Long ago, when blogging first became “a thing” there was this debate about gatekeeping.  With blogging it seemed anyone could decide what was news and what wasn’t.  It was called the “democratization of information.”  For a while there the “blogosphere” started to organize and new gatekeepers arose – puncturing the monopoly held by the NYTimes, WaPo, and the TV networks.  But then along came Twitter – not even permitting a word count sufficient for actual reporting – and things have never been the same since.  Much to our detriment.. . .

A recent “tweet” from wretchardthecat reads, in part, “The real emotional fuel for Trump hatred is only partly fueled by logical disagreement. Most of it comes from his choice of furniture, design of ballroom, the ghastly red caterpillar cap, vulgar speech and most of all ‘bigly’. They might forgive all else, but never ‘bigly’.”  Once reason is jettisoned, all sorts of interesting things begin to happen.. . .

Each Sunday I wake up and reflect on how churches are indeed growing with young people in this time when far too often God seems to be missing from our midst.  But then some Sundays I wake up and read stories like this, “Pastor Clive Johnston, 78, a former president of the Association of Baptist Churches in Ireland, was found guilty on May 7 at Coleraine Magistrates’ Court on two charges under Northern Ireland’s Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) Act 2023 for preaching on John 3:16 near the abortion buffer zone located outside of Causeway Hospital.”  Hope seems harder to find in those young attendees –

This week’s appearance of Noah Rothman featured a discussion of why would anyone enter politics these days?  It’s worth a listen, but the discussion occurs without acknowledging what may be the central fact of the matter.. . .

We tend to think about tyranny in monolithic terms.  That a single individual, or consortium of individuals, rule tyrannically over a peoples.  But I think in modern America we have invented a new type of tyranny – a tyranny of multiple and competing bureaucracies.  I first wrote about the bureaucratic entanglements that were to plague LA from the fires as the fires burned.  Yesterday an article appeared that makes the point most vividly.. . .

Two unrelated stories that have been floating all week make very clear that human normality is not at all like we think it is, and especially what we wish it is.. . .

On Monday, The Free Press published a piece by Kat Rosenfield on “suicidal empathy.”  She describes the term as “politically loaded,” but it is also useful to understand a lot of why denominationalism is dead in America.. . .

They played politics with covid and things got expensive, inflationary and stupid.  But Trump was not reelected, so the Trump-hating-obsessed thought it worth the price.  (Is it any wonder that increasingly people on the far left think political violence is justified?)  Hantavirus is not covid, by any stretch of the imagination.  So says Dr, Jay Bhattacharya, acting head of the CDC, and head of the NIH, and one of the few people to make sense during covid – much to the chagrin of the people then in charge.  And yet, people were starting to question his credibility over this past weekend.. . .