A Song Of Innocence

     Apologies for the… Stop! Stop! Danger Fran Porretto!

     That’s it. That’s the last time I’ll apologize for not putting out free reading material. I’m not under contract. I don’t get paid for this… hobby. I do it out of an impulse, a desire to express myself. And to the extent that my Gentle Readers are edified or entertained by what they find here, I think it’s a generous impulse.

     But that’s a tangent, really. I’m about to do a somewhat self-indulgent thing. It occurred to me that no one can stop me! Hah! So brace yourselves, Gentle Readers: I’m about to nostalgize.

* * *

     I ran across this just yesterday:

🎬 Recorded in December 1964, this unforgettable two-minute performance was captured in one unedited take—no cuts, no tricks, just pure talent. Every note had to be perfect. Decades later, its raw authenticity remains captivating. ✨ https://t.co/wnYRoeyI2d

— Music Vibes ✨ (@GcHa229831) October 27, 2026

     In 1964, pop music was still being played on AM radio. That was where I heard that song: WMCA, 570 on your AM dial. I fell in love with it immediately. My singing it around the house drove my father slightly bonkers, but then, it really didn’t matter what I sang. His taste in music was strictly big-band swing.

     I didn’t know anything about recording studios or how they worked. Indeed, I didn’t know until yesterday that The Seekers recorded that hit in one take, without subsequent remixing or replacement of anything. But it was a simpler time, with simpler music. Probably a number of other popular songs were recorded the same way.

     But I was more transported by the innocence of the song than anything else. Consider the lyric:

There's a new world somewhere
They call the Promised Land
And I'll be there someday
If you will hold my hand
I'll still need you there beside me
No matter what I do
For I know I'll never find another you

There is always someone
For each of us, they say
And you'll be my someone
Forever and a day
I could search the whole world over
Until my life is through
But I know I'll never find another you [Bridge]

It's a long, long journey
So, stay by my side
When I walk through the storm
You'll be my guide
Be my guide [Verse 3]

If they gave me a fortune
My pleasure would be small
I could lose it all tomorrow
And never mind at all
But if I should lose your love, dear
I don't know what I'd do
For I know I'll never find another you

     Pure, innocent love. Un-suggestive, un-ironic. From when the more intimate aspects of such love were deemed private matters, not to be bruited about in public. Before music itself was politicized, turned into a vehicle for “protest.”

     Things are different now, aren’t they? Pop songs are laced with all kinds of sexual and political statements. It seems we must hear every “recording artist’s” political views. Laura Ingraham’s suggestion that they shut up and sing has gone unheeded. And don’t get me started on the actors and actresses.

     How often do we hear songs like that today?

* * *

     Dear God, how I want those years back! I know they’re gone, but the feeling of them comes back a little whenever I hear a song like “Another You.” We went badly wrong not long after that. Some of the reasons are obvious, some aren’t. But leave the politics and the sexual revolution to one side for just a moment. The innocence of the period is the greatest loss: the confidence that we could get along, be friends, be lovers, and entertain one another without quarreling over our differences of opinion.

     Forgive me, Gentle Reader. Old men can be like this, as I’m sure you know. Today it was too much for me. But I do hope the Seekers found their way to better things. There are so many ways they, like the rest of us, could have lost their innocence. I’d like to think they escaped the snares. Far too many didn’t.

Uncivil War: A New Phase

     What, you didn’t know that we’re in a civil war? Of course we are. I wrote about it ten years ago. It’s waxed and waned, but hostilities have never ceased. They’re certainly not about to cease today.

     Many of the barrages have been specifically, and more or less exclusively, about Donald Trump. Is President Trump a polarizing figure? Yes. Has he exceeded the Constitutionally specified powers of the president? No. But he’s so… so there! As has been said many times, he lives rent-free in Leftists’ heads.

     The Left’s obsession with Trump could have been a great boon to the Republican caucuses in Congress. Sadly, it’s gone unexploited. That’s made the GOP’s prospects for the midterms uncertain. But the Trump Administration has two more years to go. Moreover, a new phase in the combat is upon us.

     Trump is no longer the sole focus of the Left’s efforts. He’s been joined by Elon Musk.

     Musk has been a major contributor to the Administration’s efforts. At first, that didn’t look to the Left like a targetable matter. But with the midterms upon us, Musk has redoubled his monetary and personal efforts to persuade the electorate to support the MAGA agenda. As he’s currently one of the most admired men on Earth, he’s having an effect.

