Camille Paglia on the Democratic Party and its cheering section in the media. Plenty of shots at the Republicans, too.
(via the Advice Goddess)
David Foster
Healthcare: The Supply Side
Here’s a thought experiment. Suppose the year is 1902. Automobiles exist, but they are rare and expensive. The assembly line has not yet been invented, and car manufacturing, such as it is, is done entirely by craft methods.
Now imagine that our politicians decide that every American family, as a matter of national policy, should have its own automobile. (Let’s also stipulate that the trades involved in automobile-building–machining, welding, carpentry, etc–are tightly controlled by guilds.)
What would happen?
Recent Reading
Three mini-reviews in this batch:
“Vanity Fair,” William Makepeace Thackery
“The Promised Land,” Mary Antin
“Metropolitan Corridor,” John Stillgoe
I picked up Thackeray’s “Vanity Fair” from the shelf where it had lain unread, lo these many years, and spent two weeks utterly immersed in the world of Becky Sharp and her friends associates victims. I’d never read the book before, but did see a made-for-tv movie based on it several years ago…IIRC, the movie was far more centered around Becky herself, whereas the book develops the other characters to a considerably greater degree.
Very funny (once you get used to the dense writing style) and utterly unsentimental: Thackeray called it “a novel without a hero.” Those looking for escapism by reading about the elegant lifestyles of the English upper classes should definitely look elsewhere: for all others, this book is highly recommended.
***
“The Promised Land,” by Mary Antin, is the story of the author’s journey from Polotzk, Russia (a town which was part of the Jewish Pale of Settlement) to Boston, Massachussetts, with her family, in the late 1800s. Antin was a keen observer and a vivid writer–particularly impressive given that she had no exposure to English until she was 13. “The Promised Land” was published in 1912, having been first serialized in the Atlantic Monthly.
Breaking the Springs
In 1944, the writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery was flying reconnaissance missions with the Free French forces. He was also working on what would be his last book: the philosophical musings of the fictional ruler of a fictional desert kingdom. St-Ex was killed in action before he got the chance to finalize the manuscript, but it was published as Citadelle in French and under the somewhat unfortunate name Wisdom of the Sands in English.
In one passage, the ruler muses that the criminal who has been sentenced to death may well contain an inward beauty of some form…but goes on to justify his execution:
For by his death I stiffen springs which must not be permitted to relax.
I thought about this passage when I heard about the decision of the Scottish authorities to release the Lockerbie bomber Al Megrahi, who has now received a hero’s welcome in his native Libya.
What, Precisely, is “Creativity”?
From this article:
At the Kansas University School of Journalism, enrollment is currently 70 percent female, according to the school’s dean, Ann Brill.
“I’m sure there are a couple of reasons for this,” Brill said. “It’s probably a right brain/left brain thing. That sounds sexist, but there’s some truth to it.”
Men tend to be drawn to more analytical majors such as engineering or business, whereas women enjoy the creativity that journalism allows for, she said.
Ignore, for the moment, the gender stereotyping and the lack of supporting data (are women really that rare in undergraduate business programs? I don’t think so) and concentrate on the implied assertion that journalism is inherently more creative than either business or engineering.