The vanilla method
Karin took two days off from work, and so we did quite a lot of shopping and appointment keeping.
At a thrift store, I bought eleven books.
We took Jasper to the vet’s for a follow-up appointment. When we brought him home, little Ziva again attacked him; but this time, we’d been advised by the vet to put vanilla on Ziva’s nose so that she wouldn’t smell Jasper’s oddness.
The tactic succeeded after three applications of vanilla. The kitties were kind to each other for the rest of the evening.
Today, Karin went to a friend’s house to bake cookies, and I stayed at home to read whatever I could about U.S. Senator and presidential aspirant Cory Booker (a New Jersey Democrat).
Liberal-leaning people of my age in South Bend are gung-ho about our mayor, Peter Buttigieg, whose forthcoming book depicts him rolling up his sleeves to repair our city (as if he himself were going to fill in the potholes). They want him to run for President. And, indeed, he’s just announced that he won’t seek mayoral reelection; it’s presumed he’ll aim higher.
I don’t know if I’d want Buttigieg or Booker to be the next U.S. President. If I were talking to Hank Hill, he’d tell me that both of these guys have too much “flash.” (I’d much rather have a leader like Bertie of The King’s Speech, which Karin & I watched last night: one who appreciates the burden of leadership well enough to stammer when confronted with it.) But it strikes me that Buttigieg and Booker are very alike with respect to ideology (centrist liberalism), formative background (well-to-do middle class; Ivy League; Oxford), and political experience (largely mayoral); only, under each category, Booker has the better credentials.
So, I say to my South Bend friends (if any of you read this): if you like Buttigieg, support Booker instead.
Otherwise, cast your net elsewhere.
(See, that’s the trouble with having studied moral philosophy: one finds oneself unable to make categorical recommendations; one can only make conditional ones. Vanilla. Earlier today, I was rereading Luther’s On the Bondage of the Will, which was in a collection I’d bought at the thrift store, and Luther was upbraiding Erasmus for exhibiting the same tendency, i.e., for not being unconditionally assertive. I don’t think Luther and I would have gotten along.)
At a thrift store, I bought eleven books.
We took Jasper to the vet’s for a follow-up appointment. When we brought him home, little Ziva again attacked him; but this time, we’d been advised by the vet to put vanilla on Ziva’s nose so that she wouldn’t smell Jasper’s oddness.
The tactic succeeded after three applications of vanilla. The kitties were kind to each other for the rest of the evening.
Today, Karin went to a friend’s house to bake cookies, and I stayed at home to read whatever I could about U.S. Senator and presidential aspirant Cory Booker (a New Jersey Democrat).
Liberal-leaning people of my age in South Bend are gung-ho about our mayor, Peter Buttigieg, whose forthcoming book depicts him rolling up his sleeves to repair our city (as if he himself were going to fill in the potholes). They want him to run for President. And, indeed, he’s just announced that he won’t seek mayoral reelection; it’s presumed he’ll aim higher.
I don’t know if I’d want Buttigieg or Booker to be the next U.S. President. If I were talking to Hank Hill, he’d tell me that both of these guys have too much “flash.” (I’d much rather have a leader like Bertie of The King’s Speech, which Karin & I watched last night: one who appreciates the burden of leadership well enough to stammer when confronted with it.) But it strikes me that Buttigieg and Booker are very alike with respect to ideology (centrist liberalism), formative background (well-to-do middle class; Ivy League; Oxford), and political experience (largely mayoral); only, under each category, Booker has the better credentials.
So, I say to my South Bend friends (if any of you read this): if you like Buttigieg, support Booker instead.
Otherwise, cast your net elsewhere.
(See, that’s the trouble with having studied moral philosophy: one finds oneself unable to make categorical recommendations; one can only make conditional ones. Vanilla. Earlier today, I was rereading Luther’s On the Bondage of the Will, which was in a collection I’d bought at the thrift store, and Luther was upbraiding Erasmus for exhibiting the same tendency, i.e., for not being unconditionally assertive. I don’t think Luther and I would have gotten along.)