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Bit of an earlier post today -- trying to get to bed a tad earlier (in theory).  Just another long day, and I didn't feel like hitting the gym, so I instead had dinner (finished up the Romanian sausage from a few days ago -- good but a bit spicy) and took a long walk around the neighborhood.  It is still warm enough to do so, but the earlier dark is unsettling.  I am not saying I should do this more often -- gym is gym -- but I could do both once in a while.  In the meantime, I am entertaining notions of some culinary journeys this weekend.  Funny; this month I have a lot of things I could do and I will try to hit them...part of the summer of fun, at least the summer of Matt-fun.

‘Exmo’ Influencers Mount a TikTok War Against the Mormon Church - WSJ
Interesting.  You know, I should read the Book of Mormon.  Never have, and not that I have any sense of belief in it, as part of cultural literacy/intellectual curiosity it might be useful, or informative, or something like that.  In the meantime, as a Catholic, I sympathize with the defenders, somewhat.  

I am almost done with Henry Louis Gates' Stony the Road, which discusses the rise and role of Jim Crow in America.  It is interesting, and quite good, though I cannot help but note that 1) He seems not to mention that it was Democrats -- until quite recently, mind you -- who created and defended this system for a century-plus and 2) He seems to assign all of the opposition to Obama/the rise of Trump to racism.  I think the latter is far worse than the former, because 1) Principle, or a sense that someone is wrong about something is not racist, and 2) The flip side is that if everything is racism, people are going to decide that they may as well be racist.  I am not sure if anyone has ever asked Dr. Gates -- or any other Democrat in this country -- if they really believe this to be true, and if they realize what they are sowing.  Of course, they are Democrats, and if they do not realize that giving the drooling moron the nuclear codes is a bad idea...