THE FATAL CONCEIT, OR BEGGING THE QUESTION.

Charles "Strong Towns" Marohn notes, "Most planning processes begin with a hidden assumption: we already know the solution and simply need public buy-in."

There's probably a generalization to the behavior of the people who "facilitate" meetings by structuring the order of business in order to nudge, or coerce, participants to the outcome the facilitator wants.

Nobody talks like that.

My neighbors don't. The people I run into at church don't. The parents dropping their kids off at school don't. The survey wasn't asking residents to describe their lives. It was asking them to answer a planning question, one presented and framed in a way that will feel completely foreign to nearly all of them.

Years ago, Steve Jobs made an observation about focus groups that has become famous.

It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them.

That statement is often misunderstood as an argument against listening to customers. It isn't. Apple listened obsessively to customers. What Jobs understood was that customers experience frustrations, desires, and obstacles. They do not necessarily experience solutions.

The story he tells is of focus groups who might think in terms of an improved Walkman rather than a portable computer with music-streaming capabilities.

Residents know where they struggle. They know which intersections feel dangerous. They know which streets their children are afraid to cross. They know whether housing feels attainable. They know whether a neighborhood feels welcoming.

What they often don't know — and shouldn't be expected to know — is whether the answer involves mixed-use zoning, form-based codes, parking reform, traffic calming, tax increment financing, or some other technical intervention.

Those are planning tools. Residents are experts in something much more important: their own experience.

A recent article from the American Planning Association discusses innovative public engagement techniques. The article correctly identifies a real problem. Traditional public meetings often don't work very well. Dot-voting exercises become predictable. SWOT analyses are tedious. Attendance is low. Participants are frequently unrepresentative.

Fundamentally, planning is about attempting to impose some Man of Systems' scheme on messy reality.  On the other hand, placing a bet on emergence based on some notion of the individual experiences of residents who are not regional planners might be reason for the planners to get away from the notion of System or Vision.  "What's the next smallest thing we can do to address it?"

LET THE THING BE PRESSED.

Over the weekend, United States Central Command claim to have destroyed drones or rockets carrying mines (or perhaps trash bags or beachballs) in order to effect some kind of closure of Hormuz, or at least the spooking of energy traders.  In retaliation, the mullahs flipped some flying gas mains toward United States bases in Jordan, apparently without effect.  We'll see what Our President orders up.

EXCESSIVE SPORTS HYPE?

In the course of a lament over gridiron parents taking the joy out of youth football, Pajamas Media's Tim O'Brien notes, "Little League baseball players should not have 'walk-up music' any more than youth league football players should have 'recruiting videos,' but they do."  I might still have some of my nephew's Greendale Youth Football trading cards (no, they did not come in Topp's bubble gum packs) but I digress.

Rather, dear reader, I want to consider a recent high school football game in which St. Joseph took an early thirty point lead over Mount Carmel, only for Mount Carmel to rally back and win the game.

It made for compelling television.  Television?  Television.  "Mount Carmel football stuns by overcoming 30-point deficit to win on national TV."  Specifically,  on ESPN.

There might not be another game as thrilling as Mount Carmel played on Friday night.

In a nationally televised game, New Jersey visiting St. Joseph Regional High School went up 30-0 on the Caravan just one play into the second quarter. It was the definition of a rout.

Until, the Caravan staged a comeback for the ages. They stunned the high school football world, as Jordan Lynch's Mount Carmel squad overcame that 30-point deficit to shock St. Joseph and win its first game of the season.

That's right, a nationally televised, if on sports cable, game, involving a New Jersey team visiting the Chicago area.

EXCESSIVE COMPLEXITY PRODUCES DIMINISHING RETURNS.

Anyone who has suffered through endless faculty meetings knows that.  The Credentialed Experts who worship process are beginning to figure it out.

All these ways of seeing our world converge dynamically in the current historical moment: this Fourth Turning, or Long Emergency — however you label it — in the arc of our techno-industrial order of things. A lot of these things are coming apart now, and in astounding ways, and it remains to be seen what we will do with these broken and discarded parts, and whether any of it can be put back together in a satisfactory way.

Saecular entropy, properly understood, cannot be reversed.  The saecular order to come will hold surprises.

THERE'S NO ESCAPING OPPORTUNITY COSTS.

A post reacting to widespread closures at Red Lobster offered an economics lesson suitable for the start of the semester.  "Recall, years ago, our coverage about the Six Flags amusement parks being a long-term real estate speculation? Opportunity cost sure got the better of many a small amusement park or kiddieland over the past quarter century, didn't it?"

LESBOS, PSYCHOS, PHOBOS, PATHOS.

Sing unto me, O Muse, of the restraint of Victor "Blade of Perseus" Hanson.

There are three explanations for the unhinged and nihilistic behavior of WNBA players, staff, and owners.

One, in racist and sexist fashion, these left-wing actors deeply resent being saved by a white, heterosexual player who towers over others in skill—and to such a degree that they are willing to metaphorically strangle the very goose that lays their golden eggs.

Or, two, they feel the more violence and controversy they can spark in trying to neuter and hurt Clark, the more attention—money—they will attract.

The more they gin up racial and sexual-orientation frenzy in World Wrestling Entertainment-style, the more they can inflate profits and gain popular attention.

But these gladiator-like women seem clueless about this possibility: if the battered Clark is permanently injured, quits, or joins another league, the WNBA temple of riches she built could come crashing down upon them.

That passage cries out for unleashing the Furies or the wrath of Hera.  The classical reference comes in his conclusion.  "In sum, the WWE has turned into a Roman Colosseum blood sport. Thousands now watch it nightly, in anger or glee that their popular heroes are bloodied—or may soon be even maimed or killed."

LOOK TO YOUR RIGHT, LOOK TO YOUR LEFT.

I never heard that speech in any classes, nor did I ever offer it.  "In the Bad Old Days when College was Not. For. Everybody., incoming students would allegedly encounter the curmudgeonly professor who would continue, 'By semester's end, one of those people will be gone.'"

Perhaps, notes Timothy "Conversable Economist" Taylor, a variation on that theme should be in order.

Some of the negative reaction to elite institutions is of their own making — a sense of superiority that we’ve got the answers figured out. If you’re inside the gates, you deserve something that people outside the gates don’t. If you think back to the very early days of the preeminent, Northeastern institutions, which all arose from one version of Protestantism or another, the president would have said to incoming students, “You are all worthless sinners. You’re here entirely by the grace of God. You haven’t earned it. What you should hope to achieve is a true sight of your own sinfulness and your own imperfection.” The speech today is: “Welcome to our great university. You are the best and brightest who have ever walked through the gate. We’re privileged to have you here.” That message should be mitigated or modulated.

