…and as always, it’s beautiful. Here are some berries on a tree I passed the other day:
Will the real Obama please stand up?
Or has he already?
In the comments section of my last post there was a telling exchange about Obama’s outward demeanor versus his true inner nature and agenda. This comment by “kamper’ was the one that started the ball rolling:
The reason the “Obama is a radical” meme has not taken hold with the electorate is that it is belied by their own simple observation of the man. He’s about the furthest thing from a ”˜radical’ in his demeanor. So this becomes a ”˜who you gonna believe, me or your own lyin eyes’ argument. Continue reading →
Back when they weren’t afraid to say Obama was a radical
It’s instructive to go back in time and see what was being said about Obama when he was starting out his Presidential race but hadn’t fully invented himself as a moderate yet. It’s especially interesting to look at periodicals with a readership that wouldn’t be afraid of the designation “radical.”
Rolling Stone’s February 2007 profile of Obama is an excellent example. Continue reading →
Sad, sad news: Dean Barnett is gone
This is tragic and bitter news.
Tragic because Dean was so young and full of life, and fought so hard against cystic fibrosis, and had so much left to do. Bitter because he was a friend. Continue reading →
So many Presidents, so many lawyers
For some reason I was under the impression that our abundance of lawyers as President was a somewhat recent phenomenon. But I found this list striking and surprising: the tendency goes way back.
Seems like it’s lawyers all the way down, with a smattering of military men (McCain would be in that mold) and the odd haberdasher. Oh, and a tailor, and a few other random jobs such as teacher or actor (we know who he was). Continue reading →
Spread it around—it would be good to see this particular “wealth” redistributed
The following audio tape is from a 2001 Obama radio interview. It’s already featured on Drudge, so it’s sure to reach quite a few people.
But I’m doing my little bit by posting it here. You can do yours by sending it to everyone you can think of who isn’t already one hundred percent in the Obama camp. Continue reading →
Tempus fugit
More on mothers and daughters and the passage of time.
The following photo, however, is my favorite in the piece. What carriage and natural elegance the woman had!
[NOTE: Oops! Trying to have a nonpolitical weekend, and here I somehow slipped back into the political again—sorta.]
Phoning home
My mother has always loved the telephone. In the more leisurely era in which she lived most of her adult life, she touched base with about a dozen friends a day.
Not to mention the need to talk to her daughter—me—a lot. When I went away to college, I was required to phone home every Sunday, collect. And although this was back in the days when long-distance phone calls were quite expensive relative to other items, these calls were hardly short: my mother could talk. In addition, there was usually one and often two more phone call a week from her to me.
Later on when I was a young mother and phone rates had gone down, I heard from my mother at least every other day. Continue reading →
Separated at birth (etiquette, who needs it?)
Separated at birth? You decide. Continue reading →
Alonso: how to defy age in one difficult lesson
Alicia Alonso is a Cuban ballerina who has defied time. Her early career took place in this country, but she returned to Cuba after Castro came to power and he rewarded her by treating Alonso and her company very well.
The first and only time I saw her dance in person was in the 1970s, when Alonso was already in her 50s and way past her prime. I did not like her dancing; I found her style mannered, old-fashioned, and nearly frozen with control. She had an eerie masklike face and a somewhat ferocious look.
But the following video of Alonso is extraordinary. Continue reading →
Hope for the post-boomers?
Got pre-election angst? Want some hope for the future? Something to counter the idea that each generation is less likely to use critical thinking than the one before it, that the search for truth has been replaced by relativism, and that we face an unstoppable progression of the The Closing of the American Mind? Continue reading →
Palin and Pygmalion: who said class is dead in America?
Today’s hatred of Palin is driven at least partly by a host of elements connected to class, despite our protestations that we’re a relatively classless society. This particular class consciousness, which disregards Palin’s formidable accomplishments as governor as though they had not occurred, isn’t necessarily about money or family origins. The source of this special contempt seems related to what is known as style, and to a lesser extent to education.
Palin has a college degree, but to her detractors it’s significant that it’s from a non-elite school (of course, attending an elite school didn’t save the hated Bush, who was hated partly because he came from a patrician family but didn’t act like it). Continue reading →