Nature

Pentwater, Michigan
October 5, 2018

Most folks who read the blog already know that I've moved to Michigan.  What does this portend for the world?   Well, nothing.  Things will keep moving along, blog or no blog, California, Michigan, wherever. 

Tomorrow they'll approve the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.  I'm so sure of this that I'm going to publish this today, before the vote.  If I'm right I won't gloat, and if I'm wrong, then I'll have some explaining to do.  Now, to hear the people on NPR talking (which I pick up in the background as my wife listens on her iPad), you'd think there's some serious question about whether he'll get the nod.  There's lots of excited and wishful speculation about Senator Susan Collins from Maine, and Joe Manchin from West Virginia.  One NPR guy asked the rhetorical question whether Manchin would want to be the single Democrat who sealed the Kavanaugh nomination, to which I thought, Hell Yes, if it gets him re-elected.  Then there's Jeff Flake, who gets lots of respectful consideration from liberals because he doesn't like Trump, notwithstanding the fact that he's a conservative Republican.  But he'll vote for Kavanaugh too, because Kavanaugh embodies his right wing views pretty much down the line. 

Still, the moderates and left-of-center folks hope against hope that Kavanaugh won't get picked.  Well of course I hope so too, but I don't go on the air and make a national hobby of telling everyone so, nor do I try to shape the more or less immutable facts to match my wishes.  But that is the disease of the anti-Trump media.  They've been denying the fact of his presidency since the day after he was elected, so it should be no surprise that they deny the fact that he has the votes in the Senate to get his guy approved.

This reminds me of the story of the scorpion and the frog.  A scorpion wants to cross a body of water, but can't swim.  So it asks a frog to carry it on its back.  The frog initially says, "No way--you'll sting me!"  The scorpion replies, "Why would I do that?  Then we'd both drown."  The frog sees the logic of this and agrees to carry the scorpion.  About halfway across the scorpion stings the frog.  As they're going down into the water the frog asks, "Why did you do it?"  The scorpion answers, "I couldn't help it.  It's my nature."

Remember this tomorrow as you see people voting against logic, but according to their nature.