Ken Trainor

The election is a mere month away. No one knows which way it will go, least of all the pundits and pollsters. The pundits worship at the altar of polls, even though the polling results are topsy-turvy. One day Trump is ahead in the swing states. The next day it’s Harris. The one report I haven’t seen from mainstream media is why the polls are so unreliable and what’s wrong with their methodology.

In a 2020 essay published just before the last presidential election, novelist Marilynne Robinson asked the question: “What does it mean to love a country?” That is the question facing us again with two weeks left in the election that will determine this country’s course for the rest of our lives — and our children’s and grandchildren’s lives.

The following is not the official position of this newspaper, just the “closing argument” of one countryman:

I don’t know how the election turned out. We may not know for a while. Maybe the worst thing ever for this country. Maybe the best thing ever. One or the other. Or maybe both, with 50% believing one, 50% believing the opposite.

Based on the 2016 novel by Robert Harris, the new film Conclave is about the traditional gathering of cardinals (red hats, not redbirds) to pick a new pope. It has garnered an aggregate score of 92% from critics on the Rotten Tomatoes website (and an 85% audience rating, which goes by the new moniker “popcornmeter”). Here is the critics’ consensus, distilled to one sentence: “Carrying off papal pulp with immaculate execution and career-highlight work from Ralph Fiennes, Conclave is a godsend for audiences who crave intelligent entertainment.”

When a clown moves into a palace, he does not become a king.

It has never been harder to feel thankful than this November, but life is never all downside, even when most of it feels bad. I’m thankful that there are two kinds of suffering, and one leads to less suffering. I will be forever grateful if that is the case.

We just lost the latest battle in our seemingly endless Culture War — which has been ongoing since America developed the two-party system in 1796, as Americans have struggled through an almost uninterrupted succession of cultural conflicts. So says author Stephen Prothero in his 2016 book, Why Liberals Win the Culture Wars – Even When They Lose Elections.

O come, O come, Emanuel, and ransom captive Israel … Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death’s dark shadow put to flight …

Last Saturday, Christmas paid a visit. You never know when it’s going to show up. All you can do is create the conditions. Sometimes Christmas just needs an invitation. First I drove out and picked up my two most reliable seasonal collaborators, the boys whom Christmas seems to follow around most of the year. Halloween […]