In my Impromptus today are some very grave issues (starting with China’s attempt to snuff out the Uyghurs). But there is relief with baseball and other matters. Here is that column.
Mail? In yesterday’s column, I quoted Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who said, or observed, “Tax policy is social policy.” (Whether this should be so is a question for debate.) A reader writes,
About 1984 I was near the end of getting my MBA — it taught me I have no head for business — and I was taking a class on taxes. The instructor began by saying, “The largest social program in America is the tax code.” He spent the rest of the quarter proving his point.
Also in yesterday’s column, I commented on Richard Nixon, and what he said about dealing with the press. Here is a note from Nicholas Dujmovic:
When I taught intelligence studies at Catholic University, I would show my students part of a press conference Nixon presided over in 1969 after North Korea shot down a U.S. intelligence-gathering aircraft. It was a tragic event that illustrates the danger of intelligence collection. But what impressed the students was Nixon’s performance: He was eloquent, spoke without notes, was in complete command of the facts, and did not hesitate or stumble or equivocate in his answers to questions.
I did have to point out to the students that Nixon, in that same press conference, unintentionally revealed a U.S. intelligence capability (that we could read foreign radar transmissions). Ah, well . . .
A video of that press conference, in April 1969, accompanies this article.
For reasons I could get into, I mentioned Increase Mather and his son Cotton in yesterday’s column. A reader writes to recall Benjamin Franklin and an encounter that Franklin had with Cotton Mather when he (Ben) was young.
Franklin recollected it to Samuel Mather, Cotton’s son, 50 years after the fact. He wrote to Samuel (from London) on July 7, 1773.
I perused your Tracts with Pleasure. I see you inherit all the various Learning of your famous Ancestors Cotton and Increase Mather both of whom I remember. . . . Cotton I remember in the Vigour of his Preaching and Usefulness. And particularly in the Year 1723, now half a Century since, I had reason to remember, as I still do a Piece of Advice he gave me. I had been some time with him in his Study, where he condescended to entertain me, a very Youth, with some pleasant and instructive Conversation. As I was taking my Leave he accompany’d me thro’ a narrow Passage at which I did not enter, and which had a Beam across it lower than my Head. He continued Talking which occasion’d me to keep my Face partly towards him as I retired, when he suddenly cry’d out, Stoop! Stoop! Not immediately understanding what he meant, I hit my Head hard against the Beam. He then added, Let this be a Caution to you not always to hold your Head so high; Stoop, young Man, stoop—as you go through the World—and you’ll miss many hard Thumps. This was a way of hammering Instruction into one’s Head: And it was so far effectual, that I have ever since remember’d it, tho’ I have not always been able to practise it.
Stoop, baby! Thank you to one and all readers and correspondents.