. . . Yes, in Iowa too, many years ago:

Trump is not the first Republican candidate to skip a debate.Ronald Reagan skipped the Republican debate ahead of the 1980 Iowa caucus.Bloomberg reported: Trump isn’t the first top-tier presidential candidate to skip a debate.

Ronald Reagan did not attend a Republican debate ahead of the 1980 Iowa caucuses, which he lost to George H.W. Bush. Reagan went on to the win the nomination and the presidency.Reagan went on to win in a landslide.

Lesson in how to win big?

Read it here, at: The Gateway Pundit

It’s like the fresh young priest preaching about the joys of marriage, on which one of two ladies, veterans of the married state, observed on the way out of mass that she wished she knew “as little about marriage as that young man.”

After the San Bernardino massacre, The Angelus, the Los Angeles archdiocesan newspaper, carried an article calling for “greater solidarity with Islam.”

The piece by Fr. Ronald Rolheiser [who is widely syndicated] is a particularly egregious example of the kind of nonsense about Islam that passes for wisdom in some ecclesiastical circles. He starts off by observing that “this is …

Source: Solidarity with Islam? – Crisis Magazine

. . . jumped the shark two short years ago.

Nothing besides a national policy shift on how we create and consume energy will keep our mountains white.

Well, how about waiting a couple years?

Source: The End of Snow? – The New York Times

My question is, Does Vatican have centrifuges? (To go with its subterfuges, its enemies would say)

At one level, the close ties between Rome and Tehran reflect the often under-appreciated fact that both the Vatican and post-revolutionary Iran are basically theocracies, representing spiritual traditions — Catholicism and Shia Islam — that have a surprising amount in common.

Also, which has the bigger police force?

Source: The bond between the Vatican and Iran is a partnership destined to endure | Crux

What comes around goes around, even for Rahm Emanuel.

One of the first times Tribune reporter David Kidwell interviewed Mayor Rahm Emanuel about the city’s controversial red light camera program, Emanuel reminded Kidwell who was in charge.

The Redflex story, as it unfolded: The Chicago Way on trial – Chicago Tribune

Trump-speech analyzed:

Whatever is to blame for the appeal of Donald Trump, who graces our cover this week (if that’s the word), it certainly isn’t his eloquence.

The point is made for us by Barton Swaim in the course of his survey of American styles of oratory, as heard in, particularly, inaugural presidential addresses, from John Adams and Abraham Lincoln to Ronald Reagan and beyond.

There was a time – according to the “erudite and insightful” study Swaim reviews – when audiences not put to sleep by foggy logic and propositions they didn’t believe had their patriotic and altruistic feelings aroused instead.

But Trump’s “choppy, jokey, vaguely belligerent” chat is “the repudiation of the Great American Speech” – and perhaps that is just what Americans want.

(Thumb sketch of review of Stephen Fender’s The Geat American Speech: Words and monuments)

Let’s double-check those last words. So far, Trump has perfect pitch for millions of us. That’s partly the age we live in, when eloquence has been badly wounded.

In addition, we’ve been hearing uber-nonsense — “foggy logic and propositions [so many of us] didn’t believe” — from the tongue-tied (except when tele-prompted) presidential elocutionist long enough to make many of us ripe for rough approximations that do touch our “patriotic [if not] altruistic feelings.”

Newspapers not what they used to be. Alan Taylor looks at today’s newsroom.

At my old newspapers [( Edinburgh) Herald and Scotsman], today’s fillers of the front page rarely leave their desks, let alone the office. Instead they tweet like demented birds, fill in Freedom of Information forms and embellish press releases.

Verbal communication is kept to a minimum; even colleagues sitting side by side prefer to send emails rather than use their vocal cords.

Anyone suspected of having had a liquid lunch can expect to be collared by “Human Resources”.

Meanwhile, edicts from on high emphasize the imperative to feed the voracious beast that is the website and tailor “content” to whatever will attract the greatest number of “hits”, in the belief that this will increase advertising and thus protect jobs.

Towards the end of my tenure, fearful of catching something contagious, I rationed my visits to the office. Whenever I did drop by, it was eerily empty and the silence was unnatural, like that in a movie which foretells something awful about to happen.

Thus he concludes a half-page “Freelance” piece in Times Literary Supplement. Subscription needed: Freelance | TLS

Just downloaded this book, also got from Edgewater Branch library. Very thoughtful on memoirs, “confessions,” and the like.

See also, of course, the CPL reference:

Source: The Project Gutenberg eBook of Impressions of Theophrastus Such, by George Eliot

Curious (misguided?) concern here for GOP:

To be sure, we do not envy Republicans the Hobson’s choice they seem to face between Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz. No doubt the latter could do lasting damage to the party brand, as the establishment fears. But Mr. Trump wouldn’t?

Mr. Obama didn’t, to his party?

Source: GOP insiders cave to Trump – The Washington Post

Trump welcomes good words from high GOP places and explains:

“I can tell you, they like me, those guys,” Trump said. “And there’s nothing wrong with that, folks. We’ve got to make deals. We don’t want to sign executive orders. We want to make good deals.”

He wrote about making deals. He would be the antithesis of go-it-alone Cruz?

More about this fascinating possibility here : GOP establishment warms to Trump — and remains cool toward Cruz – The Washington Post