If there is such thing as a “potted history,” maybe we can talk about a “potted present,” also.

Here are excerpts from two very recent, highly visible essays that use a potted present.

The first about the state of confessionalism & the second is about the state of tourism.

1. Sunday televangelism by this description is obsolete. The present is live & live-streamed non-liturgical events feat Christian pop music in megachurch franchises— see Hillsong, James River, Lakewood etc. Pat Robertson just died. Falwell long dead. Falwell Jr finished.

.@thedailybeast’s analysis of the shambles cross examination of @ejeancarroll by Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina has been fantastic.

Especially shrewd is Mitchell Epner’s point that Tacopina tried to use bullying motions as “brush back” pitches to get the judge to give him leeway. But it must also be exceedingly rare to have a rape victim w/the verbal & mental acuity of E. Jean — a seasoned journalist, author, SNL writer. Tacopina is failing — but not just because he is unprepared. It’s because he’s outclassed. E. Jean is just much smarter than he is.

Starting to think that parents who don’t want their kids to suffer the indignity of learning, with all the shame that sets in when students realize they don’t understand the Krebs Cycle or polynomials of civil rights, should be given waivers right & left to keep their kids out. George Washington: "I shall expect you will confine yourself to your studies; and diligently attend to them; endeavouring to make yourself master of whatever is recommended to, or required of you.”

The great Gordon Moore has died at 94. nytimes.com/2023/03/24/tec… Mark Liu, the chairman of TSMC, told me we should think of Moore’s Law as “shared optimism.” “

Moore’s Law is hope itself.

wired.com/story/i-saw-th…

I got an interesting question about the #TSMC fabs, which are better-than-Class 100 cleanrooms (fewer than 100 particles of <.5 microns per cubic foot), and have the cleanest air I’ve ever breathed. The question from @marcaross: What does it taste like? I’m curious what engineers who actually WORK in best-in-class cleanrooms say, but here’s my answer:

Which reasoning for wearing black do you prefer? BONUS: identify sources for all.
1. I'm in mourning for my life.
2. I wear black on the outside
'Cause black is how I feel on the inside.
3. I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe. No one is getting these? Has Musk unlettered us all?!

Boris Johnson: “There are some Republicans who take a very peculiar view of what is going on. They somehow have come to identify, through a really weird piece of logic, Putin with conservatism...and Ukraine as being woke. I mean, Give me a break." This was inevitable. Just as "politically correct," which once referred to cultural affections came to mean "anti-torture" at Gitmo, so "woke" now means "pro-democracy."

Saw "Nutting" trending and assume it's this:

Nutting
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

—It seems a day
(I speak of one from many singled out)
One of those heavenly days that cannot die;
When, in the eagerness of boyish hope,
I left our cottage-threshold, sallying forth
With a huge wallet o'er my shoulders slung,
A nutting-crook in hand; and turned my steps
Tow'rd some far-distant wood, a Figure quaint,
Tricked out in proud disguise of cast-off weeds
Which for that service had been husbanded,
By exhortation of my frugal Dame—

Just saw "The Insider" for the first time in 23 years. Staggering to think that if you had a blockbuster world-changing interview in 1995 the only way to get it to the world was to work through immovable corporate forces like CBS, Westinghouse, Brown & Williamson, and all of their lawyers.

ICYMI, here's what's new in the newsletter:

1. The history of Sesame Street, and the soul's inner city. RIP Bob McGrath.

virginiaheffernan.substack.com/p/bob-mcgrath-… 2. Walkout at the New York Times, and the problem of being part of an "elite" institution.

Put another way: If you marry for eliteness, you earn every penny.

virginiaheffernan.substack.com/p/nyt-walkout-…

There's a great distinction in the work of (CW for haters of philosophers) Bruno Latour. A better notion than "bias" is "interest." Chapelle's snickering cruelty is now clear. But the mystery really is why Chapelle is interested in—so anxious about & fixated on—trans people. He doesn't make jokes about Etruscans, or his mother, or customer service reps. The question is why this specific profusion of interest.

Great news for Democrats:

Murder rates down
Dems tough on guns
10 million new jobs
And now…serenity at the pump

bloomberg.com/news/articles/… And here are your numbers. Murders have fallen 4% in major cities so far in 2022. So much for a homicide spike. Republicans are weak on guns.

ahdatalytics.com/dashboards/ytd…

@pescami, @jkirchick & I can’t agree on a ham sandwich, but we’ve got 1 thing in common: We host NOT EVEN MAD, a new podcast where we argue abt the top political stories & remain tightly cordial afterward. I mean friends. 1st ep out Wed! #NotEvenMad mikepesca.com/notevenmad The preview is wicked

If you know a white woman who is teetering on that edge again, remind her:

1. Crime is a GOP problem. It's guns. Murder rates are 40% higher in states won by Trump.
2. Inflation is global.
3. You gotta have more IRS resources to catch rich tax cheats. Helps the middle class. Some numbers if you want them:

americanprogress.org/article/fact-s…

Rebuilding from the studs a conservative party w/even a prayer of winning in a democracy will take figures like Cheney & Sasse a decade or even two.

Till then, Dems will remain pitted against a Big Lie militia that can’t win fairly but has the advantage of desperation. I strongly support the regrouping by traditional Republicans. They owe it to the country to really probe and test whether they have something of value to offer voters.

ANY time someone refers with terror of urban crime, hand them this. Your chances of being attacked in Missouri are much higher than your chances of being attacked in New York. Higher in TX than in California. And on and on. Suitable for lamination. This is just absurd. Why does anyone spend time on defense when JD Vance or whoever bashed cities? His family would be safer back in SF than they are in Ohio.

slate.com/business/2022/…

There are no longer any qualities to Republicans except wow do they hate Democrats Do I have it right that the GOP policy platform is currently (1) Fuck Joe Biden and (2) I don’t like wokes ?

@POTUS and @NewYorkStateAG have the same elegant cadence of profound disappointment and modulated revulsion when they talk about Putin and Trump. More in sorrow than in anger, but laserlike. I expect this reasonable style to surge as pushback on the bellowing of the demagogue

Terrible news, coming just 2 days after a far-gone QAnon Trump devotee in Michigan seems to have murdered his wife & daughter.

This is so-called “black-pilling.” Since the coup failed on 1/6, these men have been indoctrinated to have no hope at all.

pennlive.com/news/2022/09/p… A way to think of it is:

Blue pill: Prozac, adjusting to reality
Red pill: meth, “seeing through” reality
Black pill: fentanyl / cyanide, giving up

virginiaheffernan.substack.com/p/the-black-pi…

Terrible news: American Way folded! 
At least it went out on a high note of inflight prose: "The magazine will retire & it will be bittersweet. However, thanks to free inflight entertainment, customers will have plenty of entertaining options to tap into during their journeys." Btw this is 6/2021. I just hadn't noticed. My grieving was delayed.

news.aa.com/news/news-deta…

The real doomscrolling—the kind that leads to despair—is not the grazing of interesting news.

It’s the chronic exposure to pushy articles that suggest that you’re doing life, Covid, parenting, health, exercise, meditation, empathy, productivity, you name it, wrong. These articles are styled as offering tune-ups or insights presumably to leaven the experience of “news.” But cs it be news abt Ukraine, cheating in chess, archeological discoveries, broaden the mind, where these “health” headlines contract us in fear & a sense of inadequacy?