He's quoting Columbia's (!) Andrew Delbanco in a not-linked essay in the house organ for business as usual in higher education.

Perhaps, as the evidence accumulates that business as usual is not working, most notably in the Ivies, reflection in the higher reaches of higher education on the failures of business as usual is a desirable outcome.  It's long overdue: the stresses involved in getting into Japanese universities were such that matriculation was the goal and a four-year party the reward, and that "we're privileged to have you here" rhetoric could have the same effect.

PUTTING THE WORST POSSIBLE SPIN ON GOOD NEWS.

Bloomberg's headline is straightforward enough.  "Hormuz Oil Flows Rising as Gulf Giants’ Ramp Up Accelerates."  The first paragraph of the article, however, is a clanker.

The flow of crude through the Strait of Hormuz is creeping higher as producers across the Middle East boost exports in the face of Iran's lingering threat to shipping. The increase is keeping global crude oil prices in check.

The reports I'm seeing of gas lines that Iranian wags, if there are any wags, might be calling "Jimmy Carter's revenge," and the news of the gangbangers that used to raise havoc in Iraq or Lebanon being mobilized to cow the population, strongly suggest to me that if those are the effects of Iran's "threat to shipping," I'd hate to see what defeat looks like.

WE EMBRACE OUR AUGUST MILLION.

Sometime between morning coffee and midafternoon pop break (with much of the back yard mowed) Google's visit counter ticked over fifteen million.  The view count for individual posts suggests some interest in our observations on energy movements.

Whatever your motivation for looking in, and whether you are carbon-based or silicon-based, thank you for your continued interest.

The back yard is mowed.  I'm beginning the fall shortening-up program a week or two early.

LOSING THE GOOD OF THE INTELLECT.

"Confidence in College Has Collapsed."  People who have the best workarounds are using them.  It has nothing to do with all wokeness, all the time.  That's for the spawn of the nomenklatura.

The ideological battles being fought on many campuses are almost exclusively waged among elites. Debates over DEI initiatives, Gaza, antisemitism, and transgender rights dominate public attention rather than conversations about what can be done to make colleges work for the working class. The students who need the most. When public support for higher education wanes, the biggest losers are those who need them to work—not as bastions of progressive thought, but as drivers of economic opportunity, civic responsibility, and social solidarity. It’s no coincidence that some of the fiercest critics of higher education are found among those who have amassed considerable wealth and influence.

The people most willing to denigrate societal institutions are typically those who need them the least. Wealthy people can probably afford to choose an alternative pathway for their children—although most do not. For many working-class families, college is the only way for their kids to get ahead. It turns out that, whatever their politics, college-educated parents generally stress the importance of attending college to their children. In our survey of American teenagers, girls were more likely than boys to say they were going to college—but the education gap was equally as large. Teens raised by college-educated parents were far more likely to say they were planning on going to college than those with noncollege parents, regardless of their parents’ politics. More than six in ten teens with college-educated parents who supported Kamala Harris are planning to attend a 4-year college after graduation. The number for teens of college-educated Trump voters is identical—61 percent say they are college-bound.

Put simply, gender and class background, not politics, predict college attendance. The people who have lost faith in higher education are working-class men. It’s why, in our own study, boys from working-class backgrounds are the least likely to expect to get a college education.

I never explicitly called higher education out for denigrating people who look like me as responsible for all the evils of the world, without acknowledging that maybe we got a few things right.  Incoming matriculants might have read between the lines in my posts, or, more likely, heard the message coming from the higher education establishment, loud and clear.

For many Americans, higher education is one of the primary pathways to financial stability, to creating enduring social connection, and instilling a sense of civic responsibility. When colleges become overly focused on advancing the discrete interests of certain groups, it undermines the entire effort. It’s not only a matter of ideological openness. The waning interest in college among boys might have less to do with notions of masculinity. If you’re a boy from a working-class background, how welcome will you feel on some of these college campuses? How curious will your classmates be about your background, life experiences, and perspective?

The chances for such individuals might be better at the regional comprehensives or in the mid-majors, if they don't get lured into game day beer-'n-circus.  Their chances of excelling in class might be better as well.

TRUST, ONCE LOST, IS HARD TO REGAIN.

That recovery is particularly difficult when it is people entrusted with making decisions on the basis of their wisdom or their probity betray it in an egregious way.  In The (Not Detroit) Free Press, Erick Erickson notes, "The same government that used pandemic powers to shutter churches and businesses now wants surveillance cameras on street corners and data centers in backyards. You can’t blame people for saying no."

It's not that the warning signs haven't been with us for some time.  Cold Spring Shops posts have used variations on "governance by wise experts" since the fall of 2009, generally in a skeptical way.

That People in Authority dismissed the observations of — wait for it — medical doctors noticing masked people's glasses fogging up in grocery stories and suggesting the mask mandates and six foot circles and the rest were theater, not policy, probably resurrected the notion of a credibility gap.  Yes, dear reader, my life from adolescence onward has been structured by credibility gaps: thus another one emerging during the Jarrett regency's corona tyranny didn't come as a shock.

THOSE SUMMER DOLDRUMS.

Official Washington goes on vacation, and most of Europe takes things even easier than they normally do, but those news holes still have to be filled.

As people around the world mourn the death of music icon Dolly Parton, the National Hurricane Center is monitoring a tropical wave that could become the fourth-named storm of the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season. The pre-season determined name? Dolly.

The wave, far out in the Atlantic, could be named by Aug. 27, but the name "Dolly" was chosen 30 years ago and is not related to Dolly Parton's death on Aug. 25. The wave has a 70% chance of becoming a tropical storm or depression, according to the hurricane center, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

There are no plans to skip over the name "Dolly" if the expected tropical storm forms, the hurricane center told USA TODAY. The center does not control the naming of tropical storms or when the names are used, its website states. "Instead a strict procedure has been established by an international committee of the World Meteorological Organization."

It's an "astounding coincidence" at a time when people from all walks of life are remembering her music and charitable legacies, wrote Roger Edwards, a long-time Dolly Parton fan and meteorologist who retired from NOAA in 2025, in a tribute posted on a social media account.

Anything to make hurricane season relevant when it's the end of August with four possible named storms by the 27th.

There are likely other famous people passing a day or so before a tropical depression gains that person's name.  Around our family, Dolly Parton's name frequently came up in cribbage games when there weren't many points in the crib.  Outside the Beltway's James Joyner notes, "She was truly one of a kind," and Margaret "University Diaries" concludes, "Her voice had the sun of America in it."  R.I.P.

THE RENT GRADIENT COMES FOR YOUR BOWLING LANES.

