Daily Archives: October 12, 2008

"A drug lord or a stuffed duck"

I think this thought from Shannon Love is dead on about Obama….
EVEN TO HIS SUPPORTERS: Weeks Before the Election, Obama Remains an Enigma.

I think that is very true. I don’t see a lot of Obama supporters who know much about his voting record or can address any of the questions raised about his radical and corrupt associations. I’ve come to the conclusion they simply do not care one way or the other. Obama could be a drug lord or a stuffed duck and they would still support him. I think that politics on the Left has become a social process, i.e., a means of group identification and self-validation. Leftists care less about the triumph of ideas and far more about the triumph of a group of people with which they ego-identify. They need their ego-identity candidate to win so that they can feel good about themselves. The character and policies of the actual candidate does not matter. Obama serves merely as a symbol of a group aspirational identity. Only the symbol matters, not the actual individual human being. Because of this, leftists do not care if Obama the man has been through a vigorous vetting and testing that will expose any weaknesses before those weaknesses do damage to the leftist cause or the nation as a whole….
In other words, don’t bother asking Obama supporters why they are voting for a man who has never accomplished anything. It doesn’t even matter to them.
My prediction is that an Obama presidency will be an embarrassment to those who voted for him but are not radical Leftists. I also predict that it will NOT cause those people to start THINKING clearly. The besetting ailment of our time is people worshipping themselves, and holding no higher cause. And to those people, the outside world is not real. It is just a stage upon which the all-important self stands in the spotlight. Obama is just a prop, or a supporting character in the internal drama.
He will be discarded when no longer useful.
Posted at 06:39 AM Comments (3)

Ann Althouse, says

An old person expressing anger about race is entirely different from a young person raging about the government.

Glenn Reynolds thinks the MSM is over-reporting the supposed rage of McCain crowds:

So we’ve had nearly 8 years of lefty assassination fantasies about George W. Bush, and Bill Ayers’ bombing campaign is explained away as a consequence of him having just felt so strongly about social justice, but a few people yell things at McCain rallies and suddenly it’s a sign that anger is out of control in American politics? It’s nice of McCain to try to tamp that down… but, please, can we also note the staggering level of hypocrisy here?…

The Angry Left has gotten away with all sorts of beyond-the-pale behavior throughout the Bush Administration. The double standards involved — particularly on the part of the press — are what are feeding this anger… So while asking for McCain supporters to chill a bit, can we also ask the press to start doing its job rather than openly shilling for a Democratic victory?

I agree about the media bias, but let’s consider whether there may be some reason to tolerate more anger from the left than the right, especially if the lefties in question are young and the righties are old.

We’re genetically programmed to weather the crying and tantrums of children. Teenagers sulk and shout, and we may grow impatient, but we understand the condition. We may well remember feeling the same way. Teenagers and young adults may annoy us, but we’re not appalled. We think we can continue to speak calm reason and they will come around some day. But an angry older person sets off an alarm. Something is wrong here. Either there really is a problem or this person is unhinged. It gets our attention.

Now, I know there are old lefties too. Believe me, I know. I live in Madison. But I don’t see these people yelling and screaming. I see world-weariness, bemusement, cynicism, and other age-appropriate manifestations of dissatisfaction. That may not be too pretty, but it’s not notable. It’s not interesting. If these old lefties went to a campaign event and yelled at a candidate irrationally, wouldn’t we see it in the news?

Another distinction is the target of the rage. Rage against government — short of true threats of imminent violence — is a familiar American tradition going back to colonial days. In its best forms, it’s useful and healthy, encouraging evidence that we are not supine. What is disturbing is rage against private citizens, especially against racial and ethnic minorities. There’s nothing good there. There’s no bracing, salutary form of racism.

In short, an old person expressing anger about race is entirely different from a young person raging about the government. Different treatment is appropriate.

The question remains, of course, whether we’re getting accurate reports of angry old racists. I doubt it.

IN THE COMMENTS: People are reminding me of various angry un-young lefties: Olbermann, Kos, Hamsher, Code Pink ladies. I agree that those people rant angrily, but they aren’t indulging in “assassination fantasies.” But, okay. I don’t mean to say there aren’t any old angry lefties, only that anger is more disturbing coming from an older person.

(Line that stood out: “Banks are going bust.”)

The Booker’s Big Bang

The Booker’s Big Bang

John Sutherland

Published 09 October 2008

The Booker Prize, which will be awarded on 14 October, is 40 years old, but it wasn’t always the 600lb gorilla of literary prizes. John Sutherland recalls how a demure award came to embrace the values of the Thatcherite Eighties

 

 

Booker is 40. It now ranks as Britain’s second oldest national fiction prize. Pride of place in that league goes to the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, an annual award in the gift of the Regius Professor of English at Edinburgh University. That department plausibly claims to be the first of its kind anywhere, which gives the prize – the first of its kind in Britain – a double lustre. Who was James Tait Black? Don’t ask. I’ve looked it up myself and always forget – a Scottish publisher, I believe, of whom confusingly many were surnamed Black. He was probably the first something.

The JTB was set up in 1919 and duly picked a dud – The Secret City, Hugh Walpole’s novel about the ongoing Russian Revolution. Amends were made the following year with D H Law rence’s The Lost Girl. The character of the JTB over the decades after its foundation was established by the long-serving Herbert J C Grierson, the greatest Sir Walter Scott scholar of his day. The JTB, like HJCG, was “solid”.

Unlike its English rival, the JTB is not a household name – not even in bookish houses (by Waterstone’s reckoning, that means one where 12 books a year are consumed). Every literate citizen whose reading has taken them beyond Key Stage Four of the National Curriculum will know about the Booker (“Man Booker” since 2002, when the financial slack was taken up by a friendly hedge fund). Like the Cup Final and the Grand National, the announcement in October is an annual event. Barring cataclysm, it rates top place on the morning bulletins. Jim Naughtie would not have it otherwise. It’s big news.

Continue reading “The Booker’s Big Bang”