     That’s drawn the Left’s gimlet eye. Leftists have slandered Musk in many ways. They’re openly exhorting one another, and their people on Capitol Hill, to hurt Musk. The attacks on Tesla dealerships are already well known. Most recently, the venomous Robert Reich has called for Congress to nationalize Starlink and SpaceX as “vital national resources.”

     Few things could have made the Left’s malevolence any clearer.

     For the Republican Party to come out of the midterms still in the majority in Congress will require a get-out-the-vote effort of great magnitude. Democrat loyalists are already energized. An unfortunate percentage of conservatives and Republican partisans have been making dissatisfied noises and “what’s the use?” comments. It’s not looking good. The Trump presidency and the fortunes of Elon Musk would both be imperiled by loss.

     Musk can’t carry the GOP over the finish line by himself. His efforts are great and much appreciated, but he can’t do it alone, even with Robert Reich, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders to assist him with their madnesses. I’ve never been a big booster of the franchise, but if decent Americans are ever going to face a “vote or die” moment, I’d say one is upon us.

     Please don’t let anything prevent you from getting to your polling place on November 3. Congress may have disappointed us greatly these past two years, but is that really a sound argument for letting the Left take it over?

A Very Little On Loving

     Consider the following statement from a famous advice columnist:

     It is possible to love—and at the same time—a wife, a mother, a sister and a grandmother, cherry pie, football, Lincoln, Rembrandt, and Bach. But we don’t love them all in the same way. – Esther Pauline Lederer, a.k.a. “Ann Landers,” Since You Ask Me

     It’s not a complete enumeration of “loves,” but it does hit some of the high spots. Yet it omits mention of what makes love of any sort possible. Can you “fill in the blank?”

     Don’t try to answer quickly. There’s more to be said on this subject.

* * *

     Today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew is one I’ve cited several times:

     But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
     Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

     [Matthew 22:34-40]

     Christ expressed the whole of the New Covenant in those few words: It’s about love. But love, as Ann Landers notes above, comes in many varieties. Which meaning of love applies to God? Which one applies to our neighbor? Is there any common factor between them?

     You have to squint a little to see it. Most never even contemplate it. Its absence from our thinking about love is more significant than you may realize. Despite one seemingly contradictory facet, the Great Commandments are founded on it.

     Love is only possible if there is an “other.” Someone or something that’s not you.

     Our capacity for love is one of our greatest blessings. Yet it would be of no importance were there no “other” to love. Fortunately, the world is filled with “others,” and many opportunities to love them. Granted that it can take some effort.

     When Christ said that:

     If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
     This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
     Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. These things I command you, that ye love one another.

     [John 15:10-17]

     …He delineated the relationship between God and Man in a specific way. It was the one He first expressed in the Two Great Commandments. Yet note the asymmetry between the “others” involved. We don’t love God “as we love ourselves;” God is infinitely our superior. And as our superior, He commands us. We are fortunate that His commandments are few, simple, and easy to understand.

     Our neighbor doesn’t stand above us. He doesn’t command us, nor do we command him. Christ didn’t instruct us to love our neighbor “with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,” but “as thyself.” That is appropriate love of neighbor, an “other” of our own stature.

     Concerning the abovementioned “seeming contradiction” in the Great Commandments: “Love” is used metaphorically by the phrase “as thyself.” It means that our natural concern for our personal well-being should extend to the well-being of the neighbor. This is one of those “should be obvious” deals that just about everyone needs explained to him at least once.

* * *

     There’s a great deal more to be said about the varieties of love, but a brief essay on the Web isn’t the place for it. Rather, look up C.S. Lewis’s exposition The Four Loves. Lewis nicely illuminates the distinctions and gradations that love can exhibit. The love commanded of us in the Great Commandments is only one phase of the journey.

     May God bless and keep you all.

The Disadvantages Of Certainty

     The recent, brilliant movie Conclave has Thomas Cardinal Lawrence, sermonizing to other Catholic cardinals before the inception of the process by which a new pope is chosen, say the following:

     Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance. Even Christ was not certain at the end. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" he cried out in his agony at the ninth hour on the cross. Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand-in-hand with doubt. If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery. And therefore, no need for faith. Let us pray that God will grant us a Pope who doubts. And let him grant us a Pope who sins and asks for forgiveness and who carries on.

     Certainty is an enemy to more than just unity and tolerance. It’s also deadly to learning, reasoning, and correcting one’s errors. He who is certain of his beliefs cannot entertain the possibility that he might be wrong. Worse, certainty enables him to commit injustices without a qualm.

