Archive for the ‘Common-Place Book’ Category
Sandra Dee, RIP
Sandra Dee really is dead, and no fire-and-brimstone speeches by James Dobson are going to bring her back. [Frank Rich, talking about the Right's self-righteous decency crusade, from "Hollywood Bets on Chris Rock's 'Indecency' ", in the New York Times.]
In: All, Common-Place Book
Republicans Love Gay Hookers
This BuzzFlash editorial frames the Gannon Affair its own way: But the real issue here is that the White House Republican noise machine has now come out in defense of prostitution — and gay prostitution in particular — as a private issue, which Republicans are entitled to practice without being exposed by mean bloggers. Maybe […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Splenetics
The New Ideology of Evil
From CNN quoting Reuters quoting Pope John Paul II from his new book Memory and Identity: "It is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if this [gay marriage] is not perhaps part of a new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man," […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
"Bloggeurs de Gauche"
This article, "Les relations ambiguës de Bush avec les journalistes" , from Le Monde, came to my attention via John Aravosis of AMERICAblog. The story is about the current administration's dislike for the press, and its attempts to manipulate the news. Naturally, it mentions the Jeff Gannon affair. The fun part is at the end. […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Splenetics
A View from Kansas
A voice of reason from the state of my birth: Kansans in April will probably approve a state Constitutional amendment banning gay marriages, but it is only a matter of time before it will be repealed or struck down and society's attitude toward the issue changes, a former legislator said Sunday. "Ten years from now, […]
In: All, Common-Place Book
Legislating Underwear
Often, to counter that nagging "is it just me?" feeling that comes from living here as close as I do to the center of the anti-reality-based forces in our country (i.e., Washington, DC), it's useful to have a voice from the heartland (where I was born and raised, I'm happy to say). Here is the […]
In: All, Common-Place Book
The Fifth Estate
Commenting on the initial inattentiveness of the mainstream [American] media (MS) to the "Jeff Gannon" affair, and it's continued pussy-footing and inability to see the actual story, The Guardian [UK] observed (apparently in a story by Paul Harris in New York): On the internet, the mainstream media is derided and scorned. One question is dominating […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Splenetics
"I'm Not Going to Kick Gays"
The New York Times reports "In Secretly Taped Conversations, Glimpses of the Future President", by David D. Kirkpatrick, about conversations between the then-governor-of-Texas, G.H.W. Bush, and his "old friend" Doug Wead, who secretly taped them. Wead shared some of those tapes recently with "a reporter". Without further comment for now, here is a single, unedited […]
In: All, Common-Place Book
What Would be Free?
Excerpt from "Right of free speech walks a fine line", by David Horsey in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Jackie Devincent of Seattle sent in a counterargument expressing indignation that some take offense at explicit sex rather than the pervasive violence in entertainment. "Until Americans are willing to question why bloody corpses are sanctified as free speech […]
In: All, Common-Place Book
Change the World Instead
This is too beautiful. This excerpt is from "Gay Rights Advocate Blends in and Stands Apart", by Robin Finn, in The New York Times, a profile of Susan Somer, "the lead lawyer for Lambda Legal's landmark, if unresolved, litigation to secure the right for same-sex couples to marry in New York City" (who, as it […]
In: All, Common-Place Book
Bill Moyers on End-Time Politics
Excerpts from an amazing speech given by Bill Moyers on December 1, 2004, at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School upon receiving its fourth annual Global Environment Citizen Award. I recommend downloading and reading the entire text. One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that […]
In: All, Common-Place Book
Swedish Neutrality
I just wrote, and quoted, as some length from the article Without a Doubt, by Ron Suskind, so I decided to put this somewhat longer excerpt about the president (who clearly does not live a reality-based lifestyle) in this separate post. In the Oval Office in December 2002, the president met with a few ranking […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Splenetics
Mere Heroes
In The Seekers, Daniel J. Boorstin quotes this bit from Voltaire's Age of Louis XIV: Of those who have commanded battalions and squadrons, only the names remain. The human race has nothing to show for a hundred battles that have been waged. But the great men I speak to you about have prepared pure and […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, The Art of Conversation
An American Goodbye
My mother died a year ago. Fortunately, my recently discovered cousin April Hearn, to whom we'd quickly become well attached, and her daughter Eileen Swain, were able to join us in Kansas City for the funeral. After April returned home, she wrote the following piece for the parish magazine of her church in Hastings, St. […]
In: All, Common-Place Book