6.19.2025 – one of those which sells

one of those which sells
you the disease in order
to sell you the cure

Adapted from the book review, The Genius Myth by Helen Lewis review – bright wrong things by Houman Barekat where Mr. Barekat writes:

The Genius Myth is one of those popular nonfiction books in which an author sells you the disease in order to sell you the cure. As is customary in this genre, it comes with its own bespoke jargon: Lewis has coined a term – “the deficit model of genius” – to denote the prevalence of certain handicaps or character flaws among extremely talented scientists and artists. A banal truism is thus passed off as sociological insight.

My wife and I still watch the network evening news.

We go back and forth between networks but at 6:30 p.m. our kids know we will have the TV on to learn about the day.

If you watch these programs, you must have noticed that almost everyday there is a new commercial for a new drug with some goofy name like Latuda, Xeljanz, Humira or Abilify.

These commercials have a lot in common.

One, the name is outrageous.

Tofacitinib?

I often say I would have enjoyed being in the board room where that name was picked out and that I would hate to see what names were that got rejected.

Two, most likely you have never heard of the disease these drugs treat.

Tofacitinib is for rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, polyarticular course juvenile idiopathic arthritis, and ulcerative colitis.

Three, the side effects sound worse than the disease.

The side effects are so bad that they are read a quiet voice and double the speed of the normal speech.

When I read the phrase sells you the disease in order to sell you the cure I knew just what Mr. Barekat meant.

Until you heard about the possible symptoms, you didn’t have the symptoms.

Once you had the symptoms, the idea of the drug seemed to be a good idea, regardless of the side effects.

These thoughts stayed with me through my morning drive to work.

And it hit me.

It came to me that this explains the talking points of the current administration.

Did we need DOGE layoffs?

Did we need ICE raids?

Did we need to nuke Iran?

This current administration had to sell the disease.

Maybe a disease we didn’t even know about.

To sell us the cure.

And they found a lot of buyers.

Regardless of the side effects.

More Thurber Drawings – Click here

6.14.2025 – flag of stars, of man!

flag of stars, of man!
sure and steady step, passing
highest flags of kings

“Flag Day, Fifth Avenue, July 4th 1916” by Frederick Childe Hassam.

FLAG of stars! thick-sprinkled bunting!
Long yet your road, fateful flag!—long yet your road,
and lined with bloody death!
For the prize I see at issue, at last is the world!
All its ships and shores I see, interwoven with your
threads, greedy banner!
—Dream’d again the flags of kings, highest borne, to
flaunt unrivall’d?
O hasten, flag of man! O with sure and steady step,
passing highest flags of kings,
Walk supreme to the heavens, mighty symbol—run up
above them all,
Flag of stars! thick sprinkled bunting!

Flag of Stars By Walt Whitman as printed in Walt Whitman: The Complete poetry and selected prose and letters, London, The Nonesuch Press, 1964

6.13.2025 – how the time matters

how the time matters
in which virtue of even
the best man happens

Proh Dolor! Quantum refert in quae tempora vel optimi cujusque virtus incidat.

Or …

Oh, how much does it matter into what times the virtue of even the best man falls!

Or …

O how much does the time matter in which the virtue of even the best man happens.

Or …

Even the best of men may be born in times unsuited to their virtues.

It is the Latin, Proh Dolor! Quantum refert in quae tempora vel optimi cujusque virtus incidat, that is carved on the tomb of Pope Adrian IV.

He got to be Pope for of one and a half years during the Reformation (January, 1522 to September, 1523).

The ONLY Dutch Pope.

Some felt he would have been a GREAT Pope but for his untimely death and that his attention during his Papacy was taken over by Protestant protests.

Thus the inscription on his tomb, Proh Dolor! Quantum refert in quae tempora vel optimi cujusque virtus incidat, or Even the best of men may be born in times unsuited to their virtues.

I have to say that, while I will not be counted among the best of men, I am certainly born in times unsuited to my virtues.

FDR is once wrote to Winston Churchill that it It was fun to be in the same decade with you.

Well it isn’t fun being in the same decade as that man in office.

Taking a cue from the white house, folks are crabby, folks are mean, folks are cutting and because of this folks are worried and folks are unceratain.

Americans used to and were used to living carefree lives compared to most of the world.

Care Free!

No one was going to come to our door and demand to come.

We never had to ‘show our papers’.

I didn’t even know what ‘papers’ were.

For much of what the World worried about, Americans were care free.

Not any more and all because of one man.

It isn’t fair that I have live in the same decade with that man.

Proh Dolor! Quantum refert in quae tempora vel optimi cujusque virtus incidat.

BTW, after Adrian VI, it was another 460 years before the Catholic Church tried out another Pope who wasn’t Italian.

Did I mention Adrian VI was Dutch?

6.11.2025 – their destiny is

their destiny is
destruction, glory their shame …
mind on earthly things

Based on the Bible verse that says:

Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. Ephesians 3:19 (NIV).

In his 2nd Inaugural Address on March 4, 1865, Abraham Lincoln said this about the two sides in the argument that led to the American Civil War:

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.

There are two sides to the current argument in American politics today.

I am on one side of that argument and I have a certain point of view.

I am told that every time I use a verse from the Bible, the other side can take the same verse and show how it applies to their point of view.

But let us look at this verse again.

Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.

Mr. Lincoln went on to say:

It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully.

So let me present the two points of view in the current argument in photographs.

This is a photograph taken from the website of the Christian Appalachian Project which provides, according to their website, vital services, including home repairs, food assistance, and educational support, aiming to build hope and transform lives.

This photograph … well … you know what this is.

Now, read the verse again, Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.

In Matthew 6:21, the Bible says: For where your treasure is, there your heart …

But let us judge not, that we be not judged.

Though Mr. Lincoln included a warning: The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.”

I am just holding up the mirror.

You can check your reflection.

6.7.2025 – not about the man but

not about the man but
but constitutional rights
and the rights of all

In the article, Kilmar Ábrego García returned from El Salvador to face criminal charges in US by Maya Yangm Ms. Yang quotes a statement from US senator Chris Van Hollen writing:

A Friday statement from the US senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said the Trump administration had “finally relented” to his demand to afford Ábrego García due process.

“This is not about the man,” said Van Hollen, who visited Ábrego García in El Salvador in April. “It’s about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all.”

“It’s about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all.”

Remember Dr. King’s “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

In the same article the Attorney General of the United States said, This is what American justice looks like …

I find no comfort thinking the the Attorney General of the United States of America would not have been able to pass Mr. Reagan’s 12th Grade Government class at Grand Rapids Creston Highschool.

Not that that disqualifies her from office in this administration.