William Hazlitt:
All that part of the map that we do not see before us is a blank. The world in our conceit of it is not much bigger than a nutshell.Cf. Saul Steinberg’s View of the World from 9th Avenue.
“On Going a Journey,” in Table Talk (1822).
The Washington Post reports on the battle over “Little Free Library” — the battle, that is, over the name, a legal trademark.
Donald Trump has been impeached, and whatever happens in the United States Senate, this president’s name will henceforth be accompanied by a stain. Or a taint. Or an asterisk. An impeachment is forever.
The asterisk is a fitting symbol to accompany the Trump* name, I’d say.
“What is at risk here is the very idea of America”: Adam Schiff, just now. And the voting begins.
“Why haven’t I been eating sardines all this time?” Here’s a short film documenting a visit to the Conservas Pinhais sardine cannery.
Related reading
All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard)
[I can vouch for Nuri. They’re good.]
“If I’m, like, handwriting it, I just tend to write better”: “A Defense of Cursive, From a 10-Year-Old National Champion” (The New York Times).
Related reading
All OCA handwriting posts (Pinboard)
Impeachment Eve — Ah, bitter chill it was!
[18 °F, feeling like 8 °F. With apologies to John Keats.]
From Donald Trump’s letter to Nancy Pelosi protesting impeachment, a passage that sounds as if the president himself is the writer:
Even worse than offending the Founding Fathers, you are offending Americans of faith by continually saying “I pray for the President,” when you know this statement is not true, unless it is meant in a negative sense. It is a terrible thing you are doing, but you will have to live with it, not I!I notice here the vague passive-voice accusation “unless it is meant in a negative sense.” Meaning what? That Pelosi prays for the president’s destruction? “But you will have to live with it” has something of the self-righteousness of Lucy van Pelt. And that hypercorrect “not I!” There’s our president on his best grammar (though unable to resist an exclamation point, one of eight in a little over five pages).
Yet, when the monstrous lie was debunked and this Democrat conspiracy dissolved into dust, you did not apologize. You did not recant. You did not ask to be forgiven. You showed no remorse, no capacity for self-reflection. Instead, you pursued your next libelous and vicious crusade-you engineered an attempt to frame and defame an innocent person.The president — or whoever wrote this passage — is projecting: that phrase “no capacity for self-reflection,” as any search engine will confirm, has often been applied to Trump himself. Here too there’s a dash of Lucy van Pelt: “You showed no remorse, Charlie Brown, no capacity for self-reflection!”
[Crossing Delancey (dir. Joan Micklin Silver, 1988). Click for a larger view.]
Sam (Peter Riegert) thinks Isabelle (Amy Irving) should write down the stories her grandmother tells:
“I carry a little notebook for this purpose. I put down questions too. When they’re clearly in my mind, I write them on the page. Then I leave room for the answers. Here’s one I’ve been looking at: How do I talk to Isabelle?”More notebook sightings
A Times opinion piece by George T. Conway III, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver, and Rick Wilson, “We Are Republicans, and We Want Trump Defeated,” announces the Lincoln Project. From the Times:
Over these next 11 months, our efforts will be dedicated to defeating President Trump and Trumpism at the ballot box and to elect those patriots who will hold the line. We do not undertake this task lightly, nor from ideological preference. We have been, and remain, broadly conservative (or classically liberal) in our politics and outlooks. Our many policy differences with national Democrats remain, but our shared fidelity to the Constitution dictates a common effort.I wonder if the Conways read the Times at the breakfast table. But I wonder too if there is a Conway breakfast table.
The 2020 general election, by every indication, will be about persuasion, with turnout expected to be at record highs. Our efforts are aimed at persuading enough disaffected conservatives, Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in swing states and districts to help ensure a victory in the Electoral College, and congressional majorities that don’t enable or abet Mr. Trump’s violations of the Constitution, even if that means Democratic control of the Senate and an expanded Democratic majority in the House.
