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Topic: Garrison Keillor on small town life, Bush, Iraq
| Author | Message |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 6/9/2007 1:25:11 PM | show profile Garrison Keillor for Prez. ******* ...You look at the Amish and you see the past, but you might also be looking at the future. Our great-grandchildren, faced with facts their ancestors were able to ignore, might have to do without the internal-combustion engine and figure out how to live the subsistence life. Maybe someone will invent a car that runs on hydrogen or horse manure, or maybe people will travel on beams of light like in old radio serials, but the realist in you thinks otherwise. Fred Thompson, a vanity candidate for president, goes around sneering at the notion of global warming, pointing out that Mars is heating up too, but nobody who has read the scientists' latest report on climate change is in a joking mood: It says that the situation will get a good deal worse before it gets better, if it ever gets better, and nobody knows just what "worse" means in this case. The matter of greenhouse gases has to be addressed, and it won't be while the country is stuck in the disaster that is Iraq. The way to get unstuck is for some intrepid Republicans to get off the bus and put their shoulders to it and push. It needs to back up. The Current Occupant has driven it into a mudhole and is spinning the tires. Human lives are being tossed away carelessly, a country is bleeding, and the big man behind the desk is dishonest, incoherent and incompetent. He might do well as mayor of this little town, but he might also turn the water department over to his buddy from high school and order the police to search the cars of visitors. As it is, it's an idyllic town. A classic townscape: tree-shaded boulevards, blocks of frame houses with spindle railings on the porches, lovingly kept up by families who feel cheered and encouraged by the gentle ornamentation, the humane scale of things. They endure the same uncertainties as you or I, the same shocks of mortality, are as capable of crankiness and outright absurdity, but the classic small town speaks of a steadiness and everyday valor that anchor our lives. ...There are bandits and demagogues and red-eyed zealots and destructive visionaries out working the main roads, but back here in the little towns and hoods, the country survives on steadiness and some innovation.... http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.keillor07jun07,0,417667.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines |
| mailbag | Posted – 6/9/2007 4:01:23 PM | show profile | email poster Ugo, how is it that in the past 8 years I have not come across one half-way-intelligent or inspirational op-ed about Bush? There are 'smart' artists who supported him early on... even writers that I respect -- Sapphire is one... whenever they attempted to sell the reader on Bush, the arguments were weak and prose dull. Maybe with such a political disaster we now enjoy it is 'easy' to write against Bush. That would certainly answer my own question if true. :) |
| mailbag | Posted – 6/9/2007 4:03:30 PM | show profile | email poster sht what was I thinking? Sorry Mr SAFIRE -omg, it is Saturday. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 6/9/2007 7:38:37 PM | show profile ... to be honest, I don't think anyone (or very few anyway) had any idea how bad he would be. Although I have obviously never voted for him, even I thought that at least he might be a little better than his dad (who I hated but who now looks like a true statesman in comparison). BUT, after his first four years, much less really, it was very clear how awful he was and is for America. The big shocker to me, the thing that made me want to leave America, was that despite all the evidence America (supposedly at least, depending on what really happened in Ohio) re-elected him. The utter disgust I felt at that moment was extremely bitter. |
| Iron Eagle | Posted – 6/9/2007 10:46:42 PM | show profile James Wolcott.. |
| mailbag | Posted – 6/10/2007 7:54:22 AM | show profile | email poster Would be interesting to see how many have left during this administration, or perhaps like me actually left but had to return due to EU's immigration laws. (Also, how many took advantage of being moved by a company to get outta here until it is over? They count too.) Or how many have taken advantage of grandparent's roots to get dual citizenship (to leave eventually.) May never know the figure of all of these folks... Such a topic isn't on our media's radar. My hunch says that figure is at an all time high between 2004 and today. |
