http://toastmeetsjam.com/category/brunches/ I know that anger is not all that useful and that my own personal contempt for the malefactors of great wealth is not news to anyone, but since the bonuses paid to AIG executives are being discussed now, let me note that the rich are really storing up wrath for themselves, if not in heaven […]
Category Archives: Political Comments
The Malefactors of Great Wealth.
18-Mar-09The Boyhood Home of James Earl Carter.
10-Mar-09“My life on the farm during the Great Depression more nearly resembled farm life fully two thousand years ago than farm life today.” – Jimmy Carter We know that social change occurs glacially, and that the victories discussed in textbooks represent rallying-points rather than real social conversions. American schools were “desegregated” in 1955, and yet […]
Some sense on marriage.
04-Mar-09I’ve finally seen some internet writing on gay marriage that makes sense – a reader writing in to Andrew Sullivan, who makes a nice, tempered, intelligent reply. The problem with the gay marriage campaign has been that marriage is not a right, but, as the above reader describes it, “a social institution.” It is a […]
Small government is big business.
02-Mar-09“One thing we can all do is stop assuming that the way to beat [the Democrats] is with better policy ideas,” – Rush Limbaugh “Small government” is just a business slogan at this point. It should be given a trademark symbol like “Nodoby Beats the Wiz (TM)” to remind people that it’s just a slogan, […]
I’ve taken my time writing in response to Tuesday evening’s political events – the speeches of Obama and Jindal – but the ground has not shifted in the intervening days. The best vocalized reaction from a pundit, I have found, comes from David Brooks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoKd9irM9dM&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2ztrF253DE Obama’s speech was muscular and serious, a ripening of […]
C. Ray Nagin
08-Feb-09You really have to give it to this guy, who makes George W. Bush look like Charles Maurice de Talleyrand. Everyone knows the “Chocolate City” comment, but he offered some later treasures such as “I am a vagina-friendly mayor,” and (about New Orleans being the murder capital of the U.S.), “it isn’t good for us, but […]
Obama and the Constitution.
27-Jan-09I have to find myself agreeing with all that is below, from Andrew Sullivan’s blog (mostly written by one of his readers): A reader writes: Scott Horton is right. My feeling is that Obama’s opening days have gone better than I had any right to expect. Obama has been many things in his life, but […]
A more perfect union.
26-Jan-09Passing through Spartanburg (S.C.), I stopped at a laundromat on the east side of town. There were four people there, and curiously enough, all four of us were youngish men, doing the laundry on a weekday afternoon. The other three men were all black. We started talking, but I literally could not understand the accent of […]
Hierarchy and leadership.
23-Jan-09Reading over some of Peggy Noonan’s pieces from the past several years on Barack Obama, I felt that I was seeing an old political operative finally seeing that there can be something real in politics. When you look at a year or more’s worth of pieces from her, you see her coming to an appreciation of the […]
War Crimes.
17-Apr-09where to buy gabapentin cream The release of the torture memos by Obama yesterday was a heroic act in terms of the president’s desire to restore our country’s democracy. It may be the case that torture is democratically acceptable to most Americans – that in fact this country wants to go the way of the Romans, into increased violence and […]