Lift Up Your Hearts!

Grace's "numbers" have been doing very well, as has she herself.  But at today's clinic visit, her creatinine level was elevated, and that was confirmed by a repeat test.  This indicates potential trouble with her kidneys, so she is scheduled for a kidney ultrasound on Friday.

Thank you, as always, treasured pray-ers.

The Firing Squad

The first thing I must say about this movie is that it did everything I asked of it, and did it well.

The temperature and humidity were as bad as anything Florida had to offer, and promised to get worse in the afternoon. The place we were staying in Connecticut has no air conditioning, and the breeze that usually makes hot temperatures bearable if not actually pleasant was not doing well, and promised to be nonexistent at low tide.

One of the first places Willis Carrier introduce his miraculous invention was the movie theatres, to which people flocked for relief from hot city summers. We followed suit, choosing to watch The Firing Squad because we were under the erroneous impression that it was produced by the same folks as the wonderful and moving Sound of Freedom. I wish it had been, because the true story it tells, which made the news all over Asia, never seemed to make any headway here in the West.

It's a powerful, true story that deserves a better movie.

I don't properly appreciate great production values until I see a movie where they're lacking. The story is great, but I confess to cringing through much (though not all) of the movie. There were just too many things that didn't ring true. One of the least important yet most annoying to me was this: How can you have a movie, set in an Indonesian prison, with heat and rain and mud and work details, and whatever inhumane conditions one might expect in such a place—and the prisoners' bright orange uniforms remain clean and pressed throughout? Trivial, perhaps, but it sure struck a discordant note.

Speaking of notes, I did appreciate that when the men were singing Amazing Grace in the chapel service, some of them were off pitch. Now that was realistic.

I also wish the reformed characters showed in the movie some grief and repentence for their heinous crimes. I'll bet the real men did.

Great story, mediocre movie. Only you can decide if you'll put up with the latter for the former. And I must say that movies made outside of the high-budget, Hollywood world are getting better, and that's something.  Here's an interview with two of the actors that you might find interesting.

But as I said, The Firing Squad did exactly what I asked of it, providing us with two hours of cool, dry comfort. Definitely worth the price of admission. I suppose we could have gone to the grocery store instead, which was also air conditioned—but that would have cost a whole lot more.

When our daughter and her family moved to a small town in New Hampshire, the disadvantages were obvious to me. Over time, I've learned to see the advantages as well. Two segments of the following America's Untold Stories video make me all the happier they live where they do, and I want to tell my grandchildren: Hang on to your hometown! But also, be aware of what's happening elsewhere, so you can recognize the beginning stages when they come to you.

Back when our children were still in elementary school, I attended a conference at which a speaker regaled us with horror stories of what was going on in public schools. I'm afraid I didn't take her too seriously, because—like so many people who are passionate about an issue—she came on too strong, and painted a picture far too bleak to resonate with my own experiences. I was very much involved in our local public schools, and had not seen the abuses she was describing. The thing is, she was right. She was ahead of her time, and her stridency put people off—not unlike the Biblical prophets. But all she warned against came to pass, and orders of magnitude worse.

One reason I like America's Untold Stories is that Eric Hunley and Mark Groubert pull no punches without being strident, and more often than not have personal experiences to back up their concerns. Caveat: I haven't listened to the entire show, which is over two hours long at normal speed, so I don't know what else they talk about. The first segment I'm concerned with here, about the "Homeless Hilton" being built in Los Angeles, runs between the 17-minute mark to minute 26; from there until minute 48 deals with the New York City school system.

[Quoting Manhattan school board member Maud Maron] Parents, and the children of immigrants who came from former Communist countries—Eastern Europeans and the Chinese—were saying, "Maud, we know what this is, and this isn't good."

It's easy to think, "Well, that's Los Angeles and New York; it has nothing to do with my town, my city, my schools." To that I can only say, weep for those cities, pray for those cities—and be awake and aware of how your own home might be at risk of starting along the same paths.

For those of you who enjoyed Charles Cornell's analysis of the writing of the Pirates of the Caribbean music, and/or Grace's family's production of the same, here's another Cornell video, and not coincidentally another Daley production, this time for The Lord of the Rings.

