. Rob wonders in the comments where to begin in considering the riotous reaction of Penn State students to the firing of football coach Joe Paterno. One can begin by hoping a day will come – tomorrow, forty years from tomorrow – when each student who protested the dismissal will grapple with at least embarrassment, […]
Eating Poetry (XXVIII) – “I Depart from Materials”
“Camerado! This is no book; Who touches this touches a man.” When Walt Whitman‘s Leaves of Grass was published in its first edition in 1855, it was admired by some, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, and not so by others. Wrote Thomas Wentworth Higginson, ” It is no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote ‘Leaves […]
Jazz Is: 33 – Occupy Love
. One of my occasional exceptions to the has-to-be-an-interesting-video rule. The last time I heard this, a couple of months ago, I was sitting in a storefront window on Ninth Avenue in Manhattan with a cup of coffee, thinking about love. There’s Wall Street and politics, and there’s real life, before, during, and after. A Billie Holiday original. Don’t bother. […]
How We Lived on It (43) – Here’s to Hakram Bobo
. Friend X is is seeking to rent the attic apartment of her home. Youngest son is away at college, oldest son is off to explore a new career in a burgeoning South American economy, and the house is feeling just a lot of twigs and leaves right now. The money wouldn’t hurt, and with […]
Running for Office in Movies
. Within the political film genre, a sub-genre is the film whose focus is the run for office. Films outside that sub-category, from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to All the President’s Men, offer similar lessons about American ideals and worldly reality, but what they offer are insights into established reality – the national establishment, the […]