I borrow my title from Jonathan Swift, who was writing about the problem of starvation in eighteenth-century Ireland. Swift’s proposal for solving the problem, considered one of the best examples of irony in English literature, was for the starving Irish to solve the problem of starvation by boiling and eating their babies. Swift’s proposal was, of course, anything but modest. It was also satire—educated people of the time were not expected to take it seriously. Today’s Republican Party, however, has been proposing actions, while not as horrific as boiling and eating babies, would foster almost as much misery for the . . . → Read More: A Modest Proposal
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In the days of sailing vessels, there were two main problems: too much wind (see Typhoon) and not enough wind (doldrums). Sailors also speak of the quiet before the storm. That pre-storm quiet is a well-known warning of things to come. I suspect the metaphor also applies to political life: there’s a period of quiet before “all hell breaks loose.” Metaphorically speaking, the same concepts apply to political life, where we fluctuate between having too much going on or not enough happening. We seem to be in such a period now—not just in the States, but in many countries around . . . → Read More: Slow Start for the New Year  Comments are closed  Blog  doldrums, Eisenhower, faculty, Fulfillingness First Finale, graduate school, impeachment, jungle boots, liberty and justice for all, military service, New Year, New Year's Day, Nixon, Oakland Army Base, political life, politics, progress, quiet before the storm, Republican Party, Republicans, Richard, sailing vessels, Stevie Wonder, University of Illinois, Vietnam This is Reality? I am old enough to remember when the U.S. government was being run by adults. That was also true for most of the governments in the so-called civilized world—we had International differences of opinion about forms of government and territorial concerns. Most of us agreed with some of them and disagreed with others, but we were fairly certain that most countries were making decisions about government by relatively rational means, with military conflict being a last resort. Lewis Carroll’s classic, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, describes an alternative universe in which nothing is what it seems. Alice had . . . → Read More: Down the Rabbit Hole (Redux) Comments are closed Blog China, climate, climate change, corruption, Democrats, dinosaurs, Eisenhower, elections, enemy, environment, gerrymandering, government, humans, insects, Lewis Carrol, lions, Lord Acton, make the rich richer, mammals, monarchy, North Korea, oceans, plastic, Pogo, politics, power corrupts, rabbit hole, Republican Party, Russia, the few and the many, vote, voting, Walt Kelly The original impetus for this article was the North Carolina Bathroom Bill. I am writing this from the perspective of a male who has been sharing bathrooms with women all my life—not always at the same time, of course, but most of the time, people use bathrooms one at a time. There are exceptions, of course. Public bathrooms (airports, highway rest stops, restaurants, and other public places). If you have ever flown anywhere with a woman, you know that when people exit the plane, men enter the men’s room, take care of business, and exit. In all likelihood, the female . . . → Read More: Stuff That’s On My Mind Comments are closed Blog Ally McBreal, American way of life, Chinese Revolution, Christian metaphors, clean air, clean water, climate change, conservation, conservatives, cutting apricots, democracy, education, Eisenhower, environment, European invasion, fear, food production, fracking, French revolution, Gangs of New York, GOP, Interstate Highway System, Irish, Italians, Julian Barnes, LGBTQ, literalists, metaphorical truth, Mexicans, Noah's flood, North Carolina bathroom bill, Old Testament, postmodernist, Rachel Dolezel, redwoods, Republican Party, Ronald Reagan, Russian revolution, sharing bathrooms, the environment, the less you fear, the more you know, Trans-Blackness, Unisex bathrooms, wildlife Given the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election, everyone needs read Neil Postman’s 1982 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Reading it won’t change the outcome of the election, of course, but it will provide understanding for how and why it happened the way it did. Postman’s main point is that print encourages logic and reflection. Visual media, and television in particular, encourage the feelings of the moment. To be taken seriously and believed, written documents need to be logical and coherent. To be successful, visual media need to influence feelings. We . . . → Read More: A Media Star Is Born Comments are closed Blog Abraham Lincoln, against the wind, Aldous Huxley, Amusing Ourselves to Death, basket of deplorables, Brave New World, camera blocking, communication technologies, computers, Donald Trump, dystopian, Eighteenth century, Elvis, emotions, English literature, Europe, familiarity, feelings, George Orwell, Hillary Clinton, Lincoln, logic, media, media mogul, NCIS, Neil Postman, Nineteenth century, North America, novels, Pony Express, print, Republican Party, rock star, Ronald Reagan, soma, steel wheels, telegraph, thought, times of stress, travel, True Detective, TV, typewriters, Virginia Satir, Washington (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1”; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’)); In a recent opinion piece in the Washington Post (Liberals and conservatives don’t just vote differently. They think differently.), Chris Mooney addressed some of the reasons the differences between liberals and conservatives have become so acrimonious over the past few election cycles. According to Mooney, “There’s now a large body of evidence showing that those who opt for the political left and those who opt for the political right tend to process information . . . → Read More: Possibilities and Necessities Comments are closed Blog "other", abortion, Chris Mooney, conflict, conservatives, conversation, cultural dynamics, different drummers, discovery, Eve, exploration, failed, forgiveness, George Lakoff, Gomorrah, Greek myth, job-killing, Liberals, Muslim, NLP, nurturant parent, Obama, Pandora, perdition, political, punishment, reality, reckless agenda, Republican Party, self-reliance, self-responsibility, sexuality, sin, slavery, slaves, social degeneration, Sodom, straight and narrow, strict father, strict rules, talking points, transgressions, Washington Post, women |
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