Farewell to 2020, truly an annus horribilis. Hat tip to HRH Elizabeth II for the felicitous descriptive phrase.
One is tempted to label it an “anus horribilis,” but that is likely overkill. Things not only could have been worse, they very likely will be worse in the not-too-distant future. I do wish I could summon up some “start of a new year optimism” but so far, no such luck.
Instapundit posts two headlines which, taken together, tell #nevertrump Republicans they’ve become people without a party. The first, from the Washington Examiner, relates Rasmussen Reports poll findings;
It’s Trump’s party: 72% say he is GOP’s ‘role model’
The second, from The Floridian, reports Gallup polling which finds:
Gallup Poll: Trump Is 2020 Most Admired Man, Ending Obama’s 12-Year Run
In many ways this may represent as large a shift in party identity as was the rebranding of Southern Democrats as Republicans during the Reagan years. Democrats no longer represent working class Whites, but they’re gaining a foothold among country club Whites, meanwhile surprising numbers of non-Whites are voting GOP.
The fate of #nevertrump Republicans resembles that of northern liberal Republicans during the Reagan years. Mitt Romney, former governor of notoriously blue Massachusetts, is the poster boy of these die-hards. My friends in Utah swear he’ll not be re-elected senator.
Gail Herriot who posts at Instapundit links to Journal of Personality and Social Psychology research which finds this entirely sensible relationship.
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.
Interpreting this for the lay reader, Psychology Today writes:
People who signal virtue and victimhood are more likely to have dark triad personality traits. The dark triad comprises narcissism (entitled self-importance), Machiavellianism (strategic exploitation and duplicity) and psychopathy (callousness and cynicism).
In case you are unsure, these 3 traits do not signal mental health, quite the reverse. This finding relates to the Reynolds quote below. It seems he was prophetic.
I was just reminded of a favorite Glenn Reynolds quote, from nearly 2 years ago.
So much of lefty activism is just mental illness acting out.
Indeed.
Paul Mirengoff at Power Line writes there is a “national movement to mandate standards for the teaching of Civics and History." On the surface, this sounds good as many schools have basically abdicated this responsibility.
However, as Mirengoff points out, the movement proposes to leave the selection of content in the hands of people whose beliefs are somewhere to the left of Chairman Mao. Thus what will be taught is socialist/communist wrongthink and what will be held as the ideal is social activism of the hate-in-your-face variety.
Instapundit quotes something from the comments section, concerning liberals’ view of “moderate” Republicans.
When a moderate conservative like Mitt Romney comes along, they turn him into an evil, money-grubbing, cancer-giving Hitler youth. Just one example out of many that comes down to the same thing: all Republicans, of any stripe, are Hitler in the end. So why not be Trump?
Why not, indeed. Live large.
Once Christmas is safely in the rear view mirror, it is traditional for the pundit class to write year-end summaries. As an especially insignificant member of said class, I believe I will resist that temptation.
I have well and thoroughly dumped on 2020 as it went along, and made my negative opinion of it abundantly clear. More would be excessive ... and redundant.
As a person over 75, I should be an early recipient of one of the Covid vaccines. I shall get it, never fear, and the second shot 3 weeks later, if what I’ve heard is accurate. Here’s hoping 2021 will be less grim.
Whatever your beliefs, Christmas is, or should be, an exceptionally fine holiday. The music, the food, the decorations, the fellowship are fantastic for all. For those for whom it is a holy day, it is even better.
In this unfortunate plague year, with masks obscuring smiles and muffling voices, and abjurations to avoid travel for socializing, it will be tougher to enjoy. Still, give it a try.
Just forego the hugs and kisses, maybe next year for those. Meanwhile, let’s all try to live long enough to be vaccinated and hope that this time next year the worst will be behind us.
Most of us will survive the Wu flu, it appears. If you’re tastes parallel mine, you would really like restaurants and cruise lines and mostly safe flying to be available once more.
With old ears, I apparently did more lip reading than I was aware of. Wouldn’t it be fine to see faces again? I miss the smiles.
