Do you remember Zelig? If Zelig was the human chameleon, Kamala Harris is the political chameleon.
Who is Kamala Harris? The Language Nazi cannot resist pointing our that the author of the linked piece confuses 'errant' with 'arrant' about five paragraphs down.
Top o' the Stack.
This entry examines Richard C. Potter's solution to the problem of reconciling creatio ex nihilo with ex nihilo nihil fit in his valuable article, "How To Create a Physical Universe Ex Nihilo," Faith and Philosophy, vol. 3, no. 1, (January 1986), pp. 16-26. (Potter appears to have dropped out of sight, philosophically speaking. PhilPapers shows only three articles by him, the last of which appeared in 1986. )
What I argue is that similar Potterian moves can be used by an atheist to argue that the universe caused itself to exist. The upshot is that we remain stuck with the problem of reconciling the two principles.
A technical post, not for the faint of heart or weak of mind. You will have to put on your 'thinking caps' as Sister Ann Miriam said back in the first grade.
Substack latest.
Gleanings from a passage from Pascal.
This supplements and deepens the recent discussion of subjective and objective views of death.
Substack latest.
An egregious example of present-directed gaslighting of the American people by the regime and the regime media is their dismissal of the numerous videos depicting Joe Biden's physical decrepitude as 'cheap/deep fakes.'
What then are we to call the lie being currently spread by the regime and its shills that Kamala Harris was never the 'border czar'? I call it past-directed gaslighting. This form of gaslighting is promoted by 'scrubbing' the historical record, a tried-and-true totalitarian tactic. Totalitarians want total control, and thus they want control over the past. They cannot erase the past, which is what it was, no matter what anyone says or writes. But they can bury the past in oblivion by altering the historical record. The burial in oblivion, the destruction of collective memory, suffices for their nefarious purposes.
Now the meaning of Christopher Wray's ludicrous 'shrapnel speculation' falls into place. Its purpose was to prepare the way for a future denial that the Trump assassination attempt ever happened.
How do I know that? Well, I don't know that, but what I do know about these deep-staters makes my speculation reasonable. Or do you have a better explanation for Wray's remark?
New Yorker article. Remnant article.
First a positive note: A Dylan biopic is coming, A Complete Unknown.
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Del Shannon (Charles Weedon Westover), December 30, 1934 – February 8, 1990, known prmarily for his Billboard Hot 100 #1 hit, Runaway, 1961. "Suffering from depression, Shannon committed suicide on February 8, 1990, with a .22-caliber rifle at his home in Santa Clarita, California, while on a prescription dose of the anti-depressant drug Prozac. Following his death, The Traveling Wilburys honored him by recording a version of "Runaway"." (Wikipedia)
Dalida, O Sole Mio. I think I'm in love. "Dalida (17 January 1933 – 3 May 1987), birth name Iolanda Cristina Gigliotti, was a singer and actress who performed and recorded in more than 10 languages including: French, Arabic, Italian, Greek, German, English, Japanese, Hebrew, Dutch and Spanish." [. . .]On Saturday, 2 May 1987, Dalida committed suicide by overdosing on barbiturates.[7][8] She left behind a note which read, "La vie m'est insupportable… Pardonnez-moi." ("Life has become unbearable for me… Forgive me.")" (Wikipedia)
The Singing Nun, Dominique, 1963. "Jeanine Deckers (17 October 1933 – 29 March 1985) was a Belgian singer-songwriter and initially a member of the Dominican Order in Belgium (as Sister Luc Gabrielle). She acquired world fame in 1963 as Sœur Sourire (Sister Smile) when she scored a hit with the her French-language song "Dominique". She is sometimes credited as "The Singing Nun". [. . .]
Citing their financial difficulties in a note, she and her companion of ten years[8][9][10], Annie Pécher, both committed suicide by an overdose of barbiturates and alcohol on 29 March 1985.[11][12] In their suicide note, Decker and Pécher stated they had not given up their faith and wished to be buried together after a church funeral.[7] They were buried together in Cheremont Cemetery in Wavre, Walloon Brabant, the town where they died.[13] The inscription on their tombstone reads "I saw her soul fly across the clouds", a line from Deckers' song "Sister Smile is dead". (Wikipedia)
Phil Ochs, Small Circle of Friends. There but for Fortune. "Philip David Ochs (/ˈoʊks/; December 19, 1940 – April 9, 1976) was an American protest singer (or, as he preferred, a topical singer) and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and distinctive voice. He wrote hundreds of songs in the 1960s and released eight albums in his lifetime." [. . .] "On April 9, 1976, Ochs hanged himself.[110]" (Wikipedia)
My favorite suicide song is Shiver Me Timbers by Tom Waits. James Taylor offers a beautiful interpretation. Is it really about suicide at sea? The reference to Martin Eden suggests to me that it is. But you might reasonably disagree.
