Trimmer callout

Daniel Henninger at the Wall Street Journal accurately describes the Donald Trump foreign policy modus operandi:

The controversy overflowing the banks of the press conference between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin is a moment to step back and assess the nonstop maelstrom called the Trump presidency.

Mr. Trump’s famous modus operandi is the art of the deal. Keep everyone guessing and off balance. Decision first, details later. Drive events, stay on offense, force everyone to react. In this, Mr. Trump has succeeded.

No one—from the individuals who work daily in the White House to friends and enemies in foreign capitals—knows what he may do next. A high-ranking official from an Asian ally who visited the Journal’s offices recently was asked if his government has a clear idea of what Mr. Trump wants them to do on trade. “No,” he said, “we do not.”

The whole world is back on its heels, which is where, according to theory, the art-of-the-deal master wants them.

As I read, I thought “This is true, and it describes an autocracy because nobody, including his White House staff, knows what he will do next and nobody is stopping him.”

Frank Bruni of the New York Times observes that “when it comes to babysitting this president, the Republican Party is a lost cause.” Bruni’s remark would have come across as a fairly anodyne liberal New York Times talking point had I not been mulling over Trump as autocrat (setting aside all other attributes).

That observation ramifies. Stay tuned.

Although one might make the case that this level of autocracy is impeachable, it would be a mere academic exercise at this point. If his own party won’t buck him, this sad, embarrassing wreck of a man, in control of the imperial Presidency we’ve built, has it in his tiny hands, guided by his cribbed mind, to cause untold damage in the world — that is, in foreign policy.

Henninger gives Trump much credit for the booming economy and for his judicial nominees.

When Mr. Trump entered office amid a generalized panic among political elites, the first thing some of us noticed was that he was filling his government with first-rate people. To revive the economy, they included economic advisers Gary Cohn and Kevin Hassett, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and OMB Director Mick Mulvaney. On taxes, Paul Ryan and Kevin Brady provided a detailed template. The economy raced to full employment. The stock market boomed.

On the Supreme Court, the most astute minds in the conservative legal movement gave Mr. Trump a list of stellar options. He picked Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. More wins.

Mr. Trump has said that in Mike Pompeo, Jim Mattis and John Bolton he has the foreign-policy team he always wanted. He also said he wanted to do one-on-ones with Messrs. Xi, Kim and Putin. He has done that. The moment has arrived to start listening less to America’s adversaries and more to his own good people. That, in his first year, was the art of the win.

On foreign policy, his competent people are themselves in the dark, and our Narcissist-in-Chief doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.

Mr. Trump’s supporters say he deserves more time to negotiate wins on these big foreign-policy bets. It’s not going to get better.

(Henninger) Thus, it’s time for “show us the money.”

Trump’s ascendancy has highlighted the warranted discontent of those who’ve been left behind economically. Average is Not Over, and average America does not intend to go off to its Bantustan while the new plutocrats grow ever wealthier.

I think that message has been received. I hope it has been received, anyway, and I’m certainly trying to digest it. Our future is more populist. Restoration of the status quo ante will do average America few favors. This generally fits at least a few of my long-lived notions about course correction for America.

Moreover, the time probably has come (I’m ready at least, and have been ready since the anomalies came to my attention from reading smarter people) to re-examine NATO and our other trans-Atlantic alliances in light of nearly 30 years since the end of the Cold War. But I don’t want Trump-as-autocrat doing it by humiliating our historic allies and engaging in secretive tête-a-tête meetings with Vladimir Putin — and I say that as a Russophile. Rearranging treaties in light of changed facts on the ground needs to be an orderly process.

In 2016, Trump out-performed the polls. People lied or hid their true leanings (because supporting Trump would get you added to The Deplorables by the bien pensants). Having elected their secret favorite, a new tribe has tacitly enacted it own set of smelly tribal orthodoxies, starting with, in effect, “touch not God’s annointed autocrat.”

I’m hoping the current polls’ insane levels of support for Trump among Republicans are again off-base — that people are giving the approved tribal answers while secretly harboring doubts, deep doubts.

I see no reason to believe this except a disorderly and ever-weakening reflex that, under their tribal bluster, my countrymen are sane.

Bruni is calling for a blue wave in November if only to show quisling Republicans that not bucking Trump when appropriate is as dangerous as bucking him. I’m receptive to the idea that having rushed the cockpit of Flight 93 in 2016, wresting the controls from the establishment and putting them in Trump’s tiny hands, it’s time to rush it again and reverse our course.

No, make that “correct our course.” I don’t think there’s any simple going back. But I’m hoping for the emergence of tens of millions of Trimmers.

The ‘trimmer’ is one who disposes his weight so as to keep the ship upon an even keel. And our inspection of his conduct reveals certain general ideas at work … Being concerned to prevent politics from running to extremes, he believes that there is a time for everything and that everything has its time — not providentially, but empirically. He will be found facing in whatever direction the occasion seems to require if the boat is to go even.

May this tribe increase.

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Follow me on Micro.blog, too, where I blog tweet-like shorter items and … well, it’s evolving. Or, if you prefer, those micro.blog items also appear now at microblog.intellectualoid.com.

Don’t worry: There’s still a northern border

Trinity Western University “asks its faculty and students to observe traditional Christian teachings on marriage through a community covenant.” What happened when it wanted to open a law school with a unique specialty in charity law?

Everyone agreed that Trinity’s program met all the requirements and would train competent lawyers. But law societies across the country held public meetings during which Trinity’s students and faculty were called bigots and worse.

The Law Society of Upper Canada, the nation’s oldest and largest, told the high court in Ottawa during oral arguments on Nov. 30, 2017, that accrediting any “distinctly religious” organization would violate the Canadian Charter, which is similar to the U.S. Bill of Rights. It added that when the government licenses a private organization it adopts all its policies as its own. If these arguments had been accepted, they would have spelled the end of Canada’s nonprofit sector. In their zeal to root out the supposed bigotry of traditional religious believers, these lawyers were prepared to dynamite Canada’s entire civil society.

Thankfully the court passed over some of our opponents’ more extreme arguments. Instead, on June 15 it ruled that making Trinity’s faith-based community standards mandatory could harm the dignity of members of the LGBT community who attend Trinity. The majority of the court concluded that this potential dignitary harm to future LGBT law students was “concrete,” while the infringement on Trinity’s religious liberty from refusing to accredit its qualified law program was “minimal.”

Bob Kuhn, Canada Attacks Religious Freedom (emphasis added).

They used to sarcastically say about anti-anticommunism “Don’t worry: they’re still 90 miles away.”

“It’s a complete absurdity to believe that Christians will suffer a single thing from the expansion of gay rights, and boy, do they deserve what they’re going to get.”

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I also blog short items at Micro.blog .

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Where I glean stuff.

Greengrocers, incense and such

This story/parable, of which I learned through Rod Dreher several years ago, remains one of the most powerful and timely (maybe timeless) I know:

Consider, says Havel, the greengrocer living under communism, who puts a sign in his shop window saying, “Workers of the World, Unite!” He does it not because he believes it, necessarily. He simply doesn’t want trouble. And if he doesn’t really believe it, he hides the humiliation of his coercion by telling himself, “What’s wrong with the workers of the world uniting?” Fear allows the official ideology to retain power — and eventually changes the greengrocer’s beliefs.

Those who “live within a lie,” says Havel, collaborate with the system and compromise their full humanity. Every act that contradicts the official ideology is a denial of the system. What if the greengrocer stops putting the sign up in his window? What if he refuses to go along to get along? “His revolt is an attempt to live within the truth” — and it’s going to cost him plenty.

…

Because they are public, the greengrocer’s deeds are inescapably political. He bears witness to the truth of his convictions by being willing to suffer for them. He becomes a threat to the system — but he has preserved his humanity. And that, says Havel, is a far more important accomplishment than whether this party or that politician holds power…

(Rod Dreher, quoting Vaclav Havel) I suggest the possibility of it being “timeless” because I suspect that every society needs some rituals, however informal, to bind its members together. The governors of those societies don’t care what you believe so long as you enact the rituals.

It is this, and more than this, that I’m referring to when I categorize a blog as “Pinch of incense,” for offering the “pinch of incense” imperils not just humanity, but eternity:

And there the chief of the police, Herod, and his father, Nicetas, met [Polycarp] and transferred him to their carriage, and tried to persuade him, as they sat beside him, saying, “What harm is there to say `Lord Caesar,’ and to offer incense and all that sort of thing, and to save yourself?”

At first he did not answer them. But when they persisted, he said, “I am not going to do what you advise me.”

Then when they failed to persuade him, they uttered dire threats and made him get out with such speed that in dismounting from the carriage he bruised his shin. But without turning around, as though nothing had happened, he proceeded swiftly, and was led into the arena, there being such a tumult in the arena that no one could be heard. But as Polycarp was entering the arena, a voice from heaven came to him, saying, “Be strong, Polycarp, and play the man. No one saw the one speaking, but those of our people who were present heard the voice.

[…] But the proconsul was insistent and said: “Take the oath, and I shall release you. Curse Christ.”

Polycarp said: “Eighty-six years I have served him, and he never did me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”

(The martyrdom of Polycarp, circa 155 A. D.)

Today’s problematic “Workers of the World, Unite!,” today’s pinch of incense, today’s culture-binding rituals, are related to gay pride: pride flags in the window, hosting pride crossfit events and such, baking wedding cakes, observing rules that mandate use of your auditor’s preferred pronouns — you know, trifles like that. (It’s also pledging allegiance to the flag, standing for the national anthem and such — which I’m cussed enough to resist, but which I don’t fault others for observing. )

Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop is our Polycarp, Jordan Peterson our dissident greengrocer (and Peterson is expecting secular martyrdom). Both are among my heroes.

If you think I’m making a big deal out of nothing, then I think you’re part of the problem, and need to reflect more carefully on the eventuality — to you and to your countrymen or fellow believers who dissent, and who will have your pusillanimity thrown in their faces.

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I also blog short items at Micro.blog .

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Where I glean stuff.

No ordinary matter

Springboarding off the story of “Grace” and Aziz Ansari (which has become stories about stories about a story):

[Caitlyn] Flanagan points out that, in her day, women were advised to slap men or jump out of cars or scream and shout in order to bring an encounter verging on nonconsent to an end: Sex wasn’t an ordinary matter and thus didn’t need to be treated with ordinary manners.

Yet, while becoming just another social interaction stripped sex of much taboo, it’s still subject to the everyday pressures of etiquette, which can be just as binding. If a guest were lingering too late after a party, or a lunch partner boring you, or an acquaintance pestering you to borrow your umbrella, you wouldn’t scream or shout or slap them, and you likely wouldn’t abruptly leave. You would likely try to be subtle and transmit certain signals without a confrontation. You would likely go along to get along. You would likely grin and bear it. You would likely do this because that’s what we do in workaday social interactions, and sex is one of those now.

The trouble is that sex is clearly different, as the lasting unhappiness of so many women attests. If acknowledging that endangers one of the achievements of the sexual revolution, then so be it ….

(Elizabeth Bruenig, another author of whom I’ve learned “If she wrote it, and I see it, I should try to stop and read it”)

I almost categorized this blog as “Rights Talk” along with the other categories, but then realized that freedom to hook up has become an axiom, not a rights claim that’s debatable.

But it’s worth asking “Are we having fun yet? Men? Women?”

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“No man hath a velvet cross.” (Samuel Rutherford, 17th century Scotland)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Where I glean stuff.

Toxins and antidotes

I encountered one of this quotes before and may have shared it, but now I’ve read the whole article:

When I was at Yale in the 1980s, I was given so many tools for understanding the world. By the time I graduated, I could think about things as a Utilitarian or a Kantian, as a Freudian or a behaviorist, as a computer scientist or a humanist. I was given many lenses to apply to any one situation. But nowadays, students who major in departments that prioritize social justice over the disinterested pursuit of truth are given just one lens—power—and told to apply it to all situations. Everything is about power. Every situation is to be analyzed in terms of the bad people acting to preserve their power and privilege over the good people. This is not an education. This is induction into a cult, a fundamentalist religion, a paranoid worldview that separates people from each other and sends them down the road to alienation, anxiety, and intellectual impotence.

…

Now that I have thoroughly depressed you, let me end with a few rays of hope and some thoughts about what can be done. I began this lecture with a discussion of the fine-tuned liberal democracy, which is the hypothesis that human beings are unsuited for life in large diverse secular democracies, unless we can get certain settings finely adjusted. I think this hypothesis is true, and I have tried to show that we have stumbled into some very bad settings. I am pessimistic about our future, but let me state clearly that I have low confidence in my pessimism. It has always been wrong to bet against America, and it is probably wrong to do so now …

[I]f you want more hope, let me tell you why I think things are going to start to improve on university campuses, beginning in the fall of 2018: because as things get worse on campus, more people are beginning to stand up, and more people are searching for solutions. Some college presidents are starting to stand up. They all know they are sitting on a powder keg, and they want to defuse it. Also, they are generally liberal scholars, deeply opposed to illiberalism …

Professors are starting to stand up, too. At Heterodox Academy, we started with 25 members two years ago; now we have over 1,400, evenly balanced between left and right. We got a big surge of members after the violence at Middlebury because that was a tipping point. Professors are overwhelmingly on the left, but they are mostly liberal Left, not illiberal. My field—social psychology—for example, is quite sane. I have been raising the alarm about political imbalance and orthodoxy since 2011, and so far nothing bad has happened to me …

And most importantly, some students are beginning to stand up. At Reed College, one of the most politically orthodox schools in the country, social-justice activists had been protesting and disrupting the first-year humanities course for more than a year. They called the course an act of white supremacy because it focused on dead white authors. They said the course was traumatizing to non-white students. They brought their signs and chants into the classroom every day, making it hard for professors to teach or for students to learn. Many Reed students and professors objected, but none dared to do so publicly, lest they be called racist themselves. Finally, this fall, several Asian students stood up, criticized the protesters, and asked them to stop interfering with their education. Once these students stood up, support for the protesters collapsed. Many people had been going along out of fear, rather than conviction.

(Jonathan Haidt) This edited transcript of Haidt’s Wriston Lecture for the Manhattan Institute, delivered on November 15 has much more of worth than I have quoted, including analysis of how we got so polarized. A hint: I left the GOP in 2005, but there was handwriting on the walls ten years earlier (which I did not notice.)

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Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Where I glean stuff.

280 x 2 > enough

Sometimes, Twitter’s 280 characters is a wonderfully capacious:

President Obama didn’t only threaten but immediately pulled funding from African countries that passed laws to define marriage as between one man and one woman. His administration punished us for not kneeling before the rainbow flag.
THAT was narcissistic & vengeful. https://t.co/Do6i8dOERk

— Obianuju Ekeocha (@obianuju) December 22, 2017

Former CIA director Brennan rips Trump’s ‘narcissistic, vengeful’ behavior on UN vote. https://t.co/ia2yb3EwqR pic.twitter.com/KDPQatYvcu

— HuffPost (@HuffPost) December 22, 2017

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Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.

Where I glean stuff.

Warlock Hunts (and lesser voices)

In the space of about 24 hours I encountered three contributions, not necessarily toward a “solution,” but at least toward perspective, on the sexual harassment tsunami.

The most prominent and lengthiest was Claire Berlinski’s The Warlock Hunt at The American Interest (metered paywall; one freebie per month).

As the title foreshadows, she thinks things have gone too far. Excerpts:

Mass hysteria has set in. It has become a classic moral panic, one that is ultimately as dangerous to women as to men.

…

It now takes only one accusation to destroy a man’s life.Just one for him to be tried and sentenced in the court of public opinion, overnight costing him his livelihood and social respectability. We are on a frenzied extrajudicial warlock hunt that does not pause to parse the difference between rape and stupidity. The punishment for sexual harassment is so grave that clearly this crime—like any other serious crime—requires an unambiguous definition. We have nothing of the sort.

In recent weeks, one after another prominent voice, many of them political voices, have been silenced by sexual harassment charges … Some of the charges sound deadly serious. But others—as reported anyway—make no sense. I can’t say whether the charges against these men are true; I wasn’t under the bed. But even if true, some have been accused of offenses that aren’t offensive, or offenses that are only mildly so—and do not warrant total professional and personal destruction.

The things men and women naturally do—flirt, play, lewdly joke, desire, seduce, tease—now become harassment only by virtue of the words that follow the description of the act, one of the generic form: “I froze. I was terrified.” It doesn’t matter how the man felt about it. The onus to understand the interaction and its emotional subtleties falls entirely on him. But why? Perhaps she should have understood his behavior to be harmless—clumsy, sweet but misdirected, maladroit, or tacky—but lacking in malice sufficient to cost him such arduous punishment?

In recent weeks, I’ve acquired new powers. I have cast my mind over the ways I could use them. I could now, on a whim, destroy the career of an Oxford don who at a drunken Christmas party danced with me, grabbed a handful of my bum, and slurred, “I’ve been dying to do this to Berlinski all term!” That is precisely what happened. I am telling the truth. I will be believed—as I should be.

But here is the thing. I did not freeze, nor was I terrified. I was amused and flattered and thought little of it. I knew full well he’d been dying to do that. Our tutorials—which took place one-on-one, with no chaperones—were livelier intellectually for that sublimated undercurrent. He was an Oxford don and so had power over me, sensu stricto. I was a 20-year-old undergraduate. But I also had power over him—power sufficient to cause a venerable don to make a perfect fool of himself at a Christmas party. Unsurprisingly, I loved having that power. But now I have too much power. I have the power to destroy someone whose tutorials were invaluable to me and shaped my entire intellectual life much for the better. This is a power I do not want and should not have.

…

Revolutions against real injustice have a tendency, however, to descend into paroxysms of vengeance that descend upon guilty and innocent alike … This revolution risks going the way revolutions so often do, and the consequences will not just be awful for men. They will be awful for women.

…

Not long ago we firmly convinced ourselves that our children were being ritually raped by Satanists. In recent years, especially, we have become prone to replacing complex thought with shallow slogans …

Given the events of recent weeks, we can be certain of this: From now on, men with any instinct for self-preservation will cease to speak of anything personal, anything sexual, in our presence. They will make no bawdy jokes when we are listening. They will adopt in our presence great deference to our exquisite sensitivity and frailty. Many women seem positively joyful at this prospect. The Revolution has at last been achieved! But how could this be the world we want? Isn’t this the world we escaped?

Who could blame a man who does not enjoy the company of women under these circumstances, who would just rather not have women in the workplace at all? This is a world in which the Mike Pence rule—“Never be alone with a woman”—seems eminently sensible. Such a world is not good for women, however—as many women were quick to point out when we learned of the Mike Pence rule. Our success and advancement relies upon the personal and informal relationships we have with our colleagues and supervisors. But who, in this climate, could blame a venerable Oxford don for refusing to take the risk of teaching a young woman, one-on-one, with no witnesses? Mine was the first generation of women allowed the privilege of unchaperoned tutorials with Balliol’s dons. Will mine also be the last? Like so many revolutions, the sexual revolution risks coming full circle, returning us right where we started—fainting at bawdy jokes, demanding the return of ancient standards of chivalry, so delicate and virginal that a man’s hand on our knee causes us trauma.

So for Berlinski, a little sexiness in the workplace, and even (or especially) in one-on-one sessions is fun, and energizing, and only objectionable when it goes too far, the boundary of “too far” being about as clear as the famous “I know it when I see it” definition of obscenity. She is on the right track, though, when she writes of the tendencies of this kind of panic being bad for both men and women, albeit in different ways. The article is worth a full reading.

I included Berlinski on the “Mike Pence rule” (more properly the Billy Graham rule) specifically for the contrast to Tish Harrison Warren‘s An Open Letter to Men Who Broke the Billy Graham Rule, at The Well back in April, when the hot topic was not toxic lewdness but toxic prudery:

In light of the Vice President’s revelation that he does not eat meals alone with women (besides his wife) and the widespread discussion of the “Billy Graham Rule,” I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for meeting with me — some of you years ago, some of you last week — to disciple me, befriend me, love me, and honor me as a fellow follower of Christ and as a human being.

So thank you.

…

You, men-who’ve-met-with-me-one-on-one, who’ve eaten with me, had coffee with me, mentored me, encouraged me, and befriended me — you have changed my life. I am a Christian because you poured into me. I am a pastor because you pastored me. I am, I hope, a better wife and mother because you are in my life.

You did not see me as a sexual threat to be avoided, but as a human being, even a sister. And you were safe. You never hit on me. You never made me feel weird or uneasy. If you ever struggled with sexual temptation, you’ve dealt with that by talking with your wife, male friends, or a counselor so that you could be a friend, brother, and pastor to women around you. Because of that, I have the gift of having men in my life who are trustworthy and who are true, dear friends.

So for Warren, who is pretty conservative if graded on a curve, there’s no perceptible sexiness in these one-on-ones, because there’s nobody here but us sincere Christians, who know how to sublimate any unwanted sexual feelings.

I don’t know what Warren would say today, in the midst of this alleged moral panic. I dare say her opportunities for one-on-ones would be reduced significantly at the moment. I don’t recall any Evangelical figures being nationally exposed in the current round of scandals, but there’s a regional offender (albeit of less exalted religious tradition than Warren), and Ravi Zacharias, who travels in somewhat the same Christianity Today circles as Warren, is pretty rueful about letting his guard down:

Today, Zacharias and his eponymous Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) released their first statements specifically addressing a personal lawsuit involving a married woman who sent nude photos to the popular author and speaker …

“I have learned a difficult and painful lesson through this ordeal,” Zacharias said. “I failed to exercise wise caution and to protect myself from even the appearance of impropriety, and for that I am profoundly sorry. I have acknowledged this to my Lord, my wife, my children, our ministry board, and my colleagues.”

…

Last month, Zacharias settled a lawsuit with a Canadian couple he claimed had attempted to extort him over messages he had exchanged with the wife.

The federal lawsuit—which was filed by Zacharias, not the couple—alleged that his “friendly correspondence” with the wife evolved over the course of 2016 to her sending him “unwanted, offensive, sexually explicit language and photographs.” In April 2017, the couple sent a letter through their attorney demanding millions of dollars in exchange for keeping the messages a secret.

“In the alternative of protracted and public litigation, [the couple] will sign a release of you and your church and ministry in exchange for a certified check in the amount of $5 million,” stated the letter from the Bryant Law Firm ….

That seemingly extortionate demand would get my attention.

Finally, at Public Discourse, Mark Regnerus:

Recent revelations about sexual harassment, assault, and abuse underscore certain blunt realities about men, women, and sex. How can we confront those realities in a way that leads to less sexual violence?

He states and briefly elaborates “three blunt but essential truths:”

First, men’s sex drives are, on average, stronger and less discriminating than women’s.
Second, men have the upper hand in the contemporary mating market, even as—and partly because—women are flourishing economically and educationally. These are not criticisms; they are observations.
Third, women are usually physically smaller and weaker than men, and—as already noted—more discriminating in their sexual choices. Hence women are more prone to find themselves in situations of sexual risk with regard to men.

Regnerus then critically engages an early-2017 scholarly article that deals with male sexuality in terms of “fly zones” and “no-fly zones, concluding:

These are liminal times in male-female relationships. Treating men as if only threats of shaming, expulsion, and litigation will beat back their urges is not only an erroneous theory, Fleming asserts, “it’s downright dysfunctional for everyone, because it distorts the rules in such a way as to disorient men and women alike.”

Women should not silently put up with men’s boorish and aggressive expressions of sexual interest. But as we combat that we must ensure that men and women do not come to fear and suspect (and then avoid) each other, where we lean on law and regulation over convention. Now is the time for men to exhibit—and women to reinforce—norms of interaction that respect women’s dignity, bodily integrity, and security, while preserving the capacity to express (when appropriate) romantic interest and handle rejection. It is not rocket science. We know how to do this.

I also thought the “fly zone” versus “no-fly zone” model was interesting, but couldn’t help but notice the ambiguous areas:

Fleming argues that it’s the border between “fly” and “no fly” zones—a party, for example—that is most apt to foster confusion and tempt risk, not the classroom or the bus. This is the social space in which most problems, ranging from sexual badgering to diminished consent to downright rape, are apt to occur. Comparable dynamics can occur at after-work gatherings, professional conferences, on a first date, or after texting to “hang out.”

Cf. Claire Berlinski’s “drunken Christmas party” in Oxford.

Considering some of the points Regnerus made as he moved toward his conclusion, his confidence that “We know how to do this” seems a nonsequitur. I’m not at all sure we do know how to do this any more, unless he means that all married men should accumulate a year of rust on their courting skills every calendar year, which might be a good place to start.

Pre-Publication Update: An NPR poll featured at the top of Thursday’s All Things Consider reports 86% Americans support “zero tolerance for sexual harassment.” I trust that these lemmings feel virtuous for having no tolerance whatever for something they almost certainly cannot define. NPR made no effort to define it, either.

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I would a thousand times rather have dinner with secular liberals of a certain temperament than with a group of religious conservatives who agreed with me about most things, but who have no sense of humor or irony.

(Rod Dreher)

Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.