I loved the joke. Prejudice, on the rise in the US, especially against the Jews, blocks all logic. As in the joke, orientals bombed pearl harbor. Why distinguish between orientals? Anti-semitism stymies me. Why hate the Jews? Pontius Pilot, a Roman General, ordered Jesus crucified, at least according to Christianity, of which I am not a member. What did Jews do to turn off so many in the world? Who cares? If you hate Jews, why search for a reason why? Just hate them. Trump and the Nobel Prize. If there is a definition of narcissistic vanity, it would state "See President Trump." The winner should not have surrendered her prize. She received nothing in return and Trump will likely claim it as his own. Modesty seems to be a vanishing trait.
Jay,hope this finds you safe. Yesterday's weather was not fun. Jimmy Cannon's "Nobody Asked Me But". More recently,Mike Lupica's "Shooting From the Lip". Both (mostly!) sports related columns,but both featured the same wonderful bouncing from topic to topic. That's one of the main reasons I enjoy reading you. Not knowing where the next sentence is going makes for terrific reading. Best, Dan Stevens.
Jay, I so appreciate the 'to and fro' manner of your writing, permitting the reader to make connections. When I stopped reading NR 14 months ago (after 50 plus years) I knew you would be the author I most missed, as you trust your readers. At some point as brave souls give their lost full measure the momentum of the pendulum will cease swinging away from ordered liberty. Who knows, perhaps it has started? Regardless, until then the light of liberty flickers in your efforts.
Thanks for another great column, Jay. I’m a saxophone player and have been playing Speak Low for years. I have to admit, I did not realize it was a Shakespeare reference so thank you for that.
Speaking of American songbook standards influenced by poetry: when reading about the English poet Ernest Dowson i learned that he originated three phrases, all of which are the titles of famous standards.
The songs are:
Gone with the Wind by Allie Wrubel and Herb Magidson
The Days of Wine and Roses by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer
I think we need to do more with narrative fiction. I had Holocaust survivors visit my school and they left an impression. But, and I’m a little embarrassed to admit this though it’s true: the first thing I think about when it comes to identical lessons is X-Men, where mutants are an obvious stand-in for the core ethical problems and attestations from history.
Jay, thanks for opening up the comments today so I can tell you how much I appreciate your writing. I enjoy your musings, and they are refreshingly well written. Please continue to share.
I have not seen the Renee Nicole Reed faces of Death video, beyond the clip of her lasts words, just before she innocently flips a bitch, just trying to leave the scene of a N.I.C.E. crime…”I am not mad at you”…Any honest jury member would say that just goes to show you what her intent was when the lovable, leftist loony was just trying to turn her humble ride around… before she ran into a rightists assassins bullets…Who, any fair observer would admit, fellow Minnesota N.I.C.E. bandit, I mean blood brother of Jonathan Ross spoke for all those amped up on…and geared up like they are going to battle in Fallujah (no hat tip to John) when he said the not so quiet thing out loud “FING BITCH”!Justice for Renee. Indict all the rhesus Trump rally monkeys. And please God, I mean forgive me Jesus, take him away (with all due respect Jay, I believe in the death penalty for cold blooded murderers, like Putin, like Ross, like The and I put it writing for those that believe in an eye for an eye to see in bold print. That’s why I cannot help but wish a marine Corp sniper made like Lee and dropped the two mobsters, I mean monsters on that Alaskan tarmac…much as I would prefer to say that to the Orangeman’s face so that maybe, just maybe the shameless, mendacious, narcissistic, megalomaniac, crony capitalist pig, anti Truth Neo Nationalist Sociopath would find God in the flesh…as we are commanded to pray for our sinners me to NOT tolerate liars, cheaters, thief’s…let alone psycho killers like the President Duterte, I mean Trump. How many times do I have to politely tell you Jay it is way past time being Mr. Nice Guy. By “The Skin of Our Teeth” (hat tip Kenneth Clark). God help U.S.
May Mike Johnson and J.D. Vance’s Lord have no mercy on their contemptible dead soul men walking
Never thought I would see the day a former colleague of yours at N.R. would pen an article writing Donald Trump should take the 25th…I mean who in their right mind would have ever thought The Hoosiers would be reigning football champs…but, then again, forgive me Jesus, I never thought I would vote for a grotesque man, not once, but twice that sat down and broke bread with Alex Jones…and that was like so over ten years ago…meanwhile, did you see and hear what The Don was just chilling with today…too bad he’s not chilling like Alex Pretti, because this here Roman [comma], Catholic still has a lot of Old Testament hellfire in him, tempered by the Good News. Gotta run on. Thanks for taking my rant Onward and Upward. I am not afraid to say the quiet part out LOUD. Peace through superior mental firepower GOD HELP U.S. We the Living in Kakistocracy, I mean Idiocracy
Jay: “I live in a building with old-style steam heat. We residents don’t control the heat. We can’t increase it or decrease it. Even in sub-freezing weather, many of us open our windows, to counterbalance the heat.”
