The Beam in her Eye

Mariann Budde, Episcopal Bishop of Washington, DC, has attracted controversy over her sermon at the national prayer service last Tuesday.

As homilies go, your humble blogger found it to be well within mainstream Episcopal thought. She called for unity and its "foundations": dignity, honesty/truth, and humility. She had completed her sermon on Monday but felt that she had to add something more:

"I found myself thinking, there’s a fourth thing we need for unity in this country — we need mercy," she told RNS in an interview on Wednesday. "We need mercy. We need compassion. We need empathy. And after listening to the president on Monday, I thought, I wasn’t going to just speak of it in general terms."

The result was a sermon, delivered from the cathedral’s pulpit on Tuesday morning as President Trump and Vice President JD Vance sat quietly just a few feet away, that pleaded with the president to have "mercy" on people who stand to be disproportionately impacted by his administration’s policies — namely, LGBTQ people and immigrant families.

"In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now," Budde said. "There are gay, lesbian and transgender children in both Democratic, Republican and independent families who fear for their lives."

She also made a plea for immigrants and refugees, a reference to Trump’s promise to enact sweeping deportations and his executive order stopping almost all refugees from entering the country starting Jan. 27. The majority of immigrants, Budde said, are not criminals, but "people who pay taxes, and are good neighbors."

I have two problems with the final section of Bishop Budde's sermon:

1) in a call for "mercy" she is really asking the President not to enforce the law. Perhaps she had become so accustomed to the Biden Administration's selective approach to enforcement (open borders for favored groups, lawfare against Republicans) that she thought that President Trump could do the same. The President said that he would not politicize the administration of Justice, and until he demonstrates otherwise should be given the benefit of the doubt. The right place to change minds is Congress, and the Bishop should have faith in the strength of her arguments to change the hearts of the nation's lawmakers.

2) President Trump's opponents almost all think that he is an emotional, impulsive narcissist. If Bishop Budde really believed that of the President, the wrong way to influence such a man is to berate him in public. The more effective method to get help for "transgender children" and immigrants who lack "proper documentation" is to show respect to the President in public, then approach him quietly for assistance after the prayer service. It's hard to believe that the Bishop would rather show off her antipathy to Donald Trump (on display in June, 2020) than help the people who need it. I hope I'm wrong about her motivation.

After the break is the text of Bishop Budde's sermon from the Guardian.

The Inauguration: A Few Impressions

I haven't ever viewed an inauguration live until today, but the superior audio and video quality from an indoor controlled environment promised to make the event, whatever the content, watchable. It also helped the visuals that the attendees did not need to wear heavy winter gear inside the Capitol rotunda.

The singing by tenor Christopher Macchio and choirs from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and the United States Marine Band was in tune, vibrant, and clear, thanks to the indoor acoustics. The most notable number was a short first-verse-only a cappella rendition of "America the Beautiful" by Carrie Underwood, who invited the audience to participate after technical problems disabled the pre-recorded accompaniment.

It took a few seconds for Ms. Underwood to settle in, but she finished strong. Your humble blogger was moved as the camera panned over the attendees, who, regardless of their politics, knew the words to America's unofficial anthem.



As for the Inaugural speech itself, I found it disappointing. I had hoped for a soaring description of the transcendent ideals that animate the new President, with details to be filled in later at the State of the Union address. Instead, we had a mini State of the Union that went into some of the moves he will make immediately.

I understand why he chose to make the speech he did. He's a "common sense" businessman who disdains lofty rhetoric for specific actions. Moreover, he makes himself accountable, something a mere mouthing of a "more equity" platitude doesn't do. Maybe that's what we need now. although I do yearn for a little John F Kennedy:

Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage...

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty...

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country.

Anyone but the Current Incumbent

(Image via Opindia / YouTube)

The WSJ editorial page is more honest about what Democratic power-brokers are trying to do than the Party is with its own membership. President Biden has been a disaster, Democratic leaders don't want him to run again, and it may be difficult to push him off the stage. [bold added]

The New York Times kicked off the kicking with a story quoting various progressive sages suddenly admitting what everyone has known all along: Mr. Biden is the oldest serving U.S. President at age 79, and he’ll be 82 when he finishes his term. He looks and sounds every bit his age. This declaration of the obvious has now moved along the progressive media chorus line to the Atlantic, with a piece that asserts “Let me put this bluntly: Joe Biden should not run for re-election in 2024. He is too old.”

These stories treat this as a revelation, as if Mr. Biden suddenly showed some dramatic decline. The truth is that the President demonstrated he had lost a verbal, and maybe mental, step in the first Democratic candidate debate in 2019. He hasn’t improved. Democrats admitted it privately at the time, but they rallied to him during the South Carolina primary when it looked like he was the only Democrat who could hold off the nomination of Bernie Sanders and defeat Donald Trump.

The rest of the campaign was a long apologia for Mr. Biden’s strategy of limiting his public exposure by campaigning in his Delaware basement. Covid-19 was the perfect excuse, and woe to any journalist who dared to ask if Mr. Biden wasn’t the same man we knew as Vice President. The subject was taboo.

This was one of the great free campaign passes in history. Ronald Reagan’s age was a subject of agonized media concern when he ran for President at age 69 in 1980. He was roasted after he stumbled in the first debate against Walter Mondale in 1984, and he had to defuse the media and public doubts with a quip about Mondale’s “youth and inexperience” in the next debate.

The Gipper was three weeks shy of 78 when he left office, which was younger than Mr. Biden was when he entered the Oval. If the President runs and serves a second term, he’d be 86 on his final day in the job. But Mr. Biden was needed to defeat Mr. Trump, and so all of this age business had to be ignored in 2020.

Why the Democratic turn now? One obvious answer is that the President is down in the polls, and his low approval rating may cost Democrats control of Congress in November. The problem can’t be the party’s ideas, or Mr. Biden’s adoption of the Sanders agenda after he’d campaigned as a moderate. The problem has to be Mr. Biden. He’s suddenly not up to the burdens of the Oval Office that have aged even younger men. He can’t make the case for his ideas. He’s overwhelmed by crises.

You almost have to feel sorry for Mr. Biden, who saved his party from Mr. Trump but is expendable now that he’s a political liability. You can almost hear Mr. Biden shouting at his staff: Where’s the gratitude? You think Bernie or Mayor Pete would have beaten Trump? I’m the guy who saved democracy.

Mr. Biden can be stubborn, and as anyone with older parents knows, taking away their car keys can be a difficult conversation. The President may not want to leave town as easily as some Democrats want him to.

All the more given the lack of obvious Democratic alternatives to Mr. Biden in 2024. Vice President Kamala Harris would run in a millisecond, but nothing she has done or said since her emergence on the national scene suggests she is up to the Presidency.

The obvious candidate "far from Washington"

Democrats know this, which you can tell by all the stories earlier this year about her political struggles. That’s the Beltway insider way of preparing the field for other candidates to consider running. Not that Pete Buttigieg will need any coaxing.

Such is the price of nominating Mr. Biden with so little scrutiny about his capacity for the Presidency. Perhaps Democrats will avoid a drubbing in the midterms, or he’ll rally after the election by using a GOP Congress as a foil. But Democrats may want to begin looking for candidates far from Washington if they want to retain the White House in 2024.

California's governor---handsome, young (57 when he takes office in 2025), Washington outsider, liberal but not woke--checks off the WSJ's boxes. True, the governor will have to explain why following California's energy policy was the reason gasoline prices have doubled nationwide, and why more people are fleeing the State than entering it, but at least he can give a much more coherent answer than the current incumbent.

Bob and Dan, Continued

Two Senators who were friends for almost 70 years were honored this week.

Sen. Elizabeth Dole says goodbye to her husband.

Bob Dole Lies in State as Biden Hails Former Senator as ‘Giant of Our History’

“Well, you know, Bob and I, like many of us here, we disagreed on a number of things, but not on any of the fundamental things,” Mr. Biden said. “We genuinely respected one another as colleagues. As fellow Americans. It was real. It wasn’t fake. And we became great friends.”

From today's Star-Advertiser:

The Navy’s newest warship, the Arleigh Burke-class missile destroyer USS Daniel Inouye, was officially commissioned at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam on Wednesday. After days of rain, the sun shown bright during the morning ceremony as the ship, named for the powerful Hawaii statesman, war hero and Medal of Honor recipient, joined the fleet...

Daniel Inouye — as a Japanese American and World War II veteran — became an important figure in postwar U.S.-Japan reconciliation and in shaping U.S. policy in Asia more broadly. He spearheaded efforts, which, in 1994, resulted in Congress appropriating funds to create the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Waikiki. It aims to bring together military, civilian and academic leaders from across the region. After his death, the center was renamed in his honor...

Several speakers at the ceremony reflected on Inouye’s friendship with former Republican U.S. Sen. Bob Dole, who died Sunday. Inouye and the Kansan were often at odds politically when they served in the Senate, but they shared a bond as WWII soldiers who were both seriously wounded in battle during their service.

Episcopal Leadership: Political Partisans to the Core

Bishop Budde: just another
partisan political hack?

(Note: although I did like some of his policies, I have never cast a vote for former President Trump in any election.)

One year ago, I expressed my disappointment at another Episcopal church official using a sad incident to take a partisan shot at President Trump.

Bishop Marianne Budde accused him of ordering "his officials" to use tear gas against protestors in Lafayette Park. Her outrage, even when transcribed on paper, is unmistakable: [bold added]

"Consider the context," Budde said. "After making a highly charged, emotional speech to the nation where he threatened military force, his officials cleared peaceful protests with tear gas and horses and walked on to the courtyard of St. John's Church and held up a Bible as if it were a prop or an extension of his military and authoritarian position, and stood in front of our building as if it were a backdrop for his agenda. That was the offense that I was speaking to."

It turns out that President Trump had nothing to do with clearing the park of protestors. Yes, he did use St. John's as a backdrop for a photo-op, but that was just a picture. He didn't set the Parish Hall on fire.

Mark Lee Greenblatt

Glenn Greenwald reports on the findings of Inspector General Mark Lee Greenblatt:

“the evidence we reviewed showed that the USPP cleared the park to allow a contractor to safely install anti-scale fencing in response to destruction of Federal property and injury to officers that occurred on May 30 and May 31.” Crucially, “the evidence established that relevant USPP officials had made those decisions and had begun implementing the operational plan several hours before they knew of a potential Presidential visit to the park, which occurred later that day."

Bishop Budde readily believed the false CNN, Washington Post, and NY Times reports that President Trump was responsible for tear-gassing (there was no tear gas, btw, but less harmful pepper spray) and made a partisan political speech.

Even if the false reports were true, the Bishop could have reflected upon the evil that men do to each other, the sin that is ingrained in the rioters as well as President Trump, and prayed for healing and reconciliation. She could have called for the better angels of our nature.

Instead she chose to cast all the blame upon the President, and she and St. John's rector dismissed the physical damage to the church in light of "the bigger concerns" of "systemic racism and police brutality."

We have seen this gullibility in Episcopal leadership before:

Episcopal leaders appear to be uncritical consumers of left-wing narratives. They are quick to issue proclamations without considering that there may be more to the story or even that the story is wrong. (Yes, your humble blogger is susceptible to confirmation bias, too, and makes a sincere effort to avoid snap judgments on fast-moving stories. I will wait to see if someone presents evidence to counter the Federalist counter-narrative.)

I witnessed the enthusiastic reception accorded to the widespread Ferguson narrative at the 2014 Diocesan Convention in San Francisco. Priest after priest rose to speak about racism and police brutality visited upon black Americans; some had gone to Ferguson to stand with groups outraged by the shooting of the allegedly innocent Michael Brown in 2014. Mainstream media publications, long after the fact but to their credit, debunked the entire "hands-up-don't-shoot" story. Too late for the priests to take it back, however, whose righteousness had been on proud display.