     There’s a lot of that going around, just now.

* * *

     My capacity for incredulity is under stress. The reason, as is so often the case, is political. The Left has decided that there’s no point in dissembling any longer: its masters are sending its groundlings to war against us of the Right. Consider the following:

I’m not interested in having a substantive discussion. I’m interested in my political party using its power to damage Elon Musk and his interests as much as humanly possible. Discussion ended the moment Musk did a Nazi Salute and sent DOGE rampaging. Now I want scalps.

— James Raab 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@JamesRaxz) October 23, 2026

     This… person claims to be an engineer. Most engineers are amiable sorts, uninterested in harming anyone. But the above fellow has called for a campaign to damage Elon Musk “as much as humanly possible.” Is it even conceivable that there’s a defensible rationale behind such advocacy?

     What makes such a demand possible is certainty. This man is utterly certain of his beliefs: specifically, that the political Right is malevolent, and that Elon Musk is the chief effectuator of our evil designs. I doubt he’s ever bothered to examine his convictions closely. And of course, his certainty assures him that there’s no point in having a “substantive discussion.”

     That amounts to the cessation of political discourse. Once there’s combat – i.e., active efforts to harm the other side – reasoning ceases. There may be negotiation, but there can no longer be sober discussion of rights, or what constitutes justice. Bullets and bombs don’t speak that lingo.

     But he who elects to go to war must believe that it’s the best of the choices available.

* * *

     Decent people don’t want war. We don’t even want harsh words or bad feelings. But combat is being forced upon us. There may not be a great deal of flying lead, but it will be unsparing even so. Many will be harmed. Civil peace will be set back for years.

     Certainty is the cause. The mass levels in the Left’s structure of political production have been convinced of the Right’s evil. That conviction automatically means war. You don’t argue with Satan; you defeat him. If it’s at all possible, you eliminate him.

     I’ve written about this before:

     An Art Institute of Washington professor recently declared that House Republicans “should be lined up and shot” for their passage of an Obamacare-replacement bill.

     “They should be lined up and shot,” Professor John Griffin posted to his Facebook, according to a screenshot of the post obtained by Campus Reform, even clarifying that he wasn’t being hyperbolic, saying “that’s not hyperbole; blood is on their hands.”

     In another post made just two minutes after his initial comments, Griffin blasted Republican lawmakers as “a f***ing joke,” then turning his attention to their voters, whom he insulted as running “the gamut from monstrous to ignorant...”

     Can you imagine that John Griffin ever entertains any tiny doubts about his exhortations? He went so far as to say they’re “not hyperbole.” He’s committed. He wants others who share his preferences to commit themselves, to the point of violence.

     That was twelve years ago, Things haven’t gotten better since then. If anything, they’re a trifle worse today, at least if we judge by what passes for political rhetoric from the Left.

     I hate to be so depressing at such an early hour. I’m sure my Gentle Readers would prefer something uplifting. Do try to have a nice day.

Stop Listening

     No, I’m not suggesting that you stop listening to me. Why would you think that?

     This morning, Armond Boudreaux, author of the impressive The Last Revolution trilogy, presents a simple image and a poignant thought:

Most of us don’t have enough imagination to see how beautiful and precious it all is. https://t.co/N9z2DuzlRW

— Armond Boudreaux (@armondboudreaux) October 23, 2026

     It stopped me for a moment. Imagination matters, but I think something else matters more. I was put in mind of a particularly piercing moment from That Hideous Strength. Co-protagonist Jane Studdock has just had her first direct experience of God and is in the aftermath:

     Words take too long. To be aware of all this and to know that it had already gone made one single experience. It was revealed only in its departure. The largest thing that had ever happened to her had, apparently, found room for itself in a moment of time too short to be called time at all. Her hand closed on nothing but a memory. And as it closed, without an instant’s pause, the voices of those who have not joy rose howling and chattering from every corner of her being.
     “Take care. Draw back. Keep your head. Don’t commit yourself,” they said. And then more subtly, from another quarter, “You have had a religious experience. This is very interesting. Not everyone does. How much better you will now understand the Seventeenth-Century poets!” Or from a third direction, more sweetly, “Go on. Try to get it again. It will please the Director.”
     But her defenses had been captured and these counterattacks were unsuccessful.

     That beautiful, terrible phrase the voices of those who have not joy is one of C.S. Lewis’s best. I’ve borrowed it before this, and with this very application in mind.

     Not all such voices are those of demons.

