If, like me, you’re going to be watching coverage of the election returns tonight, you might be interested in this link, which shows when the polls close in each state. It gives you an idea as to when during the evening you might hear substantive updates to the results. . . .
Author: Paul Knight
“My Nails Are Bitten to the Quick!”
That’s what a Democratic friend of mine wrote in an email exchange about tomorrow’s election. Many of us who believe that the future of our country is on the ballot this year tend to feel that way. And it’s not just Democrats. What’s interesting to progressives like me is that many Trump supporters are equally convinced that the soul of the nation is at stake tomorrow. . . .
Will We Learn the Lessons of Trump’s Presidency?
The Sunday Review in today’s New York Times features essays by all the paper’s op-ed columnists on the subject of “What We’ve Lost” over the course of Donald Trump’s presidency. The answers range from “Frayed Connections” between the left and the right (Nicholas Kristof) and “Faith in One Another” (David Brooks) to “Our Allies” (Thomas Friedman) and “Principled Conservatism” (Brett Stephens). But while I found each piece insightful and well-articulated, the one that struck me as most prescient was the one by the right-of-center never-Trumper, Ross Douthat . . .
How Society’s Squeamishness Drives the Evolution of Our Vocabulary
I’ve noticed something about the way the English language evolves. When something has a discomforting connotation, we find euphemisms to describe that thing which elide the source of our discomfort. We refer to the act of having sex as “sleeping together.” Someone who has died has “passed away.” Someone who’s been fired was “let go.” That’s all fairly obvious; what I find interesting is that, over time, the euphemisms themselves pick up the taint of whatever uncomfortable thing they are describing and become distasteful in turn. . . .
My Wife and I Are So Different
It’s a puzzle how my wife and I can be different in so many ways and yet be so happily married. Maybe it’s because we’re similar in a few really significant ways — like how we view the world and what we believe it takes to make a relationship work — and different in lots of less important ways, like what foods and movies we like, or the fact that Jennifer can work while she watches TV. I can barely chew gum while I watch TV. . . .
Confusion Around “I’m Sorry”
The other day my mother told me she’d misplaced something. “I’m sorry,” I said, to which she replied, “Well it’s not your fault.”
This response to “I’m sorry” used to leave me flummoxed. It stems, of course, from the fact that the phrase can mean two different things: an apology or an expression of sympathy. Sometimes the meaning is clear from the context. If you were to say “I’m so sorry!” to someone upon learning that their spouse had recently died, it’s unlikely their response would be “Well, it not your fault.” But in other circumstances there’s room for confusion. . . .
The Covid Minus-30
I imagine no one cares about this but me, but I just have to mark an accomplishment. . . .
How Many Battleground States Can Trump Afford to Lose?
I saw an interesting analysis by Steve Kornacki on MSNBC this past Friday. He displayed a chart listing ten battleground states that Trump won in 2016 that showed which candidate is favored to win each state and by how much. Then he demonstrated what would happen if Trump lost one or more of those states this year. . . .
Bonnie is Back
Back in July I blogged about our next-door neighbor’s dog, Bonnie, whom we took care of for a few days while our neighbors were traveling. This weekend we’re dog-sitting Bonnie again, but we haven’t had quite as easy a time of it. Bonnie, it seems, is not fully house-trained. . . .