Fortune contributor Catherina Gioino lodges a lament.  "Bars, bowling alleys, and movie theaters cost too much to run and visit. Americans have run out of places to hang out and we’re paying with our health."

Well, yes.

That's the down-side of the emergence of the Creative Class.  [Long] ago, I noted, "One, the premium to locating in the most creative communities bids up rents. That produces an arbitrage opportunity, even in recession."  Apparently, though, gentrification leads to a more valuable bundle of urban services, something that has value to Creative Class types.

Cater to the Grabowskis or salt-of-the-earth types of whatever ethnic origin when the yuppies show up, and suddenly your favorite hangout goes away.

Using Census data, researchers tracked 12 categories of what sociologists call "third places"—among them coffee shops, libraries, museums, recreation centers, and restaurants—and found widespread closures across every single category from 2019 to 2021, with the losses hitting hardest in rural areas and communities with larger Black, Hispanic, and less-educated populations.

Not only are these places disappearing, the ones still standing cost more to walk into than they used to. Jessica Finlay, an assistant professor of geography at the University of Colorado Boulder and one of the study's researchers, immediately agreed when asked how much of this is an affordability story. "Absolutely. I mean, everything costs more," she said. "Cost of living is so much more, and gentrification is absolutely happening." It's a dynamic she's watched shrink the pool of people who can still afford to be regulars anywhere.

The article focuses on urban clustering during and after the corona shutdowns.  The dynamics would have worked out the same irrespective of whether Dr. Faustus Fauci got his way or was properly told to sod off.  "Sooner or later, urban agglomeration economies come for neighborhoods an easy journey to the central business district."

Finlay sees gentrification cutting the same way as rising costs elsewhere: It can bring in new services, but not necessarily to the people who were already there. Drawing on interviews conducted across the Twin Cities, where she has based part of her research, Finlay described participants who said a revitalized neighborhood no longer felt built for them, with people saying they were followed in stores, or were told her they had to dress differently just to shop nearby.

New arrivals don't have to pass judgement on yobbish neighbors if the bid-rent curve prices the yobs out.

DENY THERE'S A PROBLEM, CHANGE THE SUBJECT, AND QUESTION THE CRITIC'S MOTIVES.

That's the standard politician playbook for avoiding doing the necessary work, and two contributors to the house organ for all wokeness, all the time in higher education adopt the formula in their "Enough With the Performative Apologia."

FEMINISM HAS DAMAGED GENERATIONS OF WOMEN.

Your Superintendent is not running an advice column, although from time to time Cold Spring Shops holds forth on the disaster that contemporary dating and mating, or is it swiping and hooking up, has become.

Might it be that after thirty years, the guys have figured out the code?  "Cold Spring Shops is not an advice column, but gentlemen, if you ever hear 'I'm not ready for a commitment,' treat your situation as friends-with-benefits, no matter how desirable the benefits are."  The ladies who were truthfully saying so are now in a position of having to freeze their eggs.  It's not so much "leftover" as having pushed away potential keepers over the years.  As far as those who were not truthfully saying so ... gold diggers come with warning signals, and perhaps the "not ready for commitment [until some rich real estate hustler comes along]" are OK with being traded in for a newer number in a few years.  Good business for prenup-drafting lawyers and pshrinks, not so much for the spawn.

It's since gotten worse for the spawn.  "White, liberal female Lindsay Clancy supporters are proving why men are right to want to remain single."

It's too depressing to quote from at length, and it's unlikely to inspire the creation of Minimal Publishable Units, even though the social science hypotheses are all over this excerpt.

The fact that there are any women at all supporting Clancy, let alone having the gall to demonstrate outside a courthouse or film narcissistic, self-absorbed videos expressing sympathy for what Clancy is accused of doing, reveals the toxic strain that exists in some women in American society. It is well-documented that raising children is extremely difficult, stressful, and taxing. It is well-known that bearing children and postpartum depression are serious conditions for women that shouldn’t be dismissed. However, it’s also wrong to link the stress of motherhood with a mother allegedly murdering her own toddlers.

And it is my opinion that this is a direct result of third- and fourth-wave feminism. It is a corrosive ideology that took the valiant idea of equal representation of women in society and corrupted it with nihilistic and hedonistic pursuits and a revision of acceptable moral norms and standards. Gone were the days of embracing motherhood and marriage, replaced with embracing societal ills such as abortion, and now, apparently, the acceptance and compassion for allegedly murdering one’s own children.

That second paragraph is over the top, and yet there ought to be ways of identifying, or perhaps of refuting the existence thereof, of the chain of causation from do-your-own-thing to denying coherent beliefs to "I intend to off myself and I want to spare the children the loss."

STRAITS STATUS QUO?

A service called Barchart for Business keeps track of financial information, such as options expiring 27 September on crude oil.  As I type, the spot price is in the neighborhood of US $ 82.20 per barrel and the chart tracks puts and calls with strike prices ranging from $77.50 to $86.00.  There might be other contracts and other opportunities to lose money on them.  Currently the $77.50 to $82.00 calls are in the money, and they've all declined in price today. The out of the money calls are also declining in price, with the calls at the highest price trading at around $2.  That doesn't look like a lot of speculative interest in spot price at the end of September headed to $100 or higher the way the doomsday observers carry on about.

The out of the money puts are increasing slightly in price today.  There's no point holding the right to sell oil at $77.50 a barrel when you can sell it for $82.25.  But if the spot price drops below $77.50 (good news for motorists and farmers) that right is valuable at expiry.  There are conditions under which exercise before expiry is profitable but I forget the technical details.  The in the money puts are also increasing in price.  Again, I forget the technical details, apparently holding the right to sell at $87 looks more attractive today than it did yesterday.

There is more put open interest (unexercised options) than there is call open interest.  Make use of that information as you will.  Tomorrow is another day and it will bring its own events.

GET TO WORK ON THE FIRST DAY.

Inside Higher Ed's Courtney Hook offers "5 Ways to Spice Up Syllabus Day."  I'm slightly heartened to discover less talk about "syllabus week."  Why?  "[Students who welcome a first class with no pressure] are often the same students who cry, 'Yay, snow day! when classes are canceled for any reason. Don’t let slackers rule your classroom."  Years ago, we endorsed doing something subject-relevant first, even before getting into the administrative stuff.

Doctor Hook's medicine show might play well at Pepperdine.  Her specific suggestions don't really get to the core of the matter, which is day one of a college course is day one of a college course.

YOU AND WHOSE NAVY?

"Iran threatens 45 tankers with fines, confiscation in Hormuz escalation."  Regime dead-enders think they've identified the ships participating in the shuttle operation transloading Gulf Arabian product to ships sheltering well away from the mullahs' putative blockade.

HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE.

