Sheesh, and I’ve been down on Penn since its Prez caved in to You-Know-Whom. What can we say about Cornell? Well, one thing we can say is everyone should read David French’s Op-Ed piece in the NYT today. It’s about courage, in particular the courage it would have taken for just one of the “bros” to intercede and stop what was going on.
The example he gave was of a true hero, and one whom, to my shame, I hadn’t heard of. Here’s French (in English!):
“It can take an immense amount of courage to actually care enough about another human being to intervene — especially if a person you don’t know needs protection from people you do know. This month, just as new details about the Cornell case seemed to be hitting the news every day, we covered the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War in the Law of War class I teach at Lipscomb University in Nashville.
For those who don’t remember, the My Lai massacre was one of the worst episodes in American military history. American soldiers in Vietnam went on a killing spree, murdering hundreds of innocent civilians. [Yikes. I knew it was very bad, but I didn’t recall that it was hundreds.]
“Obviously, the massacre was far more extreme than anything that happened at the Chi Phi house, but I bring it up for a simple reason: to introduce you to a man named Hugh Thompson.
“Thompson is an American hero. He was the Army helicopter pilot who saw the massacre from the air, immediately radioed an alarm and landed his aircraft, placing it between his own brothers-in-arms and a small group of innocent civilians they were pursuing. He even ordered his crew to open fire on American soldiers if they tried to kill the people he was protecting.
“He cared for innocent people he did not know and probably would never know, and he cared for them enough to risk his life and the rejection and scorn of his own brotherhood to save their lives. In the process, he also showed care for his brothers-in-arms — he stopped them from continuing to commit the most heinous of crimes.
“Think about how much less courage it would have taken to act that night at Cornell. Then consider again that no one intervened. To them, “Free pu**y” wasn’t an alarm bell; it was an invitation.”
I don’t blame Trump and his ilk directly for what happened that night like I blame him and RFK Jr. for the measles deaths, and him and Musk for the tens of thousands of dead children resulting from the shameful USAID cuts. But Trump is the guy who bragged of grabbing women “by the pu**y” and got elected twice. And who was found liable by a jury for sexual assault and got re-elected. So what happened in Ithaca is at least consistent with the American ethos of this Trump era.
My favorite quote on courage is from Al Pacino’s Oscar-winning turn in Scent of a Woman. Impressed by the courage Charlie was showing in refusing to rat out his friends to save himself, Pacino says: “I have come to the crossroads in my life. I always knew what the right path was — without exception, I knew. But I never took it. You know why? It was too damn hard.”
French finished his piece with this flourish of eloquence:
“’Courage,’ C.S. Lewis wrote in one of my favorite quotes, ‘is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality.’
“How do we know what courage is? When we see a man risk himself to care for another person, that’s courage. The legal judgment may be uncertain, but the moral verdict is already in. On the most traumatic night in a young woman’s life, a good man could not be found.”
Let’s find some refuge in today’s puzzle. I loved the theme. It’s taking place in an imagined Zoom meeting. The first three theme answers are trying to get the meeting’s host to unmute himself:
YOU’RE MUTED (Response to “Good morning, everybody!”)
WE CAN’T HEAR YOU (“Response to “Let’s get this meeting going”)
TURN YOUR MIC ON (Response to “Why is everyone ignoring me?”)
And, finally, down near the bottom: “Reaction to the unsuccessful ‘conversation’ in this puzzle:” OH FORGET IT.
Okay, now brace yourselves. My wordplay today is pretty groanworthy. I was working with CONGAS (“Cuban drums”); LINE (“Cue from a cuer”); MYNA (“Talkative bird”); SECTS (“Amish, Shakers and others”); EGOS (“They may be subject to inflation”); and the clue for OILS was “Mechanic’s canfuls.” Here’s what I got:
When younger, I would try to entice dates up to my room to see my Cuban drum, but they were too smart to fall for my CONGA LINE, and they all told me to beat it.
My nephew, a bird lover, looked for a college that offered a program suited to his interest. The closest he came was Oregon State that has a Wildlife Studies major and an Ornithology MYNA.
I learned all about the Amish, Shakers and others in high school, in SECTS ed.
I’m working on a book about large personalities in photography. It will be called EGOS and Fstops.
(Old joke.) On those “Mechanic’s canfuls,” I learned that my mechanic was addicted to brake fluid. I said, “Marvin, that’s really dangerous.” And he said, “Don’t worry. I can stop whenever I want to.”
My rooting “priority” in the baseball playoffs are to see the Dodgers fall. They are down 2-0 to a very impressive, kinehora, Brewer squad, but it’s far from over. The fat lady isn’t even in the dressing room. But for purposes of rooting for an AL team, I am going to insanely imagine the Brewers will win so I can root for underdog Cleveland against Tampa Bay. Woof, woof. Game 1 was terrific with ex-Gnats Foster Griffin and Nathaniel Lowe making important contributions. But young Chase DeLauter was really impressive. We’re going to keep an Owl Chatter eye on that young fella, for sure. Gotta love J-Ram too. He’s electric.
From the I-wish-I-said-that bin: For the clue today “Flora and fauna, collectively,” the answer was BIOTA. Commenter Lynn noted: A BIOTA is twice as much as an IOTA.
Here are a few headlines of extraordinary importance from the recent pages of The Onion:
White House Downplays Hyena Biting Down On Trump’s Ass
‘First Date Going Really Well,’ Thinks Man Who Hasn’t Stopped Talking Yet
In other baseball news, kudos to Gnat Daylen Lile, finalist for a Gold Glove in LF this year, the only Gnat to make the list. And a big boo for the omission of Jacob Young in CF — the man is f*cking brilliant. He’s got the Owl Chatter nod for sure. JY’s on the left here.
Let’s give Andy Coulstock, of the Dull Men’s Club (UK chapter) the last word today. His post, with two photos:
“Today I’ve re-organised my British payphone display.”
Mark Hall: I’m more inquisitive about what’s through the door. They look like vinyl records but stacked the wrong way around, so must be something else?
Andy: Yes they’re records, but they’re stacked properly and in alphabetical order
John Wilkins: By band name, album title,…?
Andy: Band name.
John: Discounting “the?”
Andy: Yes.
Alison Shaw: What happens to albums by The The?
. . .
John Scotland: Now that is both seriously impressive, and seriously dull, at one and the same time. Makes my random assortment of old tools look quite pedestrian.
Avi Liveson: Don’t get down on yourself — life’s too short.
Steve Hearsey: Don’t see one with the A and B buttons.
Andy: They’re in the older phone section upstairs.
Stephen Marshall: Have you got a before pic so we can admire what it looked like and marvel in the effort you made once you finished it?
Andy:
Can’t top that! See you next time! Thanks for stopping by.
