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America It Will Be Bad, By Peggy Noonan

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“You can’t see all the world’s weapons and all its madness and not know that eventually we will face a terrible day or days when everything will depend on our ability to hold together and hold on. Maybe it will involve nuclear weapons, maybe an extended, rolling attack on the grid, maybe bioterrorism. But it will be bad; there will be deep stress and violence. The great question in those days, under that acute pressure, will be:   Will we hold together? Will we suffer through and emerge, together, on the other side? Which is another way of saying:   Will we continue as a nation, a people?

“My belief is that whatever helps us hold together now, whatever brings us together and binds us close, is good, and must be encouraged with whatever it takes.

“If these are your predicates — America in cultural catastrophe, and hard history ahead — you spend your energies on a battle not to make government significantly smaller, but to make it significantly more helpful.”

— PEGGY NOONAN, speechwriter and special advisor to President Ronald Reagan

WALL STREET JOURNAL, May 4-5, 2019, p. A13

America’s Continuing Cultural Catastrophe, By Peggy Noonan

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“The old conservatism of smaller government, tax cuts and reduced spending . . .

“That old conservatism was deeply pertinent to its era and philosophically right, but it is not fully in line with the crises of our time or its reigning facts . . .

“The federal government will not become smaller or less expensive in our lifetimes . . .

“But beyond that fact is something bigger. America needs help right now and Americans know it. It has been enduring for many years a continuing cultural catastrophe — illegitimacy, the decline of faith, low family formation, child abuse and neglect, drugs, inadequate public education, etc. All this exists alongside an entertainment culture on which the poor and neglected are dependent, and which is devoted to violence, sex and nihilism . . .

“America to my mind is what Pope Francis said the church was: a field hospital after battle. We are a beautiful and great nation but a needy, torn-up one in need of repair.”

— PEGGY NOONAN, Speechwriter and special assistant to President Ronald Reagan

From the WALL STREET JOURNAL, May 4-5, 2019, p. A13

End Of The Civil War

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“Being on the wrong side of history carries consequences. V lives that truth every day. If you’ve done terrible things, lived a terrible way, profited from pain in the face of history’s power to judge, then guilt and loss accrue. Redemption becomes an abstract idea receding before you. Even if your sin — like dirt farmers in Sherman’s path — had been simply to live in the wrong place, you suffered. Didn’t matter whether you  owned slaves or which way you voted or how good your intentions had been. Or how bad. You might suffer as much as the family of a great plantation, which was maybe not completely just. But if you were the family with the great plantation, you had it coming. Those were times that required choosing a side — and then, sooner or later, history asks, which side were you on?”

— Charles Frazier, writing in “VARINA”

End Of The Civil War

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“A part of her believed this one moment — Carolina woods, a wagonload of children, lights of heaven blazing on a clear spring night — was sufficient. An eternity in itself. A perfect instant if you erased guilt of the past and dread of the future.”

— Charles Frazier writing in “VARINA”

Bernie Sanders Gaining In Iowa

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“I have been in Iowa for nine months now, and everywhere I go I see signs that Bernie is going to win. I see Bernie buttons on cashiers in checkout lines, and anytime I have Bernie gear on people compliment it.

When I cover various political events, a lot of the crowd is usually undecided or checking out the candidate. Not at Bernie events, where the crowds are excited and committed to the Bern.”

Reported by a clearly biased observer in Iowa. His view tends to support news reported in the MSM. From a post by Scott Galindez. Read his full post here.

Election Decision Time Approaches

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Read “Do We Like Ike?” (Leggett) by David Lublin over at TheSeventhState. Time is running out for voters to make TWO most important  decisions by June 24, primary election day.

For Democrats, those decisions are:

For Governor: Anthony Brown, Heather Mizeur, or Doug Gansler.

For Montgomery County Executive: incumbent Ike Leggett, Phil Andrews, or Doug Duncan.

Which is not to diminish the many decisions also facing voters regarding County Council members, senators and delegates in the General Assembly, School Board, and even Democratic Central Committee. — John

Your comments on any of the Montgomery County election contests are welcome below. (Comments will be moderated.)

Looking For Answers

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“It’s easy to find the answer when you look at one side of an issue. When you look at both sides of an issue, that’s when you lose the answer. When you look at all sides of an issue, four or five sides, you realize it might be impossible to find the answer. That’s when you go to church.”

— Quote, more or less verbatim, from my sister, Anna, and I think she might be right

Selfie Culture vs. Reality

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“Here’s the irony: Selfie culture doesn’t enhance the self but degrades it. When we turn the lens of life on ourselves, we create the illusion that we should focus only on what’s best for us.”

— That quote from Rev. Galen Guengerich, All Souls Unitarian Church, NYC. And this:

“The image of a self-made, self-reliant and self-centered individual is a lie, and a pernicious one at that. We are utterly dependent upon the people and the world around us.”

— Also Rev. Guengerich. Both quotes from an essay in todays Washington Post, page B2.

Just something to think about.  — John

Intriguing Book Blurb Award

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“Easy Rawlins still escapes, like the protagonists of Chandler, Hammett, Jim Thompson, or Chester Himes . . . With Easy Rawlins’ desperate and unflinching vision, Walter Mosley has revitalized two genres, the hard-boiled novel and the American behaviorist novel.”

That’s the back cover blurb touting Walter Mosley’s latest mystery novel, “Little Green.” It wins the first (and maybe last) “Intriguing Book Blurb Award”  from your full-service blog, Work In Progress.

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