* * *

     Our world is noisy. It’s probably noisier than at any previous time or place in history. The competition for your attention is particularly fierce. Let my inbox be submitted as Exhibit One.

     Let’s be candid: defining noise is a tough job. Most of us would treat it the way we treat the equally difficult subject of dirt: “I know it when I see it.” In the interests of the discussion below, let’s treat noise as anything that bids for your attention, seeking to deflect you from what really matters to you at the moment. That way, we don’t have to deal with whether a noise must be audible, or whether we might treat a particular specimen of noise as valuable under altered circumstances.

     Noise comes in many varieties. At the bottom of the distribution is “pure” noise: randomly generated by events under no conscious control. At the top is semantic noise: noise that seemingly speaks in a recognizable tongue in a meaningful way.

     Pure noise is “ground” in the “figure and ground” sense. We learn over time to filter it out. The eye sees it or the ear hears it, but our filters prevent it from consuming any of our attention. That seemingly built-in filtering ability makes it possible to endure a great deal of the noise that arises from our surroundings.

     Semantic noise is tougher. It has structure and apparent meaning. It may be relevant to you personally. It may even bear on some priority of yours that isn’t what you’re trying to concentrate on at the moment. Those characteristics make it a “teaser” that demands effort to exclude from your thoughts.

     In our time, the greater part of the noise is semantic noise.

* * *

     I could go into a long exposition here, but that’s unnecessary. Just return to Armond’s tweet above and contemplate the beauty of the sunset he depicted. Can you turn away the noise long enough to savor it? To appreciate the power and majesty of the forces, formless and formed, that produced it? To thank and praise God for the gift of such beauty?

     The noise will not cease. Indeed, it might intensify. Beauty is its enemy. The soul must be diverted from beauty. All beauty flows from the great Enemy of noise, the Creator of all things.

     It’s your job, as a soul that possesses discrimination and free will, to develop your ability to deny the noise your attention, at least for a little while. That’s not the same as “not hearing it.” You can’t do that. All you can do is fix your attention where it belongs: on the gift of beauty before you.

     May God bless and keep you all.

Feeling Old

     Now and then, my years weigh upon me in a commanding way. It’s like they’re saying “You’re an old man! Why aren’t you acting like one? Get to it!” And of course I must comply. Anything else would risk… uh, well, something.

     We all have our roles to play. Mine is Funny Curmudgeon. I must make people laugh using my years and the lumber-room of my damnably retentive memory. While that might not seem consistent with the curmudgeonly mentality, it is nevertheless a public service of sorts. Among other things, it extends the probable lifetimes of curmudgeons everywhere.

     But I must admit that it doesn’t always work out. I just had an encounter that made me wonder about our young folks. You know, the ones who don’t know how lucky they are.

     It started thus:

How does a person get the Holy Spirit?

— YellowJacket 🐝 (@yellowbee0) October 22, 2026

     Being a religious man, such questions will always get my respectful attention. So I provided a perfectly responsive reply:

@yellowbee0 You have to save 500 S&H Green Stamps and bring them to an authorized redemption center. 😉

— Armand Morelon (@ArmandJville) October 22, 2026

     My interlocutor replied thus:

@ArmandJville ?

— YellowJacket 🐝 (@yellowbee0) October 22, 2026

     …and I had a moment of pure existential despair.

     She didn’t know about S&H Green Stamps! How is this possible? Is there anyone whose parents didn’t save Green Stamps?

     Well, all right, yes, there were a lot of other “loyalty program” stamps:

     Greenbax Stamps offered by Piggly Wiggly, Gold Bell Gift Stamps (in the Midwest), Triple S Stamps (offered by Grand Union Supermarkets), Gold Bond Stamps, Blue Chip Stamps, Plaid Stamps (a project of A&P Supermarkets), Top Value Stamps, King Korn Stamps, Quality Stamps, Gunn Brothers given by Safeway, Buccaneer, and Eagle Stamps (a project of several divisions of the May Department Stores Co. of St. Louis, Missouri and offered, notably, by May Company stores, supermarkets, drug stores, gas stations, and dry cleaners in the midwest area).

     …but Green Stamps ruled in the Northeast until the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company – that’s the A&P, to you Philistines with no respect for great corporate institutions – introduced Plaid Stamps to our district. My mother became an A&P fanatic and accumulated thousands of them… and forever after wondered what to do with her leftover Green Stamps. Well, into every life and all that.

