Saturday, December 20, 2008

20 Dec 2008 08:42 pm

The Spirit Of Conor Cruise O'Brien

I have to say that Yuval Levin's appreciation of "The Great Melody" expresses my feelings about that book entirely. It's a very strange book - my mind associates it with Edmund Morris's "Dutch" - but its strangeness captures the elusive, contradictory, Irish (and Whiggish) Toryism of Burke. The Telegraph's obit, as usual, is the best:

Critics charged that he was more interested in exercising his intellectual   sinews than in resolving difficulties. But his recognition that the   divisions in Ireland were rooted in two irreconcilable traditions led to   increasing isolation within his own country, and required considerable moral   – and occasionally physical – courage.

Equally, his awareness that the problems of South Africa had no easy answers,   and his determined support for Israel, cut him off from the Left, with which   he had once been associated. Yet O'Brien never drifted, in the conventional   way, from Left to Right. Rather he remained consistently radical in his   willingness to bring a fresh mind to bear on issues normally treated with   entrenched prejudice.

A role model in many ways for all of us. I only met him once. He came to Harvard to speak about the essence of Irish culture and was completely shitfaced afterwards. Coming from a long line of ornery Micks, I appreciated that.

20 Dec 2008 08:29 pm

The Bailout Explained

Not sure where this originated. But it's on the money:

20 Dec 2008 07:20 pm

"Addict" Addicts

Vaughan sighs:

..it is not possible to be addicted to a medium of communication because the medium does not specify an activity. It's like saying someone is a 'language addict' or is 'addicted' to transport. It just makes no sense. Unfortunately, none of the so-called diagnostic scales or indeed, researchers, actually get this point...

Continue reading ""Addict" Addicts" »

20 Dec 2008 06:22 pm

Face Of The Day

A riot police officer guards the Athens' christmas tree at Syntagma squre during a protest on December 20, 2008. After two weeks of clashes, as the government faced growing pressure over its handling of the crisis sparked by the December 6 police killing of a teenager. By Aris Messinis/AFP/Getty Images.

20 Dec 2008 05:17 pm

The Vulgarity Of The Web

Is it destroying literate discourse? Is it dumbing us all down? CJR has a fascinating interview with Clay Shirky:

What the Web does is that it does what all amateur increases do, which is it decreases the average quality of what’s available. It is exactly, precisely, the complaint made about the printing press. So, the only thing surprising about the Web, in a way, is that it’s been a long time since we’ve had a medium that increased the amount of production of written material this dramatically.

But people made the same complaint about comic books, they made the same complaint about paperbacks, and they made the same complaint about the vulgarity of the printing press.

Continue reading "The Vulgarity Of The Web" »

20 Dec 2008 05:02 pm

The Social Is Surgical

Saletan writes about a face-transplant:

Physical function is the traditional purpose of surgery. Social function is a newer concept but makes sense: You need facial muscles to interact with others. We’re still talking about functions; they just happen to be social. But then the Cleveland doctors take the next step: They remove functionality from the equation. Having a normal face is socially necessary, they argue, not just because of what your face does, but because of how it looks. Appearance alone can be grounds for a potentially lethal procedure.

Poulos grinds his teeth.

20 Dec 2008 04:31 pm

"Yes, But After"

A friend sends along this little gem of an interview between John Lofton and Allen Ginsberg. Money quote:

LOFTON: But I am interested in this question of your possible madness. It’s not a gratuitous question. There is a history of madness in your family.

GINSBERG: Very much so.

LOFTON: Your mom died in 1956 in a mental institution. Before that. in 1949, when you were twenty-three. you spent eight months in the Columbia Psychiatric Institute. What was this psychiatric disability and why did you spend just eight months in this institute?

GINSBERG: Well, I had a sort of visionary experience in which I heard William Blake’s voice. It was probably an auditory hallucination, but it was a very rich experience.

LOFTON: This happened while you were masturbating, right?

GINSBERG: Yes, but after.

20 Dec 2008 03:11 pm

Freedom Or Power?

In many ways, I think those two polarities often expose the deeper fault-lines in our politics than right or left (because the choice between freedom and power exists within both right and left as well). And this Rick Warren flap at its core, I think, is about the difference between those who see a civil rights movement as a means to wield power and those who see it as a means to spread freedom.

My long conflict with some parts of the gay left is precisely about this distinction, and Virtually Normal was an attempt to construct a theory for gay civil rights which rests on as much freedom and as little power as possible. I want to live in a free society alongside people who genuinely believe I am a sinner destined for hell - and I want to get along with them. I am concerned (but not obsessed) with changing their minds, but totally repelled by the idea of coercing or pressuring them to do so. I am simply interested in having the government treat me as it would treat them. Once we establish that, we can all believe and say and argue for precisely what we want. May a thousand theologies bloom.

So I oppose hate crime laws because they walk too close to the line of trying to police people's thoughts. I support the right of various religious associations to discriminate against homosexuals in employment. I support the right of the most fanatical Christianist to spread the most defamatory stuff about me and the right of the most persuasive Christianist to teach me the error of my ways. I support the right of the St Patrick's Day Parade to exclude gay people - because that's what freedom of association requires. In my ideal libertarian world, I would even support the right of employers to fire gay people at will (although I am in a tiny minority of gays and straights who would tolerate such a thing). All I ask in return is a reciprocal respect: the right to express myself freely and to be treated by the government exactly as any heterosexual in my position would be treated.

I deliberately framed my own case for gay rights away from forcing or even pressuring any other citizen to accept me - because that impedes their freedom and, in my view, the gay movement should always, always be about expanding freedom for everyone, even bigots. That's why I focused on the government treating gays and straights alike. And so the notion of the president stigmatizing someone because of his religious views, and the gay movement pressuring to ban such a person from a civic ceremony, strikes me as coming from precisely the wrong place. A president is president of all the people. Unlike Bush, Obama means it. And unlike Bush, he has already proven it. Can you imagine if Bush had asked an openly gay minister to give his Invocation? That would have been the unifying move - and opened up a new space for dialogue. But Bush closed it down. I did not endorse Obama to perpetuate that kind of politics. Using government to advance the worldview of one group of people and to stigmatize another is exactly what went wrong these past eight years.

Besides, if we stick rigorously to the cause of freedom and toleration, we win the argument. We already have. The impulse to engage now in tit-for-tat, or to use power not to advance our freedom but to impede others', is a dead, dispiriting end. It is particularly stupid when it is the only way we will lose - by turning this into a battle in which gay people are described as intolerant and evangelicals are described as open to debate.

Much more important, with Obama's election, power has shifted. Gay people helped win this election. We will be part of this administration in ways that we would never be under a McCain or a Bush. Yes, we should demand change and hold Obama accountable in every respect. But this is not 1992. It's 2008. Our biggest loss in the biggest state on a question that would have been a pipe-dream a decade ago was 52 - 48. Every year, the gap narrows (and the No On 8 campaign was almost, alas, a parody of HRC-style incompetence.) If we take this issue fairly to the ballot box next time instead of using power to enforce a premature settlement, our victory will have a durability and a legitimacy that will count for generations. So thanks, Jerry Brown, but no thanks. We already have marriage in two states. If we have patience and rely on freedom, victory - and a meaningful victory of good ideas - will come. If we are consumed by anger and rely on power, we could deservedly snatch failure from the slow march of success.

The key point about marriage rights for gays, after all, is that they do not affect or change marriage rights for straights. No one's rights are removed. In fact, as I have discovered, straight family members often find their own marriages affirmed by their gay siblings' commitment. It is win-win - an expansion of freedom and social stability. And the key to succeeding as a civil rights movement, as King taught us, is never to give in to the intolerance of the other side by engaging in it yourself; never engage in violence or intimidation; never try to force anyone to do anything they do not want to do; always respect others' consciences.

And this is why I think gay people of faith have a central role to play now. In the battle between a frightened fundamentalism and a wounded gay community, we are called to be healers and bridge builders. This is our Christian obligation, the part we have to play. The dynamic between the short-term pleasure of power and the long-term argument for freedom affects all civil rights movements. The central element in the success of black civil rights was the role of Christianity in tempering and guiding and restraining the temptations of power in favor of the deferred promises of freedom and charity. Gay Christians are needed now as much as ever to help in that task, however hard it can be to swallow the spiritual hurt and to rise above it in charity. I know how hard that is, and I haven't met the standard always myself. I'm not preaching; I'm just saying what I've learned - in prayer and in action. 

Every day, with everyone you meet, do what you can.

20 Dec 2008 02:54 pm

"Judicial Tyranny"

One useful data point from the NYT today. In 1968, a year after the Supreme Court struck down anti-miscegenation laws:

53 percent of non-blacks agreed that there should be laws against marriages between Negroes and whites.

And around 53 percent of non-gays voted against marriage equality in Prop 8 forty years later. So sme things don;t change. In fact, the popular hostility to miscegnation in America was far deeper and wider in the 1960s than hostility to gay marriage today.

And yet that broad popular majority did not intimidate the courts then, did it?

20 Dec 2008 02:47 pm

Death By Weather

Via Tyler Cowen, a chart showing where one is most likely to die from weather. The conclusion:

Large cities like San Francisco and New York are among the safest places to live, but if city living isn't for you, the odds of dying from the weather are lowest in the Midwest.

Drum gloats about Southern California being among the safest places in the country. He then concludes: "On the other hand, we're still waiting for the Big One out here. This map could change color at any time." And the chart does not account for that slow, psychological death from the weather, otherwise known as England and Oregon.

20 Dec 2008 02:36 pm

Reality Check

A reader writes:

At the risk of sounding completely daft, I don't see the big deal about Rick Warren. I mean, here is a preacher who will give an invocation for a president who is in favor of repealing the DADT policy, the DOMA act, and wants to pass the Matthew Shepard Act. A president who is not in favor of a Marriage Protection Amendment to the Constitution, who believes that gay marriage is a state issue, opposed Proposition 8, and has indicated that that their administration will be completely gay friendly.

If there is anyone in this equation who should be uncomfortable about being at the inauguration, it should be Rick Warren.

Three words for the liberal Reagan: trust but verify.

20 Dec 2008 01:56 pm

Christmas Hathos Nominee

Best not to watch this if you're dropping acid:

20 Dec 2008 01:33 pm

Sued On Facebook

An Australian court rules that posting on someone's Facebook page can be used to serve legal papers. Cory Doctorow is unimpressed:

The idea that you can have legal certainty that someone's seen your "I'm about to take away your house unless you object" notice because you stuck it somewhere, where someone has created an account under that person's name (how many of these services ask for ID to verify your identity before setting up the account in your name?) is ridiculous.

20 Dec 2008 12:32 pm

Trust

Greenwald responds:

Andrew's argument here is the one that Obama loyalists generally are making: yes, what Obama is doing might appear to be exactly the same as what Democrats have been doing since forever -- the accommodationist embrace of the Right, the effort to establish centrist credentials by scorning the Left, running away from cultural issues for fear of being depicted as amoral radicals, surrounding oneself with establishment and conservative figures, etc. etc. (Bill Clinton also had a Republican Defense Secretary).  Yes, that may look exactly like what the capitulating Bush-era Democrats and the triangulating Bill "the Third Way!" Clinton spent years and years and years doing.

But this time, say Obama supporters, everything will be different.

Continue reading "Trust" »

20 Dec 2008 11:11 am

The Best Journalism Of 2008

A weekend reader from Conor.

20 Dec 2008 10:27 am

The View From Your Window

Cairo, Egypt, 2 pm.

20 Dec 2008 09:28 am

5 Second Spots

Copyranter thinks they may be the future of advertising.

20 Dec 2008 08:48 am

White-Collar Welfare

Hilzoy disagrees with the new "health worker protections" implemented by Bush:

The rule (pdf) covers not just employees who refuse to perform a medical procedure they find objectionable, but to those who refuse to refer people to others who do provide such services. It would, for instance, protect people who not only refuse to perform abortions themselves, but who refuse to tell their patients who else might provide one, where to get the morning-after pill, etc. (See p. 106.) And as the Post notes, it would prevent organizations whose mission is to provide a small set of services from "discriminating against" people who refuse to perform those very services. (E.g., Planned Parenthood can not "discriminate against" people who object to providing contraception, even though providing contraception is 38% of their services delivered.)

This is a wonderful rule for slackers, since it provides a legally protected way to get paid while doing no work at all.

Friday, December 19, 2008

19 Dec 2008 09:13 pm

Christmas Hathos Nominee

No one does Christmas like Mormons. Over to Donny and Marie (if you make it through these seven minutes, you have a stronger stomach than I do):

19 Dec 2008 07:27 pm

Taking Yes For An Answer

My final take on the Rick Warren affair.

19 Dec 2008 06:47 pm

Caroline as Princess Leia?

