Pun Salad

Over a couple weeks of blogging hiatus, I totally missed commenting on the irony of people who claim to be concerned about American "inequality", showering hatred on "the 1%", also getting steamed about CBS's decision to cancel Stephen Colbert's The Late Show.

Um. Colbert's net worth is reported to be around $75 million, with a yearly salary of $15 million.

According to Forbes, Colbert's net worth puts him solidly in the 1%. Ditto for his yearly salary, according to Investopedia.

So you might think the egalitarians would be cheering at this minor decrease in the Gini coefficient! But no.

And now, American outrage has apparently moved on from Colbert to Sydney Sweeney. Who's apparently gonna be starring in a remake of Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS or something.

But never mind that. What I'd really like to lead off with today is something that's been bugging me for years, and I may have alluded to it now and again, but not as eloquently as Jeff Jacoby did recently: The problem with 'Are you proud to be an American?'. After looking at (among other things) Gallup's polling on that very question:

What Jeff doesn't mention is the small problem alluded to by our Amazon Product du Jour, up there on your right: As someone who has been Catholic-adjacent for decades, I can tell you: pride is a sin. And not one of the minor ones: it's a deadly sin, right up there with Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, and Envy!

So if Gallup, or anyone, asks if you're proud to be an American, please feel free to explain this to them.

Also of note:

• Something I won't be doing. The latest print issue of Reason has an article by Bekah Congdon, who discusses her recent travels: Losing My Religion and Finding My Humanity on a Peruvian Ayahuasca Retreat. And it includes the following experience, after a couple doses of the "viscous substance" which is "dark brown and opaque and tastes like a tragic combination of Vegemite and prune juice, with an earthy aftertaste that lingers."

  Another 30 minutes later, our main facilitator, Rosie, checked on me. I reported feeling miserable but unable to vomit. Rosie said something I couldn't hear through the fog of my own discomfort. When I looked at her indignantly, she simply said, "Bekah: Focus."

  With this instruction, I picked up my bucket, placed it in front of me, and got on all fours. Staring into the bucket, I commanded myself: "Puke." Whether it was my instruction that did it or just the effect of jostling myself around, I did begin to vomit, immediately and a lot. It was intense, but it passed quickly enough. The nausea gave way not simply to the expected after-puking relief but to such a feeling of comfort and peace that I lay back down and reveled for a while in gratitude that I no longer felt ill.

  There's something I won't be putting on my bucket list: barfing into a bucket in Peru.

• 

  Not even Ketanji Brown Jackson thought it meant that. In a recent article in print-National Review, Bryan A. Garner shares some anecdotes about his friend and co-author Antonin Scalia: ‘Nobody Ever Thought It Meant That’. (NR gifted link)

  In my kitchen in January 2013, I suggested to [Scalia] that attacking something called the living Constitution was a mistake: “Find another name for it,” I said.

  “But everyone calls it the living Constitution.”

  “You’re losing the debate in the minds of the American people. They don’t want the opposite of a living Constitution.”

  “Are you saying I’ve made a mistake over the past 30 years by using the other side’s terminology?”

  “I think so. If you instead asked the American people whether they’d rather have a stable Constitution or a highly volatile one that morphs without amending it, what would they say?”

  “Stable, no doubt,” he said. “I can’t believe I’ve never thought of this before.”

  That evening, Scalia and I made a presentation to a large audience at Southern Methodist University. Midway through our talk, he said: “I used to say that the Constitution is not a living document. It’s dead, dead, dead. But I’ve gotten better. I no longer say that. The truth is that the Constitution is not one that morphs. It’s an enduring Constitution, not a changing Constitution.” I was keenly aware of his words, and I made a note of them the next morning.

  I encourage you to click through to find out how the Dallas Morning News misreported that speech.

  I was tempted to check out the book Scalia and Garner wrote from the Portsmouth (NH) Public Library, but alas, it was more of a reference work for lawyers. But… Amazon link at your right!

• I'd say: "Mom". Mom decides. But that's me. Ryne Weiss has an article that investigates how people can be led into free-speech enlightenment: ‘Who decides?’: The question that shatters the illusion of censorship as safety. And it leads off with this quote from Christopher Hitchens, who made it at University of Toronto’s Hart House Debating Club.

  Did you hear any speaker in opposition to this motion, eloquent as one of them was, to whom you would delegate the task of deciding for you what you could read? Do you know anyone? Hands up. Do you know anyone to whom you would give this job? Does anyone have a nominee? You mean there’s no one in Canada good enough to decide what I can read or hear? I had no idea.

  But in the US? Nina Jankowicz maybe?

• You could die of a misprint, or… Dave Barry brings the sad news of his demise: Death by AI.

  I found out about my death the way everybody finds out everything: from Google.

  What happened was, I Googled my name ("Dave Barry") and what popped up was something called “Google AI Overview.” This is a summary of the search results created by Artificial Intelligence, the revolutionary world-changing computer tool that has made it possible for college students to cheat more efficiently than ever before.

  Dave's battle with Google's AI is hilarious.

  I sympathize, sort of. I share a name with a semi-famous actor. He is, at last report, still alive and well, and so am I.