1. Most modern social and psychological commentary and scholarship gives me the impression of attending a high-level film-studies class given by Uwe Boll; a complacent, confident assumption that you know what is right, delivered from atop a pile of unmitigated failure.

2. It occurred to me last night that I find the news repulsive. Not the content (though often that as well), but the actual experience of watching the news; the smug sycophancy directed from brainless talking heads at worthless excuses for human beings while both sides repeat the same stale, empty, morally-bankrupt talking points as if they were self-evident truths.

3. I’m once again in Maine visiting my niece and nephew, as well as my siblings, all of whom are coming up for the weekend to visit in New England’s birch and stony woods.

4. Recently I’ve been reading a short biography of Grover Cleveland. Like a lot of the ‘unregarded’ Presidents, he’s a much more impressive figure than one would expect. Indeed, he comes across from this book at least as something like the ideal republican politician (small ‘r’, he was a Democrat): the sort of man that Americans would like to imagine as the norm rather than the exception. Talented and intelligent, but not politically ambitious, scrupulously honest in public affairs, independently minded and with a strong sense of duty to the public good.

5. Though honestly, I suspected there might be more to him than is usually credited, both because of individual anecdotes I’d heard (such as his thoughtful use of the veto) and simply by the fact that he was the only Democrat elected to the Presidency between 1860 and 1912, and he was elected twice. There had to be something special about him.

That said, of course, it’s early days yet to pass a final judgment: I’m getting most of this from one relatively short biography, so I take the portrait with at least a grain or two of salt.

6. Another interesting point I noticed was that in the 1882 election for New York governor, there were fewer than 1 million total votes cast. In New York. That’s a stark reminder of how fewer electors there were at the time, and thus, of course, how much more meaningful any individual voter would be.

7. I tend to think of the period between 1865 and about 1929 as America’s Golden Age. Not in the sense that everything was perfect or even necessarily in good shape, but that this was the time of the greatest energy, national confidence, and distinctive character in our nation, where most of our best and most characteristic art, literature, and music was created and standards were set for future works. That is, this was the time when America was most American, if you take my meaning.