Catching up

Weekend was interesting...and busy.  More work around the house, some reading, some chores, some bank stuff...also a meeting, a training session, and two wakes (Friday).  The meeting and training session got me out of wisdom-of-Solomon-style decision on the funerals, for better or worse.  Rah.

Two films came off the list.  "Seventh Heaven" and "Serene Velocity."  The second was a short -- an experimental film about...well, camera work.  Rah.  The first -- 1927 silent -- was sort of charming; man and woman fall in love despite their hangups and WWI.  Also a completely ridiculous depiction of combat.  But the story was cute, and the acting fairly good.  I listened to the commentary while watching, and I think this line sums it up -- just when they had perfected the genre, talkies came along and blew it up.

I started reading The Evangelicals:  The Struggle to Shape America, by Frances Fitzgerald.  Quite interesting, even if 750 pages.  I am 200 in, and am just in the 1960s.  The background was useful; one point made was that the geographical differences between denominations wasn't just about slavery (not that it wasn't unimportant), but also that due to geography/population backgrounds/the theological training of the ministers, the parts of the nation (in the beginning) ended up with varying Protestant theologies.  Later on this became important due to urbanization, but in the beginning... the circuit riders and the role of say, lay people, were as much a shaper of theology as slavery.  Didn't think about it quite like that.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-07-10/who-cares-about-health-care-not-republicans
Note quite true; GOPers do care, but the bills aren't conservative, they know it, and there is no point in defending the undefendable.  I wonder what will happen to some of the people who supported it -- how many will be primaried, and how many not...I would say...a few.  Not enough to make a difference; the redder the state, of course...the more likely.

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/the-conservative-resistance-is-futile-1499296694?mg=prod/accounts-wsj

Quite right, but look at the bright side...the next time we have a Democratic president...all bets will be off.