As I said earlier today, I tend to try to write posts that are somewhat original. Of course, they may not actually be original, but, for example, if I don't read other book reviews until I've done mine, then my thoughts are original to me. But that is fatiguing so, once in a while, I may do some link and short comment-type posts.
1) I don't want to turn this into a slam-Hillary blog, but my primary reservation about her, that ambition overrides principle, seems to be emerging. It's increasingly obvious that she is willing to throw over the party if it gives her even a slightly better chance of winning the nomination. This has gone beyond the usual give-and-take, as she extols McCain at the expense of Obama. Frank Dwyer asks the right questions here.
2) The blogosphere is all abuzz over Charlotte Allen's piece in the Washington Post called "Women Are Dumb!" Here is Katha Pollitt's take on it. What's interesting to me is not the utter stupidity of it, but what it represents: once again, we have people making sweeping generalizations about a very-diverse population. Whether the piece is satirical or not, it isn't very funny. It's not that men aren't subjected to this same kind of idiocy. What we should do is eliminate all non-clever categorical statements.
3) The respected foreign affairs expert Samantha Power has resigned from the Obama campaign for calling Hillary a monster. Leaving aside the wisdom of getting that much down in the gutter with the Clinton campaign, Power should be one of the last people who would use this word. This is a woman who made much of her reputation by hands-on reporting in our "modern killing fields." She's seen the effects of letting real monsters act freely. While America may have done too little during many of the world's genocides, that's a long way from equating Hillary with machete-wielding evildoers.
4) The real news today is that the employment picture is worsening. At the same time, it's news that the president is acknowledging that "the economy has slowed." The news ought to be that we have a political structure that finds it acceptable that our nation's chief executive does not accept obvious reality until months too late, then still tries to put a positive spin on it.
5) I've been critical of Charlie Rose for not being particularly incisive about economic issues. He often doesn't challenge so-called experts who come on his show and espouse ideological points of view. But last night he was interviewing Chris Anderson of Wired magazine, who said that his model of the future of business was expressed on the back of his iPhone, "designed in California, made in China." Charlie actually questioned him as to how viable a model that is going forward, and Anderson didn't have a convincing response. As someone who has worked on new products, I can say that the builders inevitably become the innovators, and the idea that we will retain design while farming out the making is ludicrous.
1) I don't want to turn this into a slam-Hillary blog, but my primary reservation about her, that ambition overrides principle, seems to be emerging. It's increasingly obvious that she is willing to throw over the party if it gives her even a slightly better chance of winning the nomination. This has gone beyond the usual give-and-take, as she extols McCain at the expense of Obama. Frank Dwyer asks the right questions here.
2) The blogosphere is all abuzz over Charlotte Allen's piece in the Washington Post called "Women Are Dumb!" Here is Katha Pollitt's take on it. What's interesting to me is not the utter stupidity of it, but what it represents: once again, we have people making sweeping generalizations about a very-diverse population. Whether the piece is satirical or not, it isn't very funny. It's not that men aren't subjected to this same kind of idiocy. What we should do is eliminate all non-clever categorical statements.
3) The respected foreign affairs expert Samantha Power has resigned from the Obama campaign for calling Hillary a monster. Leaving aside the wisdom of getting that much down in the gutter with the Clinton campaign, Power should be one of the last people who would use this word. This is a woman who made much of her reputation by hands-on reporting in our "modern killing fields." She's seen the effects of letting real monsters act freely. While America may have done too little during many of the world's genocides, that's a long way from equating Hillary with machete-wielding evildoers.
4) The real news today is that the employment picture is worsening. At the same time, it's news that the president is acknowledging that "the economy has slowed." The news ought to be that we have a political structure that finds it acceptable that our nation's chief executive does not accept obvious reality until months too late, then still tries to put a positive spin on it.
5) I've been critical of Charlie Rose for not being particularly incisive about economic issues. He often doesn't challenge so-called experts who come on his show and espouse ideological points of view. But last night he was interviewing Chris Anderson of Wired magazine, who said that his model of the future of business was expressed on the back of his iPhone, "designed in California, made in China." Charlie actually questioned him as to how viable a model that is going forward, and Anderson didn't have a convincing response. As someone who has worked on new products, I can say that the builders inevitably become the innovators, and the idea that we will retain design while farming out the making is ludicrous.
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