So quick to judge, so quick to agree with those who bear false witness.

To my priests to whom I look for moral authority, how about being very slow to condemn, and, if you must, only after much prayerful consideration and after you are sure of the facts?

Then, perhaps, when people see that you are able to place the eternal principles that you espouse above the evanescent issues of today, you will be trusted as a person of integrity, and your congregations may begin growing again.

He's Past Dissembling

86-year-old party elder Willie Brown wants the Democrats to win, but that doesn't stop him from giving them advice they might not want to hear.

WB: our next Justice (WSJ)

Forget about the Court and Concentrate on November

Forget about it, it’s over. Democrats need to put the Supreme Court appointment fight behind them as quickly as possible and move on to the real battle in November.

They have no power in the Senate, and they cannot afford to spin their wheels over an appointment whose conclusion is already foretold by the Republican majority.

And there is no avenue of attack open to them. The fear of a rollback of Roe vs. Wade or a shutdown of Obamacare plays well in blue states, but it also carries the potential for blowback in the battleground states.

Admit D.C. and Puerto Rico as States (after winning the Presidency and Congress)

Flag of Puerto Rico

Democrats’ best revenge for the Republican court packing is to win the White House and Congress in November — then immediately admit the heavily Democratic District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as the 51st and 52nd states.

It would forever shift control of the Senate to Democrats and go a long way toward fixing the red-state bias of the electoral college.

Because their economies are dependent on Federal spending, Puerto Rico and D.C. will add four reliably Democratic Senate votes for the foreseeable future. Your humble blogger would cheer this development if the people of Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico vote for Statehood. (I would also cheer California splitting into at least three States, but that's for another time.)

"Idiot" Trump has a Point on Mail-In Ballots

it’s very hard to strike someone from the voter rolls. The rule is, if someone misses two consecutive federal general elections — a presidential election and a midterm — and then misses two more after failing to respond to a mailed query from county registrars, they’re supposed to be tossed off the rolls.

So, you can be gone from your registered address — or dead — for a long time before the state gets around to erasing you. Some estimates say that up to 10% of California’s 20 million registered voters aren’t where the state thinks they are.

Nonetheless, ballots will be going to their listed addresses. So some people who have moved won’t get ballots. Residents at the old addresses will get ballots for people who are no longer living there or are no longer living, period.

For the sake of the Republic and the Constitution I hope a clear result obtains in November. That's more important than my choices winning.

They Didn't Think This Through

Washington, DC (abc.net.au)

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser has renamed a street leading to the White House "Black Lives Matter Plaza" and had the slogan painted in huge yellow letters on it.

"Black Lives Matter" murals and street signs are springing up all over.

I wonder if politicians have thought this through. The understanding that overt political messaging is forbidden on public property has been resoundingly overturned by officials who created the well-meaning signage.

Is "Black Lives Matter" spray-painted on a a fire-station wall still a crime? The graffiti artist was just emulating the example of the mayor.

If it isn't a crime, what about painting "All Lives Matter?" Any attempt to criminalize "All Lives Matter" counter-signage will be viewed as more liberal hypocrisy, i.e., free speech for me but not for thee.

People are already resentful of being scolded and even arrested for gathering in crowds while public health officials make an exception for politics they support.

It strains credulity that police defunding, dismantling, and disbanding is seriously being discussed when riots have destroyed city blocks across America.

Like the super-volcano under Yellowstone, I sense an anger building quietly beneath the surface. It will explode in November, and not in the direction that the headline writers hope for.

Concluding note: your humble blogger has long ago ceased to be angry about hypocrisy, injustice, and unfairness. Getting worked up about politics--or anything that I have no control over--is injurious to health.

Once this blows over, and it will in short-attention-span America, I will work toward improving the lives of the less fortunate as I have been doing for a while.

