The arc of justice


U.S. marshals escort Ruby Bridges to school. New Orleans, Louisiana, November 1960. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

“I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”

–Theodore Parker, 1810-1860

We could say that we believe in the arc of justice, but that would be a useless statement, because our beliefs, whatever they may be, have no effect on the reality outside our own minds. Even if our beliefs guide our actions in the real world, the effect is weak and indirect. As much as we might like to, we can’t change the world simply by wishing and by thinking. Beliefs may indirectly lead to change, especially when lots of people hold similar beliefs and act in accord with them. But beliefs alone don’t change anything. I’ve had a saying about this for many years: You can believe until you’re blue in the face, but that doesn’t change anything.

But we can make an if-then proposition that I think is sound and reasonable. It’s this: If there is such a thing as the arc of justice, then to stand in its way, inevitably, sooner or later, is to be found wrong. Not only does that mean that one’s thinking was wrong. It also means that, at some point in the future, one will enter into a state of shame for having stood in the way of the arc of justice.

We could cite many examples of this proposition, from Rome to the present. Religion’s track record is especially damning. For example, the largest Christian denomination in America, the Southern Baptist Convention, militantly supported slavery during the 19th Century. During the 20th Century, it supported racial segregation. In 1995, though it took 150 years, it apologized for its history. Even after the apology, some of the meanest people in the country remain in control of the Southern Baptist Convention and still stand in the way of the arc of justice. But at least, as the arc of justice moved on, church people had to admit that they were wrong. It’s because of the arc of justice that we don’t burn people at the stake anymore, or put people like Oscar Wilde in prison, or hang people for stealing a crust of bread, or beat our children.

Over the centuries, moral error after moral error by the church, in spite of its claim to speak for God, shows that the arc of justice — and this should be no surprise — is and always has been more powerful than religion. Not only that, looking toward the future, religion weakens as the arc bends toward justice. The arc bends. To the degree that it is ossified and refuses to bend, religion inevitably breaks. Church people see the decline in church membership as a moral emergency. I see it as moral progress.

As liberals, this is where our confidence can come from, as well as our optimism. It can be the basis of a politics. It’s why I say that the entire spectrum of conservatism, from dishonest both-sides centrism to the neo-Nazis, is wrong, wrong-headed, and causes harm. And for many people, merely to stand in the way of the arc of justice is not enough. They work to reverse moral progress and roll back the clock.

Theodore Parker, a theologian, is sometimes referred to as a heretic. He saw long ago that the church is not an instrument of moral progress. Rather, far more often, it has been the opposite. I can’t take seriously the claim that religion has ever been on the leading edge of the arc of justice. Classical philosophy, if the church had allowed it to evolve rather than repressing it, would have brought far more light to the Dark Ages than the church ever did. The Enlightenment might have come sooner, had there not been so much resistance. It is ideas, and an expanding concept of justice and fairness, that lead the arc of justice toward greater justice.

The Enlightenment, of course, brought a revolution in moral philosophy. Still, for a hundred to two hundred years, utilitarianism was the state of the art in ethics — the idea of the greatest good for the greatest number. There are still utilitarians, but ideas about justice and fairness have expanded. I am among those who see utilitarianism as obsolete after John Rawls’ justice as fairness (1971). The course of the arc of justice in our time, I believe, is best described by John Rawls’ justice as fairness. As Theodore Parker says, our sight, in any era, may reach but little ways. But from what we can see now, the arc of justice is bending in the direction described by John Rawls.

Rawls’ philosophy may be complex and a challenge to read, but its key idea boils down to something simple, and, to most minds, obvious: We cannot justify being unfair to anyone (usually the poor, the stigmatized, and the weak), even if others want to gain (usually wealth and privilege and power) from that unfairness. This idea is steadily being integrated into liberal politics. Meanwhile, the interest of conservative politics in wealth, privilege, and domination increasingly finds so much fairness threatening. Most people have never heard of John Rawls. Still, as though by magic, Rawls’ philosophy is in the Zeitgeist. Conservatives feel it as clearly as liberals feel it, which is why they are in such a panic to resist it. It puts wealth, privilege, and power in a different light, light that is not to conservative liking.

