Saturday, June 27, 2009

Lest the Natives Be Restless….

Interesting take on the Iranian protests, Dear Gentle Reader(s), is noted in today’s The Washington Post.

It seems the regimes of China, Cuba, and Burma have been trying to keep the news about the Iranians’ protest away from the people of those benighted countries.

Never let it be said that petitioning the government is futile.  Sometimes the gain is not immediately observable.

It’s always good to see thugs become nervous.

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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Sly Puss

Today, Dear Gentle Reader(s), let us salute a man with a sense of humor, and a sly one at that.

Our hero’s name is Daniel Politi, and he writes a summary of leading newspapers’ front pages for Slate Magazine.  His wit is on view with today’s* subject line:  “Iran's Guardian Council: Election Was Kosher.”

It’s like the first sip of a very cold, very dry Bombay martini, eh wot?

To Daniel Politi—today’s funniest person in the worrrrrrld!

*Posted Tuesday, June 23, 2009, at 6:33 AM ET

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Monday, June 15, 2009

Hie to another place for a different view

Transparency, Dear Gentle Reader(s), is the catch word du jour, so one must strive for as much of it as possible.

As a follow up to yesterday’s post encouraging you to visit Andrew Sullivan’s The Daily Dish, today there’s encouragement for you to visit The New Republic’s online site to read Marty Peretz’s take on the Iranian elections. 

Peretz holds that the elections were, indeed, valid because of the widespread support of the vast numbers of poor people out in the smaller towns and villages.  (Interesting to note that Hugo Chavez’s government was one of the first to congratulate Ahmadinejad.  Poverty has a voice which is too often neglected by politicians.  Otherwise Hugo would be a footnote rather than whatever he is now.)

Of course, note, too, that Sullivan’s coverage is just short of live—tweeters tweeting and cell phone videos in real time--while the Peretz comment is based on public polling which occurred some two or three weeks ago.

Stay tuned.

Keep reading.

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Sunday, June 14, 2009

Hie thee to Andrew’s place

Andrew Sullivan is doing yeoman’s work publishing reports out of Iran.

Get over to his website, The Daily Dish, for up to the minute tweets.

Yea, Sullivan!

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Friday, June 05, 2009

Muckroom Follies—Desperately Seeking…Something

Alas, Dear Gentle Reader(s), the editors and commentators over at Townhall’s Muckroom are not having a good year.

The racism card isn’t working, the gender card isn’t working, the anti-same sex marriage card is losing its trumping ability.  So what’s a desperate pundit to do?

Grab onto the nearest puff of smoke, it seems.

The June 5 Muckroom email has these two entries: 

1.  Linda Chavez has this lede--“The diversity crowd doesn't really believe in diversity. In fact, what they're really aiming for is conformity of opinion.”  This, DGR(s), from a spokesperson from the party which is going through a period of expelling what some call RINOs (Republican In Name Only) from the party.  If that isn’t aiming for conformity of opinion, nothing is.

2.  Under the title of “MTV’s Shock and Fraud,” Brent Bozell works himself into a lather over the “Bruno-buttock-Eminem” joke.  When a representative of MTV says, “That's all anyone wants to talk about, so let's get it out of the way. They rehearsed it at dress and yes, it went as far as it did on the live show then,” Bozell fulminates “Can you believe the chutzpah of MTV, disparaging the media they're shamelessly exploiting, that "all anyone wants to talk about" is that they'd manufacture this new low, this shock-jock-strap plot?”

It is to laugh, then to sigh, then to worry.  The paucity of legitimacy of the right has never before been so easily observed.  With serious decisions being made and the right wing commentariat floundering, we could be in danger of making mistakes without the vision of all parties concerned with the big picture.

Get serious, Muckroom denizens.

A loyal opposition isn’t worthy if there’s nothing to which one is opposed.

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