The thing about the time-change debate in Indiana was this: The state was pretty much evenly divided over whether to adopt Daylight Saving Time with the rest of the country, or stay on Eastern Standard year-round, which was the status quo. And twice a year, we had to have the same fucking arguments over and over and over. It was like Groundhog Day, only Ned Ryerson would tell you about how hard it is to get little kids settled down for bed in June. Then someone else would pipe up about farmers. And so on.

So imagine my glee to realize we’ve now transferred this enervating, circular debate to the entire country.

Here’s my Ned Ryerson take:

I don’t mind changing the clocks twice a year. I don’t like it, nobody does, but honestly, it’s a very minor nuisance that I believe makes sense on a lot of levels. And I’m mystified why we did this for decades through the 20th century, and it was maybe the subject of a Carson monologue joke, maybe, and then suddenly it became this huge deal. Actually, I’m not mystified, because I blame social media, where every man and woman is a pundit and a tiny splinter-in-your-finger issue can take on the weight and importance of a Middle East conflict. To me, it’s simple: In warm weather, we like long, light evenings, so we can play golf and barbecue and ride bikes to get after-dinner ice cream. In winter, we need the daylight shifted back to mornings, because it’s scarce, and we don’t want children walking to school in inky darkness at the same time millions of commuters are getting into their cars and strapping on their work armor, trying to watch market indicators on their smart phones when…did you just hear something? Sort of a muffled thump under the car? Whatever, can’t be late to the office! Onward!

At my latitude, the winter solstice gave us 9 hours and 3 minutes of daylight. You take it where you can. And at my longitude, sunrise on that same day with Daylight Saving Time would come at 8:58 a.m. No thanks.

And now, it’s out of my hands.

Also, I need to get to work. Deadline newsletter day, one of my responsibilities. Gotta hop to it.

A little bloggage:

Where does the Michigan GOP find these freaks? Just the photo on this story is terrifying, and that’s before you get to the news this candidate for the gubernatorial nomination was sued for sending junk faxes. Remember those? Actually, think of all the technology, once wondrous, that was ruined by capitalism. When was the last time you picked up an unknown-number phone call and were pleasantly surprised to hear from the person on the other end? Cellular phones are now pocket computers, only used occasionally for speaking live to another person. Thanks, hands-off regulation!

This was a local tragedy, an 18-year-old who went to East Lansing for the MSU/Michigan football game last fall and disappeared. I think I wrote about it a while back, how it was becoming increasingly obvious that he’d fallen into the river and drowned, and sure enough, they found his corpse snagged on a logjam about a mile downstream sometime in January. The autopsy report came in this week, and to the surprise of approximately zero people, it turned out he was very drunk when he went in the water — .22, to be exact. A colleague compiled a collection of headlines about this news. They all got the word “drowned” or “drowning” in the headline, but the only one that also included “drunk” was written by? Anyone? Me.

OK, then. Work awaits, as does the rest of Wednesday. Have a good one.

Thanks for all your good wishes. I’m feeling fine and haven’t had any reoccurrence of last week’s troubles, fingers crossed. Worked out a little in the basement, and fingers crossed again, will return to the pool tomorrow morning. I’ll take it easy, too.

Taking it easy isn’t difficult for me. In fact, it’s insanely seductive. One reason I try not to stop daily exercise for too long is, I fear I’ll never start back up. Especially in winter, the bed is so warm and cozy. It’s hard to tell yourself just do it, despite what the commercials say. So I do it. And then eat too much afterward.

Enough about that. It’s the start of St. Patrick’s Day festivities here, which seem to be blurring with something observed locally — 313 Day, a celebration of Detroit because that’s the area code. The St. Pat’s parade was this morning, and it snowed, but not long after the wind switched around to the southwest, the sun came out, and all the snow melted. We’re promised steadily rising temperatures all week, and by March 17, it could be in the 60s. Some friends and I are going to do a limited old-people pub crawl on The Day Itself, which is to stay we’ll start early, end early and probably go alcohol-free for at least one or two stops.

