Mitch Avoids The Heat

Today’s vlog …

It takes as much time to produce a minute and a half of video as it takes to produce 5,000 words.

Courage.

Washington’s Birthday 2017

George Washington (February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799) was known in his lifetime as “the father of his country.”  The title was not undeserved. As I wrote a few days ago, his birthday used to be a profound CIVIC holiday, a day to reflect on Washington’s virtues in furtherance of our civil society.

Statue of Washington reading the newspaper (Yorktown)

That sounds hoary and clichéd, and my geezer credentials are not diminished by it, but I always “got” that, even back in grade school where I quickly realized that the Washington Myths were just so much BS thrown at the gullible. No, he didn’t chop down a frigging cherry tree and he didn’t throw a silver dollar across the Potomac. But they ARE legitimate distillations into myth of actual characteristics, and we could desperately use those virtues today.

Happy Residents Day, or, I’ll Take Lincoln

Welcome to another three-day weekend Abomination. Today is a federal holiday, squishing Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays into one portmanteau “holiday” celebrating … what? Warren G. Harding? James Knox Polk? Buchanan, Johnson the First? Johnson the Second?

(The point was to have only two federal holidays in February — the month no one can pronounce.  With Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a THIRD federal holiday, congress took the smart route and combined Washington and Lincoln and, hey! let’s just make it an olla podrida.

The Obligatory Weekend ‘Think’ Piece

The credulous suddenly become skeptics in the same manner that those who have an “invisible friend” and believe in a talking snake have become such hypercritical skeptics of evolution and global warming:

US investigators corroborate some aspects of the Russia dossier

Washington (CNN)  For the first time, US investigators say they have corroborated some of the communications detailed in a 35-page dossier compiled by a former British intelligence agent, multiple current and former US law enforcement and intelligence officials tell CNN.

If you go to Memeorandum, you will see that there is the Usual Rightie blogswarm  claiming that CNN is “fake news.” Led by Alex Jones’ “Infowars,” the conspiracy site that believes in space reptiles…

There I started a week ago, and there is where it stopped. Because it’s moving too fast to process. This game of Twitzkreig has had its desired effect: “look! a shiny object!” as the faint sound of jackboots begins to be clearly heard.

We are in the midst of an epistemological crisis. (Don’t be afeard. “Epistemology” means, bottom line, “how do I know what I know?”)

Demeritocracy™

UPDATED BELOW

Let’s be clear, former national security adviser Michael Flynn was not fired for lying. And he didn’t resign, he was fired. Oh, and the Trump Administration, to absolutely no one’s surprise, lies like a rug.

The Political Assassination of Michael Flynn
 Eli Lake / Bloomberg

If we are to believe the Trump White House, National Security Adviser Michael Flynn just resigned because he lied about his conversations with Russia’s ambassador to the vice president. As White House senior counselor Kellyanne Conway told NBC’s “Today Show” on Tuesday: “Misleading the vice president really was the key here.”

Thence, an apologia for and a spirited defense of Flynn as “a fat target for the national security state.” We depart from our text and the subject of Russia. Because that is not the story. The story is about leaks, and the inevitable arc that the leaky ship of state is now about to embark on.

To Fester, not Uncle Fester

Senate confirms Sessions as attorney general
Jordain Carney / The Hill

The Senate voted Wednesday night to confirm Sen. Jeff Sessions  —  (R-Ala.) as attorney general, capping a vicious debate that left Democrats and Republicans alike seething at times.  —  No Republicans went against Sessions in the 52-47 vote…

The late Charles Addams created a cartoon series given his name that became a television series and a series of movies. And, of course, weird, creepy old Uncle Fester was integral to The Addams Family. But his name has an older meaning:

fes·ter

v. fes·tered, fes·ter·ing, fes·ters

v.intr.

1. To generate pus; suppurate.
2. To form an ulcer.
3. To undergo decay; rot.
4.

a. To be or become an increasing source of irritation or poisoning; rankle: bitterness that festered and grew.
b. To be subject to or exist in a condition of decline: allowed the once beautiful park to fester.

v.tr.

To infect, inflame, or corrupt.

n.

A small festering sore or ulcer; a pustule.
[Middle English festren, from festre, fistula, from Old French, from Latin fistula.]

~ American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.