Excellent, very thoughtful article on a variety of subjects, and I particularly appreciated Noonan's comments on Kerry's speaking.
Great quote about Kerry:
"he's a haircut with a person attached."
I was listening to Kerry on the radio the other day (it's even worse than watching him on TV).
At least on TV you have the haircut to look at, on the radio all you hear is a monotone voice with absolutely no inflexion.
I just read that he might add Gephardt as VP. Talk about a "snooze" alert, a Kerry/Gephardt ticket. I pity the Dems that will attend the rallies, LOL. They'd better bring some No-doze along or at least hit the local Starbucks before they attend.
Wonderful. I love her book 'When Character Was King' also. She inspires and encourages me.
Bump for excellence.
"It seems to me that if a person cannot communicate, the very least he can do is to shut up."
On the subject of Kerry and terrorism, his big idea is to appoint a "Terrorism Czar." Hey, we appointed a drug czar and an energy czar, and today, gas is cheap and nobody takes drugs! So we know this will work!
The devilish thing about this tactic is that it actually gets Christians to join the fight. Christians think that fighting for complete and total religious "freedom" (actually anarchy) is a fight for their own rights. In actuality, this will be the death of religious freedom. We will, like Europe, try to scour all gods and God from our society which will lead to the loss of all freedom and law.
A phrase that deserves a rich and lengthy career. Though it might be a bit over-generous.
Elite American students don't want to design, engineer and make stuff. They want to communicate? For their 15 minutes of ego fame? Where is the connection to real world? The material world that for much of the world's population is not very pleasant.
A good rant regarding the anti smoking zealots:
"NBC reported Monday night that there is a new movement in California to ban smoking on public beaches. This is much more serious than the fact that if the law passes young people on beach blankets will no longer be able to break the ice by asking, "Got a light?" The NBC report came on right before I watched Tom Selleck chain-smoke through "Ike." It looked like such a liberated thing to do, smoking without care or guilt.
There is a great lie out there that they didn't know smoking was dangerous in Ike's day, but of course they knew. They knew because they coughed, they knew because their lungs ached, they knew because when they smoked it produced phlegm, they knew because doctors told them smoking aggravates tuberculosis, they knew because they have brains, and they knew because smokers were addicted and there is some rough knowledge within the human soul that when you're addicted to something it's probably not good for you. They knew it was dangerous. Hitler was dangerous too. The world was dangerous. They were planning the biggest amphibious invasion in all of human history. Smoke 'em if you got 'em.
I have come to hate the banners. No, I don't smoke. I just believe in the right of people to be human, to be imperfect and messy and flawed. I don't dislike the banners because they're prissy bullies, though that is reason enough. I dislike them because their work forces us to look at the shift in values in our country in our time. As I watched the NBC report, I actually thought to myself: I want to make sure I understand. If you smoke a cigarette on a beach in modern America you are harming the innocent. If you have a baby scraped from your womb, you are protecting your freedom. If you sell a pack of cigarettes to a 12-year-old boy you can be jailed, fined and sent to Guantanamo Bay with the other killers. If you sell a pack of contraceptives to a 12 year old boy in modern America you are socially responsible citizen.
For reasons that call for an essay of their own, and as we all know, the banners of cigarettes are on and of the left, and the resisters of the banners are on the right. Once the banners of liquor were of the right and its legalizers of the left. The banners of drugs were on the right and the legalizers on the left.
Why did the left change its stance on what it calls personal freedom regarding cigarettes and cigars? What was the logic? And please, if you are on the left, would you answer this question for me? How come the only organ the left insists be chaste is the lung? What is this pulmocentrism? Why are lungs so special? Why can't you endanger your own lungs? Why don't you care as much about livers? Don't the Democrats have a liver lobby?
I think that it is true that there is no individual human on earth that I hate. But when I think of the banners I think of what the old news producer told the bureaucrat who fired him in a cost-cutting campaign in "Broadcast News." At the end of their meeting the bureaucrat asked in unctuous tones if there was anything he could do to help. The producer thought. "Well, I certainly hope you die soon," he said. A great cinematic moment. I wish the banners would go away and stop bothering our country."
Peggy ping.
But--the chief reasons for these kids wanting to go into communication are two--
1) They have a useless liberal-arts degree. They have to go to some kind of grad school.
2) Communications provides scope and stage for the Vain.
"he's a haircut with a person attached."
That's gonna leave a mark. LOL!
**I wondered if the loss of a kind of national manliness, or force, tends to coincide in modern nations with a rise in expertise in the delicate arts.**
Could be its own thread!