiser Morning Brief column at PJ Media. Kruiser looks ahead at what the first months of a Biden presidency might look like.

I think the various B.S. coronavirus reactions may very well gift-wrap and hand this election to the drooling idiot in the basement on Election Day and keep him hidden during the transition. Once he’s inaugurated he will suddenly have a health episode that will require him to leave office. He’s obviously in such a state of mental decline that even the Democrats won’t want him to stick around if he wins.

How did the Democrats manage to paint themselves into this ridiculous corner?  Alas, my poor beloved country, how much of this abuse can you stand?

$$ for American Lives?

My current favorite foreign affairs analyst, George Friedman, writes at Geopolitical Futures. Today he looks at the “Russia paid Taliban to kill Americans” claim and finds it lacking on many dimensions.

Friedman doesn’t completely deny it could have happened, but argues it was not in Putin’s interest to do so. Thus, if it did happen, it was probably some low-level operative on the ground in the region acting on his own initiative, not an act of hostile statecraft.