From the White House website:
"President George W. Bush today announced recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Nation's highest civil award.
"Established by Executive Order 11085 in 1963, the Medal may be awarded by the President "to any person who has made an especially meritorious contribution to (1) the security or national interests of the United States, or (2) world peace, or (3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors."
"President Bush will honor these recipients at a White House ceremony on Monday, November 5, 2007:
"Gary S. Becker....
"Oscar Elias Biscet....
"Francis S. Collins....
"Benjamin L. Hooks....
"Henry J. Hyde....
"Brian P. Lamb has elevated America's public debate and helped open up our government to citizens across the Nation. His dedication to a transparent political system and the free flow of ideas has enriched and strengthened our democracy.
"Harper Lee has made an outstanding contribution to America's literary tradition. At a critical moment in our history, her beautiful book, To Kill a Mockingbird, helped focus the Nation on the turbulent struggle for equality.
"Ellen Johnson Sirleaf...."
In re Brian Lamb: a well deserved honor for a great American hero.
"President George W. Bush today announced recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Nation's highest civil award.
"Established by Executive Order 11085 in 1963, the Medal may be awarded by the President "to any person who has made an especially meritorious contribution to (1) the security or national interests of the United States, or (2) world peace, or (3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors."
"President Bush will honor these recipients at a White House ceremony on Monday, November 5, 2007:
"Gary S. Becker....
"Oscar Elias Biscet....
"Francis S. Collins....
"Benjamin L. Hooks....
"Henry J. Hyde....
"Brian P. Lamb has elevated America's public debate and helped open up our government to citizens across the Nation. His dedication to a transparent political system and the free flow of ideas has enriched and strengthened our democracy.
"Harper Lee has made an outstanding contribution to America's literary tradition. At a critical moment in our history, her beautiful book, To Kill a Mockingbird, helped focus the Nation on the turbulent struggle for equality.
"Ellen Johnson Sirleaf...."
In re Brian Lamb: a well deserved honor for a great American hero.
In a previous post I contrasted the Democratic and Republican parties in terms of their core values. I summarized the Democrats in this way:
"When it comes to Domestic Policy, the core value of the Democratic Party is simple to state, simple to understand, and has predictible policy implications. In a nutshell, the Democratic Party core value is: The Federal Government Is Responsible for the Well-Being of American Citizens.
Some corollaries: the Federal Government is responsible for maintaining a good economy so that citizens have jobs and income; for those citizens who are not prospering economically it is the Federal government's responsibility to provide for their needs; since a college education is seen as a ticket to greater well-being, the Federal Government will provide financing to institutions and to students (student loans); good health is essential to well-being so the Federal Government will ensure that everyone has insurance, or, provide affordable health-care, and to prevent citizens from damaging their own health, will take steps to discourage smoking and obesity; et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
The Democrats have had this core value for Domestic Policy since FDR's New Deal, policies to implement this value are in place (e.g. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, funding for the Interstate Highway System), and while taxpayers may complain the same taxpayers will not give up the fruits of this core value such as Federal money for large lakes, highway bridges, guaranteed student loans, or Social Security."
I am not a Democrat, in large part, because I think this core value is dangerous to the well-being of American society. (more below)
"When it comes to Domestic Policy, the core value of the Democratic Party is simple to state, simple to understand, and has predictible policy implications. In a nutshell, the Democratic Party core value is: The Federal Government Is Responsible for the Well-Being of American Citizens.
Some corollaries: the Federal Government is responsible for maintaining a good economy so that citizens have jobs and income; for those citizens who are not prospering economically it is the Federal government's responsibility to provide for their needs; since a college education is seen as a ticket to greater well-being, the Federal Government will provide financing to institutions and to students (student loans); good health is essential to well-being so the Federal Government will ensure that everyone has insurance, or, provide affordable health-care, and to prevent citizens from damaging their own health, will take steps to discourage smoking and obesity; et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
The Democrats have had this core value for Domestic Policy since FDR's New Deal, policies to implement this value are in place (e.g. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, funding for the Interstate Highway System), and while taxpayers may complain the same taxpayers will not give up the fruits of this core value such as Federal money for large lakes, highway bridges, guaranteed student loans, or Social Security."
I am not a Democrat, in large part, because I think this core value is dangerous to the well-being of American society. (more below)
29/10: Every Man a King
From the Concord Monitor:
"John Edwards says if he's elected president, he'll institute a New Deal-like suite of programs to fight poverty and stem growing wealth disparity. To do it, he said, he'll ask many Americans to make sacrifices, like paying higher taxes."
More Edwards as reported in the Monitor:
"...the federal government should underwrite universal pre-kindergarten, create matching savings accounts for low-income people, mandate a minimum wage of $9.50 and provide a million new Section 8 housing vouchers for the poor. He also pledged to start a government-funded public higher education program called College for Everyone."
Full article here.
Although the candidate conjures the image of FDR, as I have noted before, John Edwards is much more reminiscent of Huey P. Long, the "radical egalitarian" governor of Louisiana during the 1930s.
Emerging as a national figure with presidential aspirations during the Great Depression, the "Kingfish" promised to "Share the Wealth" and make "every man a king" by confiscating the large personal fortunes amassed in America through exploitation and unfair advantages of birth and redistributing them to the people.
Long promised reduced working hours, comfortable minimum salaries, and college for everyone.
My suggestion for the Edwards Campaign Theme Song:
Why weep or slumber America
Land of brave and true
With castles and clothing and food for all
All belongs to you.
Ev'ry man a king, ev'ry man a king,
For you can be a millionaire.
But there's something belonging to others
There's enough for all people to share.
When it's sunny June and December too
Or in the winter time or spring
There'll be peace without end
Ev'ry neighbor a friend,
With ev'ry man a king.
"John Edwards says if he's elected president, he'll institute a New Deal-like suite of programs to fight poverty and stem growing wealth disparity. To do it, he said, he'll ask many Americans to make sacrifices, like paying higher taxes."
More Edwards as reported in the Monitor:
"...the federal government should underwrite universal pre-kindergarten, create matching savings accounts for low-income people, mandate a minimum wage of $9.50 and provide a million new Section 8 housing vouchers for the poor. He also pledged to start a government-funded public higher education program called College for Everyone."
Full article here.
Although the candidate conjures the image of FDR, as I have noted before, John Edwards is much more reminiscent of Huey P. Long, the "radical egalitarian" governor of Louisiana during the 1930s.
Emerging as a national figure with presidential aspirations during the Great Depression, the "Kingfish" promised to "Share the Wealth" and make "every man a king" by confiscating the large personal fortunes amassed in America through exploitation and unfair advantages of birth and redistributing them to the people.
Long promised reduced working hours, comfortable minimum salaries, and college for everyone.
My suggestion for the Edwards Campaign Theme Song:
Why weep or slumber America
Land of brave and true
With castles and clothing and food for all
All belongs to you.
Ev'ry man a king, ev'ry man a king,
For you can be a millionaire.
But there's something belonging to others
There's enough for all people to share.
When it's sunny June and December too
Or in the winter time or spring
There'll be peace without end
Ev'ry neighbor a friend,
With ev'ry man a king.
Last week, Tocqueville directed me to two prominent articles from conservative outlets intensely critical of former governor of Arkansas and candidate for the Republican nomination for president, Mike Huckabee:
"A Tale of Two Candidates," by Quin Hillyer, from 10/24 via the American Spectator (article here)and "Another Man from Hope: Who is Mike Huckabee?" by John Fund. from today (10-26) via the Wall Street Journal (article here).
What are they saying?
Both pundits seem to worry that New York Times columnists and other mainstream liberal media types find Huckabee too easy to praise. Granted, that can be a troublesome sign. However, we (conservatives) can be too sensitive about this sort of thing. It can be self-defeating to discard every candidate who appeals to people outside our selective circle.
What else?
John Fund, who claims personal knowledge gained over the years as a friend of Mike, voices grave doubts as to the candidate's conservative authenticity. Fund notes that the Eagle Forum (on the conservative end of conservatism) claims Huckabee is a charming moderate but predicts his brand of glib evangelical conservatism is fraught with many of the same flaws as Bush-43-ism. Others fear Huckabee is soft on taxes, soft on Democrats, and soft-headed on environmental issues.
An aside: conflating internal Baptist politics with the larger question of fidelity to the conservative movement, Fund offers Huckabee's decision to bolt the Southern Baptist Convention during the 1980s as evidence of his lack of conviction and steadfastness as a political conservative. The internal Baptist fights do not equate with the struggles inside the political movement. In short, there are good people on both sides of the Baptist divide, and they almost always say horrible things about their erstwhile churchmen.
Quin Hilyer focuses on the personal, describing Huckabee as self-serving and:
"a guy with thin skin, a nasty vindictive streak, and a long history of imbroglios about questionable ethics."
Hilyer emphasizes the purportedly undemanding public morality of the candidate and his, evidently, politically awkward wife.
What does all this mean?
Tocqueville suggested last week: "Huckabee's rising above 10 percent in the polls has been taken by some as a signal to begin to focus on him." But he added: "I think that his support may prove temporary, because some of his views, immigration especially, won't stand up to much inspection."
We'll see. Huckabee is definitely in play right now. This is his moment. A whole avalanche of stories arrived this morning including an NPR feature and a new Rasmussen poll (the gold standard for Republicans), which shows Huckabee edging up ahead of Romney for a share of third place.
My take: No predictions. I am keeping my powder dry for now. As many of you know, I have been interested in Huckabee for some time. I was not sure if he would get an opportunity to compete—but here it is. Realistically, no candidate for the presidency can ask for more than that.
A back story in all this (with all due respect to Charles Krauthammer and Bill Kristol) is the continuing dissatisfaction among GOP faithful with the top-tier candidates. When, how, and where will we find someone with whom we can feel comfortable?
One other thing to watch: if Huckabee emerges as a prime candidate, the looming struggle within the conservative movement between evangelicals, Burkean-Kirk-ites, and libertarians may play out in a spectacular and bloody battle. If it has to come (and it probably does), 2008 might offer the least-damaging moment.
To Huckabee or not to Huckabee? That may be the question (at least for the next few weeks).
"A Tale of Two Candidates," by Quin Hillyer, from 10/24 via the American Spectator (article here)and "Another Man from Hope: Who is Mike Huckabee?" by John Fund. from today (10-26) via the Wall Street Journal (article here).
What are they saying?
Both pundits seem to worry that New York Times columnists and other mainstream liberal media types find Huckabee too easy to praise. Granted, that can be a troublesome sign. However, we (conservatives) can be too sensitive about this sort of thing. It can be self-defeating to discard every candidate who appeals to people outside our selective circle.
What else?
John Fund, who claims personal knowledge gained over the years as a friend of Mike, voices grave doubts as to the candidate's conservative authenticity. Fund notes that the Eagle Forum (on the conservative end of conservatism) claims Huckabee is a charming moderate but predicts his brand of glib evangelical conservatism is fraught with many of the same flaws as Bush-43-ism. Others fear Huckabee is soft on taxes, soft on Democrats, and soft-headed on environmental issues.
An aside: conflating internal Baptist politics with the larger question of fidelity to the conservative movement, Fund offers Huckabee's decision to bolt the Southern Baptist Convention during the 1980s as evidence of his lack of conviction and steadfastness as a political conservative. The internal Baptist fights do not equate with the struggles inside the political movement. In short, there are good people on both sides of the Baptist divide, and they almost always say horrible things about their erstwhile churchmen.
Quin Hilyer focuses on the personal, describing Huckabee as self-serving and:
"a guy with thin skin, a nasty vindictive streak, and a long history of imbroglios about questionable ethics."
Hilyer emphasizes the purportedly undemanding public morality of the candidate and his, evidently, politically awkward wife.
What does all this mean?
Tocqueville suggested last week: "Huckabee's rising above 10 percent in the polls has been taken by some as a signal to begin to focus on him." But he added: "I think that his support may prove temporary, because some of his views, immigration especially, won't stand up to much inspection."
We'll see. Huckabee is definitely in play right now. This is his moment. A whole avalanche of stories arrived this morning including an NPR feature and a new Rasmussen poll (the gold standard for Republicans), which shows Huckabee edging up ahead of Romney for a share of third place.
My take: No predictions. I am keeping my powder dry for now. As many of you know, I have been interested in Huckabee for some time. I was not sure if he would get an opportunity to compete—but here it is. Realistically, no candidate for the presidency can ask for more than that.
A back story in all this (with all due respect to Charles Krauthammer and Bill Kristol) is the continuing dissatisfaction among GOP faithful with the top-tier candidates. When, how, and where will we find someone with whom we can feel comfortable?
One other thing to watch: if Huckabee emerges as a prime candidate, the looming struggle within the conservative movement between evangelicals, Burkean-Kirk-ites, and libertarians may play out in a spectacular and bloody battle. If it has to come (and it probably does), 2008 might offer the least-damaging moment.
To Huckabee or not to Huckabee? That may be the question (at least for the next few weeks).
29/10: Hillary's Indian Name
I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the story. But it is funny. From a comment on Red Nation Society.
28/10: Capitalism and the Family
"It cannot be too often repeated that what destroyed the Family in the modern world was Capitalism." G.K. Chesterton in "Three Foes of the Family" found in the collection of his essays The Well and the Shallows.
Chesterton was much too brilliant a thinker and a writer to dismiss anything he says. I want to do a few posts in reflection on that quotation. But first, some background.
G.K. Chesterton wrote widely and prolifically, amounting to about 100 volumes. I copy this brief biography from this website on Chesterton.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in London, England on the 29th of May, 1874. Though he considered himself a mere "rollicking journalist," he was actually a prolific and gifted writer in virtually every area of literature. A man of strong opinions and enormously talented at defending them, his exuberant personality nevertheless allowed him to maintain warm friendships with people--such as George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells--with whom he vehemently disagreed.
Chesterton had no difficulty standing up for what he believed. He was one of the few journalists to oppose the Boer War. His 1922 Eugenics and Other Evils attacked what was at that time the most progressive of all ideas, the idea that the human race could and should breed a superior version of itself. In the Nazi experience, history demonstrated the wisdom of his once "reactionary" views.
His poetry runs the gamut from the comic "The Logical Vegetarian" to dark and serious ballads. During the dark days of 1940, when Britain stood virtually alone against the armed might of Nazi Germany, these lines from his 1911 Ballad of the White Horse were often quoted:
I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.
Though not written for a scholarly audience, his biographies of authors and historical figures like Charles Dickens and St. Francis of Assisi often contain brilliant insights into their subjects. His "Father Brown" mystery stories, written between 1911 and 1936, are still being read and adapted for television.
His politics fitted with his deep distrust of concentrated wealth and power of any sort. Along with his friend Hilaire Belloc and in books like the 1910 What's Wrong with the World he advocated a view called "Distributism" that is best summed up by his expression that every man ought to be allowed to own "three acres and a cow." Though not known as a political thinker, his political influence has circled the world. Some see in him the father of the "small is beautiful" movement and a newspaper article by him is credited with provoking Gandhi to seek a "genuine" nationalism for India. Orthodoxy belongs to yet another area of literature at which Chesterton excelled. A fun-loving and gregarious man, he was nevertheless troubled in his adolescence by thoughts of suicide. In Christianity he found the answers to the dilemmas and paradoxes he saw in life. Other books in that same series include his 1905 Heretics and its sequel Orthodoxy and his 1925 The Everlasting Man.
Chesterton died on the 14th of June, 1936 in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. During his life he published 69 books and at least another ten have been published after his death. Many of those books are still in print.
Next time, Chesterton's political theory.
This link is to the American Chesterton Society
This is a link to the website of a magazine dedicated to his thought and writings.
Chesterton was much too brilliant a thinker and a writer to dismiss anything he says. I want to do a few posts in reflection on that quotation. But first, some background.
G.K. Chesterton wrote widely and prolifically, amounting to about 100 volumes. I copy this brief biography from this website on Chesterton.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in London, England on the 29th of May, 1874. Though he considered himself a mere "rollicking journalist," he was actually a prolific and gifted writer in virtually every area of literature. A man of strong opinions and enormously talented at defending them, his exuberant personality nevertheless allowed him to maintain warm friendships with people--such as George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells--with whom he vehemently disagreed.
Chesterton had no difficulty standing up for what he believed. He was one of the few journalists to oppose the Boer War. His 1922 Eugenics and Other Evils attacked what was at that time the most progressive of all ideas, the idea that the human race could and should breed a superior version of itself. In the Nazi experience, history demonstrated the wisdom of his once "reactionary" views.
His poetry runs the gamut from the comic "The Logical Vegetarian" to dark and serious ballads. During the dark days of 1940, when Britain stood virtually alone against the armed might of Nazi Germany, these lines from his 1911 Ballad of the White Horse were often quoted:
I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.
Though not written for a scholarly audience, his biographies of authors and historical figures like Charles Dickens and St. Francis of Assisi often contain brilliant insights into their subjects. His "Father Brown" mystery stories, written between 1911 and 1936, are still being read and adapted for television.
His politics fitted with his deep distrust of concentrated wealth and power of any sort. Along with his friend Hilaire Belloc and in books like the 1910 What's Wrong with the World he advocated a view called "Distributism" that is best summed up by his expression that every man ought to be allowed to own "three acres and a cow." Though not known as a political thinker, his political influence has circled the world. Some see in him the father of the "small is beautiful" movement and a newspaper article by him is credited with provoking Gandhi to seek a "genuine" nationalism for India. Orthodoxy belongs to yet another area of literature at which Chesterton excelled. A fun-loving and gregarious man, he was nevertheless troubled in his adolescence by thoughts of suicide. In Christianity he found the answers to the dilemmas and paradoxes he saw in life. Other books in that same series include his 1905 Heretics and its sequel Orthodoxy and his 1925 The Everlasting Man.
Chesterton died on the 14th of June, 1936 in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. During his life he published 69 books and at least another ten have been published after his death. Many of those books are still in print.
Next time, Chesterton's political theory.
This link is to the American Chesterton Society
This is a link to the website of a magazine dedicated to his thought and writings.
27/10: Comparing American Games
Category: American Culture
Posted by: an okie gardener
As I have pointed out before, baseball reflects an agrarian America, the rhythm of the seasons and farming, the pace of work with human muscle and horses, and the dominant role of weather. Baseball also reflects pre-industrial labor in a village setting: cooperative specialization--pitcher, catcher, infielders, outfielders / cooper, blacksmith, carpenter, preacher--universal skills and tasks--caring for and using animals, working the soil/batting, catching, throwing. The social actions of village life are also reflected in the teamwork of baseball: working together cooperatively, but separately in responsibilities and often in distance.
No other American sport has the consistent distance between players on the same team that baseball has, but each must cooperate with the others to succeed. When the ball is pitched, no one can throw it but the pitcher or catch it but the catcher, if the ball is hit to right field there is only one person who can catch it; at the plate, all the responsibility is shouldered by the hitter, one player at a time, but his approach to that at bat is determined by whether there are men on base and where. Teamwork and individual responsibility. Farmers and craftsmen and merchants mutually dependent, farmers cooperating in labor for threshing and barn-raising, but each responsible for the success of his own family on his farm or in his shop.
I'll develop reflections on the other sports at a later date, but for now let me point out that football and basketball are industrial-age sports both in time of origin and in the nature of the games. Both are structured by mechanical clocks, have a fast pace reflecting industrial labor, and team members play in relatively close proximity most of the time. Labor is more specialized, especially in football, but even in basketball centers do not bring the ball up the court nor do guards usually post up. Weather does not determine if a game will be played or not. Both sports run counter to seasonal progression in nature, beginning their seasons when the cycle of sowing, growth, and harvest is ending; football ends its season in late winter/very early spring, basketball in spring. And while football does require a field and grass, basketball separates itself from nature completely.
Perhaps I love baseball because in my heart of hearts I'm a nineteenth-century kind of guy.
No other American sport has the consistent distance between players on the same team that baseball has, but each must cooperate with the others to succeed. When the ball is pitched, no one can throw it but the pitcher or catch it but the catcher, if the ball is hit to right field there is only one person who can catch it; at the plate, all the responsibility is shouldered by the hitter, one player at a time, but his approach to that at bat is determined by whether there are men on base and where. Teamwork and individual responsibility. Farmers and craftsmen and merchants mutually dependent, farmers cooperating in labor for threshing and barn-raising, but each responsible for the success of his own family on his farm or in his shop.
I'll develop reflections on the other sports at a later date, but for now let me point out that football and basketball are industrial-age sports both in time of origin and in the nature of the games. Both are structured by mechanical clocks, have a fast pace reflecting industrial labor, and team members play in relatively close proximity most of the time. Labor is more specialized, especially in football, but even in basketball centers do not bring the ball up the court nor do guards usually post up. Weather does not determine if a game will be played or not. Both sports run counter to seasonal progression in nature, beginning their seasons when the cycle of sowing, growth, and harvest is ending; football ends its season in late winter/very early spring, basketball in spring. And while football does require a field and grass, basketball separates itself from nature completely.
Perhaps I love baseball because in my heart of hearts I'm a nineteenth-century kind of guy.
26/10: Belated Happy U.N. Day
I missed it. Wednesday was United Nations Day in the U.S. Had I noticed in time I might have observed it. By flying the flag of the United States.
Why is the U.N. granted some sort of moral legitimacy by so many? Because, Okie, it's a world council of nations. How many of those nations have legitimate governments? What do you mean? According to one of our nation's founding documents, the Declaration of Independence, a government is legitimate if it has the consent of the governed, and remains legitimate so long as it safeguards the God-given rights of the people. So, I ask again, how many of the governments making up the United Nations are legitimate governments?
Well, well, you narrow-minded pretentious blogger, who are you to impose your standards on other people? Do you think that you have rights, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that your government cannot take away arbitrarily? Why, yes. What is your point? Are you the only one in the world with such rights? I see where you are going with this, you are trying to get me to admit there is a universal truth that applies to everyone regardless of culture. You are trying to make me blaspheme Political Correctness and the Moral Relativism that underlies it. You are trying to trap me with patriarchal, Euro-centric logic. Yeah, yeah. So, are you the only one in the world with basic rights or does everyone have basic rights? . . .
Shouldn't we grant moral authority to a body that is made up of delegates from all over the world? Wouldn't the decisions of that body have a moral superiority to the decisions of only one nation? Why? If all the people in my small town gather and vote to burn a small boy at the stake just for the fun of it, should I recognize their moral superiority over any opposing view, say that held by the small boy, and treat their decision as sacrosanct because the town meeting included all the people of the town? What? I see you are a journalism major, so I'll try to explain again. If the majority of nations in the U.N. vote to execute homosexuals, bar women from the workplace, abolish every environmental regulation, and end all aid to the poor, would you comply with their decision? Of course not. Why not, if you grant them moral authority? Because those would be bad decisions. So, the United Nations is not necessarily better than one nation doing the right thing? Wait a minute, you are trying to trick me again.
Why is the U.N. granted some sort of moral legitimacy by so many? Because, Okie, it's a world council of nations. How many of those nations have legitimate governments? What do you mean? According to one of our nation's founding documents, the Declaration of Independence, a government is legitimate if it has the consent of the governed, and remains legitimate so long as it safeguards the God-given rights of the people. So, I ask again, how many of the governments making up the United Nations are legitimate governments?
Well, well, you narrow-minded pretentious blogger, who are you to impose your standards on other people? Do you think that you have rights, such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that your government cannot take away arbitrarily? Why, yes. What is your point? Are you the only one in the world with such rights? I see where you are going with this, you are trying to get me to admit there is a universal truth that applies to everyone regardless of culture. You are trying to make me blaspheme Political Correctness and the Moral Relativism that underlies it. You are trying to trap me with patriarchal, Euro-centric logic. Yeah, yeah. So, are you the only one in the world with basic rights or does everyone have basic rights? . . .
Shouldn't we grant moral authority to a body that is made up of delegates from all over the world? Wouldn't the decisions of that body have a moral superiority to the decisions of only one nation? Why? If all the people in my small town gather and vote to burn a small boy at the stake just for the fun of it, should I recognize their moral superiority over any opposing view, say that held by the small boy, and treat their decision as sacrosanct because the town meeting included all the people of the town? What? I see you are a journalism major, so I'll try to explain again. If the majority of nations in the U.N. vote to execute homosexuals, bar women from the workplace, abolish every environmental regulation, and end all aid to the poor, would you comply with their decision? Of course not. Why not, if you grant them moral authority? Because those would be bad decisions. So, the United Nations is not necessarily better than one nation doing the right thing? Wait a minute, you are trying to trick me again.
I'm about to go all Andy Rooney on you, so either indulge me or scroll to the next post.
Baseball is a game tied to the seasons and to the rhythmns of an earllier agricultural America. See this earlier post. It begins in the spring, the time of planting crops, greening grass, budding trees, lengthening days, warming afternoons. Each season matures during the heat of summer with a season as long and slow and meandering as a great river under a dog day sun. Then comes fall, with its shortening days, cooler nights, and harvests.
Greed for television revenue is debasing the game. The regular season now lasts longer than in the past, and the additional layer of playoff games postpones the World Series 3 to 4 weeks later than it was a few decades ago. The extended season, combined with World Series night games (again, for the television revenue) means that these pinnacle games, the result of all the games in all the parks since opening day, often take place in cold and wet conditions. Blasphemous. Unnatural. The National Sport ruined by unbridled capitalism.
Shorten the season. Rethink the extra playoff games. (I mean, what's a Wild Card doing in baseball? For years it was the only professional sport where winning the regular season meant everything to advancement into the post-season.) AND GIVE US DAY GAMES IN THE WORLD SERIES. Baseball is a better radio game anyway.
Baseball is a game tied to the seasons and to the rhythmns of an earllier agricultural America. See this earlier post. It begins in the spring, the time of planting crops, greening grass, budding trees, lengthening days, warming afternoons. Each season matures during the heat of summer with a season as long and slow and meandering as a great river under a dog day sun. Then comes fall, with its shortening days, cooler nights, and harvests.
Greed for television revenue is debasing the game. The regular season now lasts longer than in the past, and the additional layer of playoff games postpones the World Series 3 to 4 weeks later than it was a few decades ago. The extended season, combined with World Series night games (again, for the television revenue) means that these pinnacle games, the result of all the games in all the parks since opening day, often take place in cold and wet conditions. Blasphemous. Unnatural. The National Sport ruined by unbridled capitalism.
Shorten the season. Rethink the extra playoff games. (I mean, what's a Wild Card doing in baseball? For years it was the only professional sport where winning the regular season meant everything to advancement into the post-season.) AND GIVE US DAY GAMES IN THE WORLD SERIES. Baseball is a better radio game anyway.
24/10: The Feds to the Rescue
Today the Administration made sure the nation saw that it was working hard to respond well to the fires in California. Well-publicized people on site, a cabinet meeting linked to the scene, statements to the press. I have no doubt FEMA will do a good job doing what it does. This Republican administration knows that the criticisms it took after Katrina hit New Orleans hurt it, and that a perception that Bush failed California would hurt the Republican nominee in 08.
Two points:
First, the criticism of the Federal response to Katrina has been unfair. Compare Mississippi and Louisiana. Same hurricane. Same FEMA. Things went much better in Mississippi. And also in Florida in the aftermath of their hurricane. The difference: the Democratic governments of New Orleans and of Louisiana. Can you say "Corrupt and Incompetent"? I can believe that the state of California will handle their end of the affair much better than Louisiana. I think the Administration will do well by them. We'll know by the lack of stories on failure in the MSM.
Second, everybody seems to be expecting the Feds to come to the rescue. I have heard no questions at all raised as to whether the fires and subsequent damage are actually within the responsibilities of the Federal Government. State and local governments, and the public, automatically turn to Washington. Is this a good thing?
Two points:
First, the criticism of the Federal response to Katrina has been unfair. Compare Mississippi and Louisiana. Same hurricane. Same FEMA. Things went much better in Mississippi. And also in Florida in the aftermath of their hurricane. The difference: the Democratic governments of New Orleans and of Louisiana. Can you say "Corrupt and Incompetent"? I can believe that the state of California will handle their end of the affair much better than Louisiana. I think the Administration will do well by them. We'll know by the lack of stories on failure in the MSM.
Second, everybody seems to be expecting the Feds to come to the rescue. I have heard no questions at all raised as to whether the fires and subsequent damage are actually within the responsibilities of the Federal Government. State and local governments, and the public, automatically turn to Washington. Is this a good thing?