The Church and its Discontents

[Update - 6/4/20: I am going to take back some of this post's criticisms about the Episcopal Church's reaction to President Trump's walk to St. John's on June 1st. USA Today has confirmed that pepper spray or pepper gas or "pepper balls" were used to disperse the demonstrators. While Bishop Budde's claims of "tear gas" being used have been refuted, pepper gas does cause breathing difficulties; whether it is as harmful or painful as tear gas is a question beyond my expertise. Also, the USA Today article did not find evidence of bricks, bottles, etc. that officials say were thrown. So let's just say neither side has provided sound evidence either way. In this era of ubiquitous cameras, it's disappointing. (One can imagine reasons on both sides for withholding such evidence, but those are just imaginings.)]

Bishop Budde: just another
partisan political hack?

Yesterday we quoted Bishop Mariann Budde of Washington, DC, who was "outraged" that President Trump used "tear gas" to clear "peaceful protests" out of the way as he walked to St. John's Episcopal.

"Consider the context," Budde said. "After making a highly charged, emotional speech to the nation where he threatened military force, his officials cleared peaceful protests with tear gas and horses and walked on to the courtyard of St. John's Church and held up a Bible as if it were a prop or an extension of his military and authoritarian position, and stood in front of our building as if it were a backdrop for his agenda. That was the offense that I was speaking to."

The Federalist debunks Bishop Budde's account:

local journalist Neal Augenstein of WTOP reported that a Park Police source said “tear gas was never used — instead smoke canisters were deployed, which don’t have an uncomfortable irritant in them.” Further, the source said the crowd was dispersed because of projectiles being thrown by the “peaceful protesters” at the Park Police and because “peaceful protesters” had climbed on top of a structure in Lafayette Park that had been burned the prior night.

Sgt. Eduardo Delgado, the public information officer for the Park Police, confirmed the agency did not use tear gas. And later this afternoon, United States Park Police acting Chief Gregory T. Monahan exploded the entire false narrative:

On Monday, June 1, the USPP worked with the United States Secret Service to have temporary fencing installed inside Lafayette Park. At approximately 6:33 pm, violent protestors on H Street NW began throwing projectiles including bricks, frozen water bottles and caustic liquids. The protestors also climbed onto a historic building at the north end of Lafayette Park that was destroyed by arson days prior. Intelligence had revealed calls for violence against the police, and officers found caches of glass bottles, baseball bats and metal poles hidden along the street.

To curtail the violence that was underway, the USPP, following established policy, issued three warnings over a loudspeaker to alert demonstrators on H Street to evacuate the area. Horse mounted patrol, Civil Disturbance Units and additional personnel were used to clear the area. As many of the protestors became more combative, continued to throw projectiles, and attempted to grab officers’ weapons, officers then employed the use of smoke canisters and pepper balls. No tear gas was used by USPP officers or other assisting law enforcement partners to close the area at Lafayette Park. Subsequently, the fence was installed.

Prior to getting the actual facts, nearly every major media outlet falsely reported that canisters of tear gas, not smoke canisters, were used against peaceful protesters. The false story spread internationally despite its lack of evidence.

The protests were not peaceful, and no tear gas was used.

I have seen it over and over again: Episcopal leaders appear to be uncritical consumers of left-wing narratives. They are quick to issue proclamations without considering that there may be more to the story or even that the story is wrong. (Yes, your humble blogger is susceptible to confirmation bias, too, and makes a sincere effort to avoid snap judgments on fast-moving stories. I will wait to see if someone presents evidence to counter the Federalist counter-narrative.)

I witnessed the enthusiastic reception accorded to the widespread Ferguson narrative at the 2014 Diocesan Convention in San Francisco. Priest after priest rose to speak about racism and police brutality visited upon black Americans; some had gone to Ferguson to stand with groups outraged by the shooting of the allegedly innocent Michael Brown in 2014. Mainstream media publications, long after the fact but to their credit, debunked the entire "hands-up-don't-shoot" story. Too late for the priests to take it back, however, whose righteousness had been on proud display.

One of the reasons I go to church is to get away from the sturm und drang of the world and its politics, at least for a moment. Unfortunately, the Episcopal church continues to disappoint.

Episcopal Leaders Go Nuts

Yesterday President Trump walked to St. John's Episcopal Church from the White House, held up the Bible, uttered a few words about America being a great country and keeping it safe, and Episcopal leaders went nuts.

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry: [bold added]

This evening, the President of the United States stood in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church, lifted up a bible, and had pictures of himself taken. In so doing, he used a church building and the Holy Bible for partisan political purposes. This was done in a time of deep hurt and pain in our country, and his action did nothing to help us or to heal us.

The bible teaches us that “God is love.” Jesus of Nazareth taught, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The prophet Micah taught that the Lord requires us to “do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.”

The bible the President held up and the church that he stood in front of represent the values of love, of justice, of compassion, and of a way to heal our hurts.

We need our President, and all who hold office, to be moral leaders who help us to be a people and nation living these values. For the sake of George Floyd, for all who have wrongly suffered, and for the sake of us all, we need leaders to help us to be “one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.”

Bishop Mariann Budde of Washington, DC:

"Consider the context," Budde said. "After making a highly charged, emotional speech to the nation where he threatened military force, his officials cleared peaceful protests with tear gas and horses and walked on to the courtyard of St. John's Church and held up a Bible as if it were a prop or an extension of his military and authoritarian position, and stood in front of our building as if it were a backdrop for his agenda. That was the offense that I was speaking to."

Why did the President pick St. John's for his "photo op"? Because it "sustained minor damage during riots" (quote from the Episcopal News Service).

When racists burn churches, especially those with black worshippers, every law-abiding citizen rightly denounces the attacks.

When churches are collateral damage to protests that progressives approve of, the Episcopal Church condemns the President for symbolically defending the right to worship.

Bishop Marc Andrus

There are numerous examples of Episcopal leaders wrapping themselves in raiments of righteousness, then getting political.

In 2006 Bishop of California Marc Andrus protested the Iraq war by lying on the sidewalk in front of the Federal Building in San Francisco.

The bishop had every right to protest as a private citizen but those of us who disagreed with his position did not appreciate the church being associated with his stunt.

Bishop Curry in ND

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry and other Episcopal bishops and priests protested against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The issues of climate change, native American rights beyond the lands they control, energy independence, and the necessity of not freezing during winter are not easily balanced, but to the wealthy mostly-white Episcopal liberals of the Bay Area the answers are obvious.

At Episcopal conventions it seems that every year there are anti-Israel, anti-gun, anti-immigration enforcement, and anti-fossil-fuel resolutions on the ballot.

But that's okay, because we Episcopalians are all motivated by the love of Christ, while President Trump is not.

The Fakery Around Us

One of the latest tempests-in-a-Washington-teapot is about whether President Trump retweeted a doctored video of Nancy Pelosi slurring her words. Complicating the matter is that there are several Pelosi videos circulating the web, some "more fake" than others. Also, there is little consensus about where the line is crossed, for example, whether it includes editing out context or slowing the speed.

IMHO, this Trump-Pelosi contretemps is tiresome and will blow over soon.

The far greater issue is the advancement of "deep-fake" video technology.

Deepfakes first entered the public eye late 2017, when an anonymous Redditor under the name “deepfakes” began uploading videos of celebrities like Scarlett Johansson stitched onto the bodies of pornographic actors...

Celebrities are the easiest targets, with ample public imagery that can be used to train deepfake algorithms; it’s relatively easy to make a high-fidelity video of Donald Trump, for example, who appears on TV day and night and at all angles....

The concern is that a cleverly crafted deepfake of a public figure, perhaps imitating a grainy cell phone video so that it’s imperfections are overlooked, and timed for the right moment, could shape a lot of opinions.

