Letters to the Editor
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@Aycharaych - re: 24/Jack Bauer
I know the reference to 24 but I'd appreciate some elaboration.
I'm not on cable. I'm watching a lot of dramatic stuff for professional reasons, but I haven't taken in 24 or The Wire for example. Hope to soon, maybe on library DVDs.
So, what are you getting at?
Go for it. Thanks.
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Bring back the stenographers....
I wonder how many have noticed the morphing of press from "journalists" to "reporters". That's "reporter," as in "stenographer."
Glenn is going to have to decide whether he wants the press to be biased, opinionated, and combative, as in "On the adversarial relationship between journalists and political officials" from the Halberstam column - or reporters with no bias at all.
Tsk. Tsk.
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Family Rules
I'd like to recommend today's op-ed by H.D.S. Greenway in the Boston Globe.
Greenway lays out the history of dynastic political rule in Pakistan with the Bhuttos, with a reminder or two of the same thing in India with the Nehrus (Mr. Nehru, his daughter Indira Ghandi, and her sons).
Noting this, while I regret the death of Benazir Bhutto, she sure was was a piece of work in the power sense. Greenway also discusses Benazir's husband.
Anyway, Greenway, points out that if Hillary wins the election and serves two terms, the United States will have experienced the dynastic rule of the Clintons and the Bushes for 28 years, and that all of those presidents so serving will have held a Yale degree.
Now what was your question about Skull & Bones?
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Just had a conversation with my daughter
as she goes to scchool over how short her skirt was.
I think about it now-and I think-OH GOD- I've become me mother!
So I concede-if she gets sent home-her lesson to learn-not mine.
Then I think about myself, and my battles over "hotpants"-which my grandmother would buy me, or make for me-much to my mothers' chagrin.
So I always had her there, playing devils' advocate to mom---who would always trump her.
I touched on it earlier, about how something then was started in the 60's, which really got hijacked to far to the left got stopped. But 40 years later, after that movement got taken by the right-it's gotten hijacked as well--by a far right view.
The mass consumerism that the hippy crowd got sold out to, has become it's most extreme polarized view also. The premise that GW took this country to war-for a thing-a THING(like oil)-shows the worst version of ourselves like holding a mirror up--of that.Not only that, we've behaved like a greedy, fat, spoiled child in how we did that-employing unethical tactics like wiretapping,torture to do so.The word glutton comes to mind.
I suspect the popularity of someone like O. appeals in that he is in the middle-and is applying the logic to the people who know we've gone to far-to far right--and want to come back to the middle. It's the reason the GOP is faltering as they play to thierr small divided factions. So what all of the people who go to his rallies know-the msm acts as though he just appeared "poof" overnight.
But watching the news as a result of his popularity now-the msm is reacting as "syrupy". The msm also wants to polarize the candidates by making them such extreme versions of themselves. Hil laughs--she must be maniacal, Guiliani-tough leader, 911(but what else to him?)....The public wants to claim the center now-you saw that in the Iowa vote. I hope myself, and others can hold center---and not let our country get taken a certain way-like in the 60s(and take it back center from the right. The msm also has been complicit in our becoming the 'gluttons" we are now-the public knowing the same msm were willing dupes for GW in both wars and 911, (and tied to the defense industry ie---without bias).
So from what I see, the unwillingness to buy into polls, the unwillingness of the public to buy extreme versions of candidates-are more of a deeply held belief that in moderate candidates (like me with my grandma);they've got a voice who listens, who represents those views.
I have faith the msm won't be able to use "shiny" arguments to dangle in front of a much more fed-up public.
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Did I mention I am going to buy leggings today
as a compromise? lol
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@Bethincary - re: GOP Faltering
I got the impression, while listening briefly - very briefly - to Rush yesterday that he, as a Big Enchalada of the "true conservatives," reflects real confusion about the Republican field.
His mantra always is: "He's a conservative," or, "he's not a conservative." Maybe sometimes he'll say: "She is ... or, isn't," but let that go.
Yesterday, Rush attacked both Romney and McCain both as being "not conservative."
I listened only long enough to hear him rant about Hillary's "crying jag" and then turned him off, tuning in to Hannity later to hear the same "lead."
So I'm wondering who the "real conservatives" support, if, going by Limbaugh's rant, Romney and McCain aren't acceptable.
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@bethincary - re: Like Holding A Mirror Up - Of That
HAMLET. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as t'were, the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.
- Hamlet/III,ii
- Shakespeare
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bethincary
I'm glad Friday will not be a Friday the 13th of January.
On Sunday the 13th, I hope we get to see you sporting a mini-skirt with high-rise bib overhauls genes. Have fun in your new
fancy,
outfit.
Good Luck.
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@bethincary
Just a question, since it's the second time in two days I've heard someone talk about the sixties that way.
To me, the sixties were a time of great political turmoil because there needed to be great political turmoil. The country was doing many things wrong, and they needed fixing. But most of all, it was a time of extreme creativity. From 1965 to 1968, the number of new recording artists per year jumped from under a thousand to 2900. There were experiments in cinema, in graphic and fine arts, in lifestyles. That was when many things taken for granted now showed up from other places -- yoga, tai chi, other religions, knowledge about other places and other cultures. In science, we both jumped ahead at a huge pace, and began for the first time to question whether a scientist should pay attention to morality. It was when the environmental movements really got started. In my own field, it was a time of great strides in nonlinearity. It was the birth of the internet (Arpanet). A whole nation watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon, a whole nation mourned its fallen heroes.
I know that conservatives hate the sixties with a passion. To George W. Bush the most hated phrase in the English language is "If it feels good, do it."
But it appears that there are whole generations who, conservative or liberal, or anything else, look at the sixties in horror as something that should never come again. I would appreciate hearing why, since I can't fathom it.
Not a criticism, but a question. Why?