Thomas Piketty caused quite a stir in 2013 with Capital in the Twenty-First Century. His second book, A Brief History of Equality, got less attention. But in this second book Piketty argued that there has been a steady improvement in equality since 1780, and he explains why he is optimistic about future progress. Given that millions have died since 1780 in the struggle against domination, Piketty’s optimism may seem misplaced. But I think he is right, because even when those who crave domination win, they don’t — can’t — win for long. Just ask the enslavers of the 19th Century, or the Nazis of the 20th, or the racists of the Civil Rights era. In a decade or two, ask Putin. Ask Trump, once the courts are done with him.

We have just been through one of those times, when those who work together to block and reverse the arc of justice get the upper hand. This is what happened when, in 2016, Donald Trump was installed in the White House by wealthy elites whose domination is threatened by fairness, aided by “populist” subjects who were all too easy to deceive.

Now the arc of justice is catching up with them. For some, prison. For others, only shame. Still, some of them are so hardened that will never feel any shame for the ugliness of their actions and their ideas. But the children of the future, from what we already can see now from the direction in which the arc of justice bends, will see things differently.

At last, daffodils


iPhone photo. Click here for high resolution version.

The winter seemed long and cold, and February brought no early spring. And yet, for the first time in my 16 years here in the Appalachian foothills, I didn’t see a snowflake all winter. A few days of warmish rain in early February brought up flocks and flocks of tiny red clover sprouts from the seed I spread last fall. But the return of colder weather caused the clover leaves to shrink and wait for the next warm rain before they start growing again.

For months, I didn’t look at the National Weather Service’s long-range forecasts, knowing that they’d forecast nothing but more winter. But just now I took a peek. All the long-range forecasts — 10-day, 14-day, 30-day, and 90-day — are for warmer and wetter than normal. If those forecasts hold, then we should have a beautiful spring here and a good start for the vegetable gardens.

And there’s the fox…

Foxes aren’t uncommon here. But I’m flattered that a fox is now hanging out in my yard. I got my old game camera working again and got a shot of the fox last night. I’ve also seen it on my security camera, and once I’ve seen it from an upstairs window.

During the past 48 hours, the camera caught lots of deer, two happy rabbits that are frequently seen, one possum, one raccoon, and the fox. Three or four wildlife trails lead out of the woods into the yard. There is plenty of cover in the yard, and, even in winter, lots to eat. Some critter, probably the raccoon, has been making little holes while digging for grubs. The fox, no doubt, catches voles. Ten years ago, a fox raised two pups in the woods just behind the house. I would love to have fox puppies in the yard again.

There are coyotes in the woods, but they never come close to any houses. I understand, and it seems plausible, that foxes sometimes stay close to human houses because they’re safer from the coyotes. As for the deer, they’re so well known here that most of them have names. We have bears, but they stay up on the ridge and down in the branch bottom. A year or so a neighbor saw a bobcat down at the footbridge that crosses a branch on my land.

It’s good to live where the wild things live.

Of course Haley won’t drop out


This photo came from Facebook. The sign was posted here in my rural red county, which voted 77 percent for Trump in 2016 and 78 percent in 2020. Apparently someone thinks the sign is funny.

The insanity of the political media herd is on full display this morning after yesterday’s Republican primary in South Carolina, where the vote was 59.8 percent Trump and 39.5 percent Nikki Haley. A headline in the New York Times says, “After South Carolina, Trump’s March to the G.O.P. Nomination Quickens.” Most of the stories this morning wonder why Haley won’t drop out after such a “decisive” win by Trump.

The answer is obvious. It’s a total no-brainer. The reason Nikki Haley won’t drop out is that she knows that Trump is as good as ruined. But for reasons that are cowardly if not intentionally deceptive, the mainstream media won’t say it. Trump’s financial house of cards is soon going to come crashing down because of the half billion dollars he now owes to the state of New York. He is facing prison sentences for state crimes in New York and Georgia, and for federal crimes in a trial in Washington. It’s possible, if the state of New York has to seize Trump’s properties and determine how much equity, if any, he has in his properties, that we’ll find out who owns Trump’s debt. The media keep reporting, as though it’s true, that Trump said in a court filing that he has $400 million in cash. Who could possibly represent that as believable other than our mainstream media?

