Seldom Balanced – Usually Fair
From The Journal of Improbable Research:
Stories that only