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The Campaign Against Gravity
Most people, when they learn about gravity, accept it with the same weary resignation they have about taxes, traffic, and the continued existence of Garth Brooks. Roger Babson was different. He looked at gravity and thought: this is unacceptable. Roger Babson (left) was born in 1875; he was a wealthy American financier, statistician, businessman, and…
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The Holiday Nobody Understands
Labor Day is one of America’s great mysteries. It arrives every year on the first Monday of September, carrying with it the promise of a three-day weekend, backyard barbecues, mattress sales, and the vague feeling that summer is over even though the thermometer (and the calendar, for that matter) strongly disagrees. Officially, Labor Day is…
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Don’t dismiss Trump, understand him
I had this idea for a post examining Trump, Trumpism, and the whole MAGA movement through the lens of another unlikely figure and phenomenon, Aimee Semple McPherson in 1920s Los Angeles. My premise was simple: she was and Donald Trump is a charlatan duping otherwise sane people for personal gain. At this point, the post…
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I am sickened by this
There is nothing particularly controversial about naming an American aircraft carrier after a president. Provided, of course, that the president is no longer in office, has been dead for several years, and is therefore unable to object to the wording of the plaque. The difficulty arises when the president is still in office, is involved…
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The Man on Page 602
I’m planning on doing a post today about the Sears Catalog. You need to be a certain age to know what that is. If you were born after 1970, you might be asking “what is the Sears Catalog?” Some of you might even ask “what is Sears?” If that’s you, ask your parents. For the…
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Chesterton’s Fence
Few things are easier to ridicule than a regulation. Republicans have made a meal out of this since Ronald Reagan mockingly said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’” Nobody wakes up in the morning excited about fire codes. No one tells friends…
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Welcome to the gerontocracy
Mitch McConnell is alive! And heading back to work. See? There’s no conspiracy here, as some of the dim bulbs in Trump’s orbit were suggesting, like Laura Looney – um, sorry, my bad… I mean Loomer – who, amidst the four weeks of secrecy and cagey information released about the senator’s condition after being hospitalized,…
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Two Tribes
I have long wondered what makes contemporary Republicans tick. It is sophomoric to dismiss them outright because their leader is a vulgar half-wit, but, I’ll admit, Donald Trump’s Svengali-like hold over them confused me. After all, this is the party that has been banging on about family values ever since Dan Quayle launched a crusade…
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Remember Rome
The people around Donald Trump are dangerous. For them, he is a useful idiot. In him, they have found a vehicle to establish their vision of a grand, civilization redefining project. You’ve got your white nationalists engineering a country purged of those they deem racially inferior. You’ve got your Christian nationalists who imagine a future…
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Pope Leo is the right man for the job
I was not paying attention in 1978 to the stage set in Rome for a showdown with the Soviet Union that would ultimately lead to its demise. I was 12. I was only mildly interested in the Catholic Church as an altar boy at my parish, but, if I’m honest, it was for the outfits…
Your mileage may vary.