The New York Times doubles down on its deceit. In “Five Takeaways from Trump’s Big Win Over Nikki Haley in South Carolina,” the Times makes these points: One, “It was a home-state failure for Haley.” Two, “Voters looked past Trump’s legal woes and political missteps.” Three, “To win a Republican primary, you need Republican voters.” (That’s a ridiculous point, because, to win a general election, you need voters who aren’t Republicans.) Four, “Haley isn’t giving up her case that Trump can’t win.” And, five, “All that’s left is the delegate math, and money.”

That’s all that’s left?

It’s irksome for me to believe that the New York Times would print such misdirection. The only reference to Trump’s “legal woes” is that Republicans “looked past” it. I admit that, for the sake of my blood pressure, I did not read every word of every lame story in the mainstream media this morning about the South Carolina primary. In what I did read, though, I didn’t find any reference to the obvious point that the reason Haley won’t quit is that she expects to get the nomination after Trump goes down.

What the political media should have reported this morning is that the Republican Party is divided. Somewhere between 26 percent and 40 percent of Republicans in South Carolina don’t want Trump. Nikki Haley is way head of the other alternatives to Trump. That is a big deal, and it’s only February. Haley’s numbers will grow as the courts take Trump apart. The big question is, how many of those Trump-forever Republicans would turn out to vote for Haley in November, and how many would just stay home to register their rage?

Here in North Carolina, early voting for the March 5 primary started February 15. I monitor the Facebook group of the Republican Party in my county. They are complaining because turnout for early voting is low. I believe that’s because they are increasingly demoralized, and some are having second thoughts about Trump. They’re also at each other’s throats over local issues, mostly related to the schools. (They don’t want any schools to close, but they also don’t want to pay enough taxes to keep them open. Their response to this problem is Trump-style rage and blame, aimed at other Republicans, because Republicans run the county.)

When the results of the North Carolina primary election are known on March 5, we’ll learn a lot from how many Republicans and unaffiliated voters in North Carolina turn against Trump. In North Carolina, registered Democats cannot vote in the Republican primary. Unaffiliated voters get to choose the Democratic ballot, Republican ballot, or Libertarian ballot. There are seven options on the Republican ballot for voting against Trump: Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Asa Hutchinson, Vivek Ramaswamy, Ryan Binkley, Chris Cristie, and “no preference.”

Why do the mainstream media want us deceived? The answer, as I see it, is: Clicks and ratings. There is only one political picture that gets everybody to click, Republicans as well as Democrats. In that picture, Trump is unstoppable, Haley is finished but won’t admit it, the courts are forgotten, Democrats are blind, and the earth is flying out from under President Biden’s feet. The headline at Russia Today is “Trump Crushes Last Republican Rival.” A headline at The Atlantic is “How Donald Trump Became Unbeatable.”

As I see it, there are three important things to keep in mind about our political media. They are not geniuses, they are a herd, and their job security depends on clicks and ratings.

Alexander


Netflix

What is it about Alexander that continues to fascinate us? Wasn’t he just another ruthless conquerer? Or did he, in a mere ten years, leave the Mediterranean more civilized than he found it, setting the stage for the classical age, and changing the course of Western culture, by humbling the Persians and elevating the Greeks?

Historical docudramas are not usually of this quality. The drama is excellent. The mysterious English actor Buck Braithwaite was born to play the Alexander role. The scholars are very good.

This is a six-part series that quickly became very popular on Netflix. You can watch the trailer here.

Tom Swift


The end sheets of the 1954 editions

Starting in 1910, books in the Tom Swift series (written for teenagers) have sold more than 30 million copies, according to the Wikipedia article. And yet I don’t recall ever having seen a Tom Swift book in a (used) bookstore until yesterday. My brother had six or eight of the 1954 series, so when I saw the blue denim cover in the store I recognized it immediately as a Tom Swift book.

I also had no idea that the Tom Swift series of books continued until 2019. I can see on eBay that the older books are highly collectible. They’re inexpensive because there are so many copies extant. I’m not sentimental enough about the Tom Swift books to collect them. I read them, I think, when I was a little too young (eleven or twelve), and they didn’t make a great impression on me. Still, they’re classic nerd fiction, and, as the Wikipedia article points out, the books inspired several generations of engineers and scientists.

⬆︎ There actually was never an author named Victor Appleton. That was a pseudonym that the publisher used for multiple authors, some of whom were women. According to Wikipedia, the 1954 series were written by Harriet Adams, who was the daughter of Edward Stratemeyer, who originally conceived the Tom Swift series starting in 1910.

⬇︎ A Danish word we all should know

I love dictionaries, and I always check out dictionaries when shopping through used books. This Danish dictionary, because of its beautiful bright red cover, almost jumped off the shelf into my hands. I know exactly one word of Danish — hygge.

If you hear a Danish person say this word, it will sound like “hooga,” or “hugga.” Thus I have no idea why it is spelled with a “y.” The Danish word hygge is surely related to our English word hug. Webster’s gives the source of the English hug as an Old Norse word, hugga, meaning “soothe.” The Oxford English Dictionary, on the other hand, is wishy-washy. It says that hug appeared in English in the 16th Century but that the origin is unknown. The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (Oxford, 1966) seems to agree with Webster’s. It says that hug is probably of Scandinavian origin and also mentions an Old English relative, hyge, meaning mind, heart, or mood.

The OED’s caution notwithstanding, it seems pretty obvious that hygge and hug are related — the sound, as well as the meaning, as well as the geography. But maybe the OED couldn’t find a source to prove it. I don’t know. I hope they’re still arguing about it at Oxford.

I can testify that the Danish are very serious about the concept of hygge. I got to know a lot of Danes because I helped install a Danish publishing system at the San Francisco Chronicle. I’ve also made a couple of trips to Aarhus. Once, in a training session on the Danish publishing system, the Danish instructor spent at least twenty minutes talking about hygge. I suspect that part of his motivation was to explain to workaholic Americans why holidays and private time are so sacred to Danes, especially in winter. Newspaper people are accustomed to working on Christmas day, because daily newspapers don’t take a day off. But Danes on Christmas day, the instructor said, “are home having hygge.” The word conveys physical comfort, as in warmth; and it also conveys emotional comfort, as in family and friends, conviviality, food and drink.

I would assume, since this dictionary was printed in Denmark (in 2002, first edition 1995), that its purpose was to serve as reference for native speakers of Danish who work with English. The sound of Danish is completely incomprehensible to me, but as I browse through the dictionary, I see can see from written Danish that Danish and English have many more cognates than I would have guessed. And though my ear can’t hear the connection, in writing the relationship between German and Danish is pretty obvious.

⬇︎ The Black Dwarf

One of the things that keeps me interested in Sir Walter Scott is the gothic atmosphere. The Black Dwarf is rich with gothic atmosphere — moors and bogs in the dark of night, spectres by moonlight that may or may not be real. Still, this novel has a simple and well worn plot. It’s one of the early Waverley novels, 1817.

My next adventure with Sir Walter Scott is Castle Dangerous, 1831, which was the last of the Waverley novels.

Potatoes to the rescue


Barley biscuit, with potato in the dough

My quest for bread that is both truly good and truly healthy probably will go on for the rest of my life. Bread is probably my favorite food. I could live on San Francisco sourdough bread, Havarti cheese, wine, and strawberry preserves. Though I probably wouldn’t live for long.

A combination of barley flour and whole wheat flour (about four parts barley to one part wheat) makes a tasty biscuit or quick bread. Barley has a wonderful taste. But the bread is dry, with a mealy texture. Potatoes both moisten the bread and improve the texture.

Lately I’ve been cooking potatoes in advance and letting them chill before I use them. The chilling both improves the potato’s glycemic index and makes the potato a better food for the microbiome. Just mash the cooked potato into the bread dough.

⬆︎ Right side up on potassium

The daily requirement for potassium is shockingly high. Most people, it seems, are deficient in potassium. In fact, many people probably get more daily sodium than potassium. That would be “upside down on potassium,” which is not at all a healthy thing.

Low-sodium V8 juice is nice way to get some potassium insurance. It’s supplemented with potassium chloride, though the vegetable juices are naturally high in potassium. Per cup, it has 850mg of potassium, 140mg of sodium, and 45 calories. That’s a good deal, nutritionally. I also find that V8 juice helps me cut down on wine consumption, because V8 juice goes very nicely with meals.


Fried oysters — from the Chesapeake Bay

⬆︎ Trucked in and fried

Once or twice a year, I get an irresistible craving for fried oysters. Here in the American South, at least within easy trucking distance from the coast, the art of frying seafood is extremely well understood. Any town of any size will have a fried fish house.

I’m in North Carolina. North Carolina does produce some oysters, but most of our oysters here come from the Chesapeake Bay. Last year, the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia and Maryland had the biggest oyster harvest in 35 years:

“The Chesapeake oyster is still in the very early stages of a comeback after a tremendous amount of investment in reducing pollution to the Bay, years of diligent fishery management, and significant successful state and federal investment in oyster restoration. To keep oyster numbers growing, harvest increases must continue to be done slowly, incrementally, and cautiously, as VMRC staff recommends.”

I never appreciated just how vast the Chesapeake Bay is, and how much coastline it has, until I flew over the full length of it, north to south, on a flight from New York to Greensboro. Such flights normally would take a more westerly course over land. But on that particular day, a line of inland thunderstorms pushed air traffic east. It’s good to hear that the Chesapeake Bay — a classic commons — is making a comeback after years of abuse. We understand very well now that a commons must be regulated, or it will be abused and depleted.


Daffodil shoots

⬆︎ February. What a relief.

Everybody I know, no matter where they live, said that January was miserable. Now that February is here, things are looking up. The daffodils should be blooming here in a couple of weeks.

⬆︎ Asimov’s robot novels

The first of Isaac Asimov’s robot novels, The Caves of Steel, was first published in book form in 1954. I had wanted to read it as escape fiction, but I’m afraid it must now be read as historical fiction. The plot is so-so, and the anticipation of the future misses the mark. It’s really just a murder mystery set in the future. But the writing is good.

I bought both The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun (which is the second robot novel) in a hardback book club edition that I think was published around 1961.

⬆︎ The extended editions

I’m finding that I like the extended versions of The Lord of the Rings films better than the theater versions. The scenes that were cut from the theater versions clearly were cut to reduce the run time, not because the scenes that were cut were inferior. The restored scenes include a lot of beautiful dialogue straight from Tolkien and a lot of excellent character development.

The extended versions can be streamed from HBO Max.


From a neighbor’s game camera

⬆︎ There are now two white deer in these woods

The oldest white deer in the woods here is at least eight years old, because it was eight years ago that I first got a photograph of her. There have been rumors of a second white deer for quite some time. But only a week or so ago did a neighbor get proof of it on a game camera. There are two white deer in the same frame. One is smaller and may be a yearling.

White Girl, in my driveway, three days ago, shot from an upstairs window. It was odd, but just before White Girl was in the driveway, a red fox was standing in the same spot, then scampered into the woods. I asked a neighbor, who has lots of game cameras and who has given names to a lot of the wild critters, whether the deer and the fox are friends. “I think they just use the same trails,” he said.

War worry in Europe


Foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, Nov. 29, 2023. Source: U.S. Department of State via Wikimedia Commons.

One of my sources of information is Apple News, which includes subscriptions to a good many newspapers that are otherwise behind paywalls. During the past few weeks, I have been seeing a lot of stories with scary headlines in the Times of London in which military leaders express their worry about the risk of war with Russia and their concern that NATO is dangerously unprepared. I’ve seen very little on this subject in American newspapers. What should we make of this?

An example of one of these scary headlines was today: “Nato should ‘prepare for Russian missile strikes in Europe.'” The article is a long interview with Lieutenant General Alexander Sollfrank, who is commander of NATO’s military logistics center in southwest Germany.

For an overview of this war worry that is not behind a paywall, I recommend this piece in the Guardian from January 26: “Why are European defence leaders talking about war?” The Guardian brings up one of my concerns: “Planning for warfare, a remote contingency, is what militaries do and there is always pressure from generals and defence ministries to spend more.”

Plus I’m always concerned that the Times of London may have agendas and a point of view that would not align well with my own. But there also are some obvious points of real concern:

“A wave of anxiety has gripped European defence ministers and armed forces as politicians and military leaders believe that Nato-sceptic Donald Trump could be elected as the next president of the US — and that Russia may not be forced out or defeated in Ukraine. This febrile mood has prompted growing warnings that Europe could find itself involved in a war in Russia, even though at present Russia is embroiled in Ukraine.”

I don’t know what to make of this. But I do think it’s something that needs to be on our radar screens. Americans are distracted, and the American media can’t be counted on to understand what’s important and what’s not.

Here are a few more links:

CBS News: U.K. army chief says citizens should be ready to fight in possible land war.

NATO: Setting the record straight.

GlobalAffairs.org: Why is Sweden telling its citizens to prepare for war?

