Archive for the ‘All’ Category
Wealth-Gap Dangers
The income gap between the rich and the rest of the US population has become so wide, and is growing so fast, that it might eventually threaten the stability of democratic capitalism itself. Is that a liberal's talking point? Sure. But it's also a line from the recent public testimony of a champion of the […]
Faith-Based Fear of Flying
Do People of Faith (hereafter PoFs) fly in airplanes? I would think that they'd feel faced with ever-present and fatal danger if they do. Many of us in this semi-rational, post-enlightenment age believe that airplanes are kept aloft through the thoughtful application of the predictable laws of godless, atheistic aerodynamics. We enjoy with good humor […]
Wolfowitz on Iraq
Testimony by then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz, one of the chief architects of Iraq policy, before a House subcommittee on Feb. 28, 2003, just weeks before the invasion, illustrated the optimistic view the administration had of postwar Iraq. He said containment of Hussein the previous 12 years had cost "slightly over $30 billion," […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Unshaved Legs
Let me be clear about one thing right up front. In a faulty analogy, one of the parties to the, um, altercation at hand asked in a snide, rhetorical way "Would you condemn the ad if it had featured Speedo-clad beefcake instead?" For my part, the idea of Speedo-clad hunks throwing pies at each other […]
Brazen & Corrupt
Sometimes it's just too challenging, over and over, coming up with properly* excoriating language to describe the current President and his Administration; there are just too many occasions that require just too many words, that mere vocabulary tends to fall short. Sometimes, too, my memory lets me down. I've had the feeling that, on the […]
In: All, Splenetics, Such Language!
Look at the Body! (BBA IX)
Okay, I've already said I'm tiring a bit about all the talking about all the not talking about the first Downing Street Memo. Now we have the excitement of a Second Downing Street Memo, not to mention the promise of Rep. Conyers' hearings to be held this week. At this point, I'd like to suggest […]
Instant Hindsight
Marty Kaplan* was writing about the expected MSM yawn that will greet the second Downing Street Memo, when he wrote this: I'm reminded of the moment in Tom Stoppard's play Jumpers, when a character reacts to the news that the Radical Liberal party's spokesman for agriculture, Sam Clegthorpe, an agnostic, has been named Archbishop of […]
Supporting Imperial Fashion
Isaac and I rarely watch TV anymore; there just doesn't seem much point to it really. Now I think there's even less point, since apparently Driftglass watches all those tedious Sunday-morning talking-heads programs and then summarizes ("Sunday Morning Comin' Down…Redux") the results (far better than the TV Guide ever could) — at least he did […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Speaking of Science, Splenetics
Conservative Elitist Backlash
For more than thirty-five years, American politics has followed a populist pattern as predictable as a Punch and Judy show and as conducive to enlightened statesmanship as the cycles of a noisy washing machine. The antagonists of this familiar melodrama are instantly recognizable: the average American, humble, long-suffering, working hard, and paying his taxes; and […]
Transactional Congress
Just a taste from a breath-taking report by Elizabeth Drew, "Selling Washington", in the New York Review of Books (23 June 2005): An analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics shows that pharmaceutical manufacturers, who received a windfall from the new prescription drug program in the 2003 Medicare bill—including a provision prohibiting the federal government […]
My Five-Inch Style Manual
Last year, as part of a project for which I was paid in actual money, I wrote a "Submission Guidelines Manual" for a website*. One section of the manual discussed style issues. Officially, we followed The Economist Style Manual, much of which is online. I distilled the style manual into a very short list of […]
Appealing to Conservatives
[…] Remember 9/11 France and Germany are sissies Remember 9/11 Remember Poland Remember 9/11 Forget Poland the pulling out bastards Remember 9/11 Gays hurt sanctity of marriage Remember 9/11 Stem cell research immoral Remember 9/11 We hate fags Remember 9/11 Gays caused 9/11 Remember 9/11 Abortion also caused 9/11 Remember 9/11 The Constitution says… Remember […]
No Apology Here!
It seems that Jesse Helms, the homophobe who refuses to die, has written his life story. I am beside myself with anticipation. The œuvre was given brief notice in The Washinton Post (9 June 2005, thanks to the AP), in a piece titled "Helms Apologetic on AIDS in Memoir". Woo hoo! I thought. Helms actually […]
In: All, Raised Eyebrows Dept., Splenetics
Corporate Media: Who Cares? (BBA VIII)
A shot from the Whiskey Bar ("Downing Streed Redux"): In my own screed on the subject yesterday, I should have included links to two other organizations that are working to keep the story alive — afterdowningstreet.org and the Big Brass Alliance, a coalition of lefty bloggers who are also pushing the issue with admirable intensity. […]
One More Time
In the 1950s, Joseph McCarthy and his minions charged that there was a plot against America and that no one could support the Democratic Party "and at the same time be against communism." He decried "liberals" whose "pitiful squealing would hold sacrosanct those communists and queers" who had sold China into "atheistic slavery." And during […]
Moyers on America
I finally found time to read Bill Moyers' latest speech, the one he gave recently here in DC to close the "Take Back America Conference". As one has come to expect, the entire speech is alarming in content and inspiring in expression. This is a tiny excerpt — how to choose only three paragraphs from […]
Not To Be Thrown Away
Without further comment, a very short excerpt from a remarkable essay about being American, and why we might might question whether those who loudly claim their greater love of country are really to be believed. Right after the Abu Ghraib photos surfaced, but before I had had time to truly assimilate them, I was at […]
Just Talk About It! (BBA VII)
Is it just me, or is anyone else getting tired of the oppressively meta nature of today's political discourse? It's been months — perhaps even years — since we've just talked about some event. I mean, we used to talk about the Vietnam war, how evil Nixon was, stagflation, the Middle East, the hostages in […]
Heroic Tapirs
Jesus' General is alarmed ("Death rides a two-toned tapir") about creeping, godless secularism in the public schools of Utah, and wonders whether Utah State-Senator Buttars is going far enough to stem the tide: I was very angry when I first heard that you are introducing a bill to mandate the teaching of divine design in […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Splenetics
Cut in Pay
On average, jobs leaving America pay $22,457 more than the jobs being created. Tell that to your kid. [Andy Stern, "A Dreary Day at GM", The Huffington Post, 9 June 2005.]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept.