Send not to know for whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
The more Europe yokes its economies together, the more likely it is that problems with one country will pull the others down. The idea, of course, was the opposite—that the stronger ones would lift the others up.
In good times, yes. In bad times, no.
[NOTE: This is a repeat of a post first published on Thanksgiving 2008. I’m in NY with my family this Thanksgiving.]
A few days ago I noticed a sign outside the local Burger King that said “Open on Thanksgiving.” It made me wonder just what a Thanksgiving Day gathering there might be like. But then I realized that I actually had some personal experience in this regard, many moons ago.
That was when I was in college, before fast food had taken over the world. My family lived about a thousand miles away. My freshman year I’d gone home for Thanksgiving, but it seemed I’d hardly said hello to them before I had to say turn around and say goodbye again.
So my sophomore year I decided to make life easy and stay at school for the holiday (as I recall, one of the things that sweetened the deal was that I had some sort of date planned for Saturday night. But I digress.) I was going home for Christmas in a few weeks anyway, so I figured that would be soon enough to see my parents. After all, I was hardly a baby anymore; I’d reached the outrageously autonomous and sophisticated age of eighteen.
The dorm remained open, and there were three other girls staying there for the duration, all of them from foreign countries. But on Thanksgiving Day I discovered to my surprise that the dorm kitchen was closed, and all the other girls had somewhere else to go for the big feast.
I did not. I sat in my room pondering the dilemma. I had no car. There were very few restaurants in town, and the only nearby one that was open was a greasy spoon across the street that served sandwiches and fries and burgers. To top it all off it was raining in torrents.
I waited till the evening when hunger got the better of me, and then I scooted across the street in shame to the restaurant that was empty of any other customers, ordered a double cheeseburger to go with extra ketchup and a large fries (it was, after all, Thanksgiving, time for a feast), brought it all back to my room, and ate it slowly at my desk. “Slowly” in this case might have been all of fifteen minutes.
I never again made the error of being alone on Thanksgiving. Or having a burger. Despite all sorts of menu and venue variations, the classic turkey-with-stuffing theme has always been scrupulously followed.
This year I want to express the hope that all of you had a wonderful meal with wonderful company—whatever the menu, wherever you may be.
Many of you may have already encountered this 2008 remark by Valerie Jarrett about Obama:
“I think Barack knew that he had God-given talents that were extraordinary. He knows exactly how smart he is. ”¦ He knows how perceptive he is. He knows what a good reader of people he is. And he knows that he has the ability ”” the extraordinary, uncanny ability ”” to take a thousand different perspectives, digest them and make sense out of them, and I think that he has never really been challenged intellectually. ”¦ So, what I sensed in him was not just a restless spirit but somebody with such extraordinary talents that had to be really taxed in order for him to be happy. ”¦ He’s been bored to death his whole life. He’s just too talented to do what ordinary people do.”
We talk a lot about Obama’s ego, and rightly so. But if Jarrett’s perception is correct (and she’s the adviser closest to him, and has been at his side for more or less his entire political life), then the worst sentence in her chilling quote may just be this one: “He’s been bored to death his whole life.”
Think about it. Jarrett is saying that as a compliment, not an insult. Boredom, however, is not a sign of intelligence (unless one is sitting in a classroom learning something one already knows). Perhaps Obama thinks he already knows everything? Perhaps he is depressed? What on earth could make a person bored his or her whole life, not to mention bored “to death?”
There’s the beautiful world of nature. There’s art and literature and love. There’s always-fascinating history. There’s friends and family. There’s the challenge of studying and observing people and their almost-endless foibles and crochets. There’s everything on earth and everything in the universe.
Of course, this is just Jarrett’s perception of Obama. But it’s hard to believe it doesn’t reflect a certain reality. What it really puts me in mind of, however (because I’ve got all those old poems floating around in my head), is poet John Berryman’s “Dream Song 14,” published in 1964.
Yep, that’s what I said. Take a look:
Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) “Ever to confess you’re bored
means you have noInner Resources.” I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as Achilles,who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into the mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.
The big day is tomorrow. As usual, there are many pointers on how best to cook that bird.
I have a simple method: it almost doesn’t matter. Just get a good turkey and the rest will follow. A bird will be dry or moist, tasty or bland, depending on its nature more than on the cooking method you use.
Within reason, of course. The principle holds true as long as you cook it according to any of the generally accepted, tried and true methods. I’ve used somewhat lower longer heat and somewhat higher shorter heat, basted it more and basted it less, covered it with cheesecloth or not, and haven’t noticed any patterns—except that, since you bathe it in gravy and cranberry sauce anyway before you eat it, even a piece of bland dry turkey meat ends up tasting not so bad in the end.
The whole point is really the rest of the food, isn’t it? I’m a sweet-potato-sans-marshmallow gal, as well as a proponent of the pumpkin-pie-can-be-easily-dispensed-with school. Pecan pie, on the other hand, is a must-have, despite the fact that it packs in about 1,000 calories a bite.
…the hypocritical Sally Quinn.
Although from the looks of things, it seems Quinn had already self-skewered.
The whole thing’s about the burning topic of ethics and “Dancing With the Stars:” who should have won, and what constitutes cheating in the show’s voting. I will now go on record as stating that (a) I have watched the show on occasion; (b) I’ve never voted; and (c) I don’t give a rat’s posterior who wins or whether voters bend the rules in the process.
However, I do know a bit about dancing. I thought the show’s format was to choose the best amateur dancer. If so, winner Jennifer Grey should not only have failed to win, she shouldn’t have been on the show on the first place. She is an actress whose main claim to fame is having starred in the film “Dirty Dancing,” performing—you guessed it—in a dancing role.
It should come as no surprise that North Korea has decided on a show of force to celebrate its imminent change of leadership and to send a number of veiled messages:
A South Korean soldier was killed and 13 others injured after North Korea fired dozens of artillery shells onto a South Korean island setting more than 60 houses ablaze and sending civilians fleeing in terror…
The attack came as Stephen Bosworth, the United States envoy on North Korea, departed from Seoul for Beijing. Mr Bosworth is attempting to find a consensus to restart the six-party talks between China, South Korea, Russia, Japan, the United States and North Korea on the rogue state’s denuclearisation.
It also comes as North Korea prepares for a change of leader, with Kim Jong-un, the third son of Kim Jong-il, widely expected to take over from his 68-year-old father. Analysts have noted that the last handover of power in North Korea was also accompanied by a series of aggressive acts intended to strengthen the new leader’s relationship with the army. An internal power struggle in North Korea, between hardliners and reformists, is also thought to be underway, and could have sparked military action…
South Korea has often speculated that the North will attack Yeonpyeong in order to strengthen its hand in any negotiations with the West.
The Korean situation has been a mess for quite some time. I’m relatively certain that Obama’s weakness doesn’t help matters, but the North Korean agenda has been difficult to change or affect whether the US is run by relative hardliners or softies.
The key, as always, lies with China, the only country that seems to have influence with the North. When (and if) China wants to put the screws on North Korea, it will. Till then, North Korea seems free to demonstrate periodic and controlled aggression towards the South, in order to make whatever internal and external points it wishes.
It must be bad when Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift finally gets fed up with Obama—or rather, with his advisers. Ah, if only Stalin knew!
Obama’s not like Carter, he’s like Truman! A more far-fetched presidential comparison can hardly be imagined.
Obama’s foreign policy: hard to be coherent about something so incoherent. Furthermore:
Certainly, no major problem has fallen to solution just because Obama made a speech about it. Indeed, there is scant evidence that the change in tone the President did manage to bring about has sprouted any positive concrete policy consequences at all. Polls have shown that while the President is on balance more popular abroad than his predecessor, his policies really are not””not in the Middle East, not in Europe, not in Asia.
Ya think?
Jackson Diehl is of similar mind:
Still, this administration is notable for its lack of grand strategy – or strategists. Its top foreign-policy makers are a former senator, a Washington lawyer and a former Senate staffer. There is no Henry Kissinger, no Zbigniew Brzezinski, no Condoleezza Rice; no foreign policy scholar.
Instead there is Obama, who likes to believe that he knows as much or more about policy than any of his aides…
Sad thing is, Obama may be correct about that.
Time magazine offers a list of the 25 most powerful women of the last century.
There’s always something a bit tiresome and arbitrary about such lists, especially if they spotlight some group such as “women” or “blacks,” but even if they don’t.
This one seems a particularly odd document with some odd inclusions. Angela Merkel, for example, isn’t a selection with which I’d quarrel, except for the fact that her power has mostly been in the 21st century, not the last one. But Virginia Woolf? Say what? Her inclusion seems to be sheer political correctness, because she certainly hasn’t had a lot of influence, except on university English departments.
And then there’s Margaret Sanger, whose Time bio constitutes a whitewash of major proportions. No mention by Time of her extreme racism, nor of her eugenics campaign against the mentally defective. Guess they didn’t have enough room.
Does Estée Lauder really belong there? Don’t think so. Coco Chanel, perhaps, for the end of the corset. But Madonna??? Sorry, I don’t see it at all. Rachel Carson yes, for better or for worse, depending on how you look at it (I view a significant amount of her influence as for worse).
I’m an Aretha Franklin fan, but what’s she doing there? Why not—oh, I don’t know, Marian Anderson instead? And how about some trailblazing businesswomen?
For that matter, I would have included Nancy Pelosi, much as I detest her. She was, after all, the first female Speaker of the House. And—assuming HCR has staying power, which I sincerely hope it does not—she was almost single-handedly responsible for its passage, if anyone was.
We all know what members of the Secret Service do: they protect the President and First Family from attack. But we don’t often think about the details of what that actually involves.
Here’s a very matter-of-fact narrative from Clint Hill, the agent assigned to protect Jackie Kennedy 47 years ago in Dallas. That day, he was standing on the running board of the car behind the president and his wife when he heard the first shot. Here’s Hill’s description:
I heard an explosive noise from my right rear. As I turned toward the sound, I scanned the presidential limousine and saw the president grab at his throat and lurch to the left.
I jumped off the running board and ran toward his car. I was so focused on getting to the president and Mrs. Kennedy to provide them cover that I didn’t hear the second shot.
I was just feet away when I heard and felt the effects of a third shot. It hit the president in the upper right rear of his head, and blood was everywhere. Once in the back seat, I threw myself on top of the president and first lady so that if another shot came, it would hit me instead.
We have seen the photos, and we know what Hill saw up close and personal: the president’s head was explosively blown apart. But as an agent, Hill was trained to go towards the carnage—to throw himself over his charges so that he would die rather than them, and to do this consciously and willingly. This is a level of service and sacrifice most of us can hardly imagine, much less perform.
They are united in blaming him, that is.
Hubris, meet nemesis. Greater minds than Obama’s have been stumped by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I’d read a bit about the TV show “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” before. But I’d never watched it.
Last night I was doing some idle channel surfing, and I happened across the program. The impression I got from it of Palin was of almost unstoppable energy; this woman is a physical force of nature, always on the go, relentless and tireless. Even if Palin had never entered politics, she most likely would have brought her natural exuberance to whatever it was she chose to do. And she would never have chosen to do just one thing.
Palin’s idea of a vacation is a jaunt that would exhaust most people. It was especially fascinating to watch her take daughter Bristol out on a commercial halibut fishing boat for some rather unconventional mother-daughter bonding. The moment when Sarah held a fish’s just-removed but still-beating heart in her hand is likely to make her political opponents shudder.
Commercial fishing isn’t for sissies, and Palin is no dilettante, since she and her husband have worked in the commercial salmon industry. The TV show shows us the enormous halibut, which have to be stunned with a club before being killed so they don’t flop around so much on the deck that they injure their meat. Sarah is fully up to the task (another image that probably doesn’t send joy into the heart of any liberal Democrat watching—Sarah clubbing a jumungous halibut into senselessness).
Watching the show, I got a feeling for the character of Palin’s husband Todd, as well. He’s far more taciturn than she but hardly glum, and they are hotly competitive with each other in a friendly sort of way. Watch them skeet-shooting or kayaking and you see that they each play to win.
When Palin first came on the scene, I noted that she reminded me somewhat of Teddy Roosevelt. Not politically—he was a Republican but a progressive—and not for his ivy-league education, but for their shared gutsy, rugged, outdoorsy nature, and huge level of energy. This is what I wrote back then:
…another president sharing some traits with Palin: the muckracking, hunting, wild Western: Theodore Roosevelt. Other similarities: five children, not a great deal of prior national-level political experience (Teddy’s highest offices before being tapped for VP were Assistant Secretary of the Navy for one year and NY Governor for one year””although his military exploits with the Rough Riders had made him nationally known). Teddy was also extraordinarily young; at 42, he remains the youngest President ever.
And again, there were those wire-rimmed glasses.
It seems to be that in general the show can only help Palin, although it certainly won’t convert the haters to Palin-fans. But it indicated to me how very genuine and unique Palin is as an American type: the gung-ho straight-shooting spunky frontier woman. It’s not a type most of us are familiar with any more, as urbanized as we have now become. But it speaks to our American heritage and values.
[NOTE: This is a partial repeat of a previous post.]
Here are some of writer John Updike’s reflection on the JFK assassination, originally published at the time in the “Notes and Comments” segment of The New Yorker, and featured again in this New Yorker tribute to Updike published shortly after the author’s death. I think it is one of the best descriptions I’ve ever read of the emotional atmosphere of the event for those of us who lived through it:
It was as if we slept from Friday to Monday and dreamed an oppressive, unsearchably significant dream, which, we discovered on awaking, millions of others had dreamed also. Furniture, family, the streets, and the sky dissolved, only the dream on television was real. The faces of the world’s great mingled with the faces of landladies who happened to house an unhappy ex-Marine; cathedrals alternated with warehouses; temples of government with suburban garages; anonymous men tugged at a casket in a glaring airport; a murder was committed before our eyes; a Dallas strip-tease artist drawled amiably of her employer’s quick temper; the heads of state of the Western world strode down a sunlit street like a grim village rabble; and Jacqueline Kennedy became Persephone, the Queen of Hades and the beautiful bride of grief. All human possibilities, of magnificence and courage, of meanness and confusion, seemed to find an image in this long montage, and a stack of cardboard boxes in Dallas, a tawdry movie house, a tiny rented room where some shaving cream still clung to the underside of a washbasin, a row of parking meters that had witnessed a panicked flight all acquired the opaque and dreadful importance that innocent objects acquire in nightmares.
And here’s Jacqueline Kennedy as Persephone, the Queen of Hades and the beautiful bride of grief:
