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Aug. 22nd, 2012
Obama's Faith
Aug. 22nd, 2012 09:00 am"I have a job to do as president, and that does not involve convincing folks that my faith in Jesus is legitimate and real. I do my best to live out my faith, and to stay in the Word, and to make my life look more like His. What I can do is just keep on following Him, and serve others—trying to make folks’ lives a little better using this humbling position that I hold."
-- President Barack H. Obama
It is interesting to see this kind of Christian heat in an advanced nation, isn't it? I cannot help chuckling in the thought that it is a shame he did not close his statement with, "At least I'm not a Mormon."
-- President Barack H. Obama
It is interesting to see this kind of Christian heat in an advanced nation, isn't it? I cannot help chuckling in the thought that it is a shame he did not close his statement with, "At least I'm not a Mormon."
Obama's Faith
Aug. 22nd, 2012 09:00 am"I have a job to do as president, and that does not involve convincing folks that my faith in Jesus is legitimate and real. I do my best to live out my faith, and to stay in the Word, and to make my life look more like His. What I can do is just keep on following Him, and serve others—trying to make folks’ lives a little better using this humbling position that I hold."
-- President Barack H. Obama
It is interesting to see this kind of Christian heat in an advanced nation, isn't it? I cannot help chuckling in the thought that it is a shame he did not close his statement with, "At least I'm not a Mormon."
-- President Barack H. Obama
It is interesting to see this kind of Christian heat in an advanced nation, isn't it? I cannot help chuckling in the thought that it is a shame he did not close his statement with, "At least I'm not a Mormon."
First World Problems
Aug. 22nd, 2012 12:00 pmI don’t like the expression First World Problems. It is false and it is condescending. Yes, Nigerians struggle with floods or infant mortality. But these same Nigerians also deal with mundane and seemingly luxurious hassles. Connectivity issues on your BlackBerry, cost of car repair, how to sync your iPad, what brand of noodles to buy: Third World Problems. All the silly stuff of life doesn’t disappear just because you’re black and live in a poorer country. People in the richer nations need a more robust sense of the lives being lived in the darker nations. Here’s a First World Problem: the inability to see that others are as fully complex and as keen on technology and pleasure as you are.
-- Teju Cole
Ouch!! Talk about being pwnd! It was a fun meme while it lasted, though.
-- Teju Cole
Ouch!! Talk about being pwnd! It was a fun meme while it lasted, though.
First World Problems
Aug. 22nd, 2012 12:00 pmI don’t like the expression First World Problems. It is false and it is condescending. Yes, Nigerians struggle with floods or infant mortality. But these same Nigerians also deal with mundane and seemingly luxurious hassles. Connectivity issues on your BlackBerry, cost of car repair, how to sync your iPad, what brand of noodles to buy: Third World Problems. All the silly stuff of life doesn’t disappear just because you’re black and live in a poorer country. People in the richer nations need a more robust sense of the lives being lived in the darker nations. Here’s a First World Problem: the inability to see that others are as fully complex and as keen on technology and pleasure as you are.
-- Teju Cole
Ouch!! Talk about being pwnd! It was a fun meme while it lasted, though.
-- Teju Cole
Ouch!! Talk about being pwnd! It was a fun meme while it lasted, though.
Dowding The Republicans
Aug. 22nd, 2012 06:00 pmPaul Ryan, who teamed up with Akin in the House to sponsor harsh anti-abortion bills, may look young and hip and new generation, with his iPod full of heavy metal jams and his cute kids. But he’s just a fresh face on a Taliban creed — the evermore antediluvian, anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-gay conservative core. Amiable in khakis and polo shirts, Ryan is the perfect modern leader to rally medieval Republicans who believe that Adam and Eve cavorted with dinosaurs.
-- Maureen Dowd at The New York Times
Ms. Dowd is responding to the Todd Akin controversy, bringing out the argument that it is not the substance of the man that troubles Republicans, including presidential contender Mitt Romeny, but the man's presentation, which was crass enough to offend even semi-educated, anti-poor, racist independents. Americans are not quite that dumb, at least not yet, despite the best efforts of Fox News - maybe the next generation at the rate we are going.
-- Maureen Dowd at The New York Times
Ms. Dowd is responding to the Todd Akin controversy, bringing out the argument that it is not the substance of the man that troubles Republicans, including presidential contender Mitt Romeny, but the man's presentation, which was crass enough to offend even semi-educated, anti-poor, racist independents. Americans are not quite that dumb, at least not yet, despite the best efforts of Fox News - maybe the next generation at the rate we are going.
Dowding The Republicans
Aug. 22nd, 2012 06:00 pmPaul Ryan, who teamed up with Akin in the House to sponsor harsh anti-abortion bills, may look young and hip and new generation, with his iPod full of heavy metal jams and his cute kids. But he’s just a fresh face on a Taliban creed — the evermore antediluvian, anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-gay conservative core. Amiable in khakis and polo shirts, Ryan is the perfect modern leader to rally medieval Republicans who believe that Adam and Eve cavorted with dinosaurs.
-- Maureen Dowd at The New York Times
Ms. Dowd is responding to the Todd Akin controversy, bringing out the argument that it is not the substance of the man that troubles Republicans, including presidential contender Mitt Romeny, but the man's presentation, which was crass enough to offend even semi-educated, anti-poor, racist independents. Americans are not quite that dumb, at least not yet, despite the best efforts of Fox News - maybe the next generation at the rate we are going.
-- Maureen Dowd at The New York Times
Ms. Dowd is responding to the Todd Akin controversy, bringing out the argument that it is not the substance of the man that troubles Republicans, including presidential contender Mitt Romeny, but the man's presentation, which was crass enough to offend even semi-educated, anti-poor, racist independents. Americans are not quite that dumb, at least not yet, despite the best efforts of Fox News - maybe the next generation at the rate we are going.
"Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story"
Aug. 22nd, 2012 09:00 pmA biography of David Foster Wallace is coming out. I am putting it on my 'wanna read' list - a portrait of the suicidal artist sort of thing. I still have yet to bust my cherry on Wallace's fiction, but the fascination continues to grow strong, with the only problem being that the fascination may be more for the artist and his tortured life than for his art, which itself seems kind of torturous.
_ _ _
In “Infinite Jest” David Foster Wallace described clinical depression as “the Great White Shark of pain,” “a level of psychic pain wholly incompatible with human life as we know it,” a “nausea of the cells and soul,” a sort of “double bind in which any/all of the alternatives we associate with human agency — sitting or standing, doing or resting, speaking or keeping silent, living or dying — are not just unpleasant but literally horrible,” a radical loneliness in which “everything is part of the problem, and there is no solution.”
Such passages underscore the deep, molecular sadness that permeates so much of Wallace’s work and the emotional turmoil he suffered himself, though even in retrospect they do not blunt the terrible shock of his suicide four years ago at 46. In his revealing new biography, “Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story,” D. T. Max gives us a sympathetic appraisal of Wallace’s life and work, tracing the connections between the two, while mapping the wellsprings of his philosophical vision. The book captures the heartbreaking struggle Wallace waged with severe depression throughout his adult life, and his battle not only to write — to capture the frenetic debates in his head on paper — but also to navigate the humdrum routines of daily life, while feeling perched above “a huge black hole without a bottom.”
-- Michiko Kakutani at The New York Times
_ _ _
In “Infinite Jest” David Foster Wallace described clinical depression as “the Great White Shark of pain,” “a level of psychic pain wholly incompatible with human life as we know it,” a “nausea of the cells and soul,” a sort of “double bind in which any/all of the alternatives we associate with human agency — sitting or standing, doing or resting, speaking or keeping silent, living or dying — are not just unpleasant but literally horrible,” a radical loneliness in which “everything is part of the problem, and there is no solution.”
Such passages underscore the deep, molecular sadness that permeates so much of Wallace’s work and the emotional turmoil he suffered himself, though even in retrospect they do not blunt the terrible shock of his suicide four years ago at 46. In his revealing new biography, “Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story,” D. T. Max gives us a sympathetic appraisal of Wallace’s life and work, tracing the connections between the two, while mapping the wellsprings of his philosophical vision. The book captures the heartbreaking struggle Wallace waged with severe depression throughout his adult life, and his battle not only to write — to capture the frenetic debates in his head on paper — but also to navigate the humdrum routines of daily life, while feeling perched above “a huge black hole without a bottom.”
-- Michiko Kakutani at The New York Times
"Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story"
Aug. 22nd, 2012 09:00 pmA biography of David Foster Wallace is coming out. I am putting it on my 'wanna read' list - a portrait of the suicidal artist sort of thing. I still have yet to bust my cherry on Wallace's fiction, but the fascination continues to grow strong, with the only problem being that the fascination may be more for the artist and his tortured life than for his art, which itself seems kind of torturous.
_ _ _
In “Infinite Jest” David Foster Wallace described clinical depression as “the Great White Shark of pain,” “a level of psychic pain wholly incompatible with human life as we know it,” a “nausea of the cells and soul,” a sort of “double bind in which any/all of the alternatives we associate with human agency — sitting or standing, doing or resting, speaking or keeping silent, living or dying — are not just unpleasant but literally horrible,” a radical loneliness in which “everything is part of the problem, and there is no solution.”
Such passages underscore the deep, molecular sadness that permeates so much of Wallace’s work and the emotional turmoil he suffered himself, though even in retrospect they do not blunt the terrible shock of his suicide four years ago at 46. In his revealing new biography, “Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story,” D. T. Max gives us a sympathetic appraisal of Wallace’s life and work, tracing the connections between the two, while mapping the wellsprings of his philosophical vision. The book captures the heartbreaking struggle Wallace waged with severe depression throughout his adult life, and his battle not only to write — to capture the frenetic debates in his head on paper — but also to navigate the humdrum routines of daily life, while feeling perched above “a huge black hole without a bottom.”
-- Michiko Kakutani at The New York Times
_ _ _
In “Infinite Jest” David Foster Wallace described clinical depression as “the Great White Shark of pain,” “a level of psychic pain wholly incompatible with human life as we know it,” a “nausea of the cells and soul,” a sort of “double bind in which any/all of the alternatives we associate with human agency — sitting or standing, doing or resting, speaking or keeping silent, living or dying — are not just unpleasant but literally horrible,” a radical loneliness in which “everything is part of the problem, and there is no solution.”
Such passages underscore the deep, molecular sadness that permeates so much of Wallace’s work and the emotional turmoil he suffered himself, though even in retrospect they do not blunt the terrible shock of his suicide four years ago at 46. In his revealing new biography, “Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story,” D. T. Max gives us a sympathetic appraisal of Wallace’s life and work, tracing the connections between the two, while mapping the wellsprings of his philosophical vision. The book captures the heartbreaking struggle Wallace waged with severe depression throughout his adult life, and his battle not only to write — to capture the frenetic debates in his head on paper — but also to navigate the humdrum routines of daily life, while feeling perched above “a huge black hole without a bottom.”
-- Michiko Kakutani at The New York Times