So if today is 313 Day, that means tomorrow is Pi Day, another one of those “holidays” that just appeared one day. If I weren’t thinking about making an MRI appointment for my brain, I’d whip one up. Think I’ll let it pass. One year one of Alan’s staffers thought he’d bring in a couple to the office, so he stopped at the local trendy bakery and asked for two pie. Total: $70. I should have been a baker.

So with the weekend, whiling away, let’s look at the breaking news. Two things:

First thing, Barry got the bug. He’s going to be fine (it is devoutly hoped). It can happen to anyone.

Second thing, William Hurt is dead. This one hurts; he was a good one. Although, at 71, you can’t say he didn’t get his threescore and ten. But he was so great, when he was great, playing a sexy lunk in “Body Heat,” the drug dealer in a ratty Porsche in “The Big Chill,” and so many others. But not long ago I saw a young man in a newer production and thought, man, he’s a dead ringer for William Hurt, and whaddaya know, it was his son. So I guess it’s time. Still. A moment of silence.

So happy Pi Day, and see you when I get back. Have a slice for me.

My mind’s been such a stew lately

:::record scratch:::

Hi there!

Well, that was weird. I’d just sat down to update the blog yesterday around 5 p.m. — starting with my customary apology for missing a day I usually don’t — when I was hit by a wave of dizziness. Whoa, I thought, this is pretty weird. But it’ll pass.

It didn’t. It got worse. My editor called, and I declined the call, because I didn’t think I could walk to the kitchen, where my phone was. Alan was right there, and I told him what was happening. I made some calls, did some Googles, and we decided to go to a local urgent care. After we’d driven half a block, I had to open the door to vomit onto the street. We upgraded to the ER, where we sat for hours more of spinning vertigo and two more emesis bags. I had what’s likely to be several thousand dollars’ worth of before-deductible tests that turned up nothing. But they medicated me for nausea and whirliness, and we left just before midnight a.m.a., because I didn’t consent to the CAT scan to rule out a stroke. I was feeling fine by then, showed no symptoms on the stroke assessment, and bottom line: I have shitty insurance to tide me over for these last few months pre-Medicare. A hospital CAT scan would likely be thousands more (although no one could tell me, because doctors aren’t privileged with that information).

My family doctor, who is likely out of network on said shitty insurance, counseled calling a private MRI facility and asking for the cash price, which I just did: $420. I’ll probably go that route, but not after a few hours of sitting on hold with BCBS Michigan to discuss my Bronze-level plan and trying to figure out a way to minimize the financial damage.

Which I’m fortunate to be able to afford. I am contractually obligated to say this. Still, it seems ridiculous that this is what’s on my mind the morning after an evening like I just had.

Personally, I think this is an inner-ear thing, but you can’t see that with an otoscope, alas. My ears have felt cloggy for a couple weeks, which I chalked up to swimming. We’ll see.

Nothing like having one of these strapped to your wrist to make you feel old:

So to back up to the beginning: My mind has been a whirl lately, but not entirely with vertigo. It’s been a crazy it’s-only-Wednesday kinda week here. Monday dawned with news that a recent victor of a special election in West Michigan, who is now a shoo-in to be in the legislature, because he won the GOP race in a safe-GOP district, went on a recent livestream and dropped a bomb. Discussing the election of November 2020, which this guy wants to “decertify” so as to install Emperor Trump back on his golden throne, he trotted out the old barroom saw, with some embellishments: “I tell my three daughters, ‘if rape is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it.'” Just, y’know, casual-like.

Well. You can imagine.

There’s good news and bad news in the reaction. The bad news: Various GOP groups “condemned” and “disavowed” the comment. But the state chairman stopped short of telling this human toadstool to withdraw from the race. The good news: There are many, many people who had never heard that particular zircon of wit, and I have to think that’s a good thing.

I’ve heard it, of course, because I’m old as hell and read a fair number of trashy novels. I remember when Bobby Knight said it, back in the day. It’s the sort of thing ol’ ruff-n-tuff coaches would tell their players, even though it makes very little sense as an expression of pretty much anything. But to add “I tell my three daughters…” really elevates it to another level, in my opinion.

His defense: His “words aren’t polished,” and can you guess why? Yes, because he’s “not a politician.”

Fuck every one of these guys.

Oh, and one of those three daughters made some headlines a couple years ago, when dear ol’ dad was running for the same seat, for tweeting to voters not to cast one for pops.

Ladies and gentlemen, the modern GOP.

OK, time for me to hit the shower and try to feel presentable again. Thanks for your good wishes. I feel fine. Even with an MRI in my future.

Last summer — at least, I think it was last summer; time has become a flat circle — I wrote a piece for Deadline about how the then-flagging vaccination effort was being helped along by business. (Of all entities.) You might not be able to convince your uncle to get vaccinated, but maybe paying extra for health insurance might change his mind. Delta Airlines was charging employees who refused the vaccine an extra $200 a month for their health insurance. I wrote:

In one way, it’s amusing. Many of the conservatives who have spent the last 40 years preaching the gospel of American capitalism are now reduced to staring at their shoelaces as these undeniably capitalistic organizations lead the country in a direction they don’t like. And when governors like Florida’s Ron DeSantis and Texas’ Greg Abbott push for laws that tell the private sector what it can or can’t do with work rules for its own employees, you can snicker at the rank hypocrisy.

But at the same time, it’s unsettling. The fact-based policy-making process in the public sphere – i.e. self-government – is so messed up that we are relying on American corporations, not known for their expansive concern for the common good, to do it for us.

The point of the column was this: Never trust businesses to do the right thing because it’s the right thing. They only operate in their financial self-interest.

Even so, I was amazed to read this Axios story about the world’s companies pulling out of, or otherwise abandoning, Russia:

Since the invasion began:

Boeing suspended major operations in Moscow, as well as maintenance and technical support for Russian airlines.

Airbus is halting supply of parts and services to Russian airlines.

Shell will sever ties with Russian gas giant Gazprom and end its roughly $1 billion financing of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.

BP is exiting its nearly 20% stake in Russian oil giant Rosneft, and faces a potential financial hit of as much as $25 billion.

Exxon Mobil says it will exit Russia oil and gas operations valued at more than $4 billion and cease new investment.

GM, which sells only about 3,000 cars a year in Russia, says it will suspend exporting vehicles.
Ford suspended operations.

BMW stopped shipments and will stop production in Russia.

Daimler Truck Holdings said it would no longer send supply components to its Russian joint-venture partner.
Volvo Cars, owned by Chinese conglomerate Zhejiang Geely, halted sales and shipments.

Renault ceased operations and production at two assembly plants because it can’t get parts.

VW paused delivery of Audis already in Russia so it can adjust car prices to reflect the decline in value of the ruble.

Harley-Davidson suspended shipments to Russia.

Adidas suspended its partnership with the Russian Football Union.

Nike ceased online sales because it can’t guarantee delivery.

FedEx and UPS suspended shipments.

Yoox Net-A-Porter Group and Farfetch, luxury e-commerce platforms, are suspending deliveries in Russia.
Apple has paused product sales and limited services (including Apple Pay), on top of ceasing exports to Russia and restricting features in Apple Maps in Ukraine to safeguard civilian safety.

Dell stopped selling products.

Ericsson is suspending deliveries to Russia.

Walt Disney is pausing film debuts in Russia. Warner Bros., Sony, Paramount and Universal say they won’t release films in the country.

Ikea is closing its Russian stores and pausing all exports and imports in the country and ally Belarus.

Suspending my three-paragraph rule to include the whole list; sorry, Axios, but man, look at that. The world’s capitalists are turning Russia into North Korea. Or will, if this drags on too much longer.

If you delve into it, these companies aren’t risking much. Three thousand cars a year? GM probably sells that many in the five Grosse Pointes, pop. 45,000-ish. Still, even small things like this add up.

I don’t want to live in a business-ocracy. But as long as government is self-strangling, we need some entity to do the right thing.

The risk, of course, is that Vladimir Putin will respond in some insane, out-of-proportion manner that will blow Europe to kingdom come. If you want someone to retreat and surrender, you can generally get a better result by giving them a way to save face. Cornered, frightened dogs will bite.

OK, then. It’s the end of the week, I have a podcast to prepare for. It has a video element, so maybe I’ll wear this:

I found that yesterday when I was cleaning out an armoire I would dearly love to get rid of. It’s a reject from Alan’s Theater Bizarre costume, and apparently has been sitting in a box in that armoire for a decade.

“Has kind of a fetish-y look to it, eh?” I remarked when I showed him. Where would people get their freak on if not for Etsy? Anyway, a new Batman movie opens this weekend, so this is my tribute.

Good weekend all.

God, modern war is weird.

I know I’m about 10 years late with this take — the Arab Spring uprisings are generally considered the first social-media wars — but there’s something about this one that hits different. Between the social media AND the propaganda AND the weeks-long buildup AND the real-time video and punditry and all the rest of it, it’s like watching a very strange movie with a participatory element.

I have not added a blue-and-yellow flag to my various avatars. Here’s my contribution: A week or so before this started, I bought four spots at a dining pop-up for us and another couple. The co-chef is a former student of mine and a talented journalist of Ukrainian lineage, who immigrated here as a boy, in fact. The original theme was Russia (I and the other couple are Russophiles, and have been talking about a trip there for a while) but after the invasion, it was changed to a tribute to Ukraine, a couple of courses changed, and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to relief organizations. So now, instead of beef stroganoff for the main course, we’re having chicken Kiev, and if you suspect I am embarrassed to write that sentence, you are correct. We all do our parts. This is mine. And it feels very much of a piece with the strangeness of this war: Admire me, world, for I have posted a meme. Also, what’s your corkage fee?

I found this Twitter thread interesting:

Why has Ukraine been so successful at information warfare/propaganda vs the supposed Russian masters of it?

A thread 🧵 of 10 persuasion messaging themes working for them:

— Peter W. Singer (@peterwsinger) February 28, 2022

A couple days ago I found a tweet that showed Ukrainian soldiers cuddling cats, allegedly rescued from the streets, wreckage, whatever. Two of the soldiers were women, and both were wearing makeup. Here’s one.

pic.twitter.com/OtS7kOElE5

— Observatorio de Violencia hacia los Animales (@ViolenciaObs) February 27, 2022

Maybe I don’t understand modern warfare, but I’d think a soldier doesn’t have time to worry about makeup when bombs are falling. Maybe they do. I’m not a veteran; maybe someone could explain.

I also want to talk about “Attica,” which I watched my last night on the road, when I had Showtime on my hotel TV. I checked in around 5 p.m. and by the time I turned out the light, I’d watched three-fourths of the Cosby series and “Attica,” although I was getting woozy toward the end and watched it again last night. Jesus Christ, what a difficult experience, but a searing one. I knew the basic outlines of the story, but not many of the details, and had never seen the photos, which were ghastly. It ain’t a Pixar flick, but if you are interested in racism and justice, it’s essential. Find a way to see it.

OK, then. Here comes Wednesday, and probably more cats-in-wartime photos.

I guess the trip came full circle at some point outside Dayton. Maybe some of you remember when the states of Ohio and North Carolina were beefing over which one had the true claim to calling itself the birthplace of aviation, some version of which is emblazoned on each state’s license plates. Ohio was home to the Wright brothers, and North Carolina was where they made their first flights. I believe they settled on splitting hairs; Ohio claimed “birthplace of aviation,” while North Carolina uses “First in Flight.” Both more or less accurate. (Wilbur Wright was born in Indiana, although the family moved to Ohio in his youth.)

And I drove through both.

My N.C. friends, both longtime Ohioans relocated to the Outer Banks, believe North Carolina should get the crown. Don’t tell that to Dayton, which has slapped the Wright name on everything, including the Air Force base there. As a daughter of Columbus, I don’t have a dog in the fight, having learned that my hometown’s namesake is now considered a Bad Man and there’s a good chance the Wright Brothers will be revealed as similar Bad Men and the circus will move on to what should replace both.

Elsewhere on the trip, I found another reason to despise Donald Trump when I was looking at the Obama portraits in Atlanta. Of course I wondered who would get the Trump presidential portrait commission, or if there would even be one. From the instructional panels at the exhibit, I gathered this is a bit of business reserved for the last part of the chief executive’s final term, and Trump thinks he was illegally robbed of one. So agreeing to sit for one would mean admitting his presidency was over. Although as vain as he is, it’s hard to believe he would skip it.

A quick Google reveals the truth as of a year ago: Trump “has already begun participating in the customary process so his official portrait can eventually hang alongside his predecessors, according to an aide and others familiar with the discussions.” Who will the lucky artist be? Please let it be Jon McNaughton, she prayed fervently; let the finished canvas include an eagle, a flag, another flag, a bomb, a cross, Jesus and the Deutschbank logo. And something gold. Gotta have some gold in there.

Now here we are, on the doorstep of March, Lent and spring now less than a month away. Even Ramadan is pretty close, and it’s always moving around the calendar.) A lovely day is in progress outside my window, and I should probably get out in it, now that I’ve cleaned my bathroom and otherwise caught up with stupid housework. Ukraine remains in crisis, but is showing a great deal of pluck in their resistance. Republicans, on the other hands, are twisting in the wind. It’s like watching someone try to jerk off Tucker Carlson with one hand and the entire staff of the National Review with the other. Entertaining, in a grim kinda way.

On Monday, my best friend’s firstborn will be defending his dissertation. Apparently it’ll be on Zoom, and the public is welcome to watch. I’ve never seen a dissertation defense, and I plan to watch because I’ve known this boy since he was in diapers, and, well, he’s a genius. I don’t expect to understand it at all; he’s in a medical science program, the kind where you go to med school a couple extra years and emerge with two doctorates, medical and “of philosophy,” as they say. But it’ll be interesting to watch.

I have to say, I’m enjoying this phase of parenthood, where a kid is more or less launched into the world and your work is pretty much done. I say “more or less” because I imagine they stay on the family cell-phone plan and HBO subscription until you die. And “pretty much” because they’ll always need you, at least a little. But it’s fun to sit down with a young adult, pour two glasses of wine, and have an adult conversation. You can say “fuck” without feeling like you’re corrupting them. It certainly beats adolescence.

Two language-related incidents in recent days here. First, the grimmer one: A substitute teacher in a suburban high-school here was escorted from the building by administration, fired and told to never return (in so many words). Her crime? Saying “get your cotton-pickin’ hands off of it” to a black student. This was captured on video, because apparently kids never put their phones away, and it had to be done.

The story I read was by some Gannett partner paper out in the ‘burbs, and was written as though she’d burned a cross in the classroom. I can’t find the link now, but there was one passage where the superintendent talked about how all substitutes are of course qualified, but “we can’t know the prejudices in a person’s heart” when they’re hired. Until they come out in language like that.

All I could think was, she said “cotton-pickin'” so she wouldn’t say “goddamn.” Or something worse.

While it is obviously abundantly clear why that phrase is racially offensive, it’s also one of those usages that was common, once upon a time, and had nothing to do with race at all, at least not when I ever heard it. It was a way for your mom or dad to intensify an order without using profanity. Get your cotton-pickin’ hands off the stereo, Jimmy is better parenting than telling Jimmy to take his fucking hands off the volume knob.

It’s an antique phrase, granted. When I hear it in my memory, it comes out in Mel Blanc’s voice, because Yosemite Sam used it a lot when he talked to Bugs Bunny. Wait one cotton-pickin’ minute, etc. I asked some younger people what they thought, and here’s where I was really surprised: Several of them had never heard the phrase at all. Ever! So much for the ubiquity of Looney Tunes.

Some people say gosh darn, some pea-pickin’, some doggone, but it’s all the same. Lots of parents used that phrase when I was a kid. Lots of parents continued to use that phrase when I was an adult.

Memo to the room: We can no longer use that phrase. Substitute fucking, instead. You may still get in trouble, but you won’t be branded a racist.

On Friday night, we went to the Dirty Show, Detroit’s annual erotic-art festival. It’s been a while (Covid), and I was pleased to see the old spirit is back, with vaccine checks at the door and a fair number of masks.

As we were preparing to leave, the burlesque dancers took a break and a comic came out to do a tight five. It was a young woman, about Kate’s age, and she started out blue and reached a shade of blue so deep and bloooooo they need a new word for it. The performers’ names were projected on a screen behind them, and I suddenly realized that I knew her. Or rather, I knew her parents. They lived around the corner from us in Ann Arbor, and Kate played with her sister. Later, Kate and the comic went to Cuba together for a three-week study abroad program.

Alan was laughing his ass off. The jokes weren’t that funny, but there was a certain humor in seeing how far she’d go for the next laugh, like watching someone on a high wire. “Do you ever look into the toilet after you shit and think about how big a dick you could take back there?” etc. All I could think of was the sweet kindergartener I first knew, and of course, if her parents would rather she choose a stage name.

Not sure how we got there from Bernie’s dissertation, but good luck, Bern! You’ll do great, I know.

A little bloggage:

David French – David French! – is warning of the political violence to come, gestating in American evangelical churches:

Some readers may remember that I debated Eric Metaxas at John Brown University in September 2020. While the debate was civil enough, it was clear to me that Metaxas was operating with a level of commitment to Trump that went well beyond reason. He truly believed Joe Biden would destroy America. He truly believed Trump was God’s chosen man for the moment.

Then, after the election, Metaxas escalated his rhetoric considerably. Let’s recall some of his quotes about the election:

“It’s like stealing the heart and soul of America. It’s like holding a rusty knife to the throat of Lady Liberty.”

“You might as well spit on the grave of George Washington.”

“This is evil. It’s like somebody has been raped or murdered. … This is like that times a thousand.”

Indeed, Metaxas claimed certainty even in the absence of proof: “So who cares what I can prove in the courts? This is right. This happened, and I am going to do anything I can to uncover this horror, this evil.”

Hey, Dave – you guys built this Jurassic Park. You can’t be that shocked now that the velociraptors are finding the weak spots in the fence.

So, then: Happy Superbowling, everyone.

I’ve been turning off the Olympics, bored, after 45 minutes the last few nights. It’s the snow, I think. It’s not snow, it’s weird compressed fake cold stuff that doesn’t look or behave like real snow. No flakes ever fall from the sky. The slopes look like white concrete, and allegedly feel like it when athletes fall on them, too.

I’m getting no Winter vibe from any of the interstitial bits, either. No sense that anyone is sitting just out of camera range drinking hot chocolate or gathering to hit the clubs and celebrate, post-medal.

God, China sucks. At least at this.

It’s not all the host country’s fault, I should add. Some of these events make zero sense to me. Snowcross, slopestyle, big air, meh — people launch themselves into the air over icy concrete and we say wow. Only I don’t say wow. I say why would anyone want to fly into the sky upside down over icy concrete? WHERE IS THE SNOW?

Oh, this is just me being peevish again. Also, the skating is OK, but I wish we could see more speedskating.

So, many years ago, not long after I arrived in Indiana, a friend told me about a radio ad he’d heard, for a series of action figures, toys for kids. At the time, action figures were mainly superheroes, Transformers and ninja turtles, which for some reason Christians found objectionable. So, in an effort to submerge their children in an alt-culture more to their liking, they came up with Heroes of the Kingdom, i.e. little plastic Biblical figures that kids could play with. I recall, from the ad, a little boy’s voice: Goliath, God will protect me from your sword!

We know now that Christian alt-culture goes far beyond action figures (although honestly, I wish their music didn’t suck so hard). But imagine being a child in such a family, plowing through your homeschool curriculum, and then you’re handed, oh, a book on Thomas Sowell:

While he looked for work, he often had nothing to eat except stale bread and jam. But Sowell refused to give in to despair or self-pity. And indeed, Sowell went on to be a famous thinker that inspires millions with his ideas on self-reliance and free-market economics.

