Pun Salad

Liz Wolfe has a balanced take when Trump instructs lawyers to look into Smithsonian museums.

It's easy to imagine that Trump will go about this in his usual hamfisted, overreaching way. "Omigod, is that a baby in the bathwater? Nooo, don't throw… argh, too late!"

You don't have to look hard to find the usual Trump cheerleaders breaking out their pompoms. Example: (which makes some valid criticisms of Smithsonian content) at the Federalist.

And the usual suspects have been, predictably, losing their shit. MSNBC had a Princeton prof opine that Trump is seeking a history "that’s rooted in a white nationalist project."

Liz, for her part, suggests a "starve the beast" solution:

The Smithsonian, per The Washington Post, "receives about 60 percent of its funding from congressional appropriations and federal grants and contracts, according to fiscal 2023 numbers, but those funds cover operations, infrastructure and maintaining collections. Generally, exhibitions are funded by private donations." Though this isn't really within the purview of the executive, the Trump administration could exert pressure on Congress to stop funding the Smithsonian and make clear that the museums need to shift to being entirely privately funded. Then Bill Ackman and Alex Soros and whoever can duke it out and decide which types of stories about America get told, and taxpayers in Wisconsin who never get to avail themselves of"The Shape of Power: Stories of Race and American Sculpture" can save a buck.

Certainly a goal to look forward to.

Also of note:

• A shameful admission. My CongressCritter, Chris Pappas (D-NH01), is looking to step into the US Senate seat being vacated by Jeanne Shaheen. Which means there's a scramble for Pappas's position. So I should find NHJournal's story, headlined "Elizabeth Girard Creates Campaign Committee for NH-01 GOP Primary" to be interesting, right?

  Elizabeth Girard, whose time as head of the New Hampshire Federation of Women (NHFRW) was plagued by controversy, has filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to become a candidate in the 1st Congressional District primary.

  Gee, it doesn't sound as if NHJournal likes her.

  But my shameful admission: I'm pretty sure I've never heard of Elizabeth Girard.

  It gets worse. NHJournal goes on to name three other candidates:

  • Bedford GOP Committee vice chair Melissa Bailey
  • Businessman and veteran Chris Bright
  • Manchester Rep. Brian Cole

  Nope. I'm going 0 for 4: never heard of Melissa, Chris, or Brian either. But, if you're interested:

  • A WMUR story about Melissa Bailey;
  • Chris Bright's campaign website;
  • Brian Cole's campaign website;
  • Elizabeth Girard's Twitter (which has a link to, I assume, her campaign website, which doesn't work as I type).

  Those middle two ask for your info upfront. Suggestion: don't give them any.

• Not politics. Dave Barry on Pets. Opening with sad news:

  Our household is currently dogless. It's been that way since the passing, back in January, at age 17, of Lucy, who it goes without saying was the Best Dog Ever, as well as the Dog Whose Face Whitened The Most Over Time.

  The loss of Lucy means that, petwise, we're down to tropical fish. We have five of them. We've had them for what feels like decades. They are survivors. They are the Keith Richardses of tropical fish.

  But the thing about tropical fish is, not dying is pretty much all they do. They don't provide a lot of companionship. They never rush to the front door, tails wagging, to greet us, the way Lucy used to. Of course the fish also never attacked our Christmas tree, which Lucy did once; our living room looked like it had been hit by a Yule-seeking missile. But we weren't home when that happened, so we'll never know the whole story. Possibly the tree started it.

  Dave rambles, and eventually talks about the latest fad in China: pet yeast. No, not an affliction for your dog, it's yeast, that's a pet.

  Not that you should care, but I am also recently dogless. (Picture of happier days here.) I am down to one cat, petwise. Dave scorns cats, but I'm pretty sure they don't care.

• Advice to writers. No, not from me, from Neal Stephenson: Say it, don't show it.

  I’m generally not very interested in meta-writing, which is to say, writing about how to write. But for the last few years I’ve had a single sentence from Dickens hanging around on my desktop in a tiny text file, which I open up and re-read from time to time. It’s a moment from The Pickwick Papers. The titular character is attempting to board a stagecoach. It’s crowded and so he has to get on the roof, which is a bit of a challenge because he is old and portly. A passing stranger, seeing his predicament, offers to give him a hand. What happens next is described as follows:

  ‘Up with you,’ said the stranger, assisting Mr. Pickwick on to the roof with so much precipitation as to impair the gravity of that gentleman’s deportment very materially.

  If you’re a fluent reader of the Dickensian style of English, these few words will conjure up a whole short film inside of your head. You might actually have to stop reading for a few moments to let that film develop and play out. And while you’re doing that you might savor the arch and clearly self-aware phrasing that Dickens is using here, which unto itself is a way of poking fun at Mr. Pickwick and his social circle.

  It's kind of neat that Neal enjoys "the Dickensian style".