Christmas has come a day early in cross-channel relations. Politico.eu reports the European Union and the United Kingdom have reached a “Brexit deal” a few days before the end of the transition period.
The trade deal must now be approved by each of the 27 EU member countries, the European Parliament and the U.K. parliament. Given time is so tight, the EU is expected to let the agreement come into force provisionally on January 1, with the European Parliament then giving its approval retroactively early next year.
It was relatively clear neither side totally loved the agreement, which suggests it may represent a decent compromise. It is a long document with many appendices, a succinct statement of its actual implications - what will change - is not available at this time.
I suppose it is possible one of the EU members may not approve it, the U.K. is almost certain to do so. We will revisit the historic agreement when considered opinion of its true implications settles out into quotable form.
One thing is certain. If the post-Brexit U.K. is considered a success, leaving the EU becomes in the minds of disgruntled Europeans a doable thing. For nations like Poland and Hungary, leaving will then be at least a consideration, and/or a credible threat in intra-EU negotiations.
Things associated with Christmas tend to escalate, today is an example. We refer to the entire day as “Christmas Eve” when the term originally applied, obviously, only to tonight - the “evening.”
A lot of places treat the entire day as another ad hoc holiday, and why not? It isn’t as though anybody hates another day of paid vacation, it facilitates family travel which, in this plague year, isn’t supposed to happen. To that supposition I say “Bah, humbug.”
Please stay safe, warm and positive, choose to be happy, and to love one another. The message of this season can be distilled down to “Hope for a better tomorrow.” Commit to doing what you can to make it so, for those about whom you care.
RealClearDefense has an article by Francis P. Sempa which - synthesizing three other articles - indicates the existence of a second Cold War, this time with China. This conclusion, while neither new nor particularly shocking, is one many have been reluctant to draw.
Their reluctance isn’t surprising. The original Cold War was not a fun time. Its end was widely celebrated, if not precisely by mobs dancing in the street.
My immediate concern is whether the incoming administration understands Cold War 2.0 is underway. Given the Biden family’s economic involvement with China, I fear the president-elect and other top Democrats may not be willing to accept the constricting policy consequences of another Cold War. Particularly since their predecessor - Trump - obviously did so and thereby tainted the conclusion for them.
In recognizing the existence of the first Cold War with the predatory Soviets we said “there really is a bear in those woods.” A similar tag line for Cold War 2 with a hostile China might be “there really is a dragon in the woods.”
We had heard the stock of properties on the local real estate market was low, but assumed that wouldn’t apply to our 11.75 acre place. In that assumption, we were wrong.
Our place went on the market at 9 a.m. yesterday and at 3 p.m. yesterday we had an above-asking-price, all-cash offer for it. If nothing goes wrong, we will accept the offer.
Later ... We asked for a closing date in early February and the buyers accepted. We have a sale.
That being the case, we will be down to one house for six months or more, and that one sitting in a deep freeze in the Rockies. Until WY thaws out in May we’ll live in the RV in places that are warm and allow events to unfold.
Author Graeme Wood interviewed ecological biologist-turned-historian Peter Turchin of the University of Connecticut and writes about his views for The Atlantic. Turchin applies mathematics to history - something he calls clioanalytics - and has reached controversial conclusions which you’ll find interesting, if not necessarily convincing. For example:
One of Turchin’s most unwelcome conclusions is that complex societies arise through war. The effect of war is to reward communities that organize themselves to fight and survive, and it tends to wipe out ones that are simple and small-scale. (snip) Darwinian processes select for complex societies because they kill off simpler ones.
The notion that democracy finds its strength in its essential goodness and moral improvement over its rival systems is likewise fanciful. Instead, democratic societies flourish because they have a memory of being nearly obliterated by an external enemy. They avoided extinction only through collective action, and the memory of that collective action makes democratic politics easier to conduct in the present, Turchin said. “There is a very close correlation between adopting democratic institutions and having to fight a war for survival.”
Turchin finds a 50 year cycle predicting upsurges of violence in the United States, with spikes in 1870, 1920, and 1970. If he is correct we are due for another and, he says, they last several years.
Turchin also believes we’ve overproduced people with credentials to join our elite, without similarly amping up the number of elite jobs for these individuals to fill.
Elite overproduction creates counter-elites, and counter-elites look for allies among the commoners. If commoners’ living standards slip—not relative to the elites, but relative to what they had before—they accept the overtures of the counter-elites and start oiling the axles of their tumbrels.
Shut-out elites become counter-elites, two examples he identifies are Donald Trump and Steve Bannon. The obvious allusion to the French Revolution suggests he believes civil war is one possible outcome .
As we noted two days ago, today is the Winter Solstice in the northern hemisphere. It’s one of two days per year when the tilted axis of the earth’s rotation is at its most extreme tilt with respect to the sun, Three months from now that axis will be at right angles to a solar ray, the north and south poles equidistant from the sun.
If that rotational axis were perpendicular to the plane of the earth’s orbit around the sun, there would be no seasons, no alternating periods of warm and cold weather on our globe. The poles would always be cold, the equator always hot, and the mid-latitudes always in-between.
Having concluded the astronomy lesson, welcome to winter.
Monday, December 21, will be the 2020 Winter Solstice, aka the shortest day of the year and the official end of autumn and beginning of winter in the northern hemisphere. Many places already feel like winter and have for a few weeks.
Apparently this date was very important to our early ancestors in Northern Europe. It symbolized the end of days getting shorter and darker - the sun going away - and the beginning of days getting longer and lighter - the sun coming back. BTW, worshiping the sun isn’t irrational in a cold climate.
It is no accident that more than one international religion has major celebrations at this general time of year. They sort of got grafted onto, or perhaps overwritten upon, the pre-existing sun worship.
Beginning Tuesday, each short day will be slightly longer, each long night slightly shorter. In three months they will be of equal length, and we will welcome spring.
The “business” I’ve hinted at over the last several weeks is now out in the open. The DrsC - both CA natives - have decided it is no longer prudent to have our winter place in California.
The state is badly governed, overrun with homeless, and increasingly unsafe. CA chooses to be on the “woke” frontier, that’s a place we have no wish to be. It is a sad outcome for a place with fantastic natural assets.
Our house and barn are empty, our belongings in storage and, as the other DrC pictures on her blog, the house is staged to display well to potential buyers. We have decamped to our RV, parked some 30-40 yards from the house, where we have a “three point hookup” (RVer slang for water, power, and sewer).
There we’ll live in splendid Covid-safe isolation, while the house stays pristine for its ‘closeup.’ When it sells and escrow closes, we’ll move the RV to another site, and head to our WY home after the thaw happens there.
Meanwhile a new house is a-building for us in Nevada, at a Del Webb Sun City some 40+ miles south of St. George, UT. It will be our new winter place located on the northeastern edge of the Mojave at about 1600 ft. elevation. Like our CA place, the new place has a fantastic hilltop panoramic view.
Getting this far along has been a lot of work for a couple of senior citizens. Imagine all the “stuff” that has accumulated at the place we built 33 years ago and have owned and occupied most of the year until retirement and nearly half the year since then.
We haven’t been “packrats” but we’re throwing or giving away thousands of pounds of things mostly worth having but not worth moving. In an odd way the process is liberating. Hat tip to the theme from Rawhide for my title, this time we are the “dogies.”
I haven’t posted anything for several days, mostly because I’ve been too busy doing stuff on a project that will be revealed early in the new year. That plus the blahs that follow an election that turns out the way I hoped it wouldn’t.
One thing I’ve noticed in following, if not reacting to, the political news is that president-elect Biden is naming relatively non-controversial-for-Democrats long-time swamp dwellers to various cabinet posts. So far there have been few firebrands or bomb-throwing leftists. They’ve mostly been Obama-era retreads.
It is not too much to hope that perhaps Biden wasn’t kidding when he said “you know me” in refuting claims of him being socialist. Taking his appointees as some signal of where he proposes to take the government, it looks a bit like the same old, tired stuff from an old, tired Democrat. Meaning: not good, but not world-ending disastrous either,
Assuming my tea-leaf reading is correct, you have to wonder how long the Bernie Sanders/AOC wing of the D party will stay in the “big tent” that, like Peanuts’ Lucy holding the football, keeps promising to enact their program and never actually does so.
