I'm going to get around another impeachment installment, but this is related and it uses a favorite flick to make its point. The article is by Maureen Dowd, whose jaundiced eye has seen just about everything that Washington D.C. and politicians have to offer. She's usually not at a loss for words of her own or in need of such an extended analogy, but this essay is pretty spot on. Plus, this is a classic film (especially the screenplay by Robert Townsend). A good excuse to see the film again and consider the "Chinatown" we're in today. BTW, the title of the piece, "Touch of Evil" is also the title of a film by Orson Welles that starred Welles, Charlton Heston, and Janet Leigh from 1958 and that is considered one of the last--and best--of the golden age of film noir. Dowd knows her flicks!
Showing posts with label Maureen Dowd. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maureen Dowd. Show all posts
Monday, October 7, 2019
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Reading the Sunday Papers
Some thoughts from reading the local paper (IC Press-Citizen & the Des Moines Register) as well as the NYT:
1. DMR article about U.S. ambassador to India, Nancy Powell, native Iowan, UNI grad, and former teacher. This will give Iowa Guru something to chat with the boss about if she gets to meet her!
2. DMR notes that Idina Menzel of Wicked & Glee fame is coming to DM this Friday. Should I tell Iowa Guru? Only if I want to go! (Maybe she should follow this blog. Yeah, that's right.)
3. Maureen Dowd normally skewers with wit and satire, but her piece in the NYT today is deeply troubling. Not because of what she writes, but the fact of the real, troubling truth of what she writes about. One can't treat these issues with any lightness. I'm talking about predatory sexual abuse stories and the many persons who did not intervene or tried to cover-up these terribly evil acts. We've all talked about "good Nazis" or "good Germans" with some disdain, but at least some of those persons who remained silent could be excused for fear of their lives. And in the Kitty Genovese case of fame from the mid-60's, we can understand a perverse social circumstance that might help us understand the the lack of response (and the accounts vary so as to question the moral culpability of bystanders.) Dowd suggests it's our institutions that are flawed, but these behaviors that she describes in contemporary America really do go to character and moral standards. It's really shocking and troubling. (BTW, she quotes from Robert Bolt's wonderful play/screenplay about Sir Thomas More, "A Man for All Seasons", which I believe that I read for a political philosophy course and a quote from which I consider a great one about the importance of the law & legal procedure, even for "the devil", so I knew MD was on to something right away.)
4. On a more pleasant note, and going to the quotidian (but vital) search for serenity and balance, this NYT article by James Atlas about Buddhism in America (which he cutely dubs "Newddism") is a consideration of a growing appreciation, if not outright adoption, of Buddhism in the U.S. I certainly count myself among those greatly influenced by and receptive to Buddhist perspectives. (Thanks to Iowa Guru's graduate student friend Hedecki, who stayed with us before he returned to Japan and got me interested in Buddhism. He also provided wonderful entertainment for the infant 1HP with his "Indian elephant, African elephant" routine.)
5. An interesting companion piece to the Atlas article is this NYT article by Robert Zaretsky & John T. Scott, which is a consideration of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the great French Enlightenment (or Counter-Englightenment or Romantic) thinker (whose 300th birthday approaches). Now, compare the take of this article with that Atlas's on Buddhism. Am I alone in seeing some very interesting parallels? A comparison of Rousseau and contemporaries of his like Hume & Smith (don't forget The Theory of the Moral Sentiments!) might really provide some food for thought. I haven't found much exploration of these two traditions (Western Enlightenment, non-French variety, and Buddhism), but I think that it could prove fruitful. Pankaj Mishra touched on the topic in interesting way in his fine book, An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World, but he didn't go deeply into the subject (not his intention in that book, which is a fine read.). A book by David T. McMahan might provide some answers, and an interesting book-length comparison of Gandhi and the Stoics will be coming out later this year from Richard Sorabji, and it could prove very insightful (although we're not talking Buddhism with Gandhi, but still I think, somewhat birds of a feather.). Well, read it and weep--or laugh--or smile--or try to enjoy happiness in the moment!
P.S. I enjoy theater & J-J, whom I've read mostly as a political philosopher, could be a bit of a drudge. He reacted too strongly, in my opinion, the the excesses of Ancien Regime culture. No Shakespeare, no O'Neil--no thank you. Jettison Moliere if you must.
1. DMR article about U.S. ambassador to India, Nancy Powell, native Iowan, UNI grad, and former teacher. This will give Iowa Guru something to chat with the boss about if she gets to meet her!
