CSotD: Easter Miscellany
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Today is Easter in the Western Christian churches, and a rare chance to catch Caulfield in error, because, while the date is different each year, it’s not random and is the first Sunday after the full Moon that occurs on or after the spring equinox, as explained by the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, who certainly should know.
The dates for Passover are similarly set according to a slightly different formula such that, while the Easter story is linked to Passover, the two holidays don’t necessarily coincide.
Though I’ll give Caulfield a break in that dates that far back are somewhat dubious, and there is a persistent rumor that Dionysius Exiguus — the monk who figured out the date of Christ’s birth and thus the divider between BC and AD — was off by seven years.
And I often identify with Caulfield, because, for instance, I got in trouble when the teacher was explaining timelines and how to tell the number of years between a BC date and an AD date. I raised my hand and pointed out that there was no Year Zero.
I don’t know if Dionysius Exiguus was under a vow of silence but I’d have done better in school if I had been.
Peter Brookes marks the season and the fact that while Dear Leader and his followers may think he is the Second Coming, neither Putin nor Xi share that belief, and an increasing worldwide skepticism in his personal sense of deification makes walking on water an ever-greater challenge.
Juxtaposition of the Day
The Supreme Court held a late night session which resulted in a ruling that you can’t just throw people on airplanes and send them off to foreign gulags without giving them due process, which is obvious to anyone who reads the Constitution or has a passing familiarity with English common law, unless their judgment is seriously compromised.
Note that the two compromised justices were on the bench before Mitch McConnell began appointing nominees who were pre-approved by the Federalist Society and rubber-stamped by a Trump-compliant Senate.
The point being that, when someone asks “What price justice?” you aren’t expected to come up with an exact number, and the number keeps going up with each revelation.
Because the correct answer is “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.”
There is a sense of deja vu about our approach to the migrant issue, though the Germans had a more precise plan in 1938 than Trump and his cronies seem to have at the moment. But disappearing people is the common bond, and it begins with dehumanizing them and making them into objects of hate and scorn, after which you can widen the net.
The Nazis began with Jews and then started sending Roma, Poles and gay people to the camps, so stay tuned: Dear Leader has already announced his intention to begin sending off citizens to join the migrants in El Salvador.
The latest chapter in this ongoing farce came when Trump showed us a picture of Abrego Garcia’s hand, with the initials MS13 tattooed apparently by an artist who has found a way to use a typesetter instead of a needle.
And these are magical tattoos, because the Mediate article includes a photo of Abrego Garcia’s hand taken during his meeting with Senator Van Hollen in which the letters are no longer present.
At least we don’t have to worry about more migrants coming into the country, since, as Ramirez testifies, all it took to solve the problem was for Dear Leader to order the laws enforced. We know this worked because fewer migrants are being caught now than were caught under the Biden administration, so, obviously, the problem is under control.
Perhaps the migrants now fear the moat filled with alligators and snakes that Dear Leader wanted built along the border, though this analysis suggests it would cost more than the wall, particularly since Mexico has not offered to pay for it.
Juxtaposition of the Day #2
You can’t expect Dear Leader to do everything, mind you. He has the nations of the world kissing his ass over tariffs, and he’s prepared to go to war with NATO over his plan to seize Greenland, but, while he can also defeat Panama to take back the canal, he can’t possibly stand up to mighty El Salvador, which weighs in at 128th out of 145 national armies and whose 25,000 active personnel are augmented by 10,000 reservists.
We’ve only got 1,328,000 active personnel and 799,500 reservists, so they’d overpower us in an afternoon.
Which is why Nayib Armando Bukele Ortez didn’t have to wear a suit and tie when he visited the White House. We were just lucky he didn’t bring Senor Pepe with him.
The rest of the world may be laughing at Dear Leader, but there are plenty of people in this country who are apparently terrified, and the evidence is in how they leap to assist in his literal whitewashing of our history and culture.
Jones did this cartoon specifically for a Virginia outlet, but the panic with which books are being banned and historic exhibits taken down can be seen nationally, the tip-off being how many of them then have to be restored once it is evident that they weren’t specifically identified as offensive to Dear Leader’s tender feelings and his concern over Replacement Theory.
Timothy Snyder is credited with coining the term “obeying in advance” to describe the cowardice with which people leap to do Trump’s bidding, making the president more powerful than he would be in a less compliant nation.
It has since included genuinely foolish things, like taking down references to the Enola Gay, an airplane whose sexual preference has not been established, and removing a plaque honoring Roberto Clemente, one of the best and favorite Pittsburgh Pirates.
Fell suggests that Dear Leader’s attacks on colleges leave American high school students in a quandary, but an increasing number are finding a solution by applying to Canadian schools, which are not only less expensive but prize both academic and national freedom.
Let’s hope they come back when all this is over.
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