You and I, dear reader, may take comfort in that we are not public figures; there are relatively few pictures and videos of us that can be used for nefarious purposes. But are we deluding ourselves?

Samsung's "deep fake" algorithms can create a video talking head from a single photograph. Below is a demonstration using a well-known portrait.

(Gif from sciencealert.com )

One silver lining is that the subjects of embarrassing revelations can plausibly claim that the "evidence" is made up. If some of it is untrustworthy--and we don't know which part--then all of it is. And maybe, just maybe, this will lead the viewing public to do more thinking for themselves.

SF vs DC

Economist Tyler Cowen makes an observation, then a prediction.

The observation: [bold added]

today’s America has two fundamental and really quite different cultural and intellectual centers: Washington and its environs, and the Bay Area (including Silicon Valley, San Francisco and, if I may cheat a little, Seattle).

His prediction is conflict:

To date, these two new cultural and intellectual centers have proceeded on largely separate tracks, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, ignoring each other as much as possible....

But that won’t be the case going forward. The law-making and regulatory state will expand to cover more of tech, and tech has scaled so effectively that its products -- such as autonomous cars or the possible ability to influence elections -- are running into more legal and political issues.

Professor Cowen, given the space constraints of a newspaper column, had to make his case for American bi-polarity without delving into too much detail. History has shown that there are always tensions between power centers, be it New York v. Washington, San Francisco v. Washington, or even San Francisco v. Los Angeles.

In his particular example there are also strong ideological commonalities. The Bay Area supports powerful government, as long as the latter advocates, for example, the climate-change agenda, diversity of race and sex (but not ideology), gun confiscation, and immigration non-enforcement. During the Obama years big tech freely (except possibly for Apple) turned over the tools of the surveillance state to Washington ostensibly for security reasons, with the furtherance of the progressive agenda as an ancillary benefit.

If Tyler Cowen is right, the looming battle between SF and DC will be a "rude awakening," but IMHO the American people will have more to lose if there is no conflict at all.

For a Long Time

(New York Times photo)

Not surprisingly, the portraits of the Obamas that were unveiled today sparked reactions that were colored by the politics of the reviewer.

The New York Times, predictably, was sycophantic: [bold added]

...each radiating, in its different way, gravitas (his) and glam (hers).

Mr. Wiley depicts Mr. Obama not as a self-assured, standard-issue bureaucrat, but as an alert and troubled thinker. Ms. Sherald’s image of Mrs. Obama overemphasizes an element of couturial spectacle, but also projects a rock-solid cool.

The National Review was mocking:

Take your pick: he’s sitting by the ivy on the outfield wall at Wrigley Field in Chicago, he’s in the Garden of Eden, or this is all an elaborate promotion for The Weed Agency. (Perhaps it’s meant to suggest that when he sat in power, some Bushes were behind him?) Or maybe this is just what happens when earth tones get a lot of rain.

Let's set politics aside for the moment and just react to the art. Let's also set aside what members of whichever tribe we belong to will say about our reaction.

I liked the portraits. I think they're both beautiful, and I didn't vote for the guy.

Sure, the portraits break with tradition because they're not photo-realistic, but this is not the 18th century; now we have many thousands of images of our public figures and we don't need another picture to remind us how they actually looked like. It's much more interesting to see how an artist sees them....though I'll be puzzling over the extra finger on Barack's left hand for a long time.

Sorrow and Loss

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Adams Memorial grave marker (1891) at Rock Creek Cemetery, DC is not well known, but its image haunts the memory far longer than more famous American works.

The Memorial commemorates historian Henry Adams' wife, Clover Adams, who committed suicide in 1885 at the age of 42.

When [Augustus] Saint-Gaudens undertook the Adams commission, he drew on the precedents of both Eastern and Western art. Because of its cloak and flowing drapery, we presume the statue to be female, but Adams wrote that he wanted an expression of “universality and anonymity.” The sculptor achieved this by making the figure just over life-size and generalizing the features.

