J. D. Vance tries to thread the needle

The New Neo Posted on by

Melanie Phillips is not pleased:

Bad as all this is, the really shocking thing has been the refusal by certain mainstream conservatives to denounce [growing anti-Semitism on the right] and shut it down, appearing instead to nod along to it.

It’s certainly true that some have not condemned it, but a great many have – at least it seems that way to me. For example, she cites Kevin Roberts’ initial failure, but not the fact that it caused an uproar and rebellion at Heritage, with many conservatives there leaving in anger.

The split is an old story rather than a new one, with Pat Buchanan and William F. Buckley playing starring roles way back when.

In my opinion,Vance tries to be too clever by half. From Phillips:

One of those influential conservatives, however, is none other than U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who is another of Carlson’s friends. Vance closed the conference by decrying “purity tests” and said: “I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to de-platform.”

The difference between “denounce” – that is, criticize – and “deplatform” – that is, silence – is huge, and Vance is smart enough to know it.

From Phillips:

In a subsequent interview on the website UnHerd, [Vance] made some even more troubling remarks. Although he said that antisemitism and all forms of ethnic hatred “have no place in the conservative movement,” he also said the idea that Carlson’s views “are somehow completely anathema to conservatism, that he has no place in the conservative movement” was “frankly absurd.”

That makes zero sense if one believes, as I do, that Carlson expresses anti-Semitism or at least heavily implies it, by highlighting and failing to challenge the views of people who lie about Israel in order to demonize that country. In Tucker’s case, it takes the form of promoting the idea (sometimes in his own direct statements, sometimes through fawning interviews with others) that Israel purposely murders Christians and discriminates against them, and that Israel is committing genocide.

A differing view from that of Phillips about the right and anti-Semitism can be found here – although, interestingly, the article steers clear of mentioning Vance:

Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes represent regress masquerading as rebellion. They do not speak for the right; they speak for themselves and for the algorithms that reward outrage and sounding outrageous.

Many, maybe most, prominent people on the right — from President Donald Trump to Pastor John Hagee to Thomas Sowell to Marco Rubio — stand with Israel because they stand with the West, with victims of jihad, and with a commitment to preserve the values of individual freedom, equal justice under the law and freedom of speech. …

To its credit, the American right has no shortage of adults in the room. Many intellectuals, Jewish advocates, and elected Republicans openly condemned the Carlson-Fuentes stunt. You could watch the split in real time: one faction explained that freedom of speech does not require private companies and organization to provide a platform for unreconstructed bigots; the other faction accused “the establishment” of “silencing us.” …

The fact is that Republican support for Israel remains high, even though younger cohorts are more skeptical. Pew Research in April 2025 found solid GOP confidence in Israel’s leadership and warmer views of Israelis than Democrats expressed. In October, Pew found the same partisan gap, even as overall U.S. favorables toward Israel declined. The point: when far-right influencers target Jews, they are out of step with rank-and-file Republican voters — and not speaking for them.

And Vance? I’m still not sure, but I’m fairly certain that before November of 2028 we’ll find out more.

Modern dilemmas: what to do with those empty churches

The New Neo Posted on by

The number of Christian believers in Germany has been falling rapidly, and this presents a problem: what to do with all those empty churches? Maybe it’s time to re-purpose them as mosques – it’s certainly happened before; just ask the Byzantines. But meanwhile, here are some other solutions:

The number of church members in Germany is falling rapidly. In 2024 alone, the two major churches lost over a million Christians due to people leaving the church or dying. Currently, more than 45% of Germans still belong to either to the Protestant Church in Germanyor the Catholic Church. Thirty years ago, that figure stood at almost 69%. This is why churches are now being deconsecrated or desacralized.

… In response to a DW inquiry, the German Bishops’ Conference informed of the closing and decommissioning of 611 Catholic churches between 2000 and 2024. The Protestant Church estimates that some 300 to 350 churches were permanently shut in the same period; more precise figures are not available.

And what happens to former houses of worship? In some cities, especially in Berlin, growing Orthodox Christian congregations have taken over church buildings. But that remains the exception. …

Some are repurposed. In Jülich, a town between Cologne and Aachen, bicycles are now sold in the former Catholic St. Rochus Church. Thomas Oellers moved his business, Toms Bike Center, into the church building. …

In Wettringen, just north of Münster, an abbey has been transformed into a “soccer church” where footballs are knocked about. In Kleve, the former Protestant Church of the Resurrection serves as a boxing arena. Former churches now house pubs, libraries and book stores. Entire cloisters have even been turned into hotel complexes. In Düsseldorf, a hotel has retained its traditional name Mutterhaus (Mother House) in a nod to its original use as a convent for nuns.

In times of housing shortages, there are more and more cases of architects converting church buildings into residential buildings. In Berlin, Rostock, Trier, Cologne and Wuppertal, for example.

Which makes me think of the Philip Larkin poem “Churchgoing.” It was written in 1954, which is a long time ago, indicating that this trend has been going on for a considerable time. You can find the entire poem here, and I call your attention to the fact that in the poem the speaker has been bicycling, and stops in an empty church to take a look: “Hatless, I take off/My cycle-clips in awkward reverence …”

Here’s a longer excerpt:

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

And then of course there’s a poem written about a hundred years earlier than that (probably in 1851) by Matthew Arnold, and entitled “Dover Beach. I wrote at some length about the poem in this post. The stanza that is particularly apt:

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

I believe that Arnold was speaking of Christianity and of Europe, and he sensed what was coming there or what had already begun. He seemed to have seen the trend:

In an 1869 letter to his mother, he wrote:

“My poems represent, on the whole, the main movement of mind of the last quarter of a century, and thus they will probably have their day as people become conscious to themselves of what that movement of mind is, and interested in the literary productions which reflect it. It might be fairly urged that I have less poetical sentiment than Tennyson and less intellectual vigour and abundance than Browning; yet because I have perhaps more of a fusion of the two than either of them, and have more regularly applied that fusion to the main line of modern development, I am likely enough to have my turn as they have had theirs.”

Stefan Collini regards this as “an exceptionally frank, but not unjust, self-assessment. … Arnold’s poetry continues to have scholarly attention lavished upon it, in part because it seems to furnish such striking evidence for several central aspects of the intellectual history of the nineteenth century, especially the corrosion of ‘Faith’ by ‘Doubt’. No poet, presumably, would wish to be summoned by later ages merely as an historical witness, but the sheer intellectual grasp of Arnold’s verse renders it peculiarly liable to this treatment.”

Indeed.

Israel is determined to become militarily independent

The New Neo Posted on by

An excellent idea, if they can pull it off:

“I approved, along with the defense minister and finance minister, a sum of NIS 350 billion [$108 billion] over the next decade to build an independent Israeli munitions industry,” Netanyahu said in an address at a graduation ceremony for Israeli Air Force pilots.

The move, he said, stemmed from a desire to “reduce our dependence on all players, including friends,” after allies including the US, UK, and Germany all imposed various restrictions on weapons sales to Israel since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.

Still, he noted, many countries around the world, including Germany, “want to buy from us more and more systems.”

The Biden administration taught the Israelis a lesson: don’t depend on the US, which is undependable.

The US gets plenty of intelligence from Israel, plus Israel has sometimes taken our military hardware and improved on it. I hope this new (and necessary) initiative won’t end those things that benefit the US.

Here’s an article from about a year ago, describing some of the problems inherent in Israel’s becoming truly independent:

“But we have dependence in all areas. It’s not just about ammunition and munitions: There are all kinds of platforms we need. Even if we produce more of our own bombs, we still need to get the planes from the US in order to fly, so we haven’t really reduced our dependence on the US just by producing more bombs,” he said.

“We talked about building our own planes once and it absolutely ruined us,” the former NSC deputy chief said. “Something like only six countries in the world produce their own fighters. The prices for production are only becoming more and more exorbitant. Even the Europeans ‘cooperate’ and buy from the US. We certainly cannot” build aircraft on our own.

Freilich was referring to the 1980-1987 period when Israel explored “the Lavi project,” which former defense minister Ezer Weizman had dreamed would help Israel become independent in developing its own aircraft.

However, the government ended the program in 1987 – despite many successes even to the test flight stage – deciding that a mix of having maxed out the defense budget in an unsustainable way to around 18% of GDP and the seeming impossibility of competing with US defense companies in this area were just too much.

“Even if we do manufacture a plane of our own, we would still be significantly dependent on the Americans: Many external parts such as metals and electronic components are still being imported from the US,” clarified Dr. Shmuel Even in a posting on the air force website in 2015. “Manufacturing an Israeli plane would definitely benefit the Israeli work market, but the odds of selling large quantities of the plane are pretty low due to tough competition with American industries.”

Frelich continued, “Even the Merkava tank, which Israel made – its engine comes from the US. Again, we are totally dependent.

“Independence from US military supply is fanciful,” he said.

At the very least, Israel can try to become as independent as possible.

Another golden oldie: the day after

The New Neo Posted on by

Hope your Christmas was good. Mine was: a great meal, seeing my grandchildren, and even a couple of presents for me.

The following is an effort of mine from the past. That’s one of the advantages of having been a blogger for umpteen million years – you have a backlog of these sorts of things.

holiday-cheer-christmas-tree.gif

On Christmas Day—blog?
I’d rather have grog,
Or maybe eggnog,
Then go walk the dog.
Or watch a Yule Log,
And eat like a hog,
Then go for a jog.
Blogging’s a bog.
My mind’s in a fog,
Or maybe agog
From much dialogue.
I’ll return to the slog
Already, and blog.

[NOTE: On the words “the dog,” the link goes to an article on the type of dog we had when my son was little.]

Trump sends a message to ISIS in Nigeria

The New Neo Posted on by

Trump put it this way, in characteristic fashion:

“Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“I have previously warned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was,” the president continued. …

“Under my leadership, our Country will not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper. May God Bless our Military, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues.”

This was done in coordination with the government of Nigeria, which provided the intelligence for the strikes.

When I emphasize the message aspect of this action, it’s because I think that was paramount. I don’t think it was so much about killing these particular individuals, but rather about saying, “You’re not safe anywhere, even if you’re not directly killing Americans.” I believe the goal is to have a chilling effect on the group as a whole, and on other similar groups around the world.

It’s also an interesting move of Trump’s in terms of the “America First!” part of the right that is also Christian. People such as the abominable Tucker Carlson focus on stirring up the idea that Israel is out to harm Christians in the Middle East, which is a preposterous assertion, and sometimes ignore – as Carlson does – the far greater war of Islamic extremists against Christians both in the Middle East and in Africa. This attack and these statements make it clear to people such as Carlson where Trump’s priorities lie, and challenges them to comment.

I am also struck by Trump’s language. It’s the sort of thing – the antithesis of diplomat-speak – that gets so many Trump-haters agitated and claiming that Trump’s a stupid boor. Here he speaks in almost cartoon-like language; one almost expects him to write SHAZAM!! However, I see this is very purposeful and part of his unequivocal message: I have power, and I mean business, and I mean for you to understand that.

‘Twas the blogger’s night before Christmas

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This small poetic effort of mine has become somewhat of a holiday tradition at the blog. So here it comes again—just like the holiday itself.]

‘TWAS THE BLOGGER’S NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the ‘sphere
Bloggers were glad to see Christmas draw near.
Their laptops were turned off and all put away
The bloggers were swearing to take off the day.

Their children were nestled all snug in their beds
While visions of extra time danced in their heads
With a father or mom not distracted by writing
No posts to compose, and no links to be citing.

But we all know that vows were just meant to be broken
And the vows of a blogger can be a mere token.
There’s always a chance that some sort of temptation
Will rise up to make them of fleeting duration.

