Frank Rich is on vacation.
New York Times
How did we miss this? A reviewer of Sam Tanenhaus’s The
Death of Conservatism cries the crocodile’s tears for gloved
ladies with parasols, men with pork chop sideburns, and God knows
what other delusions he longs for in his fantasy of the good old
days:
One puzzling feature of American politics is that the people who
call themselves conservatives seldom want to conserve anything. The
modern conservative movement promotes radical transformation while
ignoring classical conservative ideas-for example, Edmund Burke’s
respect for established institutions and custom, for continuity
with tradition and for incremental change.
(September 29, 2009)
The Great Books Series
Author Stan Cox continues his war against the
air-conditioner from his outpost in Salina, Kansas, where nobody
objects to his body odor, halitosis, or general untidiness, as long
as he stays in his basement and keeps the windows closed:
Some of the ills that follow in the wake of
air-conditioning-resource waste, climate change, ozone depletion,
and disorientation of the human mind and body-call for cures more
complex than simply producing more energy-efficient devices or
atmosphere-friendly refrigerants. Air-conditioning has also been an
important tool in creating a society shot through with
unsustainable trends: settlements of large human populations in
fragile environments; an imbalance between indoor and outdoor life,
buildings designed for dependence on high energy output;
suburbanization, “mansionization,” and the over-sized car and
commuter cultures; recklessly accelerated production and
consumption; enhanced military power; and even the political shocks
that have hit this country in recent decades. None of those trends
will be reversed overnight.
(From Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our
Air-Conditioned World by Stan Cox, The New Press, 255 pages,
$24.95)
The Progressive
In the Gulf it is the corporations against the birds, and
birder Matthew Rothschild can do nothing:
So ever since the BP oil spill began, I’ve been sickened by the
hideous photos of pelicans, cormorants, and gannets, covered with
oil. One of the first I saw was at the Breton National Wildlife
Refuge, about eight miles from the Louisiana coast, where a brown
pelican was found dead.
Later I watched as rescuers hosed down some oil-slicked birds,
but only 20 percent of them could be saved.
The brown pelican, once almost extinct because hunters shot it
for its creamy plume in the nineteenth century and DDT destroyed
its eggs in the twentieth, may find itself once again on the
endangered species list.
And now it looks like the entire coastal wetlands of Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama, and perhaps Florida are going to be
destroyed.
All because of corporate greed.
(July 2010)
American Prospect
On the intellectual pages of a favorite magazine of “Liberal
Intelligence” two psychopaths take off and no one even notices,
save for the highly trained editors of The American
Spectator:
DIALOGUE: Animal Instincts
Should zoos inspire liberal guilt or give us warm fuzzies?
Phoebe Connelly: While there are many fun things to do in D.C.
in the summer-drinking, biking, drinking-let’s talk about one thing
that’s not fun!
Alexandria Gutierrez: Sweating because of this freaking
humidity?
Phoebe: Going to the zoo.
Alexandra: Sacrilege. Have you never eaten Dippin’ Dots while
watching baby pygmy hippos frolic? It is, quite simply, the best.
Also, watching the gibbons canoodle? Ultimate fifth date.
Phoebe: Ugh. No. Let’s start with the fact that I’m not a “cute
animal pictures” person.
Alexandra: Yeah right! On more than one occasion you have sent
me photos of clouded leopard cubs. The ones with the big blue eyes
that makes you go “AWWW!”
Phoebe: OK, fine. Out me. But what’s remotely fun about looking
at creatures in cages.
[It goes on but you get the drift.]
(July/August 2010)
Washington Post
An explanation for our times heaved up by two experts from
nearby outer space:
One reason for the narrative creep, according to Shi, the
historian, is that we are living in a time “punctuated by dramatic
intensity,” with a raft of existential issues central to America’s
future all coming to the fore at once. And smack in the middle of
this is a president who inspires imaginative leaps by all those
around him.
“Obama has a great deal of dramatic reserve,” explained Harold
Bloom, a Yale University critic. He said the combination of the
memoirist in chief’s status as the most literate president since
Abraham Lincoln and his inscrutable steeliness amounted to
irresistible material for the “frustrated writers” in the press
corps. “You have a touch of Shakespearean character, and people
start constructing narratives.”
(June 20, 2010)
The Progressive
The Prog offers helpful hints on what to look for in
the event of the rise of neofascism here in these United States, or
just a Republican resurgence in the autumnal unpleasantness,
whichever comes first:
So how close are we? As of yet, we don’t have a full-blown
neofascist movement in America. What we have are protofascist or
cryptofascist manifestations that could transform themselves into
something more meaningful.
The anti-immigration law in Arizona could be a precursor. And
the repressive statutes and executive orders that Bush and Cheney
put in place could make it easier for fascists if they ever seized
power.
Here are some things to watch out for: more armed rallies, mob
violence, the assassination of a liberal elected official or media
star, the celebration of that violence by members of the rightwing
mass movement and by one or two of their cheerleaders on Fox or
talk radio, the accommodation of some elected officials with
supporters of that violence, a failure of the mainstream political
system to redress the genuine economic grievances of the populace,
and some humiliation to seize upon.
(June 2010)
New York Times
(“Weddings/Celebrations”)
An interesting sociological development as noted by America’s
newspaper of record and given lunatic emphasis, by Mr. Scofield or
Mr. Gold or whatever the hell he calls himself:
VOWS
Mitchell Gold and Tim Scofield
…On June 19, they were married at the Des Moines Art Center in
a wedding that was in some ways a celebration of Iowa, one of five
states that permit same-sex marriages. As 92 guests…watched, the
couple said their vows before Judge Robert B. Hanson of Iowa’s
Fifth Judicial District, whose 2007 ruling helped open the door to
same-sex marriages in that state.
Afterward, guests wandered through an exhibition of Iowa
artists, then gathered in an outdoor lounge created for the evening
with white furniture supplied by Mr. Gold’s company. It featured a
disco ball and the New York D. J. Lady Bunny. The grooms wore
matching dark suits, and Mr. Gold was wearing his trademark
half-smile.
“The world could be ending, and you wouldn’t know it with
Mitchell,” Mr. Scofield said. “He’s always so calm. You want a
partner like that, someone who makes you feel everything is going
to be all right.”
From now on, they will be known as Mr. Gold and Mr. Gold, or the
Golds.
“I’m changing my name,” Mr. Scofield said. “My grandfather’s
name was Goldberg. It’s almost like going back to my roots, in a
way. I think it’s very interesting that women are becoming more
liberated and keeping their names, whereas gay men are becoming
more traditional and changing their names.”
(July 4, 2010)
From the Archives
Timeless Tosh from Current Wisdoms Past
(September 1990)
Hollywood Reporter
Another tear-stained remembrance of the American Richard II
by another of our country’s gifted poetizers:
Watching and listening to Nixon as he shifts and blurts out his
take on things, one is again struck by the perverse singular status
this banished shadow king enjoys, this reigning embodiment of
forbidding times, when the streets were blank and dark with tears
and hope burned with a gangrenous iridescence.
(May 3, 1990)