The Hill: NATO admiral warns of potential all-out war with Russia.

The American media are reporting, however, on how happy Russia is about Western division over military aid to Ukraine and Israel-Gaza issues: Russia projects confidence as it pursues alliances to undermine West.

Update 1:

Today (January 29), the Times of London has another one of these scary headlines: “Zelensky warns Germany it risks being sucked into World War Three.” Zelensky made this warning on a German talk show, in which he also asked Germany to give him long-range Taurus missiles. Zelensky also said, according to the Times, that “Putin could turn his attention to Germany, Poland or the Baltic states after Ukraine.”

This coordinated talk about World War III in Europe has all the marks of a coordinated media campaign. That does not necessarily mean that someone is trying to deceive us. But what worries me personally is that there are several new hot spots right now (Jordan, Yemen, and the Red Sea, in addition to Gaza), and those (such as Iran and Russia) who think they can profit from chaos see new opportunities. Right-wingers in the U.S. Congress are begging for some kind of retaliation against Iran.

Update 2:

Today (Jan. 30), the New York Times is writing about this: “For Europe and NATO, a Russian Invasion Is No Longer Unthinkable: Amid crumbling U.S. support for Ukraine and Donald Trump’s rising candidacy, European nations and NATO are making plans to take on Russia by themselves.”

UFOs, Pooh, and Webster’s

Encounters: Experiences With Nonhuman Intelligences. D.W. Pasulka, St. Martin’s, 2023. 248 pages.

This book didn’t do it for me. Because I’m a UFO witness (seeing is believing!), I understand UFOs as material phenomena that should be investigated by the material sciences. D.W. Pasulka, who is a religion professor, sees UFOs as the focus of some kind of new religion. That’s an interesting angle, especially for those who think there is nothing real about UFOs. To many of us, though, it’s a kind of insult.

I’ve written here previously about the UFO I saw, so there’s no need to go into that now. I certainly don’t deny that there is something religionlike about UFOs for those who have never seen one and to whom their existence is a matter of faith. And it is certainly true that, if you’ve ever had a good look at a UFO (as opposed to mere lights in the sky), then that changes you forever, in the same way that Pasulka describes quite well, using the testimony of, say, astronauts who have seen the earth as a globe silently suspended in a vast but starry emptiness. Some of those astronauts have seen things out there that oughtn’t to be out there.

We UFO Truthers are still waiting for the truth. It would be ever so nice if it happened in my lifetime. The question, to me, isn’t whether UFOs exist. It’s who they are, where they come from, why they’re here, and what they can tell us about the universe beyond our solar system.

It’s very strange that I never read Winnie the Pooh as a child. School libraries certainly had copies of it. My guess is that I was a snob reader as a boy and that I considered Winnie the Pooh as beneath my grade level. But every home library should have a copy of Winnie the Pooh. I bought this copy on eBay. It’s the 1961 reprint edition, with the same illustrations (by Ernest H. Shepard) as the 1926 first edition. My copy has a charming bookplate, inscribed in a child’s hand as belonging to a boy named Gabriel. On the title page is a note to Gabriel that shows that the book was a Christmas gift in 1971. The book has some stains and is a bit frazzled around the edges, as a Winnie the Pooh book ought to be.

Winnie the Pooh, by the way, has been in the public domain in the U.S. since 2022.

My second book rebinding job was a worn-out Webster’s dictionary. Eggheaded nerds like me don’t often make things with our hands. But it’s a rewarding (and useful) activity. I can’t rescue cats, because Lily would never tolerate another cat in her house. But I can rescue old books.

It would have been ever so nice, when I built my house 15 years ago, if I had been able to afford a proper chimney. But a brick chimney on a house that is more than 30 feet tall would have cost a fortune. Not having a chimney foreclosed on the possibility of ever having wood heat (though I do have a propane fireplace that vents to the outside). Heating with wood would be very bad for air quality if everybody did it. And not everybody lives down in the woods as I do. But I have enough hardwood trees on my land to heat with wood without ever having to sacrifice a live tree. Elderly trees regularly fall over, especially in storms. Plus, my neighbors all own more woodland than I do. A nice thing about rural culture here is that downed trees are still seen as a kind of commons. If a tree falls, someone can always be found who needs the firewood. If a tree falls on a public road (as often happens), someone will quickly get it out of the way and turn it into firewood.

