The appearance of influence or access, furthermore, will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy.
In 1861, it was easy to decommission the Pony Express, a technologically obsolete, privately owned delivery service. A century and a half later, we have a delivery service whose raison d’être is rapidly vanishing before our eyes. This one is owned by all of us, however, and we are paralyzed, unable to decide what to do.
Gaga’s credentials as a carrier of the ’70s and ’80s torch are impeccable. But this is 2011. What is she doing, really, besides reaching back in time to claim a safer, more old-fashioned template for pop-star success?
But I’m still stuck on the postmod question that haunts every political sex scandal: Why didn’t you learn from the last schmuck that got caught?
And its corollary: How can you be so stupid?
So stupid to think your well-known mug wouldn’t be recognized (Eliott Spitzer, David Vitter, Chris Lee), so stupid to think you won’t eventually be caught (Gary Hart, Clarence Thomas, Larry Craig, John Ensign, John Edwards, Arnold), so stupid to try to a cover-up (Bill Clinton, Ensign, Edwards, etc. etc. etc.) and, especially in this day and age, so stupid as to ever, ever send pictures, chats, or anything even halfway creepy—lord, even a little risque—online, much less on an open, public Twitter account.
“Saving money by reducing library services is like trying to save a bleeding man by cutting out his heart.”
I’d choose a quote from this op-ed piece, but it is all so true, right and close to my heart that I’d end up quoting the whole thing. The public library is one of the big reasons I am who I am. I mean, I go there once a week at least!
In fact, I have my library bag in the car waiting for a trip to the library after work; I have books to turn in.
The commercial success of both MSNBC and Fox News is a source of nonpartisan sadness for me. While I can appreciate the financial logic of drowning television viewers in a flood of opinions designed to confirm their own biases, the trend is not good for the republic. It is, though, the natural outcome of a growing sense of national entitlement. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s oft-quoted observation that “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts,” seems almost quaint in an environment that flaunts opinions as though they were facts.
What Palin and her compatriots who don’t live in diverse megacities are asking us to do is deny who we are in the service of some untrue idea that Muslims aren’t as natively American as Christians. Palin is essentially asking that Muslims hide and stay out of the way until people who hate Muslims get over their hatred.
[Nathan Sawaya’s] sculptures are, however, extremely stupid. I don’t really mean that as an insult. It’s just that the sculptures are unsophisticated as works of art.
To: Rush Limbaugh
From: Roger Ebert
You should be horse-whipped for the insult you have paid to the highest office of our nation.
Having followed President Obama’s suggestion and donated money to the Red Cross for relief in Haiti, I was offended to hear you suggest the President might be a thief capable of stealing money intended for the earthquake victims.
I could understand Publishers Weekly’s phallocratic list if women were writing only a third of the books published or if women didn’t float the industry as book buyers or if the list were an anomaly. In fact, Publishers Weekly is in sync with Pulitzer Prize statistics. In the past 30 years, only 11 prizes have gone to women. Amazon recently announced its 100 best books of 2009 — in the top 10, there are two women. Top 20? Four. Poets & Writers shared a list of 50 of the most inspiring writers in the world this month; women made up only 36 percent.
When asked about its choices this year, Publishers Weekly said it chose books that “stood out” and weren’t trying to be “politically correct,” as if this were the only reason female writers could have gotten on the list. Or is it that we have stamped the publishing industry post-feminist and can now slide back to comfortable stereotypes?
Source: Washington Post
Kristof: The Body Count At Home
via savingpaper:
About as many people who were killed on 9/11 die every two months because of our failure to provide universal health insurance — and yet many members of Congress want us to do nothing?
(h/t: nicepants)
