Lovely Lileks
In conjunction with the rigorous demands of daily life (which I don't meet very well in any event) I've been suffering some vicious "blogathy" lately. I'm dipping a toe in again, and, as always, when one wants to reaquaint oneself with the blogosphere, the best place to start is with James Lileks:
Went over to the Giant Swede’s house for an inaugural supper. Got into an argument over whether the Europeans should be treated with deference to assure future cooperation, or whether Bush should Taser Chirac the moment he sets foot in the Oval Office, just to set the ground rules for term two. I’d heard the speech earlier in the day, so I didn’t pay attention to the rerun. And I suppose some will say it’s just a rerun in the first place – blah blah freedom, blah blah tyranny, etc. I found it striking, but I suppose you’d expect I would. Still. In ten years, which do you think will be more relevant: the speech, or this Toles cartoon? (Yes, of course, that's where we're going. Dictatorship. Thanks for the heads-up.) I listened to a few hours of talk radio, where caller after caller lined up to explain why America could not stand for freedom for all manner of reasons – slavery, oil, Halliburton, Freemasonry, no gay marriage, FCC regulations on nipple-flashing, and all our other numerous sins that stain this shameful endeavor. And again, I return to the Kirk Doctrine, expressed in the Star Trek episode “The Conscience of the King.” He has passed judgment on a suspected tyrant, and the dictator’s daughter asks “who are you to judge?”
Who do I have to be? Kirk snaps.
The answer, I guess, is “Canada.”
The Week magazine sent me another sample issue, angling for a subscription. No thanks. “The REAL reason the Taliban had to go: oil.” Mm-hmm. “Is it time to stop hating Castro?” I don’t know; is he dead yet? “Is religion itself the real enemy to Western Civilization?” No, clever newsmagazine writers who lump together Islamic terrorists and Cambodian immigrant Lutherans in Fargo are the problem, inasmuch as they have no intellectual connection to the accumulated wisdom of the Western experience, and regard their cultural heritage as an expense account to be squandered at will. “Was Elvis really that good?” Them’s fightin’ words, sahr. On the cover: “American Supremacy: Can it Last? And should it . . .”
Well. Someone is going to be the strongest nation. You would prefer China? I suppose a united Europe could reign supreme, as long as nothing was required of them.
Read the whole thing, etc.
Went over to the Giant Swede’s house for an inaugural supper. Got into an argument over whether the Europeans should be treated with deference to assure future cooperation, or whether Bush should Taser Chirac the moment he sets foot in the Oval Office, just to set the ground rules for term two. I’d heard the speech earlier in the day, so I didn’t pay attention to the rerun. And I suppose some will say it’s just a rerun in the first place – blah blah freedom, blah blah tyranny, etc. I found it striking, but I suppose you’d expect I would. Still. In ten years, which do you think will be more relevant: the speech, or this Toles cartoon? (Yes, of course, that's where we're going. Dictatorship. Thanks for the heads-up.) I listened to a few hours of talk radio, where caller after caller lined up to explain why America could not stand for freedom for all manner of reasons – slavery, oil, Halliburton, Freemasonry, no gay marriage, FCC regulations on nipple-flashing, and all our other numerous sins that stain this shameful endeavor. And again, I return to the Kirk Doctrine, expressed in the Star Trek episode “The Conscience of the King.” He has passed judgment on a suspected tyrant, and the dictator’s daughter asks “who are you to judge?”
Who do I have to be? Kirk snaps.
The answer, I guess, is “Canada.”
The Week magazine sent me another sample issue, angling for a subscription. No thanks. “The REAL reason the Taliban had to go: oil.” Mm-hmm. “Is it time to stop hating Castro?” I don’t know; is he dead yet? “Is religion itself the real enemy to Western Civilization?” No, clever newsmagazine writers who lump together Islamic terrorists and Cambodian immigrant Lutherans in Fargo are the problem, inasmuch as they have no intellectual connection to the accumulated wisdom of the Western experience, and regard their cultural heritage as an expense account to be squandered at will. “Was Elvis really that good?” Them’s fightin’ words, sahr. On the cover: “American Supremacy: Can it Last? And should it . . .”
Well. Someone is going to be the strongest nation. You would prefer China? I suppose a united Europe could reign supreme, as long as nothing was required of them.
Read the whole thing, etc.
posted by Kate Marie | 4:34 PM | Permalink
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5 comments
5 Comments:
It is about time you got back up on that horse, you slacker. I am in the middle of back to back trials, but I need to know your excuse.
I would think that Barbara Boxer, Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy and the rest of the clowns making a Borkesque spectacle of themselves as they attacked Condi Rice last week would get your blood boiling again.
As for me, I am really just getting sick of the virulent "Hate Bush" mentality found in the LA Times letters and bumper stickers of LA. I'm truly a "Stranger In A Strange Land".
My favorite lines:
... Bush should Taser Chirac the moment he sets foot in the Oval Office...
“Is it time to stop hating Castro?” I don’t know; is he dead yet?
Y'all been following the Larry "Harvard" Summers flap? Here is the best defense of the guy I've heard yet, and it is from the Washington Post (Pravda), of all places:
Many of the same people denouncing Summers, I'd venture, believe fervently that homosexuality, for example, is a matter of biology rather than of choice or childhood experience. Many would demand that medical studies be structured to consider differences between men and women in metabolizing drugs, say, or responding to a particular disease. And many who find Summers's remarks offensive seem perfectly happy to trumpet the supposed attributes that women bring to the workplace -- that they are more intuitive, or more empathetic or some such. If that is so -- and I've always rather cringed at such assertions -- why is it impermissible to suggest that there might be some downside differences as well?
Summers Storm by Ruth Marcus, Washington Post, Saturday, January 22, 2005; Page A17
Greetings C.I.V.!
I have been following the Summers flap. Thanks for the article from the WaPo -- it's dead on. Steven Pinker (author of The Blank Slate)also defended Summers quite well in an interview with the Harvard Crimson. He said if you're going to reject a hypothesis as offensive (without evidence or argument), then you don't really understand the concept of free inquiry. I also cracked up at the M.I.T. prof's description of her reaction to Summers's remark -- that she got really short of breath and had to leave because, if she had stayed, she thought she might "black out." She might as well have said she got the vapors.
Greetings C.I.V.!
I have been following the Summers flap. Thanks for the article from the WaPo -- it's dead on. Steven Pinker (author of The Blank Slate)also defended Summers quite well in an interview with the Harvard Crimson. He said if you're going to reject a hypothesis as offensive (without evidence or argument), then you don't really understand the concept of free inquiry. I also cracked up at the M.I.T. prof's description of her reaction to Summers's remark -- that she got really short of breath and had to leave because, if she had stayed, she thought she might "black out." She might as well have said she got the vapors.
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