For instance, there might be found under the tree
A sleek Mac; well, what better sight could there be?
And who could neglect it and wait the whole day?
It cries to be tried out, one just can’t delay.

Or maybe somewhere there’s a fast-breaking story
Important, and possibly leading to glory.
It can’t be ignored, there’s really no choice,
So add to the din every blogger’s small voice.

And then there are some who may just like to rhyme
(I’m one who at times must confess to this crime),
And it’s been quite a while since Clement Clarke Moore
Wrote his opus (though authorship’s been claimed by Gore).

So it seems about time it was newly updated
And here’s my attempt – aren’t you glad you all waited?
Forgive if it sounds a bit awkward to read.
In writing, I set a new record for speed.

I had to get under the wire and compose it
Before Christmas Day. Now it’s time that I close it.
But let me exclaim (or, rather, I’ll write)
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!

Here’s a video of the original, with some 50s-type nostalgia for those who remember. There are a few odd anomalies (“safe in their beds” instead of “snug in their beds”). But it brought back memories of pincurls, and the days when parents were assumed to sleep in twin beds (even though I don’t recall that most people did).

I’m pretty sure I had the book on which this is based. The illustrations look very familiar:

And all through the house …

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This is a repeat of a previous Christmas Eve post.]

… a creature was stirring.

On Christmas Eve I was expecting a visit from my son, who was flying in as a rare treat. I had tidied up, and was putting on the finishing touches while waiting for him to arrive from the airport. As I was poised at the top of the staircase on my way down from the second floor, I saw a movement on one of the lower steps.

A dark shape. A small dark shape—very still, and then in motion again. With tiny little ears, and a long tail.

A mouse. Very much stirring.

I let out a shriek, like in the cartoons. Yes, I know that mice do not hurt people. But yes, they give me the willies when they startle me and scurry around—like—mice. The few times when this has happened before, they’ve always sought the little opening from whence they’d come and scurried away, hardly ever to be seen again.

But this mouse seemed to be lost and disoriented. Maybe because it was almost midnight on Christmas Eve, and no creature was supposed to be stirring. In the midst of my unreasonable fear was a sort of amusement. What was it doing here, this evening of all evenings?

The mouse was still on the staircase landing, and although I assumed that somehow it had managed to climb the three stairs to where it was, it appeared to be perplexed about how to get up or down from there. I watched it from what I considered a safe distance at the top of the stairs, and I could see it moving back and forth, back and forth, first towards the wall and then towards the edge of the step, but it could not seem to get the courage to make a break for it.

What did I do? I called my son and asked how far away he was. Forty-five minutes. And then I settled in, not for a long winter’s nap but for a long viewing from a good vantage point to monitor the mouse’s position till my son would arrive. For the moment, the mouse seemed quite well-contained on the stairs, but I didn’t trust that—and sure enough, slowly but surely, with many fits and starts, it managed to get back down those three stairs to the ground floor.

Now, it turns out that watching a mouse is actually sort of interesting. This one darted from stair-bottom to hall to bathroom to bedroom and back again (my place is built upside-down, with the bedroom and bathroom downstairs and living room and kitchen upstairs). I had a special horror of the mouse being in the bedroom—so after its one foray into the bedroom for five minutes and then out again, I slammed the bedroom door shut and placed a thick towel to block the crack at the bottom. The towel seemed to act as an effective barrier, like a small mountain range, and the mouse didn’t venture into that room again.

But back and forth it went—along the wall in the hall, into the bathroom, up a few stairs and then back down them again. I noticed that it seemed to get smarter and smarter; each time it climbed the stairs it was better at it, until it seemed as though it had been doing this all its little life.

And then by trial and error it found the molding along the side of the stairs, which then acted as a sort of ramp by which the mouse could easily climb all the way to the top. This filled me with dread. I was conceding the downstairs for now, but the upstairs was my territory! But what to do? That molding-ramp made it so easy; the mouse was coming up in a determined sort of way, till I could look into its beady little eyes and it could look into mine. I let out another involuntary yelp, stamping my feet and clapping my hands, trying to make enough noise to frighten it off.

I looked and sounded completely and utterly ridiculous.

And yet it was effective; the little thing stopped in its tracks, then turned and went back downstairs again, to my great relief. Then a few minutes later it came up the ramp-molding again, and I re-enacted the same stupid pantomime I had before. The mouse kept coming—up up up, light and fleet of foot, relentless and implacable. I actually thought of throwing something at it to head it off—perhaps my shoe, like Clara in “The Nutcracker.” But oh, for a platoon of tin soldiers like hers! (I’ve cued up this video to start at the right spot, although it’s mistitled because these are not meant to be rats, they’re mice):

But alas, we were alone, just the two of us, mousie and me. And I didn’t really want to hurt it, which I thought might happen if I threw my shoe, so I reached for a pillow—and at that moment I heard the key turn in the lock and my son walked in.

I’m always happy to see him, but perhaps never so happy as this time, as I stood at the top of the stairs in a semi-crouch, clutching a small pillow and making silly-yet-hopefully-scary noises at a mouse that was climbing a molding-ramp on the edge of the staircase.

My son managed to keep his disdain under control long enough to catch the mouse in a plastic container and escort it outside to be released, but not before we took a photo though the plastic. Yes, the mouse is kind of cute. But no, I don’t want him in my house, not on Christmas Eve or any other time.

Mouse 2

Mouse 1

Trump’s approval

The New Neo Posted on by

At least one poll shows Trump with approval at 50%. Maybe it’s an outlier, maybe it’s meaningless, but maybe not.

Some details:

Trump continues to post strong margins with men, nearly six in ten of whom approve of his performance, compared to just over a third who disapprove. Women remain more skeptical, with approval and disapproval nearly evenly split but tilted slightly negative. Age breakdowns, however, may raise alarms for Democrats heading toward the 2026 midterms. Trump runs even among voters under 40 and posts clear net-positive approval among voters 40 and older, including a +5 margin with seniors — a bloc that often turns out heavily in midterm elections.

That rather surprises me, after all the talk of young Trump supporters on the right turning against him because of various schisms and influencers. The male/female divide does not surprise me.

More:

… Trump [earns] approval from more than eight in ten GOP voters. Democrats remain overwhelmingly opposed, though a quarter still register approval — a notable figure in today’s polarized environment.

The InsiderAdvantage results are more favorable to Trump than the broader national picture reflected in RealClearPolling, which currently shows the president below water overall. Still, a net-positive approval rating at this point in a presidency is a rare commodity in modern politics.

Modern politics is very very divided and often rather evenly so.

Bari Weiss finds she has to give the “journalists” at CBS a brushup course in Journalism 101, old style

The New Neo Posted on by

They’re so used to presenting one side of the issue that they find anything else to be anathema. They’re used to journalism as leftist activism. For most of them, I bet it’s what they’ve been explicitly taught.

Bari Weiss thinks otherwise:

CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss created a firestorm when she recently pulled a 60 Minutes piece about illegal aliens and CECOT, the prison in El Salvador.

Weiss made it clear in a memo to staff this week that she expected more from them in that story and what they put out to the public. One of the main things that she thought was missing in the piece was a new comment from the Trump administration.

One of the people on the story, Sharyn Alfonsi, apparently wrote to colleagues saying they had tried to get administration comments but there was no answer, and “Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story.”

However, guess what? The administration had answered. Fancy that:

According to Axios, the Trump administration provided three on-the-record statements from the White House, State Department, and Department of Homeland Security. There was even a more than 300-word statement from DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. None of that was included in the final story.

I would guess that the vast majority of people working in that newsroom find it horrific to have to present the point of view of this administration as part of their stories – unless, of course, it makes the administration look bad or they can twist the answer in order to make the administration look bad. The idea that the boss would call them to task for that sort of behavior is probably extremely new to them, and abhorrent.