ew Yorker
The suave New Yorker catches Congressman John Lewis
in another spasm of trite soap opera:
Obama’s promise to shut down Guantánamo, to outlaw torture and
begin reversing immediately some of the most egregious policies of
the Bush era, gave Lewis hope that “the movement” had finally come
to the White House. “People have been afraid to hope again, to
believe again,” he said. “We have lost great leaders: John F.
Kennedy, Martin, Robert Kennedy. And so people might have
questioned whether or not to place their full faith in a symbol and
a leader. The danger of disappointment is immense, the problems are
so big. None of them can be solved in a day or a year. And that’s
the way it was with the civil-rights movement. This is the struggle
of a lifetime. We play our part and fulfill our role.”
(February 2,
2009)
Washington Post
Michael Kaiser, president of the John
F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, passes the
cup for The Arts Community, where cow manure is the new tempera and
urine can be the medium for religious bliss, and a bull whip
affirmatively placed in an….enough, enough! Mr. Kaiser is
an idiot. The Arts Community is an asylum:
We are losing the entertainment and inspiration we need more
than ever during this terribly scary time. As we try to rebuild
America’s image abroad, we are losing our most potent goodwill
ambassadors. As we reshape our economy, we are losing the
organizations that teach our children to think creatively. And as
we celebrate the diversity of our nation, we are losing the voices
that have traditionally helped change society’s thinking….As we
print billions of dollars in bailout money, isn’t it time to ensure
that we are saving our soul as well as our economy?
(December 29,
2008)
The Nation
Despair in Kooksville, after the Prophet Obama is caught
flagrante using the hated “s-word”:
For women who care about women’s equality, the jury is still out
on Obama. They voted for him, but they don’t trust him to do the
right thing for women. Left feminists aren’t impressed that he’s
nominating Hillary Clinton for secretary of state. Mainstream
feminists like Salon’s Rebecca Traister are disquieted by the
“momification” of Michelle. No one has forgotten that Barack called
a reporter “sweetie” months ago at a press
conference.”
(December 3, 2008)
The Progressive
After all the Porta Potties have been removed from the
National Mall and the heaps of refuse are on their way to the
recycling center, comes the wake-up call from a Citizen of
Conscience immured in Amerika:
The election of Barack Obama has poked the racist beehive, and
we can expect a lot of buzzing around in the months ahead.
Rightists, ranging from neo-Nazis to mainstream conservatives, are
eager to reframe issues in ways that invoke racialized fears among
some white voters: affirmative action, poverty, education,
language, terrorism, and national security all have
potential.
(January 2009)
Mother Jones
The election of Barack H. Obama triggers still more esoteric
gibbering from columnist Debra J. Dickerson, about to be swallowed
whole by “the biggest delusion in world history,” perhaps with the
assistance of LSD:
America’s election of its first black president has to be
followed by a demonstrated and pragmatic drive to improve race
relations, or we’ll have fallen prey to the biggest delusion in
world history. For all the racial ugliness this campaign has
exposed, though, and for all that will no doubt follow, it’s not
only whites who will imperil this process. Obama will have to lead
both races in redefining blacks in the American mindset. Unless I’m
much mistaken, blacks will face the greatest crisis of
imagination.
(January/February 2009)
Good Morning America
(ABC)
George Stephanopoulos, clearly in the raptures of the Obama
Thrill, the psycho-sociological condition first experienced by
Chris Matthews:
“Well, one Obama advisor told me what they like is a combination
of Team of Rivals and The Best and the Brightest,
which is the David Halberstam book about the incoming Kennedy
Administration….We have not seen this kind of combination of star
power and brain power and political muscle this early in a cabinet
in our lifetimes.”
(November 24, 2008)
The Early Show (CBS)
Harry Smith, contemplating adultery and apparently
necrophilia:
“As the Nation prepares for President-elect Barack Obama to move
into the White House, many Americans can’t help but draw
similarities between him and the late President John F.
Kennedy….The similarities are striking. JFK was 43 when he was
inaugurated. Obama is just three years older, bringing a certain
youthful vigor to the White House—including young children.…Kennedy
had more than his share of charisma and Obama knows how to light up
a room. But it’s their wives who might be the real
superstars.”
(November 7, 2008)
Reuters
After 34 years the truth wins out and the band plays
on!
“Cello scrotum,” a nasty ailment allegedly suffered by
musicians, does not exist and the condition was just a hoax, a
senior British doctor has admitted. In a letter to prominent
medical magazine, the British Medical Journal in 1974, Elaine
Murphy reported that cellists suffered from the painful complaint
caused by their instrument repeatedly rubbing against their body.
The claim had been inspired by reports in the BMJ about the alleged
condition “guitar nipple,” caused by irritation when the guitar was
pressed against the chest.
But Murphy, now a baroness and a former professor of psychiatry
of old age at Guy’s Hospital in London, has admitted her supposed
medical complaint was a spoof. “Perhaps after 34 years it’s time
for us to confess we invented cello scrotum,” she wrote with her
husband John, who had signed the original letter, which was
published in the BMJ on Wednesday. “Anyone who has ever watched a
cello being played would realize the physical impossibility of our
claim.”
Murphy, who said the couple had been “dining out” on their story
ever since they made it up, said they had decided to reveal the
hoax after it was referred to in a recent BMJ article on health
problems associated with making music. She also said she suspected
“guitar nipple” had been a joke.
(January 28, 2009)
From the Archives
Timeless Tosh from Current Wisdoms Past
New Republic
Observations of a sociological nature from Miss Margaret
Carlson, tomorrow’s Mother Teresa:
I went to visit one of George Bush’s thousand points of light
three weeks ago bearing blankets and canned goods collected in the
neighborhood. I was hoping to play Lady Bountiful for a moment but
instead I got a look at Yuppie Philanthropy in action. All around
were people like myself thirsting for a season fix, reassurance
that their lives of wretched excess and self-absorption had not
drained them of all mercy. Soup-kitchen turns as a way of making
reparations aren’t to be discouraged just because they make yuppies
feel good. They are better than nothing at all. But as you see
leather-bound datebooks being pulled out to make lunch dates, and
overhear conversations about the best frequent-flier programs, you
know how slim Bush’s vision thing really is. The light of those to
whom much has been given is a low-wattage bulb at best. It’s no
substitute for government programs to feed and clothe and house
people.(January 23,
1989)
New York Post
A magisterial new film, elucidated by the philosophical John
Carpenter, its Shakespeare:
“I had this idea for a pair of sunglasses you could look through
and see the truth,” says the 40-year-old Carpenter, who based “They
Live” on an early '60s science-fiction tale.…”The sunglasses show
things in black-andwhite,” explains Carpenter, sitting in his hotel
suite. The so-called real world is in color. “Sort of like Ted
Turner colorizing the classics. You see, the aliens have colorized
us.
“Then I thought, why not just do this message about the Reagan
Revolution being controlled by free-enterprising aliens from outer
space? They’re dismantling the middle class, the rich are getting
richer, the poor are getting poorer. Planet Earth is the Third
World to these people. They’re
Republicans.(November 2,
1988)
