Leaves migrating south for the winter
Temperatures got up to the high forties (F) today. Had it not rained, Samuel and I might have kicked a ball around on a field near our house. Instead, we did some napping.
I have told Karin I won’t buy any more books this year, at least not out of pocket (i.e., without gift money).
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
The Atlantic has been publishing a special series about U.S. democracy. Online, that is. The articles will reapper in the January/February print issue. That’s why some of them talk as if we already have come to the anniversary of the U.S. Capitol attack, though that attack took place on January 6 of this year.
The Atlantic must not be the only medium that is talking like this. One of my right-wing Facebook friends, who wouldn’t be caught dead reading that magazine, posts:
In one of my favorite Peanuts strips, Charlie Brown overhears Lucy explain to a very young Linus that in the autumn, leaves fall off trees because they are migrating south for the winter.
“My stomach aches,” Charlie Brown says.
For many of us, engaging opponents, listening to opponents, has become well-nigh impossible because it’s just too stomach-churning. Not because of mutual contempt, name-calling, etc., though those things are bad, but because facts and plausible interpretations of those facts are treated contemptuously, while ludicrous interpretations and lies are treated as truth.
So, if we want to talk politics, we talk with people who agree with us. Or we attend to those on the other side to get a perverse pleasure from what they say. But, in the long run, those things also are stomach-churning. They’re like eating stale food, or like eating junk food that gives us a quick high and then leaves us ill and out of shape.
Maybe the best course is to be like Charlie Brown and not have any friends, only enemies; to lament that they are our enemies; and to live, as fully as possible, with the constant stomach-ache.
I have told Karin I won’t buy any more books this year, at least not out of pocket (i.e., without gift money).
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
The Atlantic has been publishing a special series about U.S. democracy. Online, that is. The articles will reapper in the January/February print issue. That’s why some of them talk as if we already have come to the anniversary of the U.S. Capitol attack, though that attack took place on January 6 of this year.
The Atlantic must not be the only medium that is talking like this. One of my right-wing Facebook friends, who wouldn’t be caught dead reading that magazine, posts:
The fact that January 6th is even a topic of conversation anymore, let alone the object of extensive judicial inquiry, is mind-boggling.My mind is boggled that his mind is boggled, though by now the mutual incredulity is predictable. I have no great point to make about this. Why mention it, then?
In one of my favorite Peanuts strips, Charlie Brown overhears Lucy explain to a very young Linus that in the autumn, leaves fall off trees because they are migrating south for the winter.
“My stomach aches,” Charlie Brown says.
For many of us, engaging opponents, listening to opponents, has become well-nigh impossible because it’s just too stomach-churning. Not because of mutual contempt, name-calling, etc., though those things are bad, but because facts and plausible interpretations of those facts are treated contemptuously, while ludicrous interpretations and lies are treated as truth.
So, if we want to talk politics, we talk with people who agree with us. Or we attend to those on the other side to get a perverse pleasure from what they say. But, in the long run, those things also are stomach-churning. They’re like eating stale food, or like eating junk food that gives us a quick high and then leaves us ill and out of shape.
Maybe the best course is to be like Charlie Brown and not have any friends, only enemies; to lament that they are our enemies; and to live, as fully as possible, with the constant stomach-ache.