Carl Cannon outdoes himself in Kennedy goo, lamenting the premature death of John F Kennedy Jr:

“Reckless is he,” says Yoda. “Now, matters are worse.”
“That boy is our last hope,” says Obi-Wan.
“No,” replies Yoda. “There is another.”

19 Dec 2008 06:16 pm

Face Of The Day

A woman in a knit cap waits to walk across a street during a snowstorm December 19, 2008 on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. New York's first snowstorm of the season was expected to bring up to six inches of accumulation. By Chris Hondros/Getty.

19 Dec 2008 06:11 pm

More Sense Than Bush

McCain speaks out against the bailout:

I regret the president’s decision to give away over $17 billion to the domestic automakers. Just last week, the Senate rejected a bailout plan because it failed to provide assurances that the domestic manufacturers would fundamentally change the way they do business to ensure their long-term viability. I find it unacceptable that we would leave the American taxpayer with a tab of tens of billions of dollars while failing to receive any serious concessions from the industry.

19 Dec 2008 05:50 pm

Ta-Da!

The NYT Op-Ed page stumbles across the blogosphere.

19 Dec 2008 05:23 pm

Uh-Oh

Hugh Hewitt approves of Bush bailing out the big three:

This is cautious, responsible governance by a responsible president seeking to make his successor's transition as smooth as possible.

I'm sorry to say I don't find any of the assurances that the car companies will ever start making money persuasive. And the Bush gambit is of a piece with the rest of his legacy: a carefully wrapped ticking bomb that will explode over us slowly over the next decade. From Iraq to Afghanistan to Gitmo to the doubling of the national debt: it is a legacy of reckless, stupid governance by an irresponsible president trying to cover his ass on the way out.

(Hat tip: Cole)

19 Dec 2008 04:52 pm

Changing Minds

A reader writes:

All the interpretations of the Warren pick I've read are that he's practicing business as usual, triangulation, appeasing the far-right religious nutters, bashing the gays, and on and on. As a 54-year-old woman, I was fortunate to be born into an era in which the great strides in gender equality were already won by the hard work of our mothers and grandmothers. Yet, I've endured crude misogyny, and have learned that I'm probably not in a small minority.

I run my own successful design business, but spent many early years in work situations where I was the only woman in an all-male shop. The one lesson I learned right off the bat is that equality and acceptance in one's day-to-day life can only be won on the individual level. We all need laws to insure our rights when they are threatened, but one cannot change a closed or bigoted mind by writing an article, or passing laws, or protesting in outrage, or marginalizing the haters, or calling them names, or turning one's back in outrage. The only way to change a mind is to change a heart, and the only way to do that is to open oneself to the other person and slowly slowly allow them to learn that you are not "other," you are not frightening, you are not immoral.

Continue reading "Changing Minds" »

19 Dec 2008 04:35 pm

What's Taking So Long In Minnesota?

They are having ten minute conversations about the existence of Lizard People. As of last night Coleman was citing a 2 vote lead. Now Frankin appears to be up for the first time. Nate Silver's guess:

I'm now projecting a Franken lead of more like 70 votes, which would bring my numbers closely in line with the Star Tribune's estimate.

19 Dec 2008 04:20 pm

Mental Health Break

Happy Christmas (yes, my roots are showing):

19 Dec 2008 04:08 pm

Local News

Yglesias:

Basically, it’s a chock full ‘o Jews White House staff and a non-Jewish cabinet.

19 Dec 2008 03:45 pm

The Appeals Court Of History

Beam analyzes Bush's legacy tour:

By now, the broad strokes of the Bush legacy refurbishment plan are clear. It rests on three planks:

1) Bush's presidency never deviated from its core principle of promoting freedom.
2) Mistakes were made, but only in unwavering service to this principle.
3) Bush succeeded in making the United States safer.

One recalls Lionel Trilling's comment on Tacitus:

It is not, as I gather, that Tacitus lacks veracity. What he lacks is what in the Thirties used to be called "the long view" of history.  But to minds of a certain sensitivity "the long view" is the falsest historical view of all, and indeed the insistence on the length of perspective is intended precisely to overcome sensitivity---seen from sufficient distance, it says, the corpse and the hacked limbs are not so very terrible, and eventually they even begin to compose themselves into a "meaningful pattern."

19 Dec 2008 03:26 pm

Not Gonna Happen

Juan Cole lists ten reasons why the US shouldn't put up permanent bases in Iraq.

