In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

The phenomenon of Drs Fauci and Walensky, with the surrounding cast of characters like Drs Baric, Collins, and Daszak. has fascinated me from the start. They're clearly members of the credentialed elite, unelected and unaccountable, in many ways impervious to the sorts of scrutiny to which even powerful politicians are subject. In the past two weeks, Dr Walensky has had editorial calls for her removal amid clear indications of public incompetence, but this is unlikely. It brings me back to Ferdinand Lundberg and the sense that such decisions are made by people largely unknown to us and well above our pay grade. If they're actually lizard-like humanoids, well, maybe so for all we know. (I realized the other day that the lizards in our back yard only speak Spanish, the way police dogs only understand German. I'm studying Spanish so I can talk to them.) In the last several weeks, I've run into two articles about Dr Walensky that nobody else seems to have noticed. Th...

California Gov Newsom is the second nationally prominent Democrat governor in danger of removal from office. His current predicament is an illustration of how the political environment is shifting. Last spring, the movement to recall Newsom looked like a long shot, although the signatures on the recall petition far exceeded the required minimum. The mid-July entry of Larry Elder, best known as a second-string Salem Radio talk show host with no electoral experience, immediately transformed the race. A July 23 poll, taken shortly after Elder won a court case to put him on the ballot, had 43% of likely voters in favor of recall . An August 3 poll put the number at 46% . By August 5, the number in favor of removal had risen to 51% , with only 40% in favor of retaining Newsom. Elder's entry into the race clearly focused public interest. But an August 4 debate among four Republican recall candidates, sponsored by behind-the-curve Salem Radio and moderated by NeverTrump Salem hos...

The current predicament for New York Gov Andrew Cuomo represents a remarkable reversal. As of late 2020, Cuomo was promoted, according to The New Republic , as “America’s governor,” a competent executive who had steered his state through a crisis and who, potentially, could be a Democratic presidential frontrunner in 2024 or 2028. In November, he received an Emmy : "The Governor's 111 daily briefings worked so well because he effectively created television shows, with characters, plot lines, and stories of success and failure," the academy's president and CEO, Bruce Paisner, explained in a statement announcing the decision. "People around the world tuned in to find out what was going on, and New York tough became a symbol of the determination to fight back." Although the nursing home COVID scandal was a slight impediment, it's had notiong like the impact of the current sexual harassment scandal that could potentially bring him down. As I've p...

So OK, Fr Hunwicke is canonically, and certainly represents himself as, a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. But leaving aside his near-exclusive focus on pre-Conciliar liturgy, let's look at a Church teaching he so far hasn't disputed, the Fruits of the Holy Spirit. Now, I'm a Catholic convert, but then, so is he. As far as I can tell, this is the Catholic position : In his letter to the Galatians, St. Paul lists the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal 5:22-23). These fruits emanate or proceed from the Holy Spirit and reveal what the Holy Spirit is like. . . . The grace and power of the Holy Spirit give increase to these fruits. A confirmed person cooperates with this grace, and with growth in holiness, these fruits expand and intensify. We wpuld expect a Catholic priest to teach and even model these virtues. And this goes all the way back to St Paul, nothing novus ordo ab...

On Saturday, I linked to a New York Post editorial saying "The White House needs to find a different voice for public health pronouncements." Yesterday, a second center-right organ, the Washington Examiner, ran an editorial entitled Dr. Rochelle Walensky has made a mockery of the CDC . This week, under her direction, the CDC changed its guidance to encourage fully vaccinated adults to put their masks back on in certain situations. This flip-flop is not based in science but in hysteria. . . . When pressed about the guidance change, Walensky blamed the unvaccinated, who now make up the majority of coronavirus cases and deaths. But this does not justify the CDC’s recent decision. Why should the vaccinated be punished for the bad decisions of the unvaccinated? . . . Under Walensky’s guidance, the CDC has become untrustworthy, illogical, and prone to reversing itself based on political nonsense. Its guidance has changed so many times, often in spite of scientific data, tha...

California Gov Newsom's tone has shifted lately as he confronts the upcoming recall election on September 14. In March, he was assertive and combative , characterizing the recall as a fringe effort: "I am not going to take this recall attempt lying down," he declared. "And let's call it what it is: it's a partisan, Republican recall — backed by the [Republican National Committee], anti-mask and anti-vax extremists, and pro-Trump forces who want to overturn the last election and have opposed much of what we have done to fight the pandemic," Newsom wrote. But last Thursday, he was sounding alarm bells . Newsom predicted that nationwide, Democrats would see “consequences” from his recall effort for “many, many years,” and it might help Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections. During the interview with the editorial boards of the McClatchy Newspapers, Newsom also noted that he does not think the Democrats are considering the consequences of h...

A chance mention of the UK's experience with the delta surge sent me to the usual charts on the web, Indeed, the UK experienced a surge in delta-variant COVID cases in late spring, but the surge looks just like every other peak we've had since late 2020. It reaches a summit, and then it falls off steeply on the other side. In contrast, I looked up the graph for UK deaths. As I pretty much expected, unlike the graph for cases above, there was no peak at all in deaths over the same period. This has been the pattern for every geographical area I've checked. It also lends credence to the remark by former FDA commissioiner Dr Scott Gottlieb , "I think we’re further into this Delta wave than we’re picking up . . . I think, you know, in another 2 or 3 weeks we’ll be through this. This new [masking] guidance will have a negligible impact on it.” Other remarks by Gottlieb suggest the CDC is continuing to damage its reputation by spreading panic over the delta variant. ...