Representative Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) tears former Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle to shreds. Mace has the political cojones that Milque Toast Mitt and his sickening RINO ilk lack.
"That's bullshit." (1:22) Why be civil to the anti-civilizational?
Sage advice from a former Speaker: don't underestimate Kamala.
Substack latest.
Is death an evil?
The corpulent Democrat Jerry Nadler repeated it today before the Christopher Wray congressional hearing. The context-dropping crapweasel knows full well what Trump meant, and if you don't, Snopes will clue you in.
Study everything! proclaims the first half of my masthead motto. I live by it. Am I an intellectual glutton? The self-critical and conflicted Tom Merton asked himself that very question in a journal entry. I put the question to myself.
Example. I am up from a nap and enjoying an iced coffee. I will soon be banging on all eight. As part of the afternoon start-up I am reading back-to-back, and back-and-forth, Paul Evdokimov (The Sacrament of Love: The Nuptial Mystery in the Orthodox Tradition, St. Vladimir's Press, 1985, orig. published in 1980 as Sacrement de L'Amour), and the Blake Bailey biography of Charles Jackson, the alcoholic, married-to-woman, homosexual who achieved minor literary fame as the author of the thinly-veiled autobiographical booze novel, The Lost Weekend (1944). Jackson died at age 65 having destroyed himself with drugs and alcohol.
I have long been fascinated by the utterly wild diversity of human types. There is nothing like it it the animal world, and yet we too are animals. We are in continuity with the animals but an incomprehensible rupture, saltation, jump, metabasis eis allo genos, occurred at some point in the evolutionary process that gave rise to man who is, paradoxically, both an animal and not an animal. Heidegger is right; there is an abysmal/abyssal (abgruendig) difference between man and animal. An abyss yawns between the two. Heidegger is echoing Genesis but going deeper, and some would say, off the deep end, with his talk of man as Dasein, the Da of Sein/Seyn. More on Heidegger when I dig into Dugin.
And then there is Paul Evdokimov (1901-1970). I have Merton to thank for bringing him to my attention. Here is a passage that struck me:
There is no reason . . . to call one path [the marital state] or the other [the monastic state] the preeminent Christianity, since what is valid for all of Christendom is thereby valid for each of the two states. The East [unlike the RCC] has never made the distinction between the "precepts" and the "evangelical counsels." The Gospel in its totality is addressed to each person; everyone in his own situation is called to the absolute of the Gospel. Trying to prove the superiority of the one state over the other is therefore useless . . . The renunciation at work in both cases is as good as the positive content that the human being brings to it: the intensity of the love of God. (Evdokimov, p. 65)
For the Roman Catholic distinction between precepts and counsels of perfection that Evdokimov is rejecting, see here. "It has been denied by heretics in all ages, and especially by many Protestants in the sixteenth and following centuries . . . "
Institutions too often value their own perpetuation over the fulfillment of their legitimate mandates. Examples are legion.
(This aphorism inspired by Chip Roy's grilling of the prevaricating FBI director Christopher Wray.)
Do the best you can for as long as you can with your life's allotment of materials, tools, and talents. The best you can do won't be the best, but your best, the personal best, unique to you, unrepeatable, and incommunicable to any other. Your uniqueness distinguishes your best from the bests of all the rest. Tread the path of self-individuation and become the unique individual only you can become — or fail to become out of slackery and inanition.
Look up to your superiors in the hierarchies of achievement and endowment. You are not their equal and you never, or only rarely, will be. If you can move up a rung or two, do so. Emulate where that is possible. But don't confuse emulation with imitation: the former includes but is more than the latter. Look up, but without envy. Their lot and their allotment is not yours. They will be held to a higher standard, and judged the more harshly the more they have buried their talents. Their boons are burdens, their blessings bonds. And so are yours to a lesser measure. Much will be demanded from those to whom much has been given. Your task is yours alone: to work the materials of your allotment with your tools and talents in your time and place the best you can for as long as you can.
If comparison breeds envy, drop comparison. To feel diminished by another's success or well-being either is, or is the near occasion of, a deadly sin. Be your incomparable self. There is and can be only one of you just as there is and can be only one One by which all beings are beings.
If admiration of the other sires denigration of self, drop admiration.
The strenuous life is best by test. We are here to battle the hebetude of the flesh and the sluggishness of the mind.
Some cynics (Moldbug?) will say that it has always been like that: the essence of the political is captured in the Golden Rule: Those with the gold, rule. If that is so, let the battle proceed. I am glad we have Trump and Musk on our side.
You don't defeat transgender Unsinn with calm arguments and appeals to reason, but by Musk-et.
Look before you make the leap of faith in ultimate nonentity. There may be no exit.
Top o' the Stack.
Girlfriend dumped you? Give it six months, and you may wonder what you ever saw in her.
The Stoic method of division may help you over the hump, the slump, the slough of despond.
