Letters to the Editor
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Darn you Carol.... merci. It's stuck to a futon mattress. What a nice time at a slumber party. Oh, I meant, Darn you Swensker @ 6:16.
I don't ski. Many DC people who do snowboard or ski visit Whitetail Ski Slopes just North of where live.
The ski slope came about 7-years ago. It provided part-time jobs, and winter ski passes for local youth.
I'll sometimes visit to watch the ski enthusiast. I'll have a coffee and piece of delicious cheese cake in a cafeteria.
The elder ski people have fun? I'd rather go to a suburbia jailhouse? Or, maybe be enclosed in a safe barbwire Leavenworth facility?
The ski garb looks so non-comfortable.
Why ski? It don't look fun for adults. ugh.
So ~`;
I'll go home to a quilted futon and wonder.
Why don't a ski person over 16-years old QUIT?
In my opinion ~ It looks as 'IF' DC came to town,
displaying darn old fashion Pride and Ugly Misery.
But I don't ski, even if a slope is 6-miles up the road.
Maybe I should hush up? okay. I'll go to a army surplus.
I'll search for a summer yard sale. I'll buy a used Harley steel helmet. If anyone drops a grenade? Oh ah, a~ok. Take the steel motorcycle pot hat, a protective ski helmet to any fun ski slope. Flop on it?
Kapok! ...resort...
O maybe conform?
See flowers bloom.
Flower seeds burst.
Oh, a private banter.
Oy! a mumble. hush.
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My two Chicago papers get it, but not the M$M hypocrite cheerleaders
Gotcha debate didn't help voters decide
This week's televised debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama likely was their last.
And what a disappointment it was.
We've heard of a spin-free zone. How about a substance-free zone?
It sure felt that way, especially for the first half of the debate led by ABC's Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos.
It was a night marked by gotcha questions, of been-there-heard-that retreads that offered little new.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/902139,CST-EDT-edit18a.article
Guilt by association
It's ridiculous to slap Sen. Barack Obama because he knows former radical Bill Ayers. That's what we think. You can read Friday's editorial, written by Bruce Dold, and let us know what you think.First, you have to wonder why ABC News thought it was a good idea to have George Stephanopoulos, who was one of President Bill Clinton’s highest-ranking aides, serve up questions at a debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.Second, you have to wonder why Stephanopoulos, who has been resurrected as a television commentator, thought to ask Obama about ... Bill Ayers.
http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/vox_pop/2008/04/guilt-by-associ.html
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Che Pasa
You say that Obama is treating Hillary with contempt, and that Obama has no record in the Senate.
Last I checked, Obama defended Hillary in the debate, when they brought up the sniper thing. To say that he treats her with utter contempt, I think, is not entirely true. I believe he treats her with more respect than she treats him, that's for sure.
And he might have little record in the US Senate, but what about the Illinois Senate?
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RE: Media Differences
Via C&L, this guy asks a good question:
http://www.cogitamusblog.com/2008/04/question-for-th.html
(He has links embedded)
Do you think if Barack Obama had left his seriously ill wife after having had multiple affairs, had been a member of the "Keating Five," had had a relationship with a much younger lobbyist that his staff felt the need to try and block, had intervened on behalf of the client of said young lobbyist with a federal agency, had denounced then embraced Jerry Falwell, had denounced then embraced the Bush tax cuts, had confused Shiite with Sunni, had confused Al Qaeda in Iraq with the Mahdi Army, had actively sought the endorsement and appeared on stage with a man who denounced the Catholic Church as a whore, and stated that he knew next to nothing about economics -- do you think it's possible that Obama would have been treated differently by the media than John McCain has been? Possible?
And -- this is fun to contemplate -- if Michelle Obama had been an adulteress, drug addict thief with a penchant for plagiarism -- do you think that she would be subject to slightly different treatment from the media than Cindypills McCain has been? Anyone?
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Median Household Income
One has to wonder, though, how a media that thinks $200,000 is "middle class" could possibly do a serious job of reporting on a country where the median household income is around $60,000.
--Ezra Klein
Funny that. The median household income in Pittsburgh was about $31,000 last year. You wanna tell PENNSYLVANIANS that middle class makes six figures? Try it. I dare you.
When Obama said small-town Pennsylvania was left behind by both parties he wasn't lying. He didn't say that Bill Clinton's days were as bad as Bush's (they weren't), but Clinton's hardly saved the day. If anything, he slowed down the economic slide a little bit.
And for those of you who think the word "cling" is condescending in this instance, you've never been to smalltown PA. Cling is the right word, believe me...I've grown up here all my life.
It sounds condescending, but that's because other people use cling to mean something else. To understand Obama's clinging, imagine clinging to a life vest in the ocean, with no land in sight.
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Circlejerkular reasoning
George Stephanopoulos defends his role in the craptacular debate thusly:
“The questions we asked were tough and fair and appropriate and relevant and what you would expect to be asked in a presidential debate at this point,” he said. “The questions we asked…are being debated around the political world every day.”
I couldn't have said it better myself. He unabashedly admits that the reason for wallowing in stupid right-wing talking points is that all the other kewl kidz are wallowing in stupid right-wing talking points. And, of course, we would be naive to expect him to rise above such turd-licking.
Did you pay there guys to do this now to stimulate sales of your book, Glenn?
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"Class" - - Wes Clark (a different Wes Clark -- not the retired NATO General) reviews Paul Fussell's book
http://wesclark.com/am/class.html
Class - A guide through the American status systems
Paul Fussell, Summit Books, New York, 1983, 202 pagesMr. Schmidt is correct, this book describes my upbringing well. Class was published in 1983, during a resurgence of class awareness associated with the preppie clothing fad (Lisa Birnbach's Preppie Handbook is cited throughout), the John T. Malloy dress-for-success works and the new conservatism of the Reagan Administration. In other words, it's a very Eighties work. Normally I have confined Avocado Memories to the Sixties and Seventies, the decades when I "came of age," but since Class analyzes the American class structure so well, and since Avocado Memories is essentially a look at life among the middle class (as I originally assumed - as it turns out according to Fussell being middle class would have been a step up), this book is worth comment.
It's certainly not what I would call a kind book, but it is an accurate one. (The surest sign of sarcasm on a writer's part is when one is "enjoined" to put out a cigarette in a replica of a little toilet emblazoned with the words "Put your butts here.") It certainly isn't an easy book to read, either, in that it illustrates a lot of the pretension that so characterizes America. Europeans often comment on how crass this country really is; there's fuel for their fire in this book. However, the only problem I really have with Class is Fussell's Northeastern liberal/academic slant. Sincere Christianity is described as being low class; I can only imagine what he'd think of Brigham Young University, where I went to college!
Anyway, Fussell defines nine levels of American society (and, by the way, these are his descriptions and not mine - it won't do to get upset with me!):
Top Out of Sight - Billionaires and multi-millionaires. The people so wealthy they can afford exclusive levels of privacy. We never hear about them because they don't want us to.
Upper Class - Millionaires, inherited wealth. Those who don't have to work. They refer to tuxes as "dinner jackets."
Upper Middle - Wealthy surgeons and lawyers, etc. Professionals who couldn't be described as middle class. I suspect this is the class to which I, an engineer, am supposed to aspire.
Middle Class - The great American majority, sort of.
High Proletarian (or "prole") - Skilled workers but manual labor. Electricians, plumbers, etc. Probably not familiar with the term "proletarian."
Middle Prole - Unskilled manual labor. Waitresses, painters. (In other words, my mom and dad!)
Low Prole - Non-skilled of a lower level than mid prole. I suspect these people ask "Would you like fries with that, sir?" as a career.
Destitute - Working and non-working poor.
Bottom Out of Sight - Street people, the most destitute in society. "Out of sight" because they have no voice, influence or voter impact. (They don't vote.)
Fussell is quick to point out that class in America is not decided exclusively upon finances; it is also a matter of taste, what one does with one's recreational time, what one reads, what colleges (if any) one has attended and how well one speaks. He describes the anxiety associated with maintaining or bettering one's position in society, and identifies the phenomenon of some members of the upper class descending in class ranks - apparently for kicks.
What was distressing to me was to read about why my family was "mid prole." Proletarian? Who, us? We had always thought of ourselves as being at least middle class! [...]
- - a different Wes Clark
One of the problems with the Bartels versus Frank argument is that they define "class" in different ways. Bartels defines "working class" simply to mean having a very low income, which is quite different from Frank's definition . . . so naturally they reach different conclusions.
Oops nevermind.
I almost forgot.
The USA is class-less.