Wednesday Stuff
They Win the Prize for the Best Blog Name. The L.A. Times dubs its new George W. blog "Countdown to Crawford--The Last Days of the Bush Administration." That's inspired.
Good for Congress. This would be a fitting tribute to the ignorant frat boy from Crawford, a parting statement from the other branch of government that he was wrong about everything, but that in time, we'll get over the damage he and his gang of tough guys has done. That includes the environment.
Speaking of the Environment...Did we really need the gratuitous political slap at Al Gore at the end of the movie review, Clint? By all accounts the PD's Clint O'Connor is a good guy. A former radio DJ, he spent a stint many years ago editing the now-defunct Sunday PD Magazine, and doing a good job of it. So why, we ask, does he have to end a mini-review of a forgettable movie with this kind of childish, peevish slap at Gore? Go figure. We'd love to hear your side, Clint, either publicly or privately...
Blogger Mix Tracks Overall Population. One used to hear quite a bit of hand-wringing in some quarters about the fact--or at least the assertion--that blogging was a shamefully lilly-white pursuit. It always struck me as absurd in the extreme. If black folks or anyone else wanted to blog, then they'd begin doing so. If not, not. No one is stopping anyone from doing it. Anyway, this new study says the racial and ethnic composition of the population of adult bloggers in the U.S. pretty closely tracks the population as a whole. So that debate is put to rest. Well, maybe. Perhaps we'll now witness pitched arguments about the racial composition of those bloggers aged 16-18. Here's hoping not.
Go See Budin's Band This Weekend. He's the hipster in the nice purple shirt with the guitar, second from the right. They'll be playing twice on Sunday at Cain Park. He's equal parts a good guy, good musician and good writer. The former editor of both Cleveland Mag and Northern Ohio Live, he's now reverted to the itinerant life he first led as a young guy, proudly moving to a new place in Cleveland Heights approximately annually (he'll tell you all about it if you ask him). But as I try to remind him every chance I get, his real lasting fame has nothing to do with any of this. Rather, it lies in the fact that he has a sandwich named after him at the immortal Tommy's restaurant in Coventry. We think that's an almost theological level of immortality.
5 Comments:
Little sensitive for poor old Al, aren't you? I think Al is just shorthand for the public face of an ally for the environment. After his statements about the internet, he is a favorite of comics and maybe is an easy laugh, but I hardly think it was a political slap.
As usual, your range of commentary is fascinating.
I hardly think anyone needs to be sensitive on behalf of Al Gore. He won the debate, hands down. Most of the world now understands (well, okay, not the Cro Magnon right wing) that he should have been president but for a stolen election, and his Nobel prize and Oscar award speak for themselves on the subject of his efforts to wake up the world about global warming. But you make a good point, and may well be right. I prefer to think that what used to be an easy laugh (especially for the uninformed or those who bear a grudge against his politics) has been converted to something not worth laughing about, but rather worth applauding. He's stood the test of time.
But anyway, thanks for noting the range found here, because that's a nicer way of describing the results of my hungry mind, which sloppily veers from one thing to another in no organized fashion. And we hope you'll return, dear R, as I believe you're a first-time commenter, which we treat with a specialized form of almost hushed reverence around here.
And to think, I saw you accused of being a conservative right-winger once right here in your blog.
Sloppily veering? Then leave precise explorations to the less passionate starched shirts. You are in the trenches, hunting, fighting, teaching, and living. To those who merely exist it may seem sloppy, but for those of us who know your work, it is not.
When you are ready, you hone your words to a point as sharp as any arrow.
Veer away.
Gee, that's humbling (and wonderfully said). Do I know you? I must (but you don't write like my mom, so it can't be her). If not, I can only wish I did. But I'll gladly take the next best thing, having you as a treasured reader and especially someone who joins the conversation when the spirit moves them to do so.
As for the thing about whether I'm on the right or left, I like to think that, like most intelligent people should but sometimes don't, I try to look at issues as they come up, without any rigid ideological blinders. I used to say, years ago, that my favorite magazine was The New Republic, and when people would see a hard copy in my hands or on my coffeetable, some would ask why I read that right-wing mag and others why I read that left-wing mag. The intelligent middle (where TNR may or may not still reside) is where I like to be. But anyway, thanks for your kind words, and for your returning to read.
Of course you know me, Johnny.
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