You all know what day it is. Now get cracking and get something.
As for me, it’s a sad sad thing that I can only accept virtual chocolate. And here’s some for all of you:
A sonnet in praise of sonnets
I write some poetry from time to time,
And gravitate to forms, I must confess.
I crave some meter and a bit of rhyme.
Free verse can be illusory progress.
The sonnet with its prescribed fourteen lines
Presents a special challenge to be met,
A game that Frost, my hero, thus defines:
No point in playing tennis with no net.
Ah, freedom! It’s a lofty modern goal.
And rules? Meant to be broken, don’t you see?
Let’s shed the last vestige of stiff control
And revel in a life and art that’s free!
But rules are guides, not just constraints or chains.
Throw all out, and mere anarchy remains.
For those of you not familiar with what it’s like to try to write a sonnet (and I’d guess most of you aren’t), please take my word for it when I say that it is really a very demanding form of poetry.
But fun, like a game with rules. If you like to solve double-crostics or crossword puzzles you might have a taste of what I’m talking about. Continue reading →
Moughniyah, he dead
It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
Whodunit? No dearth of suspects, no lack of enemies. All well-deserved, I would imagine.
[NOTE: The title of this post comes from the last line of Heart of Darkness, as well as the epigram of T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Hollow Men.”]
Obama: too young at heart
It’s no accident that Obama does well with young voters. There’s something about his rhetoric that especially appeals to the idealism of youth. As Betsy Newmark points out, the young are often “too ignorant of history to realize that change just doesn’t happen no matter how attractive the politician arguing for change seems to be.”
Obama is certainly an attractive politician. But there’s nothing about him that indicates an ability to do what he says he will do. That isn’t meant as a slap at Obama in particular; no one could, even if elected President. It’s a promise that cannot be kept, and those who are older and more experienced ought to know that.
Candidates always promise more than they can deliver. Continue reading →
Sanity Squad update
The Squad is taking two weeks off the podcast circuit. Till then.
Ten most famous Americans: the changing American educational scene
There’s been some hoo-ha in the blogopsphere about a poll asking 2000 high school students to name the ten most famous Americans.
Here was their list:
1. Martin Luther King Jr.: 67%
2. Rosa Parks: 60%
3. Harriet Tubman: 44%
4. Susan B. Anthony: 34%
5.Benjamin Franklin: 29%
6. Amelia Earhart: 25%
7. Oprah Winfrey: 22%
8. Marilyn Monroe: 19%
9. Thomas Edison: 18%
10. Albert Einstein: 16%
The fact that Harriet Tubman (a minor figure at best) and Rosa Parks (an influential and courageous person but hardly one of the giants of history) are way up there is no doubt a reflection of diversity education gone amok. And what’s up with the inclusion of Oprah Winfrey?
But in certain respects the students are merely repeating what they’ve learned—look at some history texts and you might think Harriet Tubman was among the ten most famous Americans, based on the amount of attention paid. Continue reading →
Preach it Ross, preach it!
Ross Douthat has a description of the McCain-bashing pundits that’s not likely to sit well with them. But I think he’s spot on:
With their inflexibility, grudge-holding and eagerness to evict heretics rather than seek converts, too many of conservatism’s leaders sound like the custodians of a dwindling religious denomination or a politically correct English department at a fading liberal-arts college.
Or like yesterday’s Democratic Party. The tribunes of the American right have fallen into the same bad habits that doomed their liberal rivals to years of political failure.
And I would also caution that those conservatives who consider McCain too accommodating to liberal viewpoints and think his Presidency would “destroy America” may be only enhancing his appeal to those voters he needs on his side if he wants to win it all in November: Independents. The appellation “maverick” is just fine with them, thank you very much.
McCain: a choice, not an echo?
Read the speech John McCain made on Thursday to CPAC for yourself, and see what you think. Although he freely admits that he hasn’t always marched to conservative tunes on every issue, he asserts his basic conservatism.
McCain then goes on to wisely emphasize how conservative he is in comparison to his likely opponents, Clinton and Obama, and how high are the stakes:
Often elections in this country are fought within the margins of small differences. This one will not be. We are arguing about hugely consequential things. Continue reading →
Late-night blog visitors
One of the greatest pleasures of having a blog is viewing the sitemeter and noticing the broad geographic scope of the visitors. It’s a graphic demonstration of how the internet reaches around the globe, even with a moderate-sized blog such as this.
It’s particularly apparent late at night, when much of the Western Hemisphere is asleep. If I happen to be awake and think to click on the “countries” bar on my sitemeter, a lovely pie-chart comes up, like this one:
This represents the most recent 100 visitors to my blog in the very wee hours of a certain morning. It’s typical of what I see late at night; just another example of the power of the internet, and how it can unite us in ways hardly dreamt of only a few short years ago.
The army rewrites its operations manual: reinventing the wheel
First we had the new counterinsurgency manual. Now the army has a new operations manual with an emphasis on postwar stabilization. This is referred to as a “newly minted doctrine” and “a major development that draws on the hard-learned lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan.”
But we should go back even further; it’s actually a case of “everything old is new again.” Continue reading →
Here’s the skinny on male models
The NY Times takes note of a disturbing trend towards ultra-thin models.
Why is this news? Well, the models in question are men.
Take a look. We’re not talking slender and trim here; after all, male models have never been known for enormous heft. But a certain amount of muscle, just to let you know the testosterone was flowing, used to be de rigueur.
Now we have these guys:
The designers say it’s just the way it is; they look good in clothes. Obviously, there’s more going on here than that. Continue reading →
Mitt, we hardly knew ya
Mitt Romney has dropped out of the Presidential race.
Whether it’s because he sees there’s no hope and wants to avoid further squabbling in the Republican camp, or whether he still harbors thoughts of a brokered convention in which he emerges victorious, he failed to capture the nomination in the primaries and his campaign is officially over.
My opinion as to why his bid never quite made it is that his greatest problem was personality. People vote for a candidate for many reasons, but among them is a gut reaction to a certain je ne sais quoi. Romney has a slick and almost too-perfect air, as though he were a Hollywood actor cast in the role of President, rather than an actual person—warts and all—seeking the office.
We often respond to one another based on characteristics that are nonverbal and seemingly irrational. Continue reading →