Author: Crowhill Report

Here are a few things I’ve learned, just off the top of my head. Please add your own thoughts in the comments.

• Science, like everything else, becomes corrupted when it intersects with politics.
• There is a huge divide in America over acceptable risk. Some people seem to like the idea of being afraid.
• The news media was a joke before the pandemic. Now it’s a disgrace.
• Way too many powerful people are afraid of offending China.
• Our checks and balances need to be re-evaluated. Governors and presidents need emergency powers, but there have to be limits, and we haven’t worked that out yet.
• The pandemic exposed how deeply divided we are. Most people have been trained to immediately categorize other people based on what they perceive as ideological tells. There is no space made for ambiguity or nuance. It’s assumed you have picked a camp and are loyal to it.
• Somewhat related to the point immediately above, virtue signaling has become a way of life for far too many people.

I work in the publishing industry, and I’ve spent a lot of time in marketing. Both publishing and marketing have a lot of women professionals. In fact, The Guardian says Publishing industry is overwhelmingly white and female, US study finds. (That’s book publishing, which is not my niche, but I think the numbers are similar.)

Despite the strong representation of women, I still see “Girl power!” and “you go girl” and various things to support and encourage women. Which is perfectly fine. I want the women I work with to succeed. (Who wants to work with losers?)

For good or ill, I have a very contrary brain. When someone asserts something, my brain always asks, “how do you know that’s right?” And when someone says something about race or sex or whatever, my contrary brain says “what would happen if the roles were reversed?”

This is so second-nature to me that I’m often astonished that other people don’t do it. The fact that they don’t do it is obvious, because 88.2% of the time, if they had paused a moment to ask themselves “how would people react if I said this the other way around?” they would immediately think, “Gee, that doesn’t sound right. Maybe I shouldn’t say this.”

Candace Owens always does this with statements about race. It’s a very useful mental habit. You should try it.

In any event, I saw someone post “girl power” on a business-related Slack channel today, and I immediately asked, “what if the situation were reversed and I posted ‘boy power’?”

Think about it.

… they write things like this.

America’s Catholic bishops are trying to punish Biden for his stance on abortion

The back of Jethro Tull’s Aqualung album reads as follows.

In the beginning Man created God; and in the image of Man created him. And Man gave unto God a multitude of names, that he might be Lord of all the earth when it was suited to Man. And on the seven millionth day Man rested and did lean heavily on his God and saw that it was good. And Man formed Aqualung of the dust of the ground, and a host of others likened unto his kind. And these lesser men were cast into the void; And some were burned, and some were put apart from their kind. And Man became the God that he had created and with his miracles did rule over all the earth. But as all these things came to pass, the Spirit that did cause man to create his God lived on within all men: even within Aqualung. And man saw it not. But for Christ’s sake he’d better start looking.

At different times in my life I’ve had different attitudes towards this bit of Andersonian mockery, but (reading it a certain way) it says there’s a reason why man needs God, and that lightly tossing that aside is not a good idea.

This is where the so-called New Atheists fail. They haven’t taken the time to understand why man is a religious animal. They review “the arguments,” in the limited way they perceive them, pronounce them invalid, then toss the millennia-old enterprise into the dumpster. It’s a twisted, impaired, autistic, short-sighted view of the issue.

Today is one of those days where I’m not being as productive as I know I ought to be. I can make excuses. I can blame myself. I can get into a funk and be useless. But inevitably, on days like this, Matthew Ward’s song will come into my head: Gotta do better than this.

Belief in God provides both of the poles around which a man’s life ought to be regulated: (1) a moral standard that exists outside himself, which sets a goal that is unattainable and is constantly judging him, and (2) forgiveness, compassion, and not only a chance, but the incentive to get up and try again.

Among the things that destroy a man are too much law and too much grace. They have to be kept in balance. But neither of these concepts — law or grace — make much sense from an atheist perspective. Law is merely human will. Grace is … what? Weakness? Acceptance of the frailty and fallibility of life?

Religion is a constant in human life (in part) because it meets man where he is. But let’s be honest. The modern world makes it very hard to accept traditional concepts of God and religion. Sooner or later, there’s going to be a breakthrough that reconciles these tensions. In this episode — Jordan Peterson as Martin Luther version 2 — Pigweed and I discuss the possibility that somebody like Jordan Peterson is going to forge that synthesis.

Peterson might or might not be the man to do it. Probably not. But the reconciliation between man’s religious need and modernity has to be settled, or we’re going to fall (temporarily?) into some ugly form of fundamentalism, either religious or secular.

I went on a kayaking / biking trip with Pigweed and some other friends this weekend. We put our bikes at the southern end, launched the kayaks from the northern end, then kayaked down and rode back to get our cars. There was a lot of shuttling involved, but it was a good trip. It was that perfect distance where you feel a little stretched, but if it was much farther it wouldn’t have been as fun.

The C&O canal was obsolete before it was finished because the railroads came along, and they were so much more efficient. Some people (including me) have used that as an example of inefficient government. “Look at these silly people spending all this money on something that never came to much! That’s government for you.”

I’m not sure it’s fair to blame government for this one. A private company could have made the same bad bargain, although (1) this was a huge undertaking, and maybe only government could have done it, and (2) the private company is spending its own money. (Except that government sometimes steps in and subsidizes such efforts.)

The idea for the canal started back with George Washington. He wanted to use the Potomac as a means of connecting the east coast with the interior. Later on, the Erie canal worked pretty well, so … why not this one?

The C&O canal was also a good way to make jobs for Civil War veterans.

One thing that has always bugged me about the canal is the physics of it. You’ve got a mule or a horse walking along the path, with a line going out at an angle to a barge in the canal. That should pull the barge into the edge of the canal. I assume the barge has rudders to prevent that, but it seems like an awkward way to move something. (Yes, I have towed, and been towed, many times, and I’ve also skied and pulled skiers, so I know you can cruise along nicely with the tow line at an angle. It’s just not efficient.)

Now it’s just a pleasant park for hiking, biking and such, and with a connection to the Great Allegheny Passage, you can bike from Washington, D.C. to Pittsburgh!

Maybe some day.