A few thoughts on Charlie Rose

You know, you can't really accuse people like Charlie Rose of hypocrisy. Yes, he mouthed the "pro-woman" platitudes of the Left. But as a progressive he doesn't really believe anything. A thoroughly secularized progressivism inevitably reduces everything to, "Whose opinion is fashionable right now"? . The debased sexual culture Bill Clinton and such helped create was fashionable for a while. Unfortunately for Rose, it's somewhat less so at the moment.

Of course, people need to believe something, so everybody grasps at some motivator, even if it's just empty money- and power- seeking. It's all "eat and drink, for tomorrow we die".

So you can't accuse the Left of hypocrisy. They do stick to their script. A plush Manhattan high-rise is a pretty obvious token of success, whatever the price might've been to get it.


But progressives can, with justification, accuse conservatives of instances of hypocrisy, since we claim loyalty to the eternal verities liberals laugh at. The violations are often glaring.

In any case, I always thought Rose was a pretty engaging guy, though he was an obvious partisan-only conservatives got tough questions. But Charlie wasn't quite as engaging as he thought young women found him.

So-men with power often exploit women. Should they then be deprived of power, or is The Pence Rule a good idea?

Just a blog I like, and some thoughts on Trump

Miriam Sawyer has been blogging for many years. She's one of those very talented people that few have heard of, but whom no one would've heard of before the Internet, and blogging. So that counts for something.

She's written some very engaging stories about her crazy Jewish relatives, is a fine artist, and now offers up trenchant views on a stratified US. Here she noted that favorite hobby of rich lefties-virtue-signaling via Trump-bashing.

My own view on Trump is, I hope, a nuanced one. I take a (or "an", if you're hopelessly pedantic) historical view: Kennedy was a philanderer. LBJ was corrupt to an almost laughable degree. Obama sicced the IRS on his political opponents. Nixon was none too stable mentally. And so on.

Our presidents haven't exactly been a rogues' gallery, but they haven't all been Lincoln, either.

Trump fits right in.

Chesterton on not taking yourself too seriously

SERIOUSNESS is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one's self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. It is much easier to write a good Times leading article than a good joke in Punch. For solemnity flows out of men naturally, but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light. Satan fell by the force of gravity.


From "Orthodoxy".


As an aside I used to read Punch, the great British humor magazine which expired a few years ago, when I was in high school. I already loved British sports cars, and was coming to love British writing. Later I got into GK Chesterton, Agatha Christie, CS Lewis, and PG Wodehouse. Thus an Irish Catholic became an Anglophile.

Roy Halladay, 1977-2017

A few thoughts on the career of Roy Halladay, who died piloting his plane yesterday. (Halladay had just taken delivery of the ICON A5 amphibious plane a month ago. It is the second fatal crash for the "sports car with wings" this year).


First I wanted to note that Halladay had a well-deserved reputation as a good guy. He was heavily involved in charitable work in both his Blue Jays and Phillies years. He was a multiple finalist for the Roberto Clemente Award, given to players with exemplary records for humanitarianism.


As a pitcher, Roy had few equals in his era. He won 203 games, threw a no-hitter for the Phillies in the 2010 playoffs, and is rated the 42nd best starting pitcher of all-time by the JAWS metric.


The most similar pitcher to Roy by Similarity Score is Zach Greinke of Arizona, another pitcher who will likely end up in the Hall of Fame. (Interestingly enough, the most similar pitcher to Greinke is Roy Oswalt, who with Halladay, Cole Hamels, and Cliff Lee formed the historic "Four Aces" rotation of the 2011 Phillies, who won 102 games).


Halladay never won a World Series, having arrived in both Toronto and Philadelphia a little too late for either team's championship years. But in 38 innings of excellent post-season work, he bettered his regular season ERA by a full run.


RIP to a good man and a fine athlete.

What remains

Some thoughts for All Saints Day, from our old friend GK Chesterton:


"You cannot deny that it is perfectly possible that to-morrow morning in Ireland or in Italy there might appear a man not only as good but good in exactly the same way as St. Francis of Assisi. Very well; now take the other types of human virtue: many of them splendid. The English gentleman of Elizabeth was chivalrous and idealistic. But can you stand still in this meadow and be an English gentleman of Elizabeth? The austere republican of the eighteenth century, with his stern patriotism and his simple life, was a fine fellow. But have you ever seen him? Have you ever seen an austere republican? Only a hundred years have passed and that volcano of revolutionary truth and valour is as cold as the mountains of the moon.


"And so it will be with the ethics which are buzzing down Fleet Street at this instant as I speak. What phrase would inspire a London clerk or workman just now? Perhaps that he is a son of the British Empire on which the sun never sets; perhaps that he is a prop of his Trades Union, or a class-conscious proletarian something or other; perhaps merely that he is a gentleman, when he obviously is not. Those names and notions are all honourable, but how long will they last? Empires break; industrial conditions change; the suburbs will not last for ever. What will remain? I will tell you the Catholic saint will remain."


'The Ball and the Cross.'