Editors Note:

December 21, 2022

Happy Holidays from the Chesapeake Observer

The editors wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We are taking this time with family and friends, and will return with the first issue of 2023 on January 10.

The Adoration of the Shepherds, by Pinturrichio, Santa Maria Maggiore, Spello, Italy

I cannot help but add a few thoughts about the passing year. I can see little happening in our nation and world to make me merry (for examples, see our Worth Reading selections for this issue). Lasting happiness cannot come from the external sources of politics and world affairs. In this season, by taking time off from the world, I can make merry with family, friends and even the cat whose permanent attachment to my lap is making typing an exercise in contortion to reach my keyboard. We can all get solace and hope by following the venerable Christmas traditions. Most important, with the birth of our Saviour who is also the King of Kings, we can remember that we are exiles here, as the carol goes. It is our task to do all we can to improve this City of Man, but we need to remember that we are just visitors who will leave the frustrations and sadness behind when we move to our true home in the City of God. — David Montgomery December 21, 2022

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3 Comments

Fran Bergere

CommentThanks David for reminding all what this season and Christmas is all about. May you and your family enjoy a very Marry Christmas
December 22, 2022
John+F+Doetzer

Well said David! More time spent contemplating the City of God,the better off we all will be.
December 22, 2022
Jack Hall

Doris and I have spend the afternoon in the company of family as well as their various family members, their cousins, their in-laws, their in-laws’ families and their beautiful, well-mannered and bright grandchildren. I have no doubt that our generation will be succeeded by those who share our values and will reject whatever silliness is the current vogue.
December 24, 2022

My rant is brief, and to take this discussion beyond my conclusions I am recommending a selection of articles representative of the research on which I have relied. The first is a basic survey of the growth of the managerial state, followed by DEI in military services, suppression of results at NIH, and climate policy. I end with a contrary and more optimistic point of view. My point is not how misguided policies adopted in the past four years have been -- I need not repeat that story -- but how these policies did not get or need Presidential attention in order to be adopted. They are the continued working of a self-perpetuating layer of managers.

A basic introduction to how the managers have taken over everything from elected officials

The great historian Niall Ferguson, now an invaluable columnist in the Free Press, discusses how far we have fallen under Biden-Harris-Blinken-Sullivan foreign policy.

A detailed report on how our military establishment has decided to indoctrinate future generations of admirals and generals.

How an NIH researcher is withholding results that undermine claims that sex change is good for teenagers.

A good discussion of the basic unrealism of EPA’s new regulations to mandate electric vehicles and remove natural gas and coal from electricity generation. It is complemented by this survey that few Americans even care about the climate cause or want the regulations imposed by these managers..

And to wrap up my concerns about the powers that be, a point by Matt Taibbi: “Something’s up. Suspiciously similar editorials about possible post-election emergency measures coming out in multiple publications” The managers are worried but have a plan to hold on to power.

But maybe I am wrong. Alex Gutentag and Michael Shellenberger observe how Kamala’s campaign is ”circling the drain,” in the immortal words of Bo Snerdley. Gutentag and Shellenberger describe its many pathologies that have driven pillars of my “managerial class” away from Democrats. One good line is that in Kamala’s world “shaming and belittling take precedence over actual debate. This, in the long-term, has been another losing strategy.” I have been the target of shaming and belittling, and we will see if these optimists are correct. I hope and pray they are.