Treat him or her like an angry bear.

When fighting the mask-enforcer ain’t worth the effort. Masked man checked with passenger next to him, who said no problem if nose not covered.

So I placed it beneath my nose. But about 20 minutes into the flight, the woman across the aisle from me said, “Please wear your mask.”

What to do? I realized that she held all the cards. If I refused, she would almost certainly call the flight attendant, who, whatever her own view of enforcement, would feel compelled to enforce. They had said twice over the PA system that failure to comply could result in a prison sentence. So I kept my mask on and took it off whenever I drank, and I drank in little sips, and whenever I ate peanuts, which I did a few at a time. And I put my mask beneath my nose the two times that the woman across went to the bathroom.

I didn’t focus on my anger at her, which was only momentary. I just decided to see her as an angry bear. So I didn’t waste time thinking about revenge, thinking about nasty things to say, etc. That would have taken energy and taken away from the good feelings I was having about the trip.

Of course, there was a government component at the root of this. The airline would probably not have enforced the rule and certainly wouldn’t have able to threaten a prison sentence if President Biden had not required masks.

Which maybe is one of the reasons students chant “F–k Joe Biden.”

The Drinan files! How a Jesuit provincial gave not a hoot about obedience, pinning his superior general in Rome to the wall, neutralizing him (bragging about it later to fellow Jesuits) through Machiavellian maneuvers that would put to shame many an on-the-make politician who has graced or disgraced the halls of government in these United States.

— Based on Jesuit at Large: Essays and Reviews by Paul V. Mankowski SJ, edited with introduction by George Weigel. Blithe Spirit commentary on pp 195-232, “Memorandum on the Drinan Candidacy and the NE [New England] Prov[ince] Archives,” Paul V. Mankowski SJ, April 2007.

More to come . . .

1940-60, progress on steroids. 1960-2000, regression.

Between 1940 and 1960 the percentage of black families living in poverty declined by 40 points as blacks increased their years of education and migrated from poorer rural areas to more prosperous urban environs in the South and North.

No welfare program has ever come close to replicating that rate of black advancement, which predates affirmative action programs that often receive credit for creating the black middle class.

Moreover, what we experienced in the wake of the Great Society interventions was slower progress or outright retrogression. Black labor-force participation rates fell, black unemployment rates rose, and the black nuclear family disintegrated. In 1960 fewer than 25% of black children were being raised by a single mother; within four decades, it was more than half.

FromWall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley via Cafe Hayek

All in all, a tribute to the power of utopianism preached by unscrupulous pol as uncritically bally-hoo’d by noosepapers, radio and tee-vee.