Opinion... or Not

In a review of a new biography of Henry Luce, founder and longtime publisher of Time, Inc., Bill Keller, Executive Editor of the New York Times, makes an astonishing an telling statement, which I shall ponder for a while:

"... [I]t is probably fair to say that the cacophony of today’s media — in which rumor and invective often outpace truth-testing, in which shouting heads drown out sober reflection, in which it is possible for people to feel fully informed without ever encountering an opinion that contradicts their prejudices — plays some role in the polarizing of our politics, the dysfunction of our political system and the increased cynicism of the American electorate."

Is this the price we pay for a blog- and Twitter-based multilogue? It is frequently evident in my daily interactions.

Good Enough for Hanks

If he good enough for Hanks, he's good enough for me!

....And it really is insane out there. The other party is no better, but they're trying.

Dickens Redux

Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona was reported to have argued on the Senate floor on Monday of this week that unemployment benefits dissuade people from job-hunting "because people are being paid even though they're not working." Unemployment insurance "doesn't create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work," Kyl said during debate over whether unemployment insurance and other benefits that expired amid GOP objections Sunday should be extended. "I'm sure most of them would like work and probably have tried to seek it, but you can't argue that it's a job enhancer. If anything, as I said, it's a disincentive. And the same thing with the COBRA extension and the other extensions here," said Kyl.


I am reminded of Ebenezer Scrooge's colloquy with the two gentlemen who barge into his counting house raising funds for the poor: 

"At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge,'' said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.''

"Are there no prisons?'' asked Scrooge.

"Plenty of prisons,'' said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

"And the Union workhouses?'' demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?''

"They are. Still,'' returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not.''

"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?'' said Scrooge.

"Both very busy, sir.''

"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,'' said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to hear it.''

Obama Snubbed?

A scurrilous video is making the rounds of the Tea Party folks and other Obama-haters, purporting to show our President being snubbed by a group of Russian dignitaries. Here it is:

Here's the real thing:

It never cease to amaze how the hardened attitudes of a large segment of our electorate can distort their perceptions, and permit them to draw the conclusions that their ideology demands. It would be far better if we all could agree to seek the Truth!

And so it goes....

I suppose I shouldn't be startled by the fact that it has been months since my last post and the Republic still endures. Guess I'm just no that important.

I recently was prodded into reflection by David Brooks' recent column on the subject of his education at the feet of Bruce Springsteen. It occurred to me that the great musico-cultural influences in my early life, in Brooksian terms, were such figures as Pete Seeger, the Weavers, Woody and Arlo Guthrie and Odetta. Now, I am far from a flag-burning radical or a Communist sympathizer, and I don't have much truck with the labor union movement. In fact, I was just telling a friend this morning that I was one of those old-fashioned Republicans who voted for Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javits, Clifford Case, Tom Kean, Christie Whitman, et al. The fact is, far from having an interest in the success of modern day litmus-tested, "Family-member," Republican stalwarts such as Ensign, Pence, or Imhof, I am repulsed by their dogmatic, exclusionary, demagogic politics. True, "old-fashioned" Republicans like Chris Daggett are reduced to running as Independents, and I am compelled to vote for them. Perhaps this idiocy is limited to New Jersey, but it is in danger of metastasizing.

I am reduced to stringing adjectives like a looney!

It's fun to rant every once in a while!

South Carolinian Civility

Joe Wilson's outburst the other night recalled another instance of Congressional incivility, when Preston Brooks, Representative of South Carolina, confronted Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts on May 22, 1856, during the "Bleeding Kansas" crisis, and beat him nearly to death. Have health care and immigration reforms assumed the passionate intensity of the slavery debates? In both events, it was South Carolina, which boasts of a culture of gentility and chivalrous virtues.

Ooops! Cynthia Tucker beat me to it!