I have mixed feelings about those movies, which to my mind do a grave injustice to J.R.R. Tolkien's creation, but they have their good moments, and the score is incredible. I'm a devoted "classical" music fan with little patience for so-called popular genres, but modern art music has veered off into such strange directions that I'm more than half certain that all the good composers have deserted to movie music. And I say, more power to them!

The Daley version was created two years ago this month, a year earlier than their Pirates production. Grace's contribution comes at the end of the credits.  (I was disappointed that there was no 2024 family musical production, but there was this small matter of Grace's cancer consuming every spare moment of their lives.  Maybe in 2025!)

Check out the first three minutes of this How to Cook That video for some depressing news from Switzerland. Toblerone isn't Toblerone anymore!

First of all, hooray for Switzerland for being very picky about where and how "Swiss" products are made. America's labelling rules in this matter are much too weak, which has resulted in products that are cheaper, yes, but also made with inferior ingredients and in countries that do not have the same safety standards we have come to expect. Mind you, I'm strongly in favor of food freedom, especially with regard to individual choices and small enterprises. (It's absurd that in the Free State of Florida dairy farmers can't sell raw milk for people to drink but have to label it as "for pet consumption only." It's even more absurd that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania—in the name of health and safety—is persecuting independent Amish farmers, who have been safely feeding themselves and others for centuries. But that's a story for another time.) However, if we are to be free to make our own food choices, honest and clear labelling is essential.

I trust the Swiss to maintain their high standards even if they now make some of their Toblerone in Slovakia, and the ingredients don't all come from Switzerland, but I can't help being disappointed. Maybe they should make two versions, "Classic Toblerone," all Swiss (except the cocoa beans), and the other "New Toblerone," and see how it flies. We know what happened with Coke! But Coke messed with the basic recipe, and I believe Toberone is not doing that.

I'd be happy to volunteer for taste-testing.

Last night, I listened to most of the conversation between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, and this morning I picked up the 30 minutes remaining when I went to bed. I assume they were on Pacific Time, but we are not, and there was nothing in the conversation that couldn't wait till the morning.

I didn't know about the event till yesterday, and might have been intrigued enough to listen. As Musk himself said, you don't get a good feel for a person through campaign speeches, interviews, or even debates. He wanted a free-ranging conversation between himself and Donald Trump, and I thought that could be interesting.

What clinched my participation, however, was a question from yesterday's White House press briefing. I don't know the name of the journalist, or what organization he represents, and the C-Span cameras remained focused on Ms. Jean-Pierre, but you can hear well enough. The question begins at 20:00, if you want to confirm it, but this is from the transcript, with a few minor corrections to make it more readable. (emphasis mine)

Journalist: Elon Musk is slated to interview Donald Trump tonight on X. I don't know if the president is going to—feel free to say if he is or not—but I think that misinformation on Twitter is not just a campaign issue. It's an American issue. What role does the White House or the President have in sort of stopping that or stopping the spread of that or sort of intervening in that? Some of that was about campaign misinformation. But you know, it's a wider thing, right?

Jean-Pierre: You've heard us talk about this many times from here about the responsibilities that social media platforms have when it comes to misinformation, disinformation, [I] don't have anything to read out from here about specific ways that we're working on it, but we believe that, that they have the responsibility. These are private companies, so we're also mindful of that too. But look, it is, I think it is incredibly important to call that out as you're doing. I just don't have any specifics on what we have been doing internally as it relates to the interviews. It's not something that I'm tracking and I'm sure the president's not tracking it either.

What did I just hear? A jounalist calling for the President to stop Musk and Trump having a conversation and sharing it on X with the American (and worldwide) public, First Amendment be damned? Of course I had to listen in!

It turned out to be a rather exciting event even before it started, because I couldn't get in to the conversation. Now, I had joined X back in 2015, when it was still Twitter, inspired by the Arab Spring and the realization that social media might be the best way to communicate in times of crisis. But I never did much at all with it, just kept it in my back pocket. So I figured my problems were just because I didn't know what I was doing.