     But seriously, how could any product of a Twentieth Century upbringing not know about loyalty programs? Didn’t her dad collect the game cards, cheap steak knives, and fragile tumblers from the local gas station? Today’s version of such programs may be found at credit-card companies, with their gift programs and cash-back deals. The idea is the same: Get the customer locked in. It’s one of marketing’s perennial agenda items.

     The story behind loyalty programs is bittersweet. Back then, most goods for sale were somewhat price-controlled, if not by the State then by the manufacturer. That applied especially to bulk commodities such as gasoline. So discounting had a lower bound: when a retailer reached that bound, he had to come up with something else to offer the customer for his loyalty. That happens with goods that are oversold, or for which there are too many sources.

     Well, tempora mutantur, and so forth. But my incredulity at my interlocutor not knowing about Green Stamps sent me swiftly to the sideboard. I’ve enjoyed a chilled glass of Harvey’s, have started on a second one, and reality’s edges have grown agreeably soft. Never mind the exceptionally clever pun; I toss off a dozen of those in a ten-minute conversation. Besides, I’m sure it will come in handy at some future time.

Last-Ditch Tactics

     Apologies for the lack of a piece yesterday. I had to go to one of the most forbidding places in America: the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. The experience very nearly ruined me. I spent the remainder of the day swatting imaginary insects and chanting old Al Stewart songs. Trust me: you would not have wanted to be around me.

     Anyway, the following brief video is what caught my eye this morning:

ON UCHICAGO CAMPUS: U.S. Senator from Michigan Elissa Slotkin hopes planned political prosecutions of republican leaders will scare young conservatives from getting involved in politics. @ElissaSlotkin https://t.co/p7NBJpDcQW

— The Chicago Thinker (@ThinkerChicago) October 17, 2026

     In the realm of political competition there are only three levels of interplay:

1. Competing with ideas;
2. Competing with ad hominems;
3. Competing with intimidation and violence.

     Of course, a peaceful society would prefer that the competition remain focused on ideas. When ideas butt heads and one proves better than the other, it can become policy with general assent. Life can continue undisturbed. But the enabling condition for competing with ideas is that each side must agree to concede should its idea lose the battle. This in its turn requires that all sides agree on an objective standard for assessing ideas’ comparative performance.

     We haven’t seen those conditions agreed to in America for a long time. The animus that characterizes American political rhetoric, while not unprecedented, makes it plain that competition with and through ideas is “off the table.” Instead, vituperation rules the exchanges. Barrages of insult, often descending to slander, are the greater part of what the general public hears.

     But the ad hominems level isn’t stable either. To prevent deterioration to the level below that, there must be agreement among all the participants that no one will cast the first stone. The politicians and their hangers-on can flail one another mercilessly by day, but they must revert to amiable drinking buddies by night.

     A side observation: When we of the hoi polloi speak of the Establishment, it’s often that enemies by day / pals by night coupling that we have in mind. Such an Establishment can present a surface appearance of competition and opposition while maintaining a quiet collaboration aimed at “not rocking the boat.” But such arrangements are not eternal. If one party becomes sufficiently determined upon hegemony, it can descend to true combat.

     The stones began to fly with Donald Trump’s 2015 presidential election campaign. Many were the stories of deliberate disruption of Trump rallies, often involving violence. In the aftermath, investigators such as James O’Keefe unearthed the organizers and specialists in incitement. Now and then an act of violence made the evening news, leading private citizens to wonder what was becoming of the Republic.

     We were slipping from the ad hominem level to the intimidation and violence level. The Left had decided that it simply must hold onto the power it had accrued with the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama. Trump threatened to overturn too many established, longstanding agreements between the Democrats and the Republicans. Only God knew what would happen to the D.C. cocktail party circuit.

     After the election, many citizens noted increases in disturbing indicators: Mad Maxine Waters’s public fulminations; prominent Republicans and conservatives being harassed in restaurants and other public places; occasional “egging” of cars and houses; AntiFa / Black Bloc attacks on conservative and free-speech rallies. We started getting nervous. There was no way to know how bad things might get. “Buy more ammo” became a watchword.

     Well, Miss Slotkin has put us on notice: if the Left retakes Congress in the November elections, the gloves will be off. She speaks only of intimidation tactics, of course; anything else would put her in jeopardy of prosecution. But the subtext to her words is that once we’re back in power, anything goes. Should they elect to employ actual violence, Leftist activists will receive a measure of protection, just as did the disruptors and intimidators sent forth to harass the attendees of Trump rallies.

     This is the sort of piece I least like to write. But necessity spares no one. Certainly it has no special regard for an old crank from Long Island.