and you thought journalism was dead

 With all the mentions I've made of Raynor Winn's The Salt Path over the past few years, I feel it incumbent upon me to make this post.

I was on youtube yesterday when a little video popped up. This one. A reporter at The Observer dug deep and found out that the Winns' real names are Sally and Tim Walker They are basically embezzlers and tax evaders, for a start. Three books were written, to acclaim, and now the film is out; I've been waiting for it to show over here. Now, I don't think I can bring myself. The full article - very thorough and interesting - is here.

I really am stunned. Of course we know these things go on. But it was a great story, and so hopeful, the way Moth seemed to get better after these long hikes they went on. They're not even sure now about the truth of his illness, and that whole part of it.

What really amazes me is that she has done so many interviews, her face has been everywhere, for those who've been following their story, and didn't she think that someday they'd be found out? That nobody they've ever known would be watching the news? What will happen now? You can run, but you can't hide forever, and especially not when you're famous. Incredible.

About "journalism". This reporter, Chloe Hadjimatheou, did a stellar job. But there is altogether too much of this: 

But I do agree with them on one point: They are extremely dangerous to our democracy.

solar summer - who knew?

 Here is a link to an article about solar summer - for Gretchen, and anybody else who's curious!

slow Saturday

 It was another very humid day today, and a thunderstorm came along in the middle of it - not too bad, and Dolly and I stopped our work and rested while the wind blew the rain against the north windows, and I said my rosary with my plastic beads. A violent storm is an opportunity for praying, or waiting, but not much else. I have a plastic rosary given to me by a priest who got a bunch of them when he was on retreat in the Holy Land; he gave them out one Easter. I always reach for them during electrical storms. 

The Orphan turned three the other day. She's definitely more sedate, or maybe I should say she's less crazy, less often. But I recently noticed she will sleep for hours on a full tummy, which seems a little much for someone so young. I can't help but wonder if she feels left out, watching us give so much attention to the high-maintenance Dolly. Or is she bored in our small house? She has always played so well by herself that we don't feel too guilty if we aren't playing with her, but I think she's been feeling it. So, I'm making her wait longer now between meals and making her play for a while when I have a minute. She already seems better, poor thing. She's so good natured, and I'm afraid she's been wondering where she fits in. That's awful, isn't it? 

I've been reading a book about another of our founders, a man named Gouverneur Morris. I chose this book because I found out he wrote the preamble to our Constitution. I had no idea. The others liked the way he worded things, in the same way they like the way Jefferson worded things for the Declaration. Morris had an interesting life, - spent ten years in France when things were starting to simmer and then boil - I learned a lot about that time from reading this. He seemed sensible and very likeable to me,  despite the fact he had numerous affairs with married women. Why is it easier for me to excuse the same failings in those from the past, than for those alive now? Maybe because the former are in God's hands now, and have gotten their reward or punishment, and being angry with them won't make any difference to anything. 

"To try to do good, to avoid evil, a little severity for oneself, a little indulgence for others - this is the means to obtain some good result out of our poor existence. To love one's friends, to be beloved by them - this is the means to brighten it."

                                        -  Gouverneur Morris, from Gentleman Revolutionary by Richard Brookhiser 

does this remind you of anything?

 "What Rome was capable of, the achievement of her empire shows. The Roman character had great qualities, great potential strength. If the people had held together, realizing their interdependence and working for a common good, their problems, completely strange and enormously difficult though they were, would not, it may well be believed, have proved too much for them. But they were split into sharpest oppositions, extremes that ever grew more extreme and so more irresponsible. A narrow selfishness kept men blind when their own self-preservation demanded a world-wide outlook.

History repeats itself. The fact is a testimony to human stupidity. The saying has become a truism; nevertheless, the study of the past is relegated to the scholar and the school-boy. And yet it is really a chart for our guidance - no less than that. Where we now are going astray and losing ourselves, other men once did the same, and they left a record of the blind alleys they went down. We are like youth that can never learn from age - but youth is young, and wisdom is for the mature. We that are grown should not find it impossible to learn from the ages-old recorded experience of the past."

                                            - Edith Hamilton, The Roman Way