The "progressive" vision of a better world, summarized in one sentence.  "At the time, I hated riding on the subway. But more than 50 years later, I’m grateful for that commute—for the way it forced a visceral reminder of our shared humanity."

THE STUDENTS ARE BACK ON CAMPUS.

Well, most of them.  "NIU student charged with attempted murder ousted from fraternity, not living at chapter house."  There's always at least one zoo fraternity, this year's first candidate is Tau Kappa Epsilon.

“The Delta Eta Chapter of Tau Kappa Epsilon is aware of a serious incident involving a former member of our organization this past weekend,” the post reads. “Effective immediately, the individual has been removed from the chapter and is prohibited from participating in chapter activities or returning to the chapter house.”

The fraternity’s statement doesn’t mention a stabbing specifically, but said the incident, which was not fraternity-related, “occurred independently” of the chapter, based on available information.

“The Delta Eta Chapter does not condone violence or serious misconduct,” the statement reads. “The alleged actions of this individual do not reflect the values, expectations, or standards of conduct expected of our chapter and its members.”

Nearly four and twenty years of Cold Spring Shops with no prior mention of the Tekes in our posts.

The usual sorts of start-of-semester follies are under way, at Northern Illinois University and elsewhere, and we'll have more coverage of them next week.

THE GAS PUMP PAIN ARISES MAINLY IN UKRAINE?

The Establishment's Narrative^(TM) on higher summer gasoline prices is "It's All Trump's Fault."  These are the same fear-mongers who were sounding off about crude oil prices north of $175 per barrel in the aftermath of rogue Iranian elements attempting to close the Strait of Hormuz.

UTTERLY PATHETIC.

More folly from the self-styled progressives.  "‘Utterly Unsustainable’: Employer-Sponsored Healthcare Costs Set to Keep Surging."  Search the essay in vain for any acknowledgement that such "healthcare costs" have nothing to do with trade-tested betterments.  You get the usual talking points.  "While Democratic leadership continues to oppose a Medicare for All system overwhelmingly favored by their party’s voters, progressives point to studies showing that such a program will save lives and money."

YOUR SCOLDING IS NO LONGER EFFECTIVE.

I'd really rather the culture warriors types leave Sophie Cunningham be, to sink those trilighters and protect her teammates. But the po-faced common scolds, such as supposed sports pundit Jason Page, have to contextualize her celebrating a milestone birthday at a country bar in downtown Indianapolis and energetically delivering that boot, courtesy of the Red White and Blue.

And again… tell me exactly what you are about without telling me exactly what you are about.

Just own who you are and stop talking about “loving everybody”. https://t.co/bSAUDTD3Mk

— Jason Page (@TheBackPage) August 15, 2026

He ran out of ripostes faster than Iran ran out of missiles, and well down the thread somebody posted, "They're bodying you in the comments and you deserve it."  Maybe the ratio came in a boot.

Any day we discover the Anointed losing their power to scold is a good day.

LET THE THING BE PRESSED.

Stephen "Vodka Pundit" Green is not yet urging "Faster, please."  Historian Scott Powell suggests the time to finish the mullahs is now.

Iran is already a militarily defeated nation. To allow this evil, suicidal regime to rebuild and reconstitute itself would be a tragic missed opportunity to liberate the vast majority of Iranian people who want to live as free people under some form of democracy. And fundamentally, it would be a dereliction of duty to the greater Middle East. Defeating this regime also puts the nail in the coffin for Hamas, Hezb’allah and the Houthis, all of which dramatically improves the prospects for peace in the region.

A lot can change in a few days.  Last week came the usual sort of posturing.  "Tehran has vowed not to reopen the critical shipping lane “until America corrects its behavior,” despite a looming agreement with Oman reported to have been close for days."  As well as the usual scavenger hunt in the arsenal.

Iran's regime fired two ballistic missiles toward shipping traffic in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday. The United Arab Emirates has had enough. Abu Dhabi responded by severing every trade, commercial, and financial transaction with the terror state, effective immediately.

Roughly $28 billion in annual commerce is now gone. The UAE was Iran's single largest source of imports, a lifeline the mullahs just torched with their own missiles.

UAE Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Afra Al Hameli made it official Wednesday. No end date. No conditions. Just a hard stop tied to Iran's escalating aggression.

“All trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran have been halted until further notice.”

It helps if you have ordnance that works if you seek concessions.  Dud missiles scratchbuilt with whatever the mullahs scraped together might even have changed minds at CNN.  "Iran has lost significant control of the Strait of Hormuz."

JESSICA CORBETT HAS NO STANDARDS AT ALL.

Her Monday column, "‘Deeply Alarming’: Ex-Congresswoman Fuels Fears of Trump Using Nuclear Weapons on Iran," neglects to mention in the headline that the ex-representative is none other than Marjorie Taylor "Madge" Green, who has long been a figure of fun among establishmentarian conservatives.  Common Dreams types get a bit of that fun deep in the column.

“Trump promised no more foreign wars, but may actually be the one who delivers a nuclear holocaust that would likely drag the entire world into major conflict, economic depression, and mass human suffering we’ve never seen in our lifetimes and maybe throughout history,” added Greene, who promoted various conspiracy theories while in office. “People need to speak out and boldly stop this insanity. America is not untouchable. If and when that happens, everyone, and I do mean everyone, will hold ALL of those in leadership right now fully responsible for the rest of human history. Do not use nuclear weapons and stop this war NOW.

Self-styled progressives having no standards at all?  Business as usual.

[S]elf-styled progressives are almost as eager to embrace people who offer concurrence with them than they are to excommunicate people who violate a purity test.  Years ago, there was Ariana Huffington, whose pronouncements as some sort of conservative were on occasion cringe-worthy, and who instantly became a hero to many of the people who eagerly slagged on her as an "idiot" once she switched allegiance and put her money into what became the Huffington Post.

The Militant Normals?  Crazy is as crazy does.  "Marjorie Taylor Greene is back at it, spinning another unhinged conspiracy yarn about the Trump administration secretly plotting nuclear Armageddon against Iran in some shadowy strategy meetings."  The things some people do for relevance.

The best argument for not expanding the size of the House of Representatives according to a cube-root rule or any other formula?  The behavior of the current members.

More districts might make election of a legislative body that more closely approximates the multicultural makeup of the population, even with more sensibly drawn simplest closed regions for the districts. On the other hand, the likes of Ilhan Omar or Marjorie Taylor Greene might become more common in more politically homogeneous districts. That's a case for limiting the scope of government, something that might happen organically as those True Believers gridlock themselves.

