Hypnotists always tell their subjects to let their minds go completely blank. I think I’d hypnotize pretty easily today. I had a couple ideas for blog posts through the course of the day, but lacked the wit to write them down. They’re gone now.

I’ve read a couple criticisms of Jonah Goldberg’s recent book, Liberal Fascism, from conservatives who’ve said it’s simply uncivil and divisive to use a term like “liberal fascism” (even though it wasn’t Goldberg, but Socialist H. G. Wells, who coined it).

But in recent weeks two Democratic politicians have called for the nationalization of the oil industry.

For those of you who went to public schools in the last 25 years, and thus don’t know any history, nationalizing industry is what fascists do.



This is a troubling story:

A public school teacher taught creationism in his science class and used a device to burn the image of a cross on students’ arms, according to a report by independent investigators.

If it’s accurate it’s appalling. However, as you know if you’ve ever been involved in anything reported in the news, news stories are never accurate, especially in the first reports.

Am I trying to cut the guy some extra slack, just because he’s a believer?

Sure I am.

James Lileks (whom I hate, because he’s cleverer than I am) posted an item today at buzz.mn about “Dead Trolley Day.” Today is the anniversary of the date in 1954 when streetcars went out of service in Minneapolis. Since then a folklore has risen in our community (supported by at least one local TV special), a tale of how the wicked bus promoters acquired the trolley lines and proceeded to drive them into the ground, so that they could replace them with smoke-belching buses, although they were better in every way, and everybody loved them. The truth is a lot more complicated, of course. As Lileks notes, the trolleys were hot in the summer and cold in the winter, they blocked traffic, and they required the streets to be overhung with webs of ugly electric cable.

It occurred to me to wonder—why are liberals so nostalgic about artifacts? If you try to tell them that the people who built, operated and rode those trolleys were wiser than we in some areas having to do with personal morality, they’ll be outraged. But they generally cling to the objects themselves—trolleys, old buildings, etc., with fierce devotion. Continue reading Another half-baked theory from me →

A sharp-eyed British art collector saw a painting the auction house believed to be a “Rembrandt knockoff” valued at $3,100. He paid $4,500,000. Now that those in the know have looked it over closely, they say it could have sold for $40 million, because it is not a knockoff. It’s a unique self-protrait of the great Rembrandt. I love it.

I drove about an hour south last night, to meet my pastor brother from Iowa for supper. In the course of the conversation I discovered, to my surprise, that he’d been heavily involved in flood cleanup the last few days. And he hadn’t been going down to Iowa City or Cedar Falls, but to one of the nearest towns, where many of his parishioners live.

Its whole business district was under water. Devastating losses (though thankfully no deaths), and nobody had flood insurance, because historically the water has never come anywhere near this high. He said they’d all been out piling sandbags the night before the crest, but they might as well have stayed home and watched TV, because the river topped the bags by several feet.

His church has “adopted” a woman who’d recently moved to town, apparently because of low real estate costs, and bought a nice house “by the river.” She’d lost almost everything, and had no friends or family in the area.

I was ashamed I hadn’t called to check how they were doing when I heard about the flooding. When I heard of the massive earthquake in China (where his daughter is now), I called right away to find out if they’d heard anything (she wasn’t in any danger).

I guess that because I knew he himself doesn’t live near water, and because the disaster was “around these parts” rather than “way off in foreign lands,” I just assumed nothing bad could happen.

It’s a form of xenophobia, I suppose, to figure bad stuff only happens far away. Wishful thinking, too.