If the viewer is moved, as was your humble blogger, to a sense of sorrow and loss as well as contemplation, then the artist likely has achieved his goal.

Brawl by the Bay

As of this writing (Wednesday, May 31st) the San Francisco Giants are 22-32, 10 games below .500 and 11½ behind the NL West-leading Dodgers. The Giants' best pitcher, Madison Bumgarner, is out for the first half of the season with a shoulder injury from a dirt-bike accident. It's only May, and the season may already be lost.

The Giants are currently hosting the Washington Nationals, one of baseball's best teams, in a 3-game series. The contests normally wouldn't have gotten attention, but Monday's game captured sports headlines (while we're waiting for the NBA Finals to start Thursday) because of a beanball thrown by Hunter Strickland against Nationals superstar Bryce Harper, apparently because the latter had hit playoff home runs off the former three years ago.

The batter took umbrage, fists landed, and the benches cleared. Several vignettes produced a multitude of memes.

Sad, but true, it's the most interesting thing to happen to the Giants all year.

Heat and Light Out West

The Washington Post's new logo: "Democracy dies in darkness"

California can be the Post-er child. Our great Progressive democracy is converting as fast as it can to solar energy to keep the lights on.

When there are weeks of stormy weather--which officials thought will never happen again [note: California has failed to maintain levees and dams--the Federal ones are in decent shape] because of global warming--they will, in the dark, do the facepalm, just like when they forced Californians to throw out old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs. Oops, so CFLs poison the surroundings with mercury. They meant well.

Did you know that backup generators are getting cheaper, lighter, and more efficient?

Quirky City, Quirky Ranking

Portland's Chart House has a view of Mount Hood.

In reverse order the top 10 food cities in the USA consist of Charleston, Washington, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and, the number one food city in America, Portland! It's in the Washington Post, so you know it's authoritative.

Portland is closer to his home, but at least the newspaper's owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, didn't make 'em pick Seattle (which is worthy of a top-ten rank, IMHO).

More from WaPo restaurant critic Tom Sietsema:

"You have really excellent examples of Thai, Spanish, even Italian," Sietsema said. "And then there's this quilt of quirk that goes over the city that I was just charmed by. And no one does breakfast as well as Portland."

"I'm getting a lot of heat from Seattle, but it just wasn't their year, and I went there twice," he said. "Right now, I think Seattle would be 11th or 12th."

Addendum: Guide Michelin gives only four restaurants on the West Coast three stars, its highest rating.

Benu and Saison, tasting menu restaurants from chefs Corey Lee and Joshua Skenes, respectively, join The French Laundry and the Restaurant at Meadowood in the lofty three-star category.

All are in the San Francisco Bay Area. Portland? Portland? Hello?

Cut Price and Make it Up in Eyeballs

Newspapers: Circulation revenue may have stabilized, but
ad revenue has fallen off a cliff (Pew Research Center graph)

With subscriptions and ad revenue dropping, newspapers across the country have been closing their print operations (and staying alive on the web), merging with rivals, or shuttering their doors completely.

The economics of print journalism have proven to be so daunting that newspaper ownership is becoming the province of extremely wealthy, extremely patient individuals....like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who bought the Washington Post in 2013. After two years of watching and waiting, he is now trying out some strategies that built Amazon.

Mr Bezos has been actively involved in a new app, code-named Rainbow, which presents Post articles in a glossy, magazine-like format....the Post is putting scale before profit: the Kindle version is free for the first six months and $1 for the next six (the cost is higher on other devices).

(techcrunch image)

I intend to give the WaPo Rainbow app a try when it becomes available on iOS devices. Though I disagree with most of the Post's editorial positions, the news division is largely just-the-facts-ma'am nonpartisan.

Having been burned several times by low "teaser" rates that were subsequently raised hundreds of dollars (I'm looking at you, leading financial newspaper), I trust Mr. Bezos will moderate price increases à la Amazon Prime. Here's hoping he succeeds in keeping one venerable platform alive.