We’ll know more after Georgia votes in early January, Mitch McConnell vs. Chuck Schumer as Senate Majority Leader will make a difference.
The year 2020 has been a nearly unbroken string of bad news, sad news, and worse news. Just for contrast, some good news would be fine for a change, and I may have some.
As I have implied before, I am a fan of the 14 episode TV series Firefly, and the film sequel Serenity. As you may be aware, it is a cult favorite and for years afterwards the cast showed up at comicons to do Firefly panels for the would-be “browncoats.”
Today comes news - sort of - that Disney which purchased the entertainment part of Fox owns the property. It is said to be planning a revival, per this story at greatfreakinrobot.com. Disney itself has made no announcement. Hat tip to Instapundit for the link.
Much remains unclear about where, or indeed whither, their treatment will take the story, including if series originator Joss Whedon - of Buffy fame - will be involved. In the almost 20 years since the original was made, the cast have aged too much to reprise their roles, sadly.
A sort of space Western, the original series echoed the experiences of defeated Confederate veterans heading west to start over on the frontier. It was set in a future time where the frontier is lightly-settled planets on the edge of human-inhabited space.
The author speculates Disney will do a remake from the beginning when Mal acquires his ship and crew at the end of a civil war his side lost. He further imagines Disney will eliminate the less wholesome aspects of the Whedon original: defending a brothel and traveling with a geisha/courtesan.
It is worth noting Australian sea captain/author A. Bertram Chandler worked a similar vein of material in his Rim-Runner series of novels, written in the 1960s and 70s about a tramp starship captain working a similarly undeveloped “frontier.”
There is a minor controversy brewing over whether Joe Biden’s wife Jill should use the title “Dr.” It is an issue that confused my college students as well. And it is a problem, for the word has multiple meanings.
If a person has earned the highest degree in their field of study, they are entitled to use the term “Dr.” in place of “Mr.” or “Ms.” with their name. But not without their name, unless their field of study is medicine.
When we say “Doctor, what do you think?” we are addressing a physician or other health professional. When students addressed me, the appropriate form was and is “Professor, what do you think?” or "Dr. Cotton, what do you think?" Used without the name the title specifies ones field of endeavor, not that one has the so-called “terminal degree.”
Journalists frequently get this wrong. I remember reporters asking Dr. Henry Kissinger questions like “Doctor, what do you believe the North Vietnamese seek in these negotiations?”
Doing so, they revealed their ignorance. When he was SecState the appropriate usage would have been “Mr. Secretary” or alternatively, “Dr. Kissinger.”
Used without the name it becomes a job title and only fits those in medicine, and perhaps optometry and dentistry which are also health care. Used with the name it indicates a person of high educational achievement in any field in which the doctorate is given. Historically some fields like Art and Music have not offered a doctorate, the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) is normally their highest degree.
The quick-and-dirty way to know when you can call someone “doctor” without adding their family name is if the answer to the question “What does he or she do for a living?” is “He or she is a physician.” If the answer is “He or she is something other than a medical professional with doctorate." the answer is no.
Summary: Addressing Joe Biden’s wife as “Dr. Biden” is appropriate. Without the family name, one should say “professor” or "instructor," whatever faculty are called at the community college where she teaches.
Friday we wrote that the Supreme Court had refused to consider the Texas challenge to the election. Now we're reading that the suit will be refiled in each of the four states whose election procedures the original suit challenged.
At the very least, I hope these eventually force the courts to confront the actual constitutional issues in this case, which they did not do in turning down the TX effort. I won't be surprised, however, if they waffle once again and find another procedural basis upon which to dodge taking the cases. Since these filings do not represent one state suing another, the Supreme Court is not the place where they will first be heard, but rather the last place if they get that far.
I understand the Supremes don't want their nice shiny court to get down in the mud of local electoral politics where it can hardly escape an ugly outcome. In this case there is no way to offer each side "half of the baby," our de facto two-party elections are truly a zero-sum game, the stakes are enormous.