03/04/2023: The Calvin Coolidge Colonic

Since every presidential candidate feels like they have to push a book first, the chance to be distinguished by doing so is limited. I expect this will encourage an innovative candidate to offer a branded juice cleanse soon as a first gambit.

— John Dickerson (@jdickerson) March 4, 2023

More Notions

04/15/2023: Campaign History: Reagan and Bush in Nashua

04/14/2023: Summer's End

It’s hot today for the first time of the season, which makes it feel like the start of summer. Time to start stacking the sandbags against the end of summer blues. The sun is going down. This song came on shuffle. It’s from John Prine’s Tree of Forgiveness. Yesterday was the five-year anniversary of the […]

04/10/2023: New Feature: CBS political archive tastes

04/08/2023: Chat GPT and checking yourself

When your words don’t land as you intend it can be because a) you were unclear b) the people listening misunderstood your point or c) some members of the audience are willfully misunderstanding what you say. I was recently asked about the Tennessee lawmakers kicked out of the body. So I asked Chat GPT to […]

04/02/2023: CBS This Morning on Trump Indictment

04/01/2023: What's in the Indictment? A debate with Chat GPT

Here is an argument about the recent indictment of former President Trump: Former President Donald Trump has been indicted. The people who know what is in the indictment aren’t talking. The people who are talking don’t know what’s in the indictment. None of them do. It’s sealed. Nevertheless, a lot of time will be spent […]

04/01/2023: Chat GPT is terrible at poltiics

Question: The Manhattan district attorney has issued an indictment of Donald Trump but the facts are not known and will not be known for several days, how should that encourage or discourage a person from forming opinions about the indictment itself? As an AI language model, I cannot provide personal opinions, but I can offer […]

03/28/2023: See the gift, ease the burden.

A few things 51 years have taught me:
1. Mean people suck
2. It’s easy to be nice
3. Everyone has at least one gift and one burden.
4. The greater the gift the heavier the burden is to bear.
5. You have no idea what burdens the people around you bear so don’t judge them.

— RandomWhiteGuy 📖 Heretic & Disheveled Misfit (@TheReelRandom) August 10, 2018

Everyone has at least one gift and one burden. It is hard to find the gift in some people. See the gift, ease the burden.

03/26/2023: Old note found: moving up the time of grace

Dr. Nadia Chaudhri died on October 5, 2021. She narrated her death from cancer on her Twitter feed. Every time I read her writing I thought about the grace on display. The lessons she was able to give us. I just found a note I wrote to myself after reading one of her entries: “move […]

03/25/2023: A Voluptuary under the horrors of Digestion

The Met has a wonderful write-up of all that is going on in this etching: James Gillray’s famously brutal caricature of George, Prince of Wales encapsulates the effects of uncontrolled self-indulgence upon the heir to the British throne. Sprawled in his chair after a lavish meal, the prince picks his teeth with a meat fork; […]