#497 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Tuesday November 1)
Good morning,
THIS WEEK IN BASEBALL
This week is the last week of baseball until pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training in late-February. Because this is our last chance for a while to enjoy baseball, I’m going to take it all in and revel in the surprise heroes, the drama, and the memories that are rekindled. Many of us this week will recall World Series from our youth, the special games we attended with parents and children, and comparing things that unfold this week with feats from a century and a half of baseball lore.
This World Series again includes a “wild card team”—a team that made it all the way through the playoffs to the big event. A wild card team is one that did not win its division (in the case of the Phillies, they finished third in their division). As of today, the series stands 1-1, with the Houston Astros in the driver’s seat because of better pitching options in the next two games. The Phillies really need to “break serve” in Houston this week to force a return to Philadelphia and their crazy fans.
Although I am not a fan of the Phillies, though I’ll be pulling for the Phillies because they’re a Cinderella story, they have Bryce Harper, they make the game exciting and, yes, they haven’t been involved in a cheating scandal.
TAKING A TURN FROM SPORTS TOWARD THE NEWS
The rest of today’s Musing was going to be about what it is like for fans to root for perennial underdogs. I’ll save that for later this month. Sometimes a single news story spans many issues at once and offers a singular focus on the gravity of these issues. The news of the attack on Speaker Pelosi’s husband laid bare the sickness that pervades the nation. Further, its occurrence and the reactions to the brutal attack are at the junction of several other events and trends worth highlighting…
Political violence is here. The shouts of “Where’s Nancy?” “Oh, Nancy, where are you?” have a direct line to the January 6th attack on the Capitol, which in turn has a direct line to Mr. Trump’s call to arms and incitement and the continuing vilification of the Speaker. Ads of Republican candidates in swing states often invoke images of guns, blood, and violence; imagining an assassination attempt should not come as a shock. Here is a quote, by the way, from a woman who breached the Capitol: “We broke into the Capitol. We got inside. We did our part. We were looking for Nancy to shoot her in the frickin’ brain. But we didn’t find her,”
The right is the chief fomenter of violence. While political violence certainly comes from both sides of the aisle, and harsh words have been used by many people, there are several immutable facts: (a) such attacks have gone up, with, by way of example, a ten-fold increase in threats on members of Congress since Donald Trump’s election, his virulent rhetoric, his vilification of his enemies and his call to arms, (b) attacks on left-leaning lawmakers and threats to left-leaning lawmakers, including election officials and school board members, are higher than on those who are right-leaning, and (c) only Republican candidates are brandishing weapons and imitating violent acts on their political commercials. Several months ago, a woman resigned from her local school board because, as much as she wanted to serve her community, she could not do so in light of the threats to her family. Here is David Frum on the celebration of violence: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/pelosi-republicans-partisan-political-violence/671934/
Apparently empathy is viewed negatively by some. While many Republicans joined with their Democratic colleagues in voicing concern and support for the Pelosi family, some were defiant (Glenn Youngkin saying he can’t wait to send Nancy back to California to be with her husband”), silent (Donald Trump, where are you?), or are propounding uncorroborated rumors (Marjorie Taylor Greene). A great article by David Graham on this: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/paul-pelosi-attack-nancy-pelosi-husband-january-6/671918/
Twitter and the “Chief Twit” will continue to provide a forum for disinformation. Elon Musk tweeted (and then deleted) a comment that there is a chance there is another story to the Pelosi attack, retweeting unverified conspiracy information from a notably unreliable generator of misinformation (the Santa Monica Observer, which also reported Hillary Clinton’s death, among other absurdities). At what point do we start regulating the public square? Today, we have a billionaire megalomaniac at the helm of Twitter and a college dropout demagogue at the head of Facebook. Both compete for “eyeballs” through algorithms designed to increase our collective blood pressure, anger and grievance. By the way, here is the Santa Monica Observer, in all its glory: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-10-31/santa-monica-observer-elon-musk-paul-pelosi
Hate abounds. No sooner did Mr. Pelosi get attacked with a hammer than side-by-side pictures of the Pelosis appeared in social media. The heading was “HAMMERED.” Above Nancy’s picture was the word “Figuratively” and over Paul’s was “Literally.” This was only one of many pictures, memes and posts that seemed to revel that the Pelosis got their due. Then there are the posts of the song, “If I had a Hammer…” I could go on, but why…
Disinformation abounds. By the way, “disinformation” means “lies.” No sooner that the attack occurs than a post like the following appeared and was retweeted heaven knows how many times: “Just to get the media story straight, a nudist hippie that was part of a pro BLM commune walked in only underwear from Berkeley to the ultrarich neighborhood in San Francisco, entered Paul Pelosi’s mansion while predator invisible cloaked to avoid security cameras, wrestled with Paul Pelosi while a mysterious 3rd man watched. Paul went to the bathroom, called 911, returned to wrestle the hippie nudist, the unnamed 3rd man let police in, and then the hippie hit Paul with a hammer, because he saw a Kevin McCarthy news conference a year ago.” None of this is accurate, but it’s been retweeted and parroted by right-wing commentators.
ENDING ON A HUMOROUS NOTE
The world’s falling apart, so here are a few “Dad Jokes”:
Next week we start diarrhea awareness month. Runs until Friday
Somebody complimented me on my parking today. They left a note on my window that said parking fine.
I hate when people say age is just a number. It’s clearly a word.
Have a great day,
Glenn
From the archives: