News, Notes, and Notions For 25Feb24
How Bob Marley Became My Dad's Jam, Presidents Past & Present, A Very Bad Poet, Starship Troopers, Taylor Lorenz, Energy Policy & more
As a kid, having a father who never had less than two jobs and was a whirlwind of activity meant we were always going somewhere nearly all the time. Car rides were a constant of growing up in West Virginia, and are a constant in my memories. Music and talking to my father are interchangeable in those thoughts. I’ve been rather conscious as a parent that so much of my musical taste comes from riding around with my father when driving my own children around. Now that my kids are mostly grown or close to it, their musical personalities being so diverse is something I’m rather proud of.
For his part, dad would balance out the news and talk radio with his ever-present cassette of Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger and an endless love of the great vocal groups and 70s R&B. Temptations, Spinners, Platters, and the like were staples of oldies radio and my fathers changeup from gospel and bluegrass traditions. The changes in country music in the 80s and 90s didn’t interest him at all, while early rock n’roll was ever present instead.
For this day, I was driving, as the role reversal of me now caring for him as he recovers from a New Year's Day stroke. Tapes have long since given way to cell phones and satellite radio, and for whatever reason we listened to the Bob Marley channel. That might seem a bit odd but my father loves that music. Years of mission work and dozens of visits to Jamaica endeared those folks and their culture to him. As we rode he reminisced about his trips there, how the distinctive rhythms of reggae music always seemed to be in the background.
The part of Jamaica he spent time in wasn’t the resort areas or cities, but the mountainous southern part where he worked closely with a church where the few that were lucky enough to have a job usually had to travel to those shiney places built for outsiders before returning home to the problems and poverty of where they lived. As we weaved through the valleys and hills of West Virginia, in places where the satellite radio would cut out for lack of reception, he very honestly looked out the window and remarked “It's way more like here than I ever would have imagined and quickly felt like home with them,” meaning the Jamaican people. He talked at length of their unfair treatment, and how so many similarities with the folks in Bethel Town quickly outweighed any differences.
The pastor of that church in Jamaica has been a frequent caller during my father’s recovery, and talking to him on the phone the love and admiration they have for dad was clearly the same he has for them. Dad lamented he probably won’t get to go again, but I encouraged him that you never know. We agreed to watch the new movie about Bob Marley together, which my father said he was looking forward to.
This is the beauty of life, and of not knowing how things will work out. In the abstract to an unknowing party, the idea that listening to The Wailers while winding through some of the poorer parts of the wild and wonderful would seem strange. To those that know, it's the most comforting thing in the world, natural as can be. Whether on a mountain in Jamaica at a small church where folks talk funny, or a mountain church in West Virginia where folks also talk funny, don't worry. 'Cause every little thing’s gonna be alright…as long as the reception holds up.
Worth Reading:
Earlier this week I wrote this Presidents’ Day piece:
Presidents’ Day doesn’t even get the hand wringing “have we lost the meaning of it” type pub that a Memorial or Veterans Day holiday gets, and lacks the religious and consumer heft of Christmas. Since presidents are inherently political, the “reason for the season” would be whatever you thought of whichever president one was pondering. Hardly universal good tidings. Especially in an election year where the choice for Leader of the Free World is between old and corrupt but jovial and slightly less old and epically corrupt but a raving jackass, round two.
I truly wonder if I will ever again look at a ballot for President of the United States of America and see the name of someone worthy to hold the office. My fellow Americans seem pretty content to continue the tradition of griping about the choices with words and social media, but take no action whatsoever to prevent our quadrennial national foray into “lesser of two evils.” Which always ends up with a lesser.
Since we have a representative government, apparently We, The People, are all good with being lesser because, reasons.
Throughout the course of American history we’ve had a few great presidents, a handful of truly abhorrent ones, and most of the rest falling somewhere in between. Recency bias always clouds the rankings of presidents, and the professional historians are almost as bad at making the rankings about themselves as the professional baseball writers are at making the Baseball Hall of Fame all about themselves. Even still, most can agree the Lincolns and Washingtons are to be commended and pedestaled, while the presidents that let the Civil War fester stay at the bottom of the list with the sole redeeming quality that at least they weren’t Woodrow Wilson.
And our friend Burt Likko wrote a response to it here:
As for Presidents, we have a lot more Tylers, Pierces, Harrisons, Coolidges, and Fords in our history than either Washingtons and Lincolns on the one hand, or Nixons and Buchanans on the other. I read Andrew’s essay as his realization that petty to mid-level corruption, mendacity, and mediocrity in the Oval Office has been the historical norm, not the exception.
Here’s a thought experiment to validate that claim: rank the Presidents. All of them. You’ve got forty-five names (Grover Cleveland only gets one tile in this game because, come on, he’s Grover Cleveland). You’ll probably approach the task the way I would: first break them up into tiers, and then sort within the tiers. In the top tier are almost certainly Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, probably FDR and maybe TR and maybe one or two more. In the bottom tier would be people like Nixon and Buchanan and maybe these days Wilson and for me at least, Trump. (YMMV.) How one would tier and rank more recent Presidents likely reveals more about one’s current political identification than a more sober historical judgment — I don’t pretend immunity from this phenomenon, and you probably shouldn’t, either.
But in between your easy top five or so, and your easy bottom five or so, are about thirty-five other names. You can break them down into B-C-D tiers or just leave them all lumped into a single middle category. The game forces you to decide whether Benjamin Harrison was better or worse than Zachary Taylor, but chances are pretty good that both of them are going to be somewhere in the soupy middle. One of them was a lot more corrupt but more politically competent than the other, if you care about those sorts of things and have some principled way of comparing them. As you scan the center of the list of the Presidents you’ve just ranked, contemplate how many men in that mediocre middle you’d have rolled your eyes at had you been asked to vote for them, how few of them you’d have been genuinely excited about.
Andrew, I feel your disappointment at this realization. I feel the hollowness it leaves. A President like Joe Biden, who may be well-intentioned but is also all too human, is what we get — it’s what we almost always have got.
I also wrote a bit about President Biden and the expectations and perceptions that seem to be shading - for good, bad, and indifferent - the news media and commentary surrouding him and this upcoming election:
Herein lies the key to Joe Biden expectations. Whatever “why” of Biden’s 2020 win over Trump one settles on is usually the base alloy of the perception structure folks have of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. since. If Biden won chiefly for just being “not Trump” then all the issues, quirks, and political baggage his 50 years of politics explain the measure of the man for good, bad, and indifferent. If one views Biden as the great savior who rescued the country from Trump, and thus all his previous sins are washed away for that great righteous electoral act, then expectations get artificially inflated.
The middling polling bears evidence the wider populace takes the former viewpoint while the writing of pieces like the above from the New York Times shows a cadre of news media and commentators — a cadre the Biden Administration is most likely to be monitoring — are running with the latter. That disconnect is the headwaters of the frustration Team Biden and their supporters are expressing in wondering why they are getting no credit, and the parallel implication that it all isn’t fair.
But politics in American isn’t about credit and fair. If you want credit go talk to Mastercard. Fair is an uncatchable phantom that makes anyone pursuing it look foolish for the effort, unless it is the once-a-year county variety where you ride the rides and play the games. Senator Biden, Ol’ Joe, Uncle Joe, Sheriff Joe, all were judged differently because they didn’t have the weight of expectation and the public ledger of what President Joe Biden has and hasn’t accomplished under his executive leadership. Clothing Joe Biden in expectations that don’t match the reality is just cultivating future surprises when Joe Biden turns out to be Joe Biden, emperor with the same clothes he has always had on.
So the poet Ted Hughes was an absolute trash human being, as Ben Sears explains:
You’d think the most interesting thing about one of Great Britain’s Poet Laureates would be his poetry, but Ted Hughes first wife killed herself. She turned on an unlit oven and passed. At the time of her suicide, Hughes had moved out and was living with another woman. He would continue living with the other woman until six years later when she too killed herself; also by turning on an unlit oven.
The wife was Sylvia Plath. She’d tried taking her own life at least twice before meeting Hughes in 1956. There are letters released in 2017 suggesting he was violent towards her, possibly causing her miscarriage in 1961. That he’s a brute and responsible for her death is a tenet among feminist essay aggregators and Plath devotees. The word “Hughes” on her headstone marked “Sylvia Plath Hughes” is a popular target of the enchiseled. There’s no lack of material should you want to read about what a shit he was.
Should you want to read about Plath’s troubles and that she was prescribed a new anti-depressant right before her death that may have had an effect other than intended or if you want many who knew him including his trend bucking second wife defending Hughes, refuting charges of mistreatment, there’s plenty of that to read as well.
The other woman was named Assia Wevill. When Plath killed herself, she prepared by making sure that the children had snacks enough to get them through the day and sealed herself off in the room with the oven, taping the doors shut so that no gas would harm them. Wevill was not so kind. She gave Alexandra Tatiana Elise Wevill, her four-year-old daughter by Hughes, the same sleeping pills she took herself, letting her to be murdered daughter drift off with her, not shrieking amid her poisons.
There are questions about Wevill’s sanity. She took to using Plath’s things and there’s a sense that she was burdened by perceived or real comparison. I hope Wevill was batty. If not, one or both – she or Hughes – was a monster. If she was rational, her final statement wasn’t desperate. This is what you do, Ted. You will never be loved. If Hughes was cruel, he was thorough.
Worth reading and thinking about from Roy Matthews writing at Real Clear Energy:
Cameron stands to not only be revitalized, but to regain lost population from past hurricanes. Natural gas has allowed the U.S. to reduce its emissions by nearly 20% in barely 20 years. Natural gas usage accounted for almost two-thirds of a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions in a 10-year span according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Despite the obvious environmental benefits of utilizing natural gas, climate activists now celebrate their success in pressuring Biden to pause LNG permitting, a move that carries very real consequences for industry workers.
Hibbing, Minnesota reflects the future of America should the federal government continue to impede the natural gas industry’s ability to create jobs. Like most Midwest states, Minnesota once relied on coal to stay warm during the frigid winters. Hibbing’s Public Utilities Commission shows that as Hibbing began to decarbonize their energy supplies from coal, emissions and jobs plummeted.
Hibbing successfully met the climate goals imposed by the state in 2021 by switching to burning wood chips, but at a steep cost. Investing in emissions reduction technology like coal scrubbers would be cost prohibitive for the community without creating any jobs. Natural gas is out of the picture, as recent regulations passed by the Minnesota legislature require all electric utilities to be 100% carbon-free before 2040.
In the surrounding St. Louis County, median incomes are down for all households and deaths from overdoses, suicides, and alcohol have all increased. Now, the state of Minnesota is expected to shutter one of the last coal-fired power plants in Becker, Minnesota to meet state climate goals. The 240 workers employed at the plant now face the uncertainty of how they will fit into the solar power installation that will replace the plant, which is the largest facility for electricity generation in the state. Not all these workers will have a job waiting for them.
Hibbing and Becker are just two U.S. communities at risk due to power plant and mine closures. The Becker plant is responsible for 75% of the town’s tax base, and it is unclear just how a solar installation will allow the town to continue to bring in tax revenue. Even more pressing is the number of high-quality jobs that will be lost. Typical fossil fuel power plants require legions of machinists, electricians, pipe fitters, and other more specialized workers that typically earn over $100,000 a year. Multiple labor union organizers have expressed discomfort with this energy transition due to a loss of wages and trimming of jobs.
Worth Watching:
Our friend, scientist, and spacecraft operator Michael Siegel gives his take on the Starship Troopers discourse of late:
From a few weeks ago but worth reupping since she is once again trending, but my friend and former Young Voices compatriot Peter Pischke did what few on the right would do; he actually got in touch with the controversial Taylor Lornez and had a conversation with her:
Our friend Erik Kain who reviews culture for Forbes has been fighting the online hordes over what - in his opinioin - has been a rash of really poorly done high profile IPs, and he has done a video that encompasses several examples into one explainer: