Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
The Best Sentence I’ve Heard Or Read Lately (BSIHORL) award goes out, this morning, to the lovely Michelle who is grousing away about my Governortron 2000’s virtual endorsements…and she comes up with this gem, apparently revisiting it from earlier…
As we have seen time and again, “bringing people together” is code for increasing the size and scope of government.
In my own experience, this hackneyed phrase has been seen to mean something a little broader, like “set up a policy I happen to like that would directly affect everyone, so it cannot be subjected to argument by anyone.”
It is directly oppositional to another hackneyed phrase, “make sure everyone has a voice” (or vote, or say, or representation, or that everybody takes part in deciding). Of course a lot of us don’t realize that these two cliches have a directly antithetical relationship to each other. That’s because cliches make us feel good. They don’t blaze a trail and they don’t involve any risk. They’re the pathways of the craven; those who aspire to be extraordinary while endeavoring, one moment to the next, to be as ordinary as possible. That’s how cliches get to be cliches.
And the ugly thing about human nature is we tend to be fair-weather friends to both. We don’t crave representation when we’re in the majority. We want it when we find outselves outvoted — at which time we have an unfortunate tendency to define “representation” as winning. Once we get what we want, there, we run into the thing Michelle’s discussing above. We want to “bring everyone together” — now, RIGHT now — when we’ve won. Make everybody else do things our way. At that point, we’re not so much into counting every vote, we’re more about “unifying” and “healing the divide.”
I would further add none of these little observations about human wisdom will be news to anyone who’s worked in politics for any length of time. Watch a skilled politician as closely as you can, across long stretch of time, you’ll see the successful ones recycle these little sound-bites exactly the way I’ve described above, on the occasions I’ve called them out. They play to our darker, less constructive base instincts.
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- JohnJ | 02/11/2008 @ 11:49[…] [Discuss this article with MKFreeberg over at House of Eratosthenes…] Share Article Sphere: Related Content Trackback URL […]
- Webloggin - Blog Archive » Best Sentence XXV | 02/12/2008 @ 12:01