19 Dec 2008 03:10 pm

Freedom or Marriage?, Ctd

Joe Carter responds:

Sullivan’s opinion is in the minority of those who are familiar with the issue. As I pointed out in my previous post on this topic, the scholars who participated in The Becket Fund conference — many of whom support gay marriage — were unanimous in concluding that there would indeed be a conflict between religious liberty and same-sex marriage. To get a better understanding of what we can expect, Sullivan should read the papers of Marc Stern, Esq., General Counsel, American Jewish Congress; Professor Chai Feldblum, Georgetown University; Professor Jonathan Turley, George Washington University;  Professor Robin Wilson, University of Maryland; and Professor Doug Kmiec, Pepperdine University.

Here's part of a post by Dale Carpenter about religious freedom and marriage equality from earlier this year:

Continue reading "Freedom or Marriage?, Ctd" »

19 Dec 2008 02:47 pm

Christmas Hathos Nominee

Ladies and gentlemen, I present Mr Rick Astley (not a rick-roll, promise):

19 Dec 2008 02:44 pm

Something Good About Warren

From huffpost, of all places:

Warren has used his fame and fortune primarily to help the most destitute people in the world. He reverse tithes, giving away 90% and keeping 10%. Please contemplate all the religious figures who have gotten rich off their flock and pocketed the money. Who among you reverse tithe or would if you were rich? I know I don't, and every time I think about what Warren has done it makes me question whether I'm giving enough.

(Hat tip: Frum)

19 Dec 2008 02:25 pm

The View From Your Window

Bend, Oregon, 10 pm.

19 Dec 2008 02:22 pm

That Alleged Baathist Coup, Ctd.

Judah Grunstein sizes up the news from Baghdad:

Whoever's version you believe about the wave of arrests of government officials in Baghdad, the news is troubling, if not surprising. Either we're propping up an Iraqi government that faces even more security threats than we realized, or else one that is guilty of ruthless tactics of political suppression. My first reaction to the news that these guys were plotting a coup was that it takes a serious pair to seize power by force in a country where 130,000 American troops are deployed in defense of the currently constituted government. Either that or a nod of approval from the Green Zone, which seems on the face of it absurd.

19 Dec 2008 01:44 pm

Yglesias Award Nominee

"I  have given up trying to convince most of my conservative friends of the necessity of speaking out against what has transpired these last several years with regards to the approval of torture at the highest levels of our government. But I will continue to write about it because it is something about which I feel very strongly. I will not, as many liberals do, berate those of you who disagree with me. This is a matter of conscience. Each of us must examine our own beliefs, our own mind, and come to our own conclusions in this matter.

Continue reading "Yglesias Award Nominee" »

19 Dec 2008 12:40 pm

Taking Yes For An Answer

Dish readers will know my own conflicted feelings about the selection of Rick Warren for the Inaugural Invocation. But feelings must at some point cede to reason. And I sense an understandable but, the more I think about it, misjudged response on the part of my fellow gays and lesbians. In our hurt, we may be pushing away from a real opportunity to engage and win hearts and minds. Here's Glenn Greenwald:

Reasonable arguments can certainly be advanced in defense of the virtues of Obama's post-partisan theory of politics.  But it's simply unreasonable to depict any of it as new.  It's exactly what Democrats have been clinging to, desperately and mostly with futility, for two decades at least.

I disagree. I think Obama is different. I think the earnestness and sincerity of his campaign, and its generational force, have given us a chance for something new, and I fear that in responding too viscerally to the Warren choice, we may be throwing something very valuable away far too prematurely. There is no question that gays and lesbians have made enormous strides in explaining who we are in the last couple of decades. There is equally no question that Obama has substantively committed his administration to more gay inclusion and gay equality than any president in history. We absolutely do need to be vigilant on this. But we should also understand Obama's attempt to bridge some gaps in America that the Clintons, with their boomer baggage and Dick Morris cynicism, couldn't and didn't. This is what matters. Do gays and lesbians want to be a part of this - or sit fuming on the sidelines at symbolic slights?

I know the arguments against this, and if Obama delivers nothing on gay equality, the critics will have every reason to complain loudly, as they should. But I'm not going there yet. And the truth is: if we cannot engage a Rick Warren on the question of our equality, we may secure a narrow and bitter victory in some states (just as the Christianists won a narrow and bitter victory in California in November). But we will not win the bigger argument and our victories will lack the moral legitimacy they deserve.

The greatest distortion of our politics in this respect is the notion that gays are in some way opposed to faith and in some way that our cause is a function solely of the left. Neither is true.

Continue reading "Taking Yes For An Answer" »

19 Dec 2008 12:33 pm

Caroline Palin, Ctd.

Just another flash of recognition:

Actually, she did speak briefly in Syracuse.

"I wanted to come upstate and meet with Mayor Driscoll and others to tell them about my experience and also learn more about how Washington can help these communities," Kennedy said. Her quick remarks fell flat. Reporters seemed to feel brushed off and they pursued her out.

"You're not going to answer questions at all?" one asked. "Where you headed next?" another demanded.

To the car.

Paging Katie Couric.

19 Dec 2008 12:24 pm

Another Bank Bailout?

Manzi sums up where we are at:

The bailout appears likely to have helped stave off the immediate emergency we faced less than three months ago. It is very unclear how relatively fragile the credit situation is today versus September and October. While interest rate spreads have declined, it may be that Treasury knows of or suspects specific hidden weaknesses like credit default swaps that might put us right back to four-alarm-fire mode any moment.

Continue reading "Another Bank Bailout?" »

19 Dec 2008 12:11 pm

Is The Detroit Bailout Illegal?

Michelle Malkin wants to know.

19 Dec 2008 12:08 pm

Warren On Atheists

Heather Mac Donald is outraged by the Warren pick. Here's why:

After his over-hyped and intrusive interviews of Obama and John McCain this last August, the best-selling author of A Purpose-Driven Life disclosed to his congregation at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Ca., the one kind of person he couldn’t vote for. “I could not vote for an atheist because an atheist says, ‘I don’t need God,’” Warren preached, according to the Los Angeles Times. “They’re saying, ‘I’m totally self-sufficient by [myself].’ And nobody is self-sufficient to be president by themselves. It’s too big a job.”

And, of course, not all atheists are on the left.

19 Dec 2008 11:38 am

Why?

Did Wikileaks go too far? It seems so.

19 Dec 2008 11:14 am

Not Going To Hell Yet

Joe Klein doesn't mind the Warren choice:

I have no problem with Barack Obama asking Reverend Rick to deliver a prayer at the Inauguration. It will have zero--repeat, zero--impact on the policies of the Obama Administration. And it may do some good, especially if it gives pause to all those people who think that I--and the crypto-Muslim Barack Obama--are going to hell...

One thing I'd say in defense of Obama. There were a few times in the campaign when my first reaction was that he had screwed up. In almost every case, he subsequently proved me wrong. And I think we need to take him seriously about a change in tone on these subjects. He's asking a lot from us. That doesn't mean we should not try to reciprocate. More later.

19 Dec 2008 11:00 am

A Ministry Tool-Box

Erica Barnett has rounded up some of Warren's greatest hits. I forgot that he backed the Federal Marriage Amendment, the most extreme anti-marriage policy option on the table.

19 Dec 2008 10:38 am

Less Qualified Than Palin

I was struck by this story in the NYT this morning:

As the day wore on, the carefully maintained silence surrounding her campaign-that-isn’t cracked, then shattered under the weight of the intense public interest her bid has drawn. She declined any questions in Syracuse, grudgingly answered a few in Rochester, and then gave what almost felt like — but was not — a full-fledged news conference in Buffalo, joined by the mayor there, Byron W. Brown.

Remind you of anyone?

Continue reading "Less Qualified Than Palin" »

19 Dec 2008 10:33 am

America Alone

Well, Mark Steyn will be happy.

19 Dec 2008 10:29 am

Occasional Poets

Packer doesn't want poetry at the Inauguration:

Judging from the work posted on her Web site, Alexander writes with a fine, angry irony, in vividly concrete images, but her poems have the qualities of most contemporary American poetry—a specificity that’s personal and unsuggestive, with moves toward the general that are self-consciously academic. They are not poems that would read well before an audience of millions.

Obama’s Inauguration needs no heightening.  It’ll be its own history, its own poetry.

I say: give her a chance. I guess at this point I'm grateful he didn't ask James Dobson.

19 Dec 2008 10:21 am

The T-Word

Why is the press so scared of the English language?

19 Dec 2008 09:40 am

Christmas Hathos Nominee

The competition heats up. David Hasselhoff sings Stille Nacht: