On a pattern of thought; a co-founder of Porsche; great golf swings we have known; and more
Tribalism is baked in the cake. I mean, I’m no evolutionary biologist — I should have studied harder in school — but tribalism seems natural in man. Safety lies within the tribe; danger lies beyond it. That’s the way life is: us versus them.
(Mario Vargas Llosa has written a book titled “The Call of the Tribe.” I reviewed it last year, here. In Vargas Llosa’s assessment, the aim of classical liberalism, to which he subscribes, is to resist the call of the tribe — certainly when that call is illogical or immoral.)
There is benign tribalism, to be sure. I myself was born a Wolverine, a Lion, a Tiger, a Piston, and a Red Wing. (I have referred to sports teams in Ann Arbor and Detroit.) Sometimes tribes are akin to Burke’s little platoons.
I must say, however, that some rivalries in sports border on the demented and dangerous. Many Michiganders have felt that way about the rivalry between the University of Michigan teams and the Michigan State University teams. There is similar concern about the Michigan–Ohio State rivalry (in football only).
But we can leave sports to another day.
In politics, naked tribalism is a bane. It can warp, or wreck, even very good minds. I would like to bring up a recent instance — something that occurred in a podcast. But first, a little trip down Memory Lane . . .
Let me quote from a column I wrote in April 2017:
Remember when we knocked President Obama for spending so much time on the golf course? Not all of us did, but many of us did. Donald Trump, for example, was unrelenting in his criticism.
You don’t hear that anymore. Conservatives don’t knock the president for spending so much time on the golf course.
Also,
we used to tote up Obama’s travel — how much it cost to go to Martha’s Vineyard, Hawaii, etc. Remember the trip that Mrs. O. took, with one of her daughters, to the Costa del Sol? Man, we howled about that. Taxpayer dollars.
Anyway, Trump is set to spend more in a year on travel than the Obamas spent in eight.
Just one more thing:
Remember how we counted up the times Obama said “I” and “me” in a speech? That was fun. It was kind of a conservative pastime. We don’t do that anymore.
After citing those examples, I made the following comment:
It’s natural to cut your guy slack while cutting none to the other guy. But there ought to be a limit — or a recognition.
Yes, I think so.
In recent weeks, there have been a couple of sex scandals. On Capitol Hill, a Democratic staffer filmed himself having sex in a hearing room. (Actually, I don’t know who did the filming. I’m reluctant to check.) Republicans were able to get huge yuks and clucks out of that. (Trust me.)
At about the same time, the chairman of the Florida Republican Party was accused of sexual assault, including rape. In the past, evidently, he and his wife had engaged in threesomes with another woman. The wife is a co-founder of Moms for Liberty.
Any yuks and clucks out of that? Well, it depends on who you are — what jersey you wear, the red or the blue. That’s the way life seems to go.
I will now get to that podcast I mentioned, above. Apparently, Joe Rogan is the most popular podcaster in America. One of his guests was Bo Nickal, a “mixed martial artist.” Such artists turn up a lot in our politics now.
Anyway, Rogan and Nickal were saying that President Biden was out to lunch, a joke. And that the media were hiding this from people. They fastened on one thing in particular: Biden had talked about airports in the American Revolution.
While they were conversing, however — while they were having their fun — the producer of the show intervened with a correction. And a clip. Trump, not Biden, had talked about airports during the Revolution; Biden had derided him for it.
Oops. Immediately, Rogan and Nickal shrugged off the mistake — Trump’s, that is. Anyone can misspeak. Nickal even said, “That’s the thing about media these days. It’s like, you gotta look into it.”
Yeah, you gotta.
(To read an article about this matter, go here, and to watch a video of the segment in question, go here.)
True, anyone can misspeak. Obama once mispronounced “corpsman” — he said “corpse-man” instead of “core-man.” Republicans went to town on this, and clung to it. I had a correspondent who routinely referred to Obama as “the Great Corpseman.”
Okay. Trump, during his own presidency, pronounced “Thailand” “Thigh-land.” (He corrected himself shortly after.) He also pronounced “Yosemite’s” “Yo, Semites.”
Is that funny? “Dunk”-worthy? Again, it depends on the color of your jersey.
Let me exit this topic by quoting once more from that 2017 column of mine:
Hypocrisy in human beings is as normal as lust. You can no more stamp it out than you can stamp out crabgrass. You’d have a much easier time with crabgrass. But, now and then, we should pause to acknowledge what we’re doing, and not doing.
• A difficult, though, of course, expected, headline out of Kabul: “Afghan schoolgirls are finishing sixth grade in tears. Under Taliban rule, their education is over.” To read that story, by Mohammad Habib Rahmani of the Associated Press, go here.
I’ve thought of Zarifa Ghafari — who was the youngest mayor in Afghanistan (age 24). I interviewed her in the spring of 2022. She had gone into exile. Zarifa received an education. But what she went through to get it . . .
I will quote from the piece I wrote:
She was born in Kabul in 1994. She had just turned seven when the Americans invaded and the Taliban fell. She remembers dead bodies in the streets — and body parts. “It was terrible,” she says, with a shudder.
She loved going to school. Absolutely loved it. She was at the top of her classes. But there was a cost, to going to school. Four times, she was injured in terror attacks. Her father, an Afghan-army officer, forbade her to keep going to school (understandably). She went anyway, behind his back.
At 16, she went off to India, for college. That period was not without its mishaps. After a car in which she was traveling was hit by a truck, she was in a coma for a month.
And so on.
• A story from the Financial Times, by Patricia Nilsson, is headed, “Porsche reckons with history of forgotten Jewish co-founder.” The man in question is Adolf Rosenberger, who, as Ms. Nilsson writes, “gave up his role and stake before fleeing Nazi Germany and remains largely absent from the famed brand’s corporate history.”
One more quotation:
. . . the exact circumstances under which Rosenberger transferred his shares to Ferdinand Porsche’s son at far below their full value in 1935 — the same year he was sent to a concentration camp because of his relationship with a gentile woman — . . . are only now being investigated by the company.
Better late than never? Yes, I think so. Better late than never, for sure. It will be interesting to hear more about Adolf Rosenberger and Porsche.
• If it’s okay by you, I would like to lighten up with some golf. Luke Kerr-Dineen is a writer — a swing analyst, in particular — for Golf Digest. Very knowledgeable and affable fellow. I podcasted with him in June 2022. (That podcast is here.)
Last week, he busted out with this:
Curious who is going to win this, have a few ideas.
Which player has your…
Favorite golf swing (currently)?
Favorite golf swing (all time)?
— LKD (@LukeKerrDineen) December 20, 2023
Luke gave his own answers. His favorite swing at the moment belongs to Justin Thomas. And his favorite swing of all time: Louise Suggs.
My answers? Tough, of course. There are grand ties in each case. But I’ll go with Nelly Korda (for a current swing) and a tie between Sam Snead and Tiger Woods (for all time). (Tiger has had several swings, but I am counting them as one.)
I feel the need to set up two special categories. They are as follows.
Bobby Jones had a well-nigh perfect swing. It was a bit pre-modern, you might say — it was tailored to the equipment at the time: whippy shaft, relatively heavy head. Jones “waited” on his clubs beautifully.
Moe Norman is a category of one. His swing was eccentric, as he was — but that swing was also . . . well, unimprovable-on. Ideal, in a way.
• Louise Suggs was born in 1923, in Atlanta. She died in 2015. When Luke Kerr-Dineen cited her — a high, high commendation, coming from that source — I went to YouTube, to behold her, as in the past. Here is an interview she gave in 2013, when she was about 90.
One thing she talks about is her friendship with the Bushes — George H. W. et al. I love something she says at 10:24: “That Barbara Bush is sumpin’ on a stick, I’ll tell ya.”
• That is a language note in itself. But would you like to end with one more? A headline from the AP read, “International astronaut will be invited on future NASA moon landing.” (Find the article here.) Huh? “International astronaut”? A confusing headline.
At some point, “foreign” gave way to “international” — which is a shame, because those words mean, or meant, different things, and we need both of those meanings, in order to communicate.
I have harrumphed about this before. (Often.) But harrumphing I will go . . .
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