Except that no one else could get in, either. It was rather fun, actually, trying one source after another, each one scrambling to see what was going on.

Just as the conversation was about to begin, X's servers had been hit by a massive DDOS (distributed denial of service) attack, presumably by someone who was even more disturbed by the prospect of Musk and Trump talking to the world than the anonymous journalist.

Do I really think that our government was behind the DDOS? No, though I wouldn't put it past them. But the coincidence of the journalist's question, and Jean-Pierre's non-specific "what we have been doing internally as it relates to the interviews," is noted. Hopefully we will eventually find out what happened. (Personally, I hope it was some prodigy hacker eager to test his cyber muscles against Elon Musk.)  For now, it is enough that the busy computer bees at X managed to get out from under the problem quickly enough, and the show went on.

This link should take you to the full three-hour recording. No doubt there will be highlights or summaries to come, but there's a good deal of value to original, unscripted, unedited data. Collected excerpts always reflect bias one way or another. Judge for yourself if there was anything so frightening you think we need to abandon our Constitution.  UPDATE:  Musk just posted a link to a version with higher quality audio. It's also only two hours instead of three, but at a quick glance appears to be complete. I have no idea how they did that, but it does like a more approachable conversation at 2/3 the length!

Was it worth listening to? I think so. Was it spectacular? No. Was it frightening? No. Was there anything there at all that could possibly have been worth throwing out the First Amendment, let alone so casually? Absolutely not.

At first the conversation was actually boring. As impossible as this seems for two such men, both Musk and Trump seemed a bit nervous. After touching briefly on the near-assassination, Musk merely let Trump speak away, in whatever direction he wanted to go. Not surprisingly, it sounded like a campaign speech, with far too much emphasis on the flaws of his opponents and the wonderful things he did when he was in office. For all I can see, he's right, but I'm tired of hearing it. He did much better when he focused on the positive things he plans to do if he gets elected this time.

As time went on, however, Trump's obvious excitement at an "interview" in which he was allowed to keep talking wound down, and both he and Musk relaxed. From then on, the conversation became worth listening to. Again, there was nothing spectacular about it, but free-ranging conversations among highly intelligent people who respect each other are almost always interesting.

I think the conversation was a good idea, and I hope Kamala Harris takes Musk up on his invitation to do the same.

I'm willing to bet that none of you woke up this morning wondering what all the fuss was about the Supreme Court's recent "Chevron" rulings. However, for those of you who might have at least given the question a passing thought, here's a good article by John Mauldin and Rod D. Martin, explaining how important these decisions are in restoring to elected officials some powers that had been ceded to unelected, and largely unaccountable, federal bureaucrats. (You should be able to read the article at that link. One of the things I like about Mauldin is that while you're strongly encouraged to subscribe, there's a lot that's not behind a pay wall.)

The Supreme Court’s overturning of Chevron was an early Independence Day gift. Chevron stood for an imperial bureaucracy, neither responsible to the people nor accountable to anyone, a priesthood of experts pursuing what Thomas Sowell called “the vision of the anointed,” interpreting, adjudicating, and above all, making the laws we must live by, however they saw fit.

Last week, in their Loper and Jarkesy rulings, the Court overturned that half-century travesty, partly upending the statist technocratic order and, at least to a degree, replacing it with the Constitutional vision of the Founders.

Take the Environmental Protection Agency as one example. The EPA, like countless other agencies, concentrates the powers of all three branches of government in its agency administrator, the de facto dictator. The agency makes law, and its lawmakers work for the administrator. The agency enforces the laws that it makes, and those enforcers also work for the administrator. Worse still, the agency employs a small army of Administrative Law Judges, or ALJs, whom it may haul you in front of whenever it chooses. They work for the administrator too.

All of this is a grossly unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers. It eliminates virtually all checks and balances. And the Chevron Court acknowledged that, to a degree: It said that by 1984, things had been done this way so long that it would just be too disruptive to change things.

