I’m a little too young to introspect

• Louisiana Republican Rep. Steve Scalise, the House majority whip, has admitted that he spoke at a conference hosted by a white nationalist group. Scalise says he didn’t know at the time that that’s what the group was. It’s called the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, it was founded by infamous white supremacist David Duke, and it runs a website called whitecivilrights.com, but Scalise says he had no idea what the group’s agenda was. OK, then.

Rule of Thumb: If your party is struggling with the perception that it’s overly comfortable with racism, you probably shouldn’t elect congressional leaders who like to hobnob with old-school white supremacists.

See also: #SteveScaliseExcuses

• Another rule of thumb: If you’re being criticized for a habitual, systemic tendency to assign blame improperly due to knee-jerk hostility and an inability to hear legitimate criticism, then maybe it’s wise not to respond by making a massive show of your assigning blame improperly due to your knee-jerk hostility and your inability to hear legitimate criticism.

• You won’t find it listed among the dictionary definitions, but one common use of the word “spiritual” among Christians is as a qualifying, lessening adjective employed to limit, neutralize, neuter or dismiss the apparent meaning of a prior statement. Thus “spiritual poverty,” etc. Here’s a classic example of the word being used in this way. Nice try, padre.

• Standing athwart Pentecost and yelling Stop! — still not an effective church-growth strategy.

• So I was outside with the dog having a cup of coffee after dinner when I heard Canada geese honking. I looked up and saw actual, literal wild geese flying with the moon on their wings. I saw this! It was, in fact, pretty cool.

But I’m still not sure I’d say it was one of my favorite things. I mean, the wild geese were lovely and all, but if we’re limiting the list to just a few of my favorite things, I don’t think I could honestly rank them higher than an after-dinner cup of coffee. Or my dog, for that matter.

So, OK then, I’ll need to amend Oscar Hammerstein’s lyrics. Lose the geese to make room for the coffee. Bump the whiskers on kittens to make room for my dog. Need to get baseball in there too, so let’s swap out the doorbells because, come on, who really likes doorbells? I’m keeping the crisp apple streudel, though — that stuff is awesome.

• In Argentina, if you have seven sons, the seventh can be “adopted” by the country’s president. This, apparently, ensures that the seventh son will not become a werewolf.

Scoff if you will, but you can’t argue with results. The tradition dates back to 1907, and in all those years, none of the seventh sons adopted by Argentinian presidents has ever turned into a werewolf. So, clearly, this works.

• Since it’s still Christmastide (12 days, remember), here’s one of my favorite holiday traditions:

Darlene Love has said she’s retiring this annual performance, but I’m hoping Stephen Colbert will try to talk her out of that.