A C. T U. A L. L Y

After yesterday’s ouster of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, it’s official:   The Republican Party is in full disarray.   While I will not miss “My Kevin,” I do not rejoice to see him go.   The last thing Americans hungry for a functioning governing body deserve is another serving of crap in a constipated legislative chamber. How did we get here?   McCarthy needed only 218 votes to keep his job.   He got 210, with eight members of his party voting to remove him.   How is it that eight members of the House out of 434 were able to vacate the Speaker’s chair and paralyze the House?   The easy answer is that these eight members were elected by extremist primary voters and, in order to secure reelection, dutifully voted to represent their extreme views.   The more difficult answer is that our governmental framework has internal anti-majoritarian structures that, when exploited, can damage the system.   The Washington Post recently asked and ans...

My husband and I have birthdays five days apart in August, and we usually celebrate them as a birthday week. This year we decided on Zell an der Mosel , a town on the Mosel River in an area of western Germany renowned for its Rieslings.     We thought a combination of wine tastings, vineyard walks, and visits to towns along the banks of the Mosel would be fun.   We were right. My husband chose Zell as our base for nostalgic reasons.   The first wine he bought as soon as he could pass for 21 was Zeller Schwarze Katz , perhaps a step up (or down) from Liebfraumilch and Mateus , but definitely superior to the Colt 45 tall boys he sneaked behind the bleachers in high school.      The Mosel originates in France, where it is called the Moselle , and runs north to Koblenz in Germany, where it joins the Rhine.  The river is tortuous, languorous, and absolutely lovely. Just observing it was deeply, deeply relaxing. Another reason my husband chose...