December, 2020 archive
Great Moments in Zoom 0
You can’t make this stuff up (and you wouldn’t want to).
Meta: PVF Endorsements 0
I have removed the PVF Endorsements item from the sidebar, as the Electoral College has cast its ballots.
It will return for Virginia’s off-year election next fall.
Both Sides Don’t 0
E. J. Montini explains that Joe Biden cannot heal this fractured nation, because Democrats are not the ones who fractured it. A bit from his article:
And they won’t go away unless Republicans simply … stop.
Stop the false accusations. Stop the incendiary hyperbole. Stop the attacks on the very democratic institutions that put them in office.
You can’t incite and enflame people’s worst instincts and then pretend to condemn violence. It’s like an arsonist returning to the scene as a firefighter.
Six Degrees of Dr. Jill Biden 0
Paths cross can be adjacent in unexpected ways.
Second son met Dr. Jill Biden when he was taking courses at our local community college when we lived in Delaware, where he was born and raised, though I don’t know that he took any classes from her. At the time, Joe Biden was Vice President, so she had Secret Service protection, but she was still teaching.
I trained as an historian and, at one time, aspired to get a doctorate. I didn’t, because I found in graduate school that academia and I were not a good mix (honestly, some of those folks will fight to the death over a semicolon), but I never lost my love of history as a discipline.
But, by heavens, had I earned that doctorate, I would not have eschewed the title, because it means something.
I learned how much it can mean in my year of graduate school (and from the many professors I had who had a “Ph. D.” after their names and who taught me well at The College of William and Mary in Virginia and at the University of Virginia.)
Afterthought:
It is never gracious to belittle the accomplishments of others.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society,” Special Florida Man Edition 0
(More at the link.)
Afterthought:
A good lawyer might just make this defense work . . . .
Courting Disasters 0
David discusses Donald Trump’s reaction to the failure of the Supremes to “do us a favor though.” (Warning: short ad at the end. I have no knowledge of the product in question.)
“It’s All about Mememememememe” 0
In the midst of a larger article about pro- and anti-vacine memes on “social” media, psychologist Utpal Dholakia notes the following:
Influencing others and changing their minds is a fourth reason to post, but it’s a distant fourth for most of us.
“As Amended” 0
This is Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America:
No Person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
I mention this because I saw earlier that Noz raised an interesting question.
Comin’ Round the Bend 0
Crabby Trumpleton* 0
The Arizona Republic’s Robert Robb suggests that Donald Trump’s Republican Party is rotten to the core.
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*With apologies to Tom Terrific.