Thomas Sowell guy has been in a veritable featherbed of a sinecure for his entire career, as I recall. If he were released into the free market, he’d be stripped for parts before he could set up a card table on the sidewalk to sell his books. Fun fact gleaned from his Wikipedia entry: He’s 91. And I still think the best thing ever written about him was something I found and posted years ago, but bears repeating:

Sowell, a syndicated newspaper columnist and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, writes a book a year. His first one appeared in 1971, and he has written forty-six in all. I confess to not having read them all. But I have read enough of them to know that Sowell is not one for changing his mind. Although he claims to have been a Marxist in his youth, his published writings never vary: the same themes—the market works, affirmative action does not work, Marxism is wrong, and, yes, intellectuals are never to be trusted—dominate from start to finish. The right has its share of converts—those, such as the also prolific David Horowitz, who began on one extreme only to shift to the other, and along their bumpy way display at least some genuine vitality—but Sowell is not one of those. The flatness of his sentences is matched by the flatness of his trajectory. Whatever darkness exists in the world does not reside in his soul. He undertakes no bildung and experiences no crises. He learns nothing that does not confirm what he already knew. If he were a character in a novel, it would end on page one.

I am not in the conversion business, but I have changed my mind more than a few times in the forty or so years that I have been putting my views before the public. Reality can do that to you. You might think, for example, as I once did, that affirmative action is highly suspect because it gives more weight to group membership than individual achievement. But if you teach at a university and see your classes enriched by the diversity that affirmative action brings to them, and if you then hear remarkable stories of the individual achievements made possible through the magic of the college admissions process, you may begin to change your mind. I do not fear a future Tim Russert combing my early books to find words in blatant contradiction to my present ones: good luck in even finding the young out-of-print me. Sure, some of the stuff I once wrote embarrasses me now, even down to my choice of titles. But better that than sentences never exposed to the air of experience.

That’s Alan Wolfe, by the way.

And this is me wishing you a pleasant weekend. And some actual snow in Beijing.

Joe Rogan is in the news these days. This is a development that leaves me feeling so utterly out of it, I feel like taking up knitting, mainly because I only recently learned who Joe Rogan is. I didn’t watch the show he hosted (“Fear Factor”), because it sounded boring and ridiculous, and I don’t pay attention to mixed martial arts, his other big claim to fame, and so when you tell me this guy has millions of listeners to his podcast, I think: Huh. OK.

While I don’t doubt the people who claim he’s racist and sexist, podcasts can be cherrypicked and words taken out of context, so I thought I might check him out and see for myself. (I retain my Spotify subscription. For now.)

I should tell you my prejudices about podcasts up front: I think most of them are too long. It kills me that so many pods are produced by people who have undeniable assets but no radio experience, and make shows where the opening small talk between hosts takes 15 minutes. I’m glad people get along, there’s nothing wrong with showing your on-air chemistry, but holy shitballs start the damn show already. And learn how to edit, to take out the irrelevant guest tangent. And most of all, stop assuming people have nothing else to do but listen to you.

Granted, everyone listens differently. And maybe I’m too old to understand the appeal of this or that host chatting with his/her co-host like you are the third person at the table, or maybe the small talk isn’t for me, but I still firmly believe Podcast Bloat is a thing, and I far prefer pods that can get in and out of my ears in either 30 or no more than 60 minutes.

All this by way of noting that two hours is a short Joe Rogan podcast. Two and a half seems to be standard, and some go far, far longer. Jordan Peterson, the Canadian weirdo, talks to Rogan for FOUR! HOURS! (And 13 minutes.) People used to say, “You can’t judge Rush Limbaugh by some single thing he said. You have to listen for a month, then decide if he’s an asshole bigot.” Sorry, pals, I ain’t got time to dedicate a month of the only life I have to divining the essence of Rush Limbaugh, and ditto Rogan. But I did cue up half a dozen of his pods this week, just to see how or if they grabbed me.

Readers? They did not.

Rogan is, as his fans say, undeniably curious on a wide variety of issues (concentrating on bro-y stuff like fitness, stand-up comedy, showbiz and the like), so I’ll give him that. Unfortunately, he employs the Larry King Tabula Rasa strategy of interviewing, which is to say, he doesn’t seem to really prepare for anything. People say stupid shit and it’s not challenged. Rogan says stupid shit and it’s even less challenged; one trainer advocated a particular move that goes directly against every rule about how to treat your knees, and while Rogan noted the contradiction, he didn’t ask the why question.

In other words, while Rogan has the foundation of being a decent journalist (curiosity), he lacks the discipline to know how to craft it in service of others. Not that he won’t chime in when he feels like it. When one guest mentioned omicron, he said, “Oh, yeah, the cold.” And in the exchange that followed, he insisted omicron was no more serious than that, and the only people dying of it were basically fucked to begin with anyway, so. The “no big loss” was left unspoken, but hung in the air.

I guess it’s easy to talk to someone for two hours, especially if you’re on drugs – Rogan is said to be a big fan of those – but far harder to do it responsibly. There’s a clip of Rogan talking to a Holocaust denier that will curl your hair. He just sits there and nods.

So. Other big news of the moment: The Canadian Truckers 4 Freedumb have landed close to home. The privately owned Ambassador Bridge has been closed most of the day, with most of the action on the Canadian side. I was down there today for lunch and didn’t see much – a few trucks pulled over on the freeway with a state police officer talking to one, that sort of thing. But it’s big news, I guess. I’ll keep you posted if a shooting war breaks out.

I’m not Catholic anymore, but that’s how I was raised, and even though I’ve :::hand to forehead::: fallen away, there are parts of the One True that just stay with you. Which is the long way around to saying that when a Jesuit speaks about morality, I tend to listen with an open mind.

And hey, one did, Fr. James Martin, S.J., asking the question in the headline: How Do You Respond When an Anti-Vaxxer Dies of Covid?

Great question! I struggle with this one. There have been a few high-profile Covid deaths around here, and a few more on the national stage. I’m absolutely out of fucks, as the kids say, but I can’t go so far as touchdown dancing all over the internet, either. Death is the undiscovered country, and the dead know something we don’t. So give them that.

Martin has a few things to say on this topic:

At this point I could run through a list of philosophers, theologians and wise voices from religions and traditions around the world to prove my point. Instead I will reclaim a word that has been largely lost from our discourse: mean. Crowing over someone’s suffering or demise is as far from a moral act as one can imagine. It’s cruel.

Indulged in regularly, schadenfreude ends up warping the soul. It robs us of empathy for those with whom we disagree. It lessens our compassion. To use some language from both the Old and New Testaments, it “hardens” our hearts. No matter how much I disagree with anti-vaxxers, I know that schadenfreude over their deaths is a dead end.

“Come on!” some might say. “It’s a natural emotion.” That’s true — and emotions are usually beyond our control. If someone coughs intentionally (or thoughtlessly) in your face on the subway, it’s natural to get angry. At least for a few seconds.

But what you do with those emotions — give in to them, prolong them or intensify them — is a moral decision. After your fellow subway rider coughs in your face, you don’t need to express your anger by punching him. Simply letting your emotions take you wherever they please is what a baby does, not an adult.

I think that’s right. Higher in the column, he talks about Laura Ingraham, “a commentator who often expresses her belief in ‘Christian values,’ applauded the news that Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had tested positive for the coronavirus despite being vaccinated and boosted.” I want nothing to do with Laura Ingraham. So I’ll try it Fr. Martin’s way.

Speaking of morality, one of the zillion Republicans vying for the gubernatorial nomination here in Michigan stepped in it this week, making the case for women pregnant as a result of rape to be “heroic” and choose to carry their fetuses to term.

I’ve long found this position repugnant, but at least morally consistent; after all, if you believe all zygotes, embryos and fetuses to be fully formed humans with civil and constitutional rights, then you might as well go all the way. The people who say sorry, gotta have that kid are fully living their beliefs. The ones who make rape/incest exceptions are saying those embryos are expendable, but not the ones that came because you were a slutty slut. That’s directly punitive of women for their sexual choices, and even worse.

He’s not going to be the nominee, although I don’t know who will be, either. I do know that in just the last few days — and it’s only Tuesday! — one candidate has advocated for election interference and another for forced childbearing.

So now we’re all hunkered down, waiting for the big storm. Eight inches, no 12 inches, no FIFTEEN INCHES of snow, headed our way. We’ll be stuck indoors for two days, at least. So now, I’m going out to snag a cheeseburger made by someone else while I still can. Stay safe if you’re in the path.