As a liberal prepper, one of the things I’m required to worry about is what I would do if the electric grid ever went down. Except for my propane fireplace, my heat sources rely on electricity. In a place this rural and dense with forests, power failures are common, though I’ve never had one here that lasted more than a day. Plus the propane fireplace does not have the capacity to heat the whole house in really cold weather. For a long time I had wanted a good wood stove to stash in the basement. If it was ever needed, it would be possible to make a makeshift but safe chimney out of metal pipe. I finally got my wood stove, and it’s a beauty, several years old but never used. It’s enormous, made from heavy steel plate (with a cast iron door). The stove was locally made by a welder who either died or went out of business before all the stoves he’d made had been sold. A neighbor of mine bought four of the surplus stoves at a steep discount, and I was able to get one of them. Its flat top is plenty big enough to cook on.

Wood stoves would not be practical in lots of places. But here in the woods, where everybody has chain saws and hydraulic wood splitters, wood stoves are eminently practical — as long as you have a chimney.

A big win for Trump?? Who says?


Trump in New Hampshire. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Do the American political media actually believe their own delusional spin — that Trump is so powerful that he may actually get back into the White House? Or is it, as not a few people on the left (including me) see it, that the media have a strong — and dangerously perverse — self-interest in keeping the Trump era going, because Trump has been a bonanza in delivering clicks and eyeballs to an industry desperate for clicks and eyeballs?

“Trump gains speed with win over Haley,” writes the Washington Post this morning. Trump “crushed” Haley’s momentum, the Post writes. That’s the theme that dominates the New York Times’ New Hampshire coverage as well.

I am increasingly worried about what is happening at the Washington Post. At the Post, it seems that Trump was what made the difference between profit and loss. The “Trump bump” made a lot of money for the Post. But the Post lost 20 percent of its subscribers after Trump left office and may now be losing money. Pretty much all the mainstream media including the New York Times rode the Trump bump.

The Washington Post got a new publisher on January 3. That’s Sir William Lewis, who is British and who comes to the Post from the Murdoch media empire. The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos, of course doesn’t want to lose money. How can reasonable people not suspect that Bezos thinks that the Murdochification of the Washington Post is the way to make money?

Who am I do disagree with the Washington Post’s elite political team? No one; I’m just an obscure blogger and veteran of the newspaper business whose personal politics don’t accord very well with the media elite. But at least none of my salary or job security (I’m retired) ever came from the Trump bump.

I see the present political situation very differently. The media elite see New Hampshire as a huge win for Trump and a dead end for Nikki Haley. Not I. No one, it seems, expected Haley to get 44 percent vs. Trump’s 55. That means that surprisingly close to half of the Republicans who voted in the New Hampshire primary do not support Trump. That seems to have spooked Trump, and Marjorie Taylor Greene said that Haley’s numbers are “fake“.

The Republican Party is headed for a civil war that can only be vicious. It is impossible to imagine a united Republican Party in November. They will turn their guns on each other, and no matter what Republican is on the ballot in November, half of Republican voters will be motivated to stay home.

As always, the stories about Trump “crushing” his opposition conveniently forget that Trump is going to be crushed by the law — convicted by the criminal courts and financially ruined by the civil courts. And yes, that’s going to happen before the Republican National Convention, which starts on July 15. It is all too likely that the internal warfare that we’ll see at that convention will be a televised riot like nothing the world has ever seen before. The mainstream media are still afraid to touch the growing evidence that Trump’s cognitive impairments are getting worse. The Biden campaign, though, is posting videos drawing attention to Trump’s slurring of words, confusing one person with another, and not understanding what’s what or who’s who or where is where. Trump is one big gaffe away from being caught on video with a gaffe so shocking that the mainstream media won’t be able to ignore it anymore. Even Fox News is acknowledging that Trump is “increasingly confused on the campaign trail.” Trump’s handlers are in a bind. They have to put him out there, if he’s to be seen as a real candidate, but the more they put him out there the more they risk the gaffe that will put an end to him.

It seems all too likely that, when the history of the presidential campaign of 2024 is written, that history will be as much about media as about politics. The rightwing media will be all-lies and all-gaslighting all the time, as always. The mainstream media is compromised with conflicts of interest, addicted to Trump. And we are unprepared for the “tsunami of misinformation” that AI will pour into the media including social media.