those who have removed
generous impulses that
are the nation’s soul

Adapted from the line:

When we are told to forego all dissent and division, we must ask:

Who is it that is truly dividing the country?

It is not those who call for change;

it is those who make present policy who divide our country;

those who bear the responsibility for our present course;

those who have removed themselves from the American tradition, from the enduring and generous impulses that are the soul of the nation…

Robert F. Kennedy, Sr. in an Address at Vanderbilt University, March 21, 1968

I believe all the
church teaches – makes a poor fit
for either party

Adapted from the paragraph:

Devout Catholics have historically been difficult to place in the American political binary. They were often anti-abortion but in favor of immigration and a social safety net. “I believe all the church teaches,” Leah Libresco Sargeant, the author of two books on her Catholic faith, told me. “I try to live up to it. And obviously that makes me a poor fit for either political party.”

In the article, ‘Maga Catholics’ are gaining ground in the US. Now their sight is set on the Vatican by J Oliver Conroy in the Guardian on April 29, 2025.

There was a time when the same could have been said about Evangelical Christians in America.

You know what word stands out for me in that passage?

It’s that word there, obviously.

Like … DUH.

Like … OF COURSE.

I am reminded of the old question …

Are you a Christian by conviction … or by convenience?

As Garrison Keillor once wrote, or as close as I can remember, “They didn’t learn anything new to the day they died. The next day, though, they learned an awful lot.”

doesn’t matter that’s
lying – people want the lie …
that’s the crucial point

In the article, How did Hitler’s film-maker hide her complicity from the world? by Eliza Apperly about a new documentary delves into controversial German film-maker Leni Riefenstahl’s private archive to uncover a director who spent a lifetime covering up her central role in the Nazi propaganda machine. Ms. Apperly closes her article with this paragraph.

Ultimately, however, Riefenstahl impresses most in attesting to the seductiveness of evasion. Veiel hopes that the film will above all foster a deeper understanding of “the structure and necessity of legends” and the breeding ground of untruths. Even when the gaps and inconsistencies in her storytelling seem flagrant, she still finds her advocates and supporters. “It doesn’t matter that she is obviously lying,” Veiel says. “People want the lie. That’s the crucial point.”

Read that last line again out loud.

“It doesn’t matter that she is obviously lying,” Veiel says. “People want the lie. That’s the crucial point.”

Not sure what to say about Ms. Riefenstahl as my jury has always been out on her anyway (I am reminded of the story of told when Fran Lebowitz one time was invited to a very small, intimate dinner party for Leni Riefenstahl and she replied, “Are you out of your mind?”, but for a comment for today.

For an answer to the question, How does HE get away with it?

It doesn’t matter that he is obviously lying.

People want the lie.

That’s the crucial point.