Letters to the Editor
had_enough
Published Letters: 813 Editor's Choice: 48
-
@slackie -- nice post..
[Read the article: "No, the president does not have a pre-9/11 mind-set"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]To call them Orwellian is quaint; they'd make Derrida blush.
Scary stuff, really. Nihilistic, at heart, for all their cynical invocations of family values and morality.
-- Slackie Onassis
********
Interesting. And true. The average-schmuck-on-the-street-who-thinks-Derrida-is-a-new-kind-of-frozen-confection version is something like this:
"I will always explain everything in a way that makes me look good. If this explanation differs utterly from what I said yesterday on the same subject, that is entirely irrelevant. Whatever I say that makes me look good according to whatever set of norms seems most beneficial to me at the moment, that is the truth of any matter I may be discussing. Truth is whatever makes me look good. Untruth is anything anyone else says that makes me look bad. Everything I say makes me look good, therefore, everything I say is true."
Or something like that.
On reflection, it's not the first post-modern presidency; it's just another in a long line of used-car-salesman presidencies.
-
sure...
[Read the article: The battle for California, as seen by bike. Part 2]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]... you'll be riding around one of the nicest places on earth.. I'd love to hear about it, including some pictures!
We ride up there three or four times a year, mainly around the Presidio, GG bridge and Sausalito area.. when we aren't intimidating the traffic between Palos Verdes and Corona del Mar on PCH..
-
..brother...
[Read the article: How to become the perfect, "surrendered" wife]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]..happier marriages eh? Depends on how you define happiness.
Human beings who have not evolved much pschologically or emotionally probably function fairly well in such an arrangement. But that's the only kind of human who could. If the alternative is family chaos (see any book on family therapy for a definition--similar to chaotic personality disorder, but involving two or more parties in a nuclear family), this arrangement would be regarded as a big improvement, appalling as that may be.
This story reminded me of a vivid tableau in the PBS documentary *The Mormons.* One of the "happy Mormon families" profiled in the show is sitting around a table praying. There are seven children, and the parents. All I could think was "how many undiscussibles are there in this family? The list would be longer than the Old Testament." You could tell. There's a lot of stuff that would just not exist for these people. And the pressure of all that stuff makes for problems. Sooner, or later.
It's a life. But not much of one, ultimately.
-
old wine in the latest bottle.
[Read the article: The Politico: Exhibit A for our broken political press]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Was it not one of the stated goals of the Bush Administration to discredit all MSM so that when that MSM finally started reporting the facts of what the Administration was doing, no-one would believe them? Or uninformed types (that is, most people), would assume the facts were "partisan politics"?
I don't recall when I first read about this. I'm sure Glenn has posted about it a long time ago, but I didn't read it on his blog. Maybe in Harpers? Someplace like that.
This Administration wanted to ruin the integrity of all journalism, so they would be free to trample the Constitution the way Nixon wanted to, but in the end was prevented from doing, at least in part by MSM with integrity.
Now? Much of the reason we're in such a mess is because the Administration has been successful. MSM is, in some sense, powerless. Although, if the Washington Post would just jettison their wingnut writers and start doing journalism again, who knows?
-
who is she kidding?
[Read the article: Condi Rice never looks back]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That book about Rice sounds like one, long *duuuuuhhhh.*
How anyone of reasonable intelligence and awareness could miss Rice's really profound intellectual dishonesty is beyond me. I knew the first time I heard her talk that she was just a con-artist who was wound up way too tight to even be very good at it. I can't imagine anyone with an ounce of sense who would believe a damned thing she said...or who would believe that anything she said was for any purpose other than her own benefit. Who in hell has she been conning all this time? I wouldn't trust her to take out the garbage...not the first time I heard her voice...and certainly not now.
The fact that she "adores" Bush, and thinks he can do no wrong...does that not say everything? Seems to me it would.
But, even if you take that particular weirdness off the table, you're left with a woman who couldn't convince a bird to fly, even on her best days. Did no-one get this? Ever? I knew it right from the start of her public life in DC. You couldn't trust a damned thing she said. You could hear it in her voice. Every time. You'd have to be deaf, dumb, and blind not to get that. All you had to do is compare known facts to what she said, and know that she was lying nearly every time she opened her mouth. Just like her boss.
What the hell is happening to us? What HAS happened to us? Is it just now that these cheap con-artists in the White House are suddenly revealed? Was no-one paying attention? At all?
You know...for a long time I had some hope that human beings weren't really as twisted and crazy as they seemed to be. As I reach the half-century mark of life, I've reached the unavoidable conclusion that humans are FAR more stupid, twisted, and crazy than I ever imagined. I really should not get exercised about such things at this point, you know? But I do, alas. It'll probably shorten my life. We turn our government, our very lives, over to cheap hustlers and con-artists, and then we wonder why everything goes to hell.
Phooey.