In short, Chevron established constitutionality by longevity. You can apply that logic to Plessy v. Ferguson which said in 1896 that segregation was legal within limits and tell me whether you think it’s a good idea.

Under Chevron an agency could sue you in front of its own judges, over its own made-up rules, enforced by its own bureaucrats, and you had no right to an appeal. You didn’t even get a jury of your peers.

At every step of the process, Chevron replaced “government by the people” with that priesthood of experts, those who must simply be trusted to be benevolent, all-knowing, and true.

It’s worse. Increasingly, agency regulations are “strict liability,” which means that your intent doesn’t matter. By this standard, an accidental killing becomes murder. And speaking of murder, agencies issue not just civil but their own criminal laws, by some estimates as many as 300,000 separate agency-made offenses, all adjudicated solely by their own ALJs with no juries and no possibility of appeal.

These out-of-context quotes are just a taste; if they intrigue you, you might enjoy the whole article.

After dealing with the COVID-response-induced shortages and empty shelves, a lot of people mock and shame people who buy more than their immediate need's worth of a commodity, calling them hoarders, or (even more derisively) "Preppers." During a time of crisis and shortage, such an attitude is understandable.

In normal times, it is dead wrong.

People who buy extra toilet paper, or cans of soup, or bottles of water for storage rather than immediate consumption are not hoarding, they are wisely preparing for any interruption of the grocery supply chain, be it a hurricane, a pandemic, civil unrest, or some other disruption. As long as they buy their supplies when stocks are plentiful, they are doing no harm; rather, they are  encouraging more production, and keeping normal supply mechanisms moving.

Plus, when a crisis comes, and the rest of the world is mobbing the grocery stores for water and toilet paper, those who have done even minor preparation in advance will be at home, not competing with anyone.

Here's an interesting interview with a guy who has studied crisis preparation for decades. I don't know him, don't know anything about him—but he's no fearmonger, despite taking the necessity of the job very seriously. He's calm, and reasonable, and worth listening to, if you have a spare hour.

Listening to this makes me miss the days when we lived in the Northeast, and had a cool basement. That would be a great place to store emergency supplies. Here, we'd have to store everything in our adequate but limited living area: we have no basement, and the garage, the attic, and anything outside are 'way too hot for most of the year (not to mention favorite places for critters to hang out).

On the other hand, we don't have to worry about freezing to death in winter weather. It's been a long time since we've routinely kept a stack of firewood!

Here's a question I'd like to ask of political pollsters:

What is the ideal position for a political candidate in the polls, at various times before an election?

Clearly, to be leading in the polls on Election Day (or whatever passes for Election Day in these days of early voting and mail-in ballots) is a good thing. But what about earlier? To be doing well at any point feels great, and can boost support due to the "to him who has, more will be given" effect. People like to be on the winning team, and tend to flee people they feel can't win.

I think there's more to it than that. The following excerpt is from Robert A. Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy; it has haunted me since I first read it in elementary school. (emphasis mine)

Weemsby stood up and looked happy. "In my own person, I vote one share. By proxies delivered to me and now with the Secretary I vote—" Thorby did not listen; he was looking for his hat.

"The tally being complete, I declare—" the Secretary began.

"No!"

Leda was on her feet. "I'm here myself. This is my first meeting and I'm going to vote!"

Her stepfather said hastily, "That's all right, Leda—mustn't interrupt." He turned to the Secretary. "It doesn't affect the result."

"But it does! I cast one thousand eight hundred and eighty votes for Thor, Rudbek of Rudbek!"

Weemsby stared. "Leda Weemsby!"

She retorted crisply, "My legal name is Leda Rudbek."

Bruder was shouting, "Illegal! The vote has been recorded. It's too—"

"Oh, nonsense!" shouted Leda. "I'm here and I'm voting. Anyhow, I cancelled that proxy—I registered it in the post office in this very building and saw it delivered and signed for at the 'principal offices of this corporation'—that's the right phrase, isn't it, Judge?—ten minutes before the meeting was called to order. If you don't believe me, send down for it. But what of it?—I'm here. Touch me." Then she turned and smiled at Thorby.

Thorby tried to smile back, and whispered savagely to Garsch, "Why did you keep this a secret?"

"And let 'Honest John' find out that he had to beg, borrow, or buy some more votes? He might have won. She kept him happy, just as I told her to."

A really commanding lead can discourage competitors from pouring money and effort into a losing cause. But somewhere in between that kind of lead and the bottom of the heap there's a point—I'm going to call it the Garsch Point—where a lead is dangerous. Two terrible things can come into play:

• A candidate's own supporters can become complacent, let down their guard, and like the overconfident hare, risk losing to the lagging but persistent tortoise.
• A zealous opponent, who would rather win honestly, may be tempted to resort to nefarious means of helping himself to victory. After all, when you're fighting infidels, it's okay to lie, cheat, steal, and even kill, right? Well, no, it's not. But the temptation can be great if you think the contest is critical and you might get away with it.

Beware the Garsch Point. It's okay to be happy to be leading in the polls, but it ought to be less a time for celebrating than a time for doubling down on honest and honorable effort. And maybe for not letting your enemy know your full strength.

I've written here several times about Tom Lehrer, the Harvard-educated mathematician/musician/comedian whose That Was the Year That Was was one of my favorite childhood albums.  (Another was Music, a Part of Me, a collection of oboe works by David McCallum—yes, that David McCallum—but that's another story.)

Although I've frequently replayed some of my favorite Lehrer songs, such as Pollution and New Math and The Elements, this particular song is one I probably haven't heard since I was in my teens.  Nonetheless, I could still sing much of it from memory, even though it wasn't until now that I finally understood the line about Schubert and his lieder!

Whatever Became of Hubert? needs no commentary, although it's enhanced if you know a little about the Lyndon Johnson years.

Every important question is complex.

I'm as appalled as anyone at the irreversible mutilation being done to children by their parents and their doctors, under the guise of "gender-affirming care"—a term that's as bizarre an example of doublespeak as George Orwell ever dreamt of. Parents and doctors, abetted by teachers! Three of the strongest forces in life charged with keeping children safe! Surely this inversion of reality is one of the greatest horrors of our day.

And yet. And yet. It doesn't take much thinking to realize that societies, over all time and all places, have had a very inconsistent view of what, actually, is considered mutilation.

As a child, I remember seeing pictures (probably in the National Geographic magazine) of African women with huge wooden disks in their lips or ears, their bodies having been stretched since childhood by inserting disks of gradually increasing size. I called it mutilation; they called it fashion.

Not that many years ago, the Western world was horrified by the practice in many cultures of female circumcision, dubbing it "female genital mutilation," and putting strong negative pressure on countries where it was common. As recently as 2016 we saw billboards in the Gambia attacking the practice, and I was in agreement. But who was I—who is any outsider—to burden another culture with the norms of my own? Cultures can and sometimes should change, but from within, not imposed by outsiders.

What about male circumcision? That has been practiced for many millennia, in divergent cultures, and is far less drastic than the female version. If we'd had sons, I don't think we would have had them circumcized, there being no religious reason to do so—but when I was a child, it was the norm for most boys in America, regardless of religious affiliation. By the time my own children came along, there was a strong and vocal movement to eliminate male circumcision. Where are those folks now, when we are routinely removing a lot more than foreskins?

Okay, how about piercings? Tattoos? Frankly, I call both of them mutilation. Obviously, a large number of people disagree with me.

Some cultures in the past had no problem with "exposing" unwanted babies, leaving them to die—unless some kindly, childless couple found them and raised them as their own, thus creating the foundation for centuries of future folk tales and novels. We in America can hardly cast stones at those societies, given how few of our own unwanted babies live long enough to have a chance to be rescued.

Where do you draw the line? Maybe between what adults do of their own free will, and what adults do to children who are not yet capable of making informed decisions? Yet there are parents who have the ears of their babies pierced, or disks put into their lips, or parts of their genitals removed, and the societies they live in have no problem with that.

Where do you draw the line? I agree it's a complex and difficult issue.