2. DMR notes that Idina Menzel of Wicked & Glee fame is coming to DM this Friday. Should I tell Iowa Guru? Only if I want to go! (Maybe she should follow this blog. Yeah, that's right.)
3. Maureen Dowd normally skewers with wit and satire, but her piece in the NYT today is deeply troubling. Not because of what she writes, but the fact of the real, troubling truth of what she writes about. One can't treat these issues with any lightness. I'm talking about predatory sexual abuse stories and the many persons who did not intervene or tried to cover-up these terribly evil acts. We've all talked about "good Nazis" or "good Germans" with some disdain, but at least some of those persons who remained silent could be excused for fear of their lives. And in the Kitty Genovese case of fame from the mid-60's, we can understand a perverse social circumstance that might help us understand the the lack of response (and the accounts vary so as to question the moral culpability of bystanders.) Dowd suggests it's our institutions that are flawed, but these behaviors that she describes in contemporary America really do go to character and moral standards. It's really shocking and troubling. (BTW, she quotes from Robert Bolt's wonderful play/screenplay about Sir Thomas More, "A Man for All Seasons", which I believe that I read for a political philosophy course and a quote from which I consider a great one about the importance of the law & legal procedure, even for "the devil", so I knew MD was on to something right away.)
4. On a more pleasant note, and going to the quotidian (but vital) search for serenity and balance, this NYT article by James Atlas about Buddhism in America (which he cutely dubs "Newddism") is a consideration of a growing appreciation, if not outright adoption, of Buddhism in the U.S. I certainly count myself among those greatly influenced by and receptive to Buddhist perspectives. (Thanks to Iowa Guru's graduate student friend Hedecki, who stayed with us before he returned to Japan and got me interested in Buddhism. He also provided wonderful entertainment for the infant 1HP with his "Indian elephant, African elephant" routine.)
5. An interesting companion piece to the Atlas article is this NYT article by Robert Zaretsky & John T. Scott, which is a consideration of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the great French Enlightenment (or Counter-Englightenment or Romantic) thinker (whose 300th birthday approaches). Now, compare the take of this article with that Atlas's on Buddhism. Am I alone in seeing some very interesting parallels? A comparison of Rousseau and contemporaries of his like Hume & Smith (don't forget The Theory of the Moral Sentiments!) might really provide some food for thought. I haven't found much exploration of these two traditions (Western Enlightenment, non-French variety, and Buddhism), but I think that it could prove fruitful. Pankaj Mishra touched on the topic in interesting way in his fine book, An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World, but he didn't go deeply into the subject (not his intention in that book, which is a fine read.). A book by David T. McMahan might provide some answers, and an interesting book-length comparison of Gandhi and the Stoics will be coming out later this year from Richard Sorabji, and it could prove very insightful (although we're not talking Buddhism with Gandhi, but still I think, somewhat birds of a feather.). Well, read it and weep--or laugh--or smile--or try to enjoy happiness in the moment!
P.S. I enjoy theater & J-J, whom I've read mostly as a political philosopher, could be a bit of a drudge. He reacted too strongly, in my opinion, the the excesses of Ancien Regime culture. No Shakespeare, no O'Neil--no thank you. Jettison Moliere if you must.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
You Go Girls!
The recent chastisement (could there be a better word for it) of American nuns by the Vatican has brought out some very interesting commentary. From my read on it, almost anyone who has any first hand experience with nuns has, on the whole, a great deal of admiration for them and the work that they perform on behalf of the Church and the Gospel. I think that nuns, rather than priests and the Vatican, are held in much greater admiration today by most folks. The opinions have certainly been strongly put. Garry Wills, in addition to advising that nuns are interested in "the powerless" and priests in "power", also writes warmly of his experience as a student for some of his years in a Catholic grade school. Nicholas Kristof and Maureen Dowd both chime in on the topic in the NYT today, both very much on the side of the nuns (both are from Catholic backgrounds, although I don't know their status as practitioners; Wills is very much a practitioner of the faith). (One reservation that Iowa Guru pointed out viz. Dowd: she couldn't resist the stereotypical comment at the end about a wrap on the knuckles, going for cute when she could have done without.) Of course, the best source on the subject are the nuns themselves and the nun (Sister Simone Campbell) who spoke on NPR. No, don't mess with those nuns! (Thanks for Africa Girl for the initial point to the NPR interview and the whole fracus.)