I will upgrade to paid if you are living in this building due to lack of funds. Maybe enough others will, too, so that you can get a place with your own thermostat.
I am continually amazed that my longtime friends at Heritage and Claremont have forgotten all they learned from Hayek, Mises, Downs, and the entire body of Public Choice literature about bureaucratic behavior. If ICE’s effectiveness is being measured by the number of arrests, then they have also forgotten the lessons of measuring the progress of the Vietnam War by body count.
Brilliant piece on how documented evidence often cant compete with ppl's priors. The Lipstadt interview captures something unsettling abt the October 7 footage. I've seen this pattern in my own field where data gets filtered through whatever lens someone brought to the table first. Even the term "murky" feels generous when folks refuse what's on tape.
Might I add to your cited quotes one from the storied coach of our (as in your and my) alma mater? It seems apt in these dark times: “ In times of difficulty, those brave enough to stay the course will be victors in the end” - Glenn Edward Schembechler Jr.
Thank you so much for your lovely writing. I enjoy your thoughtful takes on world and national events (conservative in the way that I understand that word). I especially loved your series about your correspondence with William F. Buckley. It was a glimpse into a great friendship - as well as a chance to “hear” once again from Mr. Buckley.
"One notable thing about Republican politicians, media personalities, and others: they feel a need to adopt and ratify Trump’s grievances."
Why do you think that is? Are they, themselves, the kind of people who think that anything that irks them should be a global crisis? Or did they become people who enable that infantile attitude in others for ... reasons?
And how is that working out for them? Happy and fulfilling lives with dance parties and Mexican birthday cake ... or stress and misery?
Isn't it also true that one notable thing about Democratic politicians, media personalities, and others: they feel a need to believe, oppose, and demean every one of Trump’s utterances.
"Why do you think that is? Are they, themselves, the kind of people who think that anything that irks them should be a global crisis? Or did they become people who enable that infantile attitude in others for ... reasons?
"And how is that working out for them? Happy and fulfilling lives with dance parties and Mexican birthday cake ... or stress and misery?" (As an example, see the above post by Mr. Compson.)
Thank you, Jay, for continuing to be such a thoughtful, gracious, cultured, sane voice. Your writing is needed more than ever.
As to one of the main topics here, I have two observations.
1) I suppose it’s part of how partisan brain operates, but does no one really ever notice—can they really avoid ever being struck by—the utter predictability of how they and their favorite allies will react to every and any thing whatsoever? Are they never surprised at how reliably unsurprising it all is?
2) It is inarguably true that, of those folks who are so very sure about the facts of a situation after watching a video clip, a healthy proportion of them will be football fans.
Which makes their certitude all the more baffling, as they will have seen the quest for “clear and obvious video evidence” (professionally filmed at great expense, interpreted by true experts) fail again and again and again to settle what should usually, in theory, be straightforward questions.
Broadly speaking, most everybody could stand to be a whole lot less certain about a whole lot of things, don’t you think?
(Especially things that have just happened…in places hundreds of miles away that they may have never even visited…involving people they do not know and had never even heard of until the story broke…subject to laws and norms they may have never studied or learned how to interpret…)
People have free will. I think people willfully do not believe in the holocaust, and willfulness trumps evidence more often than not. But you’re right about the survivors many of whom provided silent testimony of the evil some can do. I remember once a long time ago when a co-worker and I were riding a bus in San Francisco. An older lady sitting across from us reached up to grab hold of a stanchion in front of her resulting in her sleeve falling away from her wrist and allowing us to see the number tattooed there. I will never forget.
Jay, thank you for your measured musings. The calm way you write helps keep me calm despite the chaos around us.
A morbid curiosity makes me want a journalist to ask Trump what his thoughts are on some of those previous Nobel laureates.
I'd love to know his opinions on Mother Teresa or Mandela & de Klerk or Norman Borlaug (after the journalist explains patiently who they were for Trump's benefit), but I'm sure I'd hate to read them.
I loved the joke. Prejudice, on the rise in the US, especially against the Jews, blocks all logic. As in the joke, orientals bombed pearl harbor. Why distinguish between orientals? Anti-semitism stymies me. Why hate the Jews? Pontius Pilot, a Roman General, ordered Jesus crucified, at least according to Christianity, of which I am not a member. What did Jews do to turn off so many in the world? Who cares? If you hate Jews, why search for a reason why? Just hate them. Trump and the Nobel Prize. If there is a definition of narcissistic vanity, it would state "See President Trump." The winner should not have surrendered her prize. She received nothing in return and Trump will likely claim it as his own. Modesty seems to be a vanishing trait.
Jay,hope this finds you safe. Yesterday's weather was not fun. Jimmy Cannon's "Nobody Asked Me But". More recently,Mike Lupica's "Shooting From the Lip". Both (mostly!) sports related columns,but both featured the same wonderful bouncing from topic to topic. That's one of the main reasons I enjoy reading you. Not knowing where the next sentence is going makes for terrific reading. Best, Dan Stevens.
Thank you, Dan!
Jay, I so appreciate the 'to and fro' manner of your writing, permitting the reader to make connections. When I stopped reading NR 14 months ago (after 50 plus years) I knew you would be the author I most missed, as you trust your readers. At some point as brave souls give their lost full measure the momentum of the pendulum will cease swinging away from ordered liberty. Who knows, perhaps it has started? Regardless, until then the light of liberty flickers in your efforts.
Bless you, JS!
Thanks for another great column, Jay. I’m a saxophone player and have been playing Speak Low for years. I have to admit, I did not realize it was a Shakespeare reference so thank you for that.
Speaking of American songbook standards influenced by poetry: when reading about the English poet Ernest Dowson i learned that he originated three phrases, all of which are the titles of famous standards.
The songs are:
Gone with the Wind by Allie Wrubel and Herb Magidson
The Days of Wine and Roses by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer
Always true to you in my fashion by Cole Porter
I never knew! Thx, CJ.
I think we need to do more with narrative fiction. I had Holocaust survivors visit my school and they left an impression. But, and I’m a little embarrassed to admit this though it’s true: the first thing I think about when it comes to identical lessons is X-Men, where mutants are an obvious stand-in for the core ethical problems and attestations from history.
Jay, thanks for opening up the comments today so I can tell you how much I appreciate your writing. I enjoy your musings, and they are refreshingly well written. Please continue to share.
Thx a ton, DeDee.
I have not seen the Renee Nicole Reed faces of Death video, beyond the clip of her lasts words, just before she innocently flips a bitch, just trying to leave the scene of a N.I.C.E. crime…”I am not mad at you”…Any honest jury member would say that just goes to show you what her intent was when the lovable, leftist loony was just trying to turn her humble ride around… before she ran into a rightists assassins bullets…Who, any fair observer would admit, fellow Minnesota N.I.C.E. bandit, I mean blood brother of Jonathan Ross spoke for all those amped up on…and geared up like they are going to battle in Fallujah (no hat tip to John) when he said the not so quiet thing out loud “FING BITCH”!Justice for Renee. Indict all the rhesus Trump rally monkeys. And please God, I mean forgive me Jesus, take him away (with all due respect Jay, I believe in the death penalty for cold blooded murderers, like Putin, like Ross, like The and I put it writing for those that believe in an eye for an eye to see in bold print. That’s why I cannot help but wish a marine Corp sniper made like Lee and dropped the two mobsters, I mean monsters on that Alaskan tarmac…much as I would prefer to say that to the Orangeman’s face so that maybe, just maybe the shameless, mendacious, narcissistic, megalomaniac, crony capitalist pig, anti Truth Neo Nationalist Sociopath would find God in the flesh…as we are commanded to pray for our sinners me to NOT tolerate liars, cheaters, thief’s…let alone psycho killers like the President Duterte, I mean Trump. How many times do I have to politely tell you Jay it is way past time being Mr. Nice Guy. By “The Skin of Our Teeth” (hat tip Kenneth Clark). God help U.S.
May Mike Johnson and J.D. Vance’s Lord have no mercy on their contemptible dead soul men walking
Never thought I would see the day a former colleague of yours at N.R. would pen an article writing Donald Trump should take the 25th…I mean who in their right mind would have ever thought The Hoosiers would be reigning football champs…but, then again, forgive me Jesus, I never thought I would vote for a grotesque man, not once, but twice that sat down and broke bread with Alex Jones…and that was like so over ten years ago…meanwhile, did you see and hear what The Don was just chilling with today…too bad he’s not chilling like Alex Pretti, because this here Roman [comma], Catholic still has a lot of Old Testament hellfire in him, tempered by the Good News. Gotta run on. Thanks for taking my rant Onward and Upward. I am not afraid to say the quiet part out LOUD. Peace through superior mental firepower GOD HELP U.S. We the Living in Kakistocracy, I mean Idiocracy
in.
Jay: “I live in a building with old-style steam heat. We residents don’t control the heat. We can’t increase it or decrease it. Even in sub-freezing weather, many of us open our windows, to counterbalance the heat.”
I will upgrade to paid if you are living in this building due to lack of funds. Maybe enough others will, too, so that you can get a place with your own thermostat.
Ha, thx, Sue. I rather like this steam heat! But again -- thank you.
I am continually amazed that my longtime friends at Heritage and Claremont have forgotten all they learned from Hayek, Mises, Downs, and the entire body of Public Choice literature about bureaucratic behavior. If ICE’s effectiveness is being measured by the number of arrests, then they have also forgotten the lessons of measuring the progress of the Vietnam War by body count.
Yes. "Continually amazed" describes me too, I'm afraid.
Brilliant piece on how documented evidence often cant compete with ppl's priors. The Lipstadt interview captures something unsettling abt the October 7 footage. I've seen this pattern in my own field where data gets filtered through whatever lens someone brought to the table first. Even the term "murky" feels generous when folks refuse what's on tape.
👍
Might I add to your cited quotes one from the storied coach of our (as in your and my) alma mater? It seems apt in these dark times: “ In times of difficulty, those brave enough to stay the course will be victors in the end” - Glenn Edward Schembechler Jr.
👍
Go Blue!
Thank you so much for your lovely writing. I enjoy your thoughtful takes on world and national events (conservative in the way that I understand that word). I especially loved your series about your correspondence with William F. Buckley. It was a glimpse into a great friendship - as well as a chance to “hear” once again from Mr. Buckley.
Thx a ton, RW.
"One notable thing about Republican politicians, media personalities, and others: they feel a need to adopt and ratify Trump’s grievances."
Why do you think that is? Are they, themselves, the kind of people who think that anything that irks them should be a global crisis? Or did they become people who enable that infantile attitude in others for ... reasons?
And how is that working out for them? Happy and fulfilling lives with dance parties and Mexican birthday cake ... or stress and misery?
A dizzying phenomenon.
Isn't it also true that one notable thing about Democratic politicians, media personalities, and others: they feel a need to believe, oppose, and demean every one of Trump’s utterances.
"Why do you think that is? Are they, themselves, the kind of people who think that anything that irks them should be a global crisis? Or did they become people who enable that infantile attitude in others for ... reasons?
"And how is that working out for them? Happy and fulfilling lives with dance parties and Mexican birthday cake ... or stress and misery?" (As an example, see the above post by Mr. Compson.)
I think anyone who spends his or her life engaging with or responding to Donald Trump is likely to be unhappy.
How frequently have you seen Melania smile?
Once in a while during the first term, usually when she was doing something with children. That seemed genuine.
Thank you, Jay, for continuing to be such a thoughtful, gracious, cultured, sane voice. Your writing is needed more than ever.
As to one of the main topics here, I have two observations.
1) I suppose it’s part of how partisan brain operates, but does no one really ever notice—can they really avoid ever being struck by—the utter predictability of how they and their favorite allies will react to every and any thing whatsoever? Are they never surprised at how reliably unsurprising it all is?
2) It is inarguably true that, of those folks who are so very sure about the facts of a situation after watching a video clip, a healthy proportion of them will be football fans.
Which makes their certitude all the more baffling, as they will have seen the quest for “clear and obvious video evidence” (professionally filmed at great expense, interpreted by true experts) fail again and again and again to settle what should usually, in theory, be straightforward questions.
Broadly speaking, most everybody could stand to be a whole lot less certain about a whole lot of things, don’t you think?
(Especially things that have just happened…in places hundreds of miles away that they may have never even visited…involving people they do not know and had never even heard of until the story broke…subject to laws and norms they may have never studied or learned how to interpret…)
Well said, KMJ. Thx.
People have free will. I think people willfully do not believe in the holocaust, and willfulness trumps evidence more often than not. But you’re right about the survivors many of whom provided silent testimony of the evil some can do. I remember once a long time ago when a co-worker and I were riding a bus in San Francisco. An older lady sitting across from us reached up to grab hold of a stanchion in front of her resulting in her sleeve falling away from her wrist and allowing us to see the number tattooed there. I will never forget.
Moving, John -- thank you.
Jay, thank you for your measured musings. The calm way you write helps keep me calm despite the chaos around us.
A morbid curiosity makes me want a journalist to ask Trump what his thoughts are on some of those previous Nobel laureates.
I'd love to know his opinions on Mother Teresa or Mandela & de Klerk or Norman Borlaug (after the journalist explains patiently who they were for Trump's benefit), but I'm sure I'd hate to read them.
!