All I know is that if America has become a place where parents, doctors, and teachers—those we trust most to do no harm to children—are facilitating the removal of young children's genitals, flooding their bodies with dangerous drugs, and encouraging them to believe that this is the best course of action for their mental health, then we haven't just crossed a line—we've fallen off a cliff.

I am a woman.

There are some who say I am not, but I have two wonderful children and two separate DNA tests to prove it.

Since childhood, I have thoroughly disliked the color pink, curling my hair, letting my hair grow long, wearing makeup, skirts, dresses, or anything fancy or frilly.

That doesn't make me any less a woman.

I hate romance novels (except those written by my friend, Blair Bancroft). I'm much more a mystery or straight science fiction (think Isaac Asimov, or Robert Heinlein's juveniles) kind of person.

That doesn't make me any less a woman.

All my life I've been interested in (and good at) math and science. When I was a child, I did play with dolls on occasion, but you'd have been much more likely to find me reading, climbing trees, or exploring in the woods next to our home.

That doesn't make me any less a woman.

I firmly believe that the abortion procedure, while necessary under a few, very rare circumstances, is the deliberate and horrific taking of an innocent human life, as well as being one of the most egregious acts of self-harm there is. (Every abortion has at least two victims, both of whom need our compassion.)

This, too, does not make me any less a woman, though there are many who deny it, in language similar to President Biden's regrettable comment, "If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black."

I fought enthusiastically in my youth for the right of women to participate in activities that were traditionally male-dominated. (I was the "first/only girl" several times in high school and college, which was far from easy.) Nonetheless, when the time came, I willingly and joyfully gave up a high-paying computer job in order to nurse, rear, and educate our children full time, not to mention make a home, support my husband, feed our family, and yes, Hillary Clinton, bake cookies.

That definitely doesn't make me any less a woman, although again, many people think so. They go further—many see me as less than human, or at least as an inferior sort of human, because of my chosen profession.

So stop. Just stop, all those of you who presume to speak for women, or to know what a woman is supposed to think, say, and do, or how she should vote.

A woman is defined by her gametes, and her DNA. Not by her career, her likes and dislikes, what she wears, her opinions—and above all not her politics.

The women's movement was supposed to take us out of our cages, not force us into cages of a different color.

I am a woman, and I have two children and two DNA tests to prove it.

What many people don't understand about dementia is that it can be inconsistent. For a period of time, sometimes even years, those who are losing their faculties can occasionally hold themselves together long enough to fool all but those closest to them—even doctors.

So it doesn't surprise me that President Biden pulled off a brilliant political move.

He couldn't stop his former friends and fellow Democrats from forcing him to resign his candidacy, but his revenge was quick and sharp: he immediately and enthusiastically passed the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris.

If I were a gambler, I'd bet heavily that that move was not in the plans of his betrayers. I don't know who they had in mind to take Biden's place, but I'm pretty sure they could have done better than Kamala Harris; certainly they must resent having had to give up their smoke-filled-room negotiations.

Way to go, Joe.

I know the details of the following tale intimately and personally. But it is Everyman's Story.

There once was a man who worked tirelessly at his job for many years, and was widely praised for his accomplishments. However, his employers became dissatisfied with him, and began undercutting his authority and making his job miserable. When this was not sufficient to drive him away, they forced him out.

This is not actually an unusual story; It's frequently played out in corporate boardrooms, research laboratories, schools, churches, and non-profit organizations. What made this one a bit different is that the man was strong enough to refuse to attend his own farewell party. He was intended to be sent away with extravagant accolades, heaped with praises for the excellence of his work and service, and tearful farewells, but he would have none of it. It would have been insincere, hypocritical, and unbearable.

Much like the accolades heaped on President Biden once he decided to withdraw his candidacy for the upcoming presidential race. If it was his decision, which I highly doubt.

I may disagree with much that Joe Biden has done and wants to do. I would go so far as to label many of his actions evil, even traitorous, though I will grant him the courtesy of assuming his intentions were good.

But he doesn't deserve what has been done to him over the last four years, and especially recently. If you're going to abuse an elderly man, and then stab him in the back, for goodness' sake don't pretend to be doing it out of love.