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Maureen Dowd on Newt
Two thoughts:
1. And this guy wants to us to vote for him to become President?
2. Asimov's Foundation series: Paul Krugman, Ian Morris (I think), and Peter Turchin (I think), along with Newt Gingrich, all claim to have been affected and led into the professional study of history or the social sciences (Krugman) by reading about Asimov's hero, Hari Seldon. I missed all this, although I was an avid reader of Asimov the science teacher (if history was my first love, medicine & biology was my second as a nerdy boy). Interesting.
1. And this guy wants to us to vote for him to become President?
2. Asimov's Foundation series: Paul Krugman, Ian Morris (I think), and Peter Turchin (I think), along with Newt Gingrich, all claim to have been affected and led into the professional study of history or the social sciences (Krugman) by reading about Asimov's hero, Hari Seldon. I missed all this, although I was an avid reader of Asimov the science teacher (if history was my first love, medicine & biology was my second as a nerdy boy). Interesting.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Maureen Dowd on Asking Pointed Questions
If I was a politician, I'd run screaming in the other direction if I saw Maureen Dowd coming to interview me. She can cut to the quick. Thus, the column she writes here shows that even someone like her, who can take on sitting presidents & cut them to ribbons in print, quakes in the face of asking probing questions of doctors and or giving directions to cab drivers. I think that we can share this reticence in some measure. We want to believe that professionals, whether the holder of a hack license or a medical license or a law license or a teaching certificate, means that the holder knows what he or she is doing all of the time. Wrong. Doctors, lawyers, cabbies: we're all human, all too human. I dislike it when a client questions me, but I know it's smart of them and that they really ought to do it. That person is actually a better client. Sometimes I do miss angles or over look possibilities. We ought to--because we need to--ask tough questions. But, if it's hard for Maureen Dowd, then it must be hard for everyone. (Interestingly, I saw her once on the Daily Show and she came across as almost shy, not the tigress that I expected. I attribute it to print versus personal confrontation.)
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
David Brooks on All Things Shining
Because of Brooks's discussion, I'm going to have to read this book. Brooks, who has a very perceptive eye for current culture (his politics are a bit to the right for my tastes, but nonetheless thoughtful). While Maureen Dowd usually has the snarky (and therefore humorous) take on the zeitgeist, Brooks ponders without proving ponderous. In this brief book review (which is what this column is), he raises some really good points. What is the role of the ecstatic in our culture? What role do sports, religion, or culture (music, theater) play in this? How do we distinguish collective feelings of "whooshing" (see his article for a definition) from the bad?For instance,how is a Nazi rally from the 1963 civil rights rally on the Washington mall? The easy answer is content, obviously, but how do we parse more subtle differences? Anyway, a thought-provoking column about what sounds like a thought-provoking book.
The book, by the way, is All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age, by Herbert Dreyfus and Sean Kelly.
The book, by the way, is All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age, by Herbert Dreyfus and Sean Kelly.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Thoughts After the Election
The following are random thoughts on the election yesterday, which, for the most part, reflects my disappointment and despair, although not much in the way of surprise.
Iowa is a conservative state. Not a Republican state, but a conservative state. We don’t go easily for change. Only one incumbent, Democrat or Republican on the statewide or federal ticket, was defeated. The defeated incumbent, Chet Culver, was replaced by a man who previously served sixteen years in the job! Also, note that both U.S. senators, one an old school Republican and the other a liberal Democrat, have both held office nearly forever. The great exception to this, of course, is the defeat of our three Supreme Court justices who were selected at random to be (figuratively) executed as an example to other judges not to drag Iowans into the 21st century. They dragged Iowa into the future when they ruled that our fundamental law requires the state to extend the benefits of marriage to gays. I don’t take these results as especially homophobic (although in some measure this is certainly true), but it does reflect a deep-seated conservatism and resentment. The resentment is seen by comparing results from Johnson and other larger Iowa counties with the more rural and poorer western counties, where voters more likely supported the summary executions for their audacity.
The electorate, taken as a whole, seems more and more like a petulant child that stomps its foot when it doesn’t get what it wants when it wants it. In 2008 it went center-left (Obama is nothing if not a centrist), and now it wants to veer sharply to the right. This makes no sense. Clotaire Rapaille in The Culture Code suggests that the U.S. is an adolescent country, and I bristled a bit at that, but I think this election demonstrates the truth of his contention. People are unhappy because Obama and the Congress couldn’t deliver a miracle, because that’s what it would have taken to undo the Bush mess. Of course, this may be endemic to democracy. Look at the French, unhappy that they can’t keep early retirement. Sorry, folks, we’re living too long and have too many bills! So maybe this crazy inconsistency is attributable to democracy anywhere and not just in the U.S.
Democracy, as we practice it today, isn’t so great. I happened to read about Socrates and his death at the hands of an Athenian jury again this morning. It struck me: a democracy put to death a good man (and one we’d label a great man) because he questioned the local pieties and prejudices. Next to Jesus and perhaps St. Paul, Socrates holds the greatest sway over Western culture, yet he died at the hands of a democracy, at the direction of the popular will. There are much worse systems of government out there, all worse in some way, but let’s not think that our contemporary U.S. democracy is so great. It gets by. It does so despite degrading the level of public discourse. Consider many of the television commercials aired: they insult the intelligence; they either lie outright or seek to deceive. This goes for both parties, although I honestly think that Republicans are better at it and more comfortable with it. Are unflattering images and less than complete sentences what we should base our decisions upon?
The bad news is, in some view, good news. The fickle electorate will change likely. Remember 1994. Maureen Dowd’s column today serves as a reminder of how the more things change the more that they stay the same. One can only hope that Republicans will remain as foolish. Obama should not be finished. He just needs to play the game adeptly and aggressively. Clinton did and won despite his personal shortcomings. I just hope that not too much damage gets done in the mean time.
Iowa is a conservative state. Not a Republican state, but a conservative state. We don’t go easily for change. Only one incumbent, Democrat or Republican on the statewide or federal ticket, was defeated. The defeated incumbent, Chet Culver, was replaced by a man who previously served sixteen years in the job! Also, note that both U.S. senators, one an old school Republican and the other a liberal Democrat, have both held office nearly forever. The great exception to this, of course, is the defeat of our three Supreme Court justices who were selected at random to be (figuratively) executed as an example to other judges not to drag Iowans into the 21st century. They dragged Iowa into the future when they ruled that our fundamental law requires the state to extend the benefits of marriage to gays. I don’t take these results as especially homophobic (although in some measure this is certainly true), but it does reflect a deep-seated conservatism and resentment. The resentment is seen by comparing results from Johnson and other larger Iowa counties with the more rural and poorer western counties, where voters more likely supported the summary executions for their audacity.
The electorate, taken as a whole, seems more and more like a petulant child that stomps its foot when it doesn’t get what it wants when it wants it. In 2008 it went center-left (Obama is nothing if not a centrist), and now it wants to veer sharply to the right. This makes no sense. Clotaire Rapaille in The Culture Code suggests that the U.S. is an adolescent country, and I bristled a bit at that, but I think this election demonstrates the truth of his contention. People are unhappy because Obama and the Congress couldn’t deliver a miracle, because that’s what it would have taken to undo the Bush mess. Of course, this may be endemic to democracy. Look at the French, unhappy that they can’t keep early retirement. Sorry, folks, we’re living too long and have too many bills! So maybe this crazy inconsistency is attributable to democracy anywhere and not just in the U.S.
Democracy, as we practice it today, isn’t so great. I happened to read about Socrates and his death at the hands of an Athenian jury again this morning. It struck me: a democracy put to death a good man (and one we’d label a great man) because he questioned the local pieties and prejudices. Next to Jesus and perhaps St. Paul, Socrates holds the greatest sway over Western culture, yet he died at the hands of a democracy, at the direction of the popular will. There are much worse systems of government out there, all worse in some way, but let’s not think that our contemporary U.S. democracy is so great. It gets by. It does so despite degrading the level of public discourse. Consider many of the television commercials aired: they insult the intelligence; they either lie outright or seek to deceive. This goes for both parties, although I honestly think that Republicans are better at it and more comfortable with it. Are unflattering images and less than complete sentences what we should base our decisions upon?
The bad news is, in some view, good news. The fickle electorate will change likely. Remember 1994. Maureen Dowd’s column today serves as a reminder of how the more things change the more that they stay the same. One can only hope that Republicans will remain as foolish. Obama should not be finished. He just needs to play the game adeptly and aggressively. Clinton did and won despite his personal shortcomings. I just hope that not too much damage gets done in the mean time.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Maurenn Dowd on Ignorance Chic
In her column today, Maureen Dowd, queen of reading the zeitgeist, goes after the cult of ignorance--yes, you read that correctly--exhibited by some running for office today. She juxtaposes this current attitude with that exhibited by none other than Marilyn Monroe, the blonde bombshell, the "dumb blonde". In fact, MM had aspirations and an apparent sense of depth that could lead her to despair. Do we see that today with some public figures? To say that some running for office today are vacuous seems kind. Anyway, as usual, Dowd's take on the culture of the day seems quite on point to me.
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