. . . at the behest of the deep state authorities with whom Twitter was collaborating. The absurd letter by 51 former intelligence officials reported by Natasha Bertrand and published by Politico was a key piece of the puzzle (to the extent it was a puzzle). Holman Jenkins takes it up in his Wall Street Journal column,

which has this among its riches:

So compromised are the national reporting staffs of the Washington Post, the New York Times and other outlets that they can’t be trusted on the biggest story of the day. A Jeff Bezos, say, would have to take a page from the CIA’s own history and recruit a “Team B” off-site from his Washington Post to investigate the laptop ruse, then require his newspaper to report the truth however discomfiting to its newsroom and leadership.

Read More Here: https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/12/a-twitter-files-footnote.php?utm_source=email&utm_medium=sw&utm_campaign=sw

Like this man?

The problem is, politics and its enthusiasts increasingly have no manners (let’s put morals aside for the moment). They are not respecters of autonomy. Power is their aphrodisiac. It’s as though everyone has become a telemarketer on speed-dial, with or without a phone.

They’re not selling time shares or their pet charity but a vision of how the world ought to be run. This is not a realm where the genteel can safely go about their business. In the Sixties, when the trendy-minded were fond of proclaiming that “All politics is personal” – they really meant it. Yentas of the world, unite!

Make do, folks. It’s the only way.

Dark Ages here we come.

Not a pretty one indeed.

They knew they could count on Big Tech.

We are catch basins, reservoirs of learning, wisdom and beauty recalled. About ecstatic reading, Zagajewski says: “[B]ooks contain not only wisdom and well-ordered information but also a kind of energy that comes close to dance and shamanist drunkenness.”

That’s a little strong. My pilot light burns at a more modest setting. I can’t dance and have never met a shaman. I liken reading at its best to an inspired, deferential conversation.

Zagajewski suggests we read broadly, haphazardly. If you’re a poet, read more than poetry, certainly beyond contemporary poetry – “a shadow of premature professionalism hovers over this practice. A shadow of shallowness.” Read beyond a phrase I hate – “your comfort zone.” This applies to all of us, not just poets: . . .

Read the rest and think, does that help?

Two Cents and worth it

It’s said we can’t be a color-blind society, because there are too many skeletons in our closet. We’re religion-blind, glossing over religious differences for the sake of religious peace. Where would we be if we drove home religious differences with the same zeal with which we drive home racial differences? Call it your revolutionary thought for the day.

For example . . .

“No paragon of these am I,” he wrote, “even if at 18 I left home to study them full time. After two years of novitiate, I got my SJ degree, which I relinquished many years later . . .

Even so, much of it stuck. At Mass, for instance, I often entered the zone of prayer and meditation, which made me a poor participant in the liturgy.

Doesn’t mean I think of nothing else . . . or that I am superior to the worshiper next to me who belts out songs and other responses. In fact, you could argue I’m not as good because I seem to reject the communal aspect of today’s liturgy.

But do we not exceed the limits of liturgical propriety when we proffer the handclasp of peace to other pew-sitters far and wide, even getting out of our pews to hug and chat or even extort the same from them?

. . . more more more here.

Two Cents and worth it.

Oh happy day . . .

Allow a little chauvinism here: THE HIGH SCHOOL REFERENDUM WON, thanks to a lot of lions lying down with a lot of lambs. New board member Gerry Jacobs, whose River Forest home has also made news, obviously played a key role, brokering togetherness.

Beaucoups de kudos also to three main groups, not in order of importance: those willing to rethink opposition, those willing to repackage advocacy, and those willing to take pay cuts. It takes a whole village (in this case two of them) to pass a referendum (in this case two of them). Let’s hug one another. (Unfortunately having to avoid unfriendly glances of taxpayers with or, more likely, without kids in public schools. This is a 2022 editorial addition/comment.)

Job action, anyone?

General Motors is up for grabs because of outsourcing. The auto workers know an issue when they see one. Not so the teachers at Oak Park’s Irving School, where a commercial tutoring operation is being hired to teach reading.

Scores are down, and authorities apparently can’t or won’t count on teachers to supply what’s missing. This apparently is in line with the teachers’ contract. Is it?

In any event, were I a teacher, I’d be looking over my shoulder, wondering if Downs and Privat, the Izer twins, are coming.

When good thoughts occur to different people . . .

Seneca of old Rome asks, “Why do bad things happen frequently to good people?” But Harold Kushner, author of the 1981 best-seller When Bad Things Happen to Good People, makes no mention of that.

Great minds run in the same tracks, clearly. Seneca wrote: . . . .

For the rest, go here.