Copa América

Biden and Trump are debating, but I’m watching Bolivia vs. Uruguay.

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Uruguay and Argentina are the cream of this tournament and should reach the final. I’d say that apart from them, only the Colombians have much of a chance (but I’d be speculating, since I missed their opening game).

By “much of a chance,” I mean about three percent.

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Among the also-rans, several teams have had matches spoiled by red cards: Ecuador, Peru, and the USA.

I’m a modest person … I don’t like to gloat … but Ecuador’s red card was the least stupid of the three.

A Panamanian also was red-carded; but his punishment came late in the game, and it was for a proper, honest-to-goodness patada.

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Happy birthday to my dear friend, Grace, the Salvationist.

Today also is the fifth anniversary of my dissertation defense. (I just pulled that volume off the shelf. For a double-spaced work, the typesetting really is aquittable.)

It must also be the fifth anniversary of my last meeting with Dick Miller and Nick Sturgeon. 🥺

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R.I.P. Kinky Friedman, the Jewish Texan who wrote hilarious murder mysteries, set in Manhattan, in which he cast himself and his friends as detectives. (This description barely scratches Friedman’s surface.) I learned about him during the first lecture of my first college U.S. history class. I have no idea why he was mentioned, beyond the obvious fact that he was too important to omit.

Dinner with in-laws; another couch; September’s poem

Another dinner at Karin’s mom’s house. We watched Notre Dame lose, and then the conversation turned to how contemptible Joe Biden is and how “they” (the bad guys, i.e., the liberals) are coming after “us.”

“Personally,” McKenzie declared, “I’m looking forward to ‘the purge.’”

Karin’s mom had previously mentioned that she and her new husband intend to build a “family compound” in Kentucky.

“With whom does she expect to live in this compound?” I asked Karin.

“With all of us,” Karin sighed. “With all of her family.”

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Back at home, we have a new old couch. It was free for the taking. My parents happened to notice it while passing through Bremen, and some locals offered to haul it over to us in their truck (they were heading toward our part of South Bend, anyway). The couch is brown and plaid, and it’s from the 1980s. It looks like the furniture of Quito’s old Missionary Church Dorm.

Even more than our previous old couch, it “ties the room together.”

The cats already have peed on it.

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This month’s poem, by Rudyard Kipling, is “Recessional.”

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

God of our fathers, known of old,

Lord of our far-flung battle-line,

Beneath whose awful Hand we hold

Dominion over palm and pine –

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget – lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies;

The Captains and the Kings depart:

Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,

An humble and a contrite heart.

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget – lest we forget!

Far-called, our navies melt away;

On dune and headland sinks the fire:

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,

Lest we forget – lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose

Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,

Such boastings as the Gentiles use,

Or lesser breeds without the Law –

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget – lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust

In reeking tube and iron shard,

All valiant dust that builds on dust,

And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,

For frantic boast and foolish word –

Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

(For the Diamond Jubilee of 1897)

Lament

Whatever did I do to receive several emails each day from Conservative Direct (which appears to be a spamming agency)?

What robot decided I was the sort of person who’d want or need to read endless “BREAKING” allegations against “Sleepy” Joe Biden? (Not to mention his son.)

I ought to mark this as spam, but, every day, the headlines reel me in.

Some of today’s offerings (pretty mild, really):

(1) “Biden Retiring the U.S. Dollar” (in case I’d missed this bombshell the first four dozen times).

(2) “Hunter Biden Probe Will End with ‘Very Sympathetic Plea Agreement,’ Former Federal Prosecutor Predicts.”

(3) “BREAKING: Does Biden Really Have COVID or Is It an Elaborate Cover Up?” To be fair, this is where I first saw that Biden has COVID. (I’m assuming it’s not an elaborate cover-up.) I guess it’s possible to get real information if you read between the lines.

Next, the blogs and tweets of academia. Leiter rails against the woke young PhDs who are one-upping each other on Twitter. (These people really are pretty ludicrous.)

Do I have a short memory, or is public discourse at its lowest ebb since I was born? Or maybe I should say “discourses.” I was reading a postmodernist historian today who disparaged talk of the “discipline” of history in favor of talk of various “discourses” of history. (More on him some other time.) Are political “discourses” usually this insular? Are they usually this money-and-status-driven? (How do these things get measured?) Is this just par for the course, humanity-wise? In Shakespeare, old Lord Timon puts all his money into “culture,” gets zilch in return, quits Athens, and goes to live in a cave.

I would keep on ranting, but Karin wants us to go to sleep.

The t-rex

Going to church we drove next to Notre Dame, per usual. It was graduation day. Antiabortionists were gathered in front of the campus to protest against the speaker, Joe Biden. Also present: the t-rex. Mary was very excited. “I never wanted anyone’s autograph,” she said, “but I wish I could have the t-rex’s autograph.”