Put the right bunch of attention hogs on the same committee, and you're watching C-Span and Jerry Springer comes on.  It figures, doesn't it, that if the House Oversight Committee includes Lauren Boebert, Sandy Ocasio-Cortez, Jasmine Crockett, and Marjorie Taylor-Greene, sooner or later you'd get all the decorum of the Mean Girls' Table at Johnson Middle School."

TELL THAT DEANLET TO SOD OFF.

The house organ for all wokeness, all the time, republishes an August 2024 lament, "The Summer Break That Isn’t."  The author, one Susannah M. Givens, is not dealing with the proliferation of journals to keep current with or the gift of an uninterrupted morning of reading and writing time.  In her community college environment, the distractions keep coming all the same.

Don’t get me wrong. My summers are not miserable. They are the opposite, usually involving time with family and friends, traveling, reading and gardening. But in the midst of all of that, resentment festers within as I realize all over again the unstated expectation that I also work through summer for no pay.

What I really want someone to ask when I return for fall is “Did your summer leave you feeling rested and ready for the new academic year?” Maybe then I would reply more honestly. I envision myself boldly responding, “No. In fact, I feel underappreciated. My work is not valued. Summer made me realize how my time has been disrespected for many years. My tank is half-full because I have been volunteering my time to keep up with emails, policy changes, advising, meetings and grant work all summer. At this point, I hope I make it to winter break.”

This isn’t just my individual experience. My reality is widespread. I don’t claim to speak for all faculty members, but I know that from colleagues at other institutions, from the many books I’ve read, from the private online groups where I have lurked and from the many podcast episodes I have heard.

Her discontent is not about the inconsistent deliveries of the Journal of Trivial Results whether in print or on the server.  It's the deanlets.

The emails don’t stop. Students need advising. Faculty are encouraged to attend meetings in person and virtually. Administrators need replies to various requests. And if I don’t keep up, I could miss something—a policy change or new initiative—that might have a negative impact on my students or me. I worry about not attending a meeting where an announcement could be quietly dropped while faculty are not paying full attention. What might I be missing? This question looms over the summer.

And the deanlets have to justify their existence.  "Faculty cannot set boundaries if administrators keep overstepping them, and it is time for administrators to take the lead in changing the culture."

The faculty have to set boundaries, whether by letting the electronic mail fester or by asking if that midsummer meeting is necessary.  "Summer shut-down has been a fact of life for what, 100 years? And in that time nobody has figured out how to deal with most of the routine business by May 15?"

It's likely too much to ask of Inside Higher Ed contributors that they call attention to all the intrusive diversity and special education stuff that make teaching more of a pain than it has to be.

Set those boundaries.  Tell those deanlets to sod off.

NEITHER BEER NOR BRATWURST.

Imagine, dear reader, a human interest story from ninety years ago documenting the human side of the Volksbund.  Maybe it could incorporate the rhetoric of empathy and inclusion.

World War I traumatized Germans on both sides of the Atlantic – though in different ways. In Wisconsin and across the United States, war with Germany led to a wave of anti-German hysteria. Self-proclaimed “superpatriots” attacked ethnic Germans (whom they assumed disloyal unless proven otherwise) and denigrated their culture. Sauerkraut became “liberty cabbage” and hamburgers “liberty sandwiches.” Some Germans were forced to kiss the American flag to prove their loyalty, and a few were even physically accosted. In neighboring Illinois, a German immigrant was wrapped in a flag, forced to sing the “Star Spangled Banner,” then hanged. In such a hostile atmosphere, many German-Americans abandoned their ethnic ties. Milwaukee’s Deutscher Klub renamed itself the Wisconsin Club, and hundreds of ethnic Germans Americanized their names. The German Athens had become a shadow of its former self, and those who remained a part of the German cultural scene were left battered, bruised, and defensive.

A human interest story describing a quiet evening dealing a few hands of Schafkopf and enjoying some real beer, or perhaps a livelier story involving group singing or dancing to oom-pah music might put a human face on people who are, after all, neighbors, possibly co-workers, sometimes voters.

No, strike that.  Let's deploy the full culture-studies methodology in the fall of 1938 to "contextualize" North Americans who aren't troubled by the looting of businesses and the sacking of temples; who might perceive their overseas cousins as beset by internal disorder and external punishment.

THAT SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT.

"Karoline Leavitt Prepared For Motherhood After Spending Last Two Years Answering Millions Of Stupid Questions."

It's Babylon Bee stuff, and yet, it's spot on.  "At publishing time, Leavitt experienced déjà vu after listening both of her kids screaming whilst throwing simultaneous tantrums."

TRAINWRECK!

Sometimes, those online train-watching cameras catch an unusual occurrence.

I'm taking the rest of the day off.

LET THAT HARD RAIN FALL.

In the early years of Cold Spring Shops, I devoted a lot of attention to the ways in which universities were failing at their mission.  Twelve years into retirement, I don't have to bother as much with such things, although perhaps conditions have gotten sufficiently bad that people on the inside, or with establishmentarian platforms, can no longer ignore them.

TIME TO THINK OF A SUBWAY SERIES?

Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park, or whatever the White Sox got thirty pieces of silver for its current name, are both on the HoDar, which transits one of two short stretches of subway in Chicago.

But Chicago has gone from Mission Territory to birthplace of a Pope in under two centuries.

A century ago, George Cardinal Mundelein made the case for Chicago as home to the XXVIII International Eucharistic Congress, complete with a consecration of Soldier Field long before the Packers punched a ticket to the Super Bowl there.

The Archdiocese of Chicago scheduled a special Papal Installation Mass on the White Sox infield in 2025.

Now, the White Sox are going from worst to first, and Chicagoan Rick Moran is being cheeky.  "Chicago Native Pope Leo Is Being (Sort of) Credited With the Sudden Resurgence of the White Sox."

Then, the U.S. pope, a Chicago native and White Sox fan, arrived. White Sox fans finally had something to cheer about. While 2025 was a lost season, Leo-mania began to grow, and with it, the fortunes of the hapless White Sox began to improve.

After the 2026 season started 6-13, fans and the media believed another losing season was on the way. Then, a miracle. Or so it seemed. The second-youngest team in baseball began to knock the cover off the ball. Leading the way in the home run department was a Japanese import, Munetaka Murakami.

God Helps Thofe who Help Themfelves.

White Sox management have been attempting, subject to the constraints of protocol, to obtain some sort of papal blessing.

The White Sox have adopted Pope Leo as a kind of mascot. They wanted to have a bobblehead night with the pope dressed in his white cassock holding a White Sox bat. The Vatican politely declined. But the marketing geniuses at Rate Field were only getting warmed up.

“We’ve had sitting mayors of Chicago, we’ve had governors of Illinois that have been avid White Sox fans, we had a president of the United States in Barack Obama,” said Brooks Boyer, an observant Catholic who is the team’s chief marketing officer. “I didn’t expect anything bigger than the mayor when I started this job, but we’ve kind of climbed the ladder. What’s next? I mean, I feel like we’re one step away from God.”

Well, no, the hot line to God is in Green Bay, only a quarter to use the red 'phone on the General Manager's desk.

But White Sox management are not proposing the sort of deal that Cardinal Mundelein offered to his colleague Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, who became Pius XII: during the War he offered the campus of St. Mary of the Lake as a refuge to the Vatican.  The Holy See, with plenty of experience doing business in Rome despite assorted Vandals, Visigoths, Huns, and heretics, stayed home.

DESPERATELY SEEKING A UNICORN.

In "Taxes Need a Rebrand," Michael Jarvis makes an argument straight out of the early days of the Clinton presidency, when Hillary was actually wearing the pants.  "Too often, tax is framed as a burden instead of a form of shared investment and discussed as a technical obligation rather than the foundation that allows modern societies to function."  Just reframe 'em as "contributions."  (Try not to think of George Lakoff.)

Too often, tax is framed as a burden instead of a form of shared investment. It is discussed as a technical obligation rather than the foundation that allows modern societies to function. Schools, healthcare systems, transportation networks, courts, emergency services, climate resilience measures, and public safety systems do not emerge on their own. They depend on sustained and predictable collective investment, and taxation remains the primary way societies make that investment possible.

You get your Common Dreams commentator card revoked if you even admit of the possibility that many of the items in that passage emerged through the discovery of trade-tested betterments.

IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE WEATHER, WAIT.

The Old Farmer's Almanac forecast is out, and the Great Lakes summary might be "expect anything."  "The almanac forecast predicts the northern Plains and Upper Midwest could be drier at times, 'especially when the southern storm track becomes dominant.' Still, intense cold, wind and snow are possible, with clippers, sudden cold snaps and snowy periods likely."  That should clarify things.

SIMPLICE! SIMPLICE! TOJOURS LE SIMPLICE!

For years, I've groused about overdesigned rotaries.  "The point of rotaries is to simplify traffic flow, and it defeats their purpose to provide multiple lanes."  My gripe is impressionistic, based on my frustration with Wisconsin's penchant for slip lanes and overhead signage.  "Too much nuance in the construction of a rotary defeats its purpose."  Consider, dear reader, when among all the government follies to mock on April Fools Day, the Wisconsin rotary gets dinged.  "Overdesigned rotaries make motorists mad, so much so that Right Wisconsin posted an April Fool capturing the spirit in Wisconsin, a state notorious for overdoing the channeling and signage of the rotaries."

The good news is that Charles "Strong Towns" Marohn has the traffic engineering expertise to ask the Credentialed Experts to reconsider.  "A dangerous Minnesota roundabout shows what happens when engineers preserve future traffic capacity at the expense of safety today."  For "dangerous," read "overdesigned."  "This story ends with drivers being blamed for failing to navigate a design that engineers have spent more than a decade trying (and failing) to make understandable, and engineers continuing to deprioritize safety, in spite of recent policy directing them to make it their first priority."

THE OBSCURE HISTORY OF THE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL SIDESHOW.

Indiana Fever reserve Sophie Cunningham has a history of standing up for herself and her teammates.  That's generally something for the court, but somehow the culture wars crop up.

Now, she's teasing a book.  It's probably not about recognizing junk defenses and providing subtle cues to get a teammate a better shot.

We, unfortunately, have precious few details at this point about what might be included in her "tell-all," but two likely topics are treatment of certain athletes by the WNBA and the delusional backlash at her wanting to protect girl athletes.

All those blue-haired weirdos who are showing up at games trying silence Sophie may want to be careful what they wish for, because if Cunningham really decides to open Pandora’s box, they might not like what comes spilling out.

It's been there all along, only the national media generally doesn't notice. Visualize a bench-clearing, fan-involved brawl at DePaul's old Alumni Hall.

ELEGANT REFUGES.

Years ago, the builders of vaudeville theaters and the earliest movie theaters offered more than a place to forget about life for a while.  The buildings would have some sort of exotic theming, the ceiling might have twinkling stars and the outline of a courtyard extending the balcony.  Some of the earliest air conditioning installations were in such theaters.  The arena might give the impression of an Arabian Night, without the heat and humidity.

A few such refuges remain, and Architectural Digest recently identified "The 9 Most Beautiful Historical Movie Theaters in the US."  Somebody could write a book.

“Theaters help bring people together to learn and laugh and just be in community,” says Benita VanWinkle, a photographer and associate professor of visual arts at High Point University in High Point, North Carolina. Theaters are also treasure troves of architectural brilliance, as evidenced in VanWinkle’s soon-to-be-released book America’s Hometown Movie Theaters: Please Remain Standing (Bauer & Dean Publishers, September 2026). The book features 395 theaters, all built before 1965, that VanWinkle has photographed while traveling the country for more than 40 years. In the process, VanWinkle also captured tales of resilience as communities have come together over the decades to preserve historical theaters. Her hope is that they remain, not just for design lovers, but as essential community gathering places. “Theaters have always been these places where we get to see a different version of ourselves and have a place together that doesn’t have judgment,” she says. “Most theaters have places to have discussions, share conversations, be educated, and be entertained.”

It's a challenge to narrow that list to a top nine.  Among the honorees are DeKalb's Egyptian Theatre, one of the few remaining Egyptian-inspired theaters (so inspired by the discovery of King Tut's tomb) in the United States.  The preservation group that own and operate the Egyptian recently installed air conditioning and a visitor center of sorts.  The Al Ringling Theater in Baraboo, Wisconsin, built by the eponymous circus magnate, also merited mention.  Children of all ages and their parents have a variety of offerings to choose among.

What many of the nine theaters have in common is their location in smaller cities, perhaps where the forces of creative destruction did not urge partitioning into multiplexes or replacement by something else.

I might have to look through the book, see if the surviving Milwaukee courtyard-themed theaters merited a photo.

JUST FINISH THINGS.

Sometimes, the right sort of air power can be persuasive.

That might not convince one Roland Oliphant, who in London's Telegraph offers "proof Iran won the war."

THANKS YET ANOTHER MILLION.

Two weeks ago the Google counter ticked past thirteen million, and overnight came the fourteenth million page view, with close onto a quarter of a million today.

I hope the data centers are mining nuggets, and that the live readers among that number are finding content that is informative or provocative or fun.

RESTORING THE CLASSIC WOODEN INTERURBAN.

After abandonment, the wooden cars of the Chicago Aurora and Elgin could be obtained cheaply, and Kuhlman car 315 made its way to the Rockhill Trolley Museum, which operates on a stretch of East Broad Top Railroad track, and after years of deliberation, that museum has been restoring that car to its as-built appearance.

Unattributed photo retrieved from Railfan and Railroad.

We recently noted Jewett-built car 316, similarly backdated, with a different paint scheme, at our nearby Fox River Trolley Museum.

Another Jewett car, 320 at the Old Threshers grounds in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, has also had its arch windows restored.

The Old Threshers hold their annual gathering Labor Day weekend, and the other preservation railways will be operating as summer winds down.

After Labor Day, the vintage cars might be back in the car barns for winter work.  Enjoy the remaining days of the preservation railway season.

LET THE KIDS PLAY.

Last week, Red State's Terri Christoph urged, "Leave Sophie Alone: Conservatives Don't Need to Co-Opt Cunningham."  Let her cook, and don't let's color her appeal by tying it to the "right's influencer ecosystem."  So too, suggests Dan Wolken, with her team-mate Caitlin Clark.  "Given a clear lane to weigh in and plant her flag on one side of the issue or the other, Clark did what she always does on an inflammatory topic: Hit the eject button as fast as she can."

As we noted in a previous post using the same headline, "In women's sports, though, you can claim not to be interested in the culture wars, but the culture wars are interested in you."  Red State's Jerry Wilson, for instance, would rather keep pushing.  "The WNBA Delivers a Glorious Opportunity to Preach the Conservative Evangel."

In part, he continues, because the league's coaches keep stepping in it.  That prompted Clay Travis, who, fittingly for a radio talker given the Rush Limbaugh franchise, demonstrated absurdity by being absurd.

That's boosted the morale of Militant Normals since he dropped his plan to staff a "WNBA" roster with crossers as well as his challenge to set up a charity match between the Las Vegas Aces and a high school boy's championship team, proceeds to go to Tunnel to Towers.

It might be, though, that Miss Cunningham wouldn't take much pushing to take a side.

It’s not clear when exactly Cunningham decided to make her political views her personality, though she’d been nicknamed MAGA Barbie as early as her college days at the University of Missouri, likely because she followed and interacted with Candace Owens and other conservative names on social media. Unfortunately for everyone, it seems her latest nightmare collab is with Riley Gaines, the biggest anti-trans gadfly for MAGA sports.

Yes, Riley Gaines is on board with the Militant Normals, and former sideline reporter Michelle Tafoya is running for United States Senate from Minnesota, and it might be that former Levi's executive and onetime gymnast Jennifer Sey will be pushed into that ambit.  It's more likely, though, that each of those women stands where she does because each was mugged by reality while the identity politics mob suggested there was nothing to see.

CONSPICUOUSNESS TRUMPS COMPETENCE.

In The Daily Economy, Surse Pierpoint asks, "If the economic argument was already lost by 1917, and the Soviet revolution supplied prestige rather than proof, what explains the durability of Marxist categories in Western universities, long after the calculation debate was settled and the planned economies it inspired had produced the most devastating body counts of the twentieth century?"

I've reduced his argument to a clickbaity headline.  Take a long march through the institutions, dear reader, and it might make sense.

What is not in dispute is the strategy itself and its adoption across the postwar academic left: if the economic argument could not be won, the institutions that credential, publish, and platform could be occupied instead.

This is where a discipline should ask an empirical question rather than an ideological one. Occupying an institution is not the same as running it well, and a strategy built around capturing credentialing bodies produces a specific, predictable personnel problem. Peter Turchin’s structural-demographic theory, developed across Ages of Discord and subsequent work, describes what happens when a society produces far more credentialed aspirants to elite status than there are elite positions to hold them: law graduates, doctorate holders, activist-class professionals, all competing for a fixed and often shrinking number of visible slots.

I'm not sure "better to be outrageous and wrong than extraordinarily good" works as a get-hired strategy, but there it is.  "Extremity is a cheap, reliable signal in a market where everyone already has the degree."

The author's focus is on the popularity of potted Marxism in domestic politics these days.  A variant of it might be at work in academic hiring, although perhaps it helps to be conspicuously controversial and to belong to one or another of the personnel office's set of preferred hires.

THE DEMOCRATIC SPLITTISTS OF AMERICA.

It is the nature of Puritan congregations and socialist movements to read heretics out of the congregation, and surely the heirs to Leon Trotsky can do a better job on the Democratic Socialists of America than I ever could.  "It has to be galling to a century of Leon Trotsky wannabes that their granny glasses, goatees, and jargon gets them nothing by way of elective office, while adherents of the Democratic Socialists of America hold a few prominent elective offices."

SPONSORED RESEARCH IS RISK-AVERSE AND UNIMAGINATIVE.

An earlier post with that title opened,

I've come close to, but never explicitly said, that the use of the national institutes and national endowments to support academic research is censorship per se.  The closest I have come is to suggest that creativity that might otherwise be unbridled and more enthusiastic gets diverted into chasing whatever it is the institutes, endowments, and charitable foundations are funding.  "Whether the work so funded is better than the work professors develop on their own initiative remains to be seen."  It might be worse than that.  "Even if it's not that bad, the sponsored research imperative diverts thoughtful people from playing with whatever ideas appeal to them (yes, many of them might turn out to be bad or trivial, but that's how emergence works) in order to follow what appears to be a Hot Topic (the tragedy being that by the time those grants and working papers hit the conference and journal circuits, the discipline's stars are on to other things) or to make some money."

Put bluntly, it's money wasted.

The James G. Martin Center's Edward Archer characterizes grantsmanship as fostering "The Intellectual and Moral Decline in Academic Research."  In particular, "My experiences at four research universities and as a National Institutes of Health (NIH) research fellow taught me that the relentless pursuit of taxpayer funding has eliminated curiosity, basic competence, and scientific integrity in many fields."

That second post landed in January, 2020, shortly before the relentless pursuit of taxpayer funding involved furrin cleavages.

Alas, for all Our President's efforts at swamp-draining, or swapping out one set of rent-seekers for another, it will still be business as usual, argues J. Scott Turner, in academic science.  "For 75 years, Washington has preached that science needs more government. The White House still believes it."

MORE THAN ONE FORM OF STRATEGIC PATIENCE.

Another weekend, another pattern-bombing of Iran stopped to give negotiators more time, another manifestation of Iranian duplicity.

Right on time... https://t.co/61Y8ENl5lF

— Ken Gardner (@KenGardner11) August 2, 2026

Is it going to be Game On tonight?

Or is Reason's Matthew Petti correct, it's another empty threat?  "We’re locked in a cycle: The president threatens to resume the war, he claims Iran backed down, and then he gets frustrated with Iran again."

HIGH MODERN AUTHORITARIANISM IN THE DOCK.

Yes, in the argot of academic political science, when democratically elected representatives delegate responsibility to government employees, and those employees go astray, that's something gone wrong in the way the democratic republic implements policy, not an authoritarian dictatorship at work.

That delegation might be a necessary evil in a complex world.  Something happens that elected officials conclude requires their oversight, and they'd rather identify the outlines of the challenge and delegate the messy work to an independent regulatory commission; or expand the set of inferior officers as they think proper, then delegate by enacting legislation with "The Secretary shall issue regulations" language; or in a pinch, find some Highly Qualified Functionary and with no irony at all refer to that person as "czar."

That sounds pretty authoritarian, dear reader, particularly when such a functionary issues ukases on insufficient information.  "The problem is that these process-worshippers are comparing an ideal technocratic vision, a Michael Munger unicorn, if you will, with a messy reality that the best epidemiologists are still attempting to quantify and contain."

It looks even more authoritarian when such a functionary issues all manner of ukases, a faction of the elected government brooks no criticism of that functionary, other government employees claim that criticism of the ukases not to mention evidence of the ukases going wrong are misinformation or disinformation or downright dangerous, and so-called journalists choosing not to interview people who offer differing perspectives, and the leading social media companies enforcing The Narrative.  Maybe influential politicians and journalists pile on by referring to skeptics as "science deniers," weaponizing a term that originated to shame people who questioned the existence of Nazi Germany's ethnic cleansing.

Under such circumstances, aren't dissident Militant Normals understandably going to bridle at an unelected bureaucrat behaving in an authoritarian way?

So let it be with Don Antonio.

LET'S PLACE YET ANOTHER PIN.

We will be following some predictions about the upcoming hurricane season.  "Complex adaptive systems, doing what they do. 'There is still enough uncertainty that seeing a weaker outcome would not be a surprise.'"  That same Pacific El Niño that figures in prognostications about North Atlantic hurricanes might affect the White Christmas at Cold Spring Shops headquarters.  "Super El Niño Map Shows States Bracing for 'Significant Snow' This Winter."

We'll see what happens.

Much of the Northeast saw one of the coldest and snowiest winters in more than a decade this past winter while in parts of Texas and the Plains, residents saw record warmth and severe drought.

What would a Super El Niño mean for the United States this time around? According to Columbia University, the Super El Niño leads to milder winters in the northern United States and wetter conditions in the southern parts of the country.

"In December 1997, a very strong El Niño brought wetter-than-normal conditions across most of the southern U.S., while the northern states experienced warmer-than-average temperatures, making it the second warmest and seventh wettest winter since 1895," it revealed.

A map from Newsweek, however, showed that four states are more likely to see "significant snow" this winter. California (in the Sierra Mountain range), New Hampshire, New York and Vermont are all expected to see heavy rain and significant snow, according to the latest predictions.

Meanwhile, Southern states along the Gulf and Atlantic Ocean will see periods of heavy rain and cool fronts.

That's going the long way 'round to say "Complex adaptive systems tend to do what they darn well please." We'll have to wait another month or so for the Old Farmer's Almanac to weigh in.

Can it get much weirder than last "winter?"  "Snow cover through most of Advent, cold with little snow cover through January and into February, now the sort of snow with almost enough moisture to congeal in the snow-thrower, and if it's a little deeper, can bring on cardiac events."

The good Lord willin' and the crick don't rise, we'll be issuing report cards once Thanksgiving arrives.

NO. NEXT QUESTION?

Power Line's John Hinderaker asks, "Can Democrats possibly be that stupid?"  The stupidity in question is a proposed New York mandate that grocery stores knock ten percent off the bill of any shopper who uses the self-service checkout.

Unintended Consequences have never been well understood by nanny state politicians.

If not hoping to legislate away high grocery prices, perhaps Donks use edginess might be a way of attracting attention.  "Satanist weddings, beheading chickens, fake weddings, passing bills that protect child sex predators, hanging out with terrorists, hiring pedophiles—what is going on with the Democratic Party?"

Let the hard rain fall.  Mr Hinderaker suggests, "No one should ever vote for a Democrat."

All they have to do is not be sick freaks, and that's a request too far.

MISSED OPPORTUNITIES.

One of the challenges of playing games with algorithms is accurately communicating your capabilities.  A frequent complaint in my irregular Saturday bridge column is the algorithm getting high on its own supply, which can put somebody in an untenable position.

Then there's this position from a few months ago.

I've learned to take the hints the algorithm offers for bid choices seriously, and Two No Trump described more accurately my holdings than Three Diamonds, as did Three No Trump rather than venturing Four Hearts.  Garbage in could lead to garbage out ...

West led the ♠ Five.  No time to get cute here, the defenders cannot get an opportunity to lead Clubs or Spades: Six, Ten, Jack.  Cash the ♦ Ace, then the ♠ Ace.  Now there's a way to run 'em all, which is why human players making bidding plans with partners matters.  Three more Diamond honors clear the defenders of those cards, and a few little Clubs come off the board.

AMTRAK, THIS IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

In the wintertime, in the summertime, ain't we got fun?

Travelers who count on Amtrak long-distance trains to reach far-flung destinations continue to be disappointed by reliability issues this summer, often because of factors not under the passenger operator’s control.

Of late, the issues have been particularly pronounced for the Empire Builder and California Zephyr.

Seven, four hours delay on 24 July account failures of assigned and replacement locomotives; storms on 27 July lead to three hours of delay before reaching Glenview;  unexpected delays stretching to over two hours reaching Brookfield on 28 July.

EMERGENCE, TEMPERED BY BOURGEOIS NORMS.

Somehow, the people kept the Republic, despite the Framers' misgivings.  "Many Founders Died in Despair About the American Experiment."

The image of the dog that catches the truck and wonders what to do next comes to mind.

People rightly marvel at the miracle that Jefferson and his longtime rival-turned-friend John Adams both perished on July 4, 1826. Less remembered is that the two otherwise ideologically and dispositionally opposed torchbearers for the flame of '76 had each soured on the fruits of their precious Revolution.

"Oh my country," Adams wrote in 1806 to Benjamin Rush. "How I mourn over thy follies and Vices, thine ignorance and imbecility, Thy contempt of Wisdom and Virtue and overweening Admiration of fools and Knaves!"

Founder disgruntlement was the rule, not the exception (and the exception to that rule was James Madison). "Those of them who lived on into the early decades of the nineteenth century expressed anxiety over what they had wrought," wrote the historian Gordon Wood in The Radicalism of the American Revolution. "Although they tried to put as good a face as they could on what had happened, they were bewildered, uneasy, and in many cases deeply disillusioned."

Somehow James Madison could remain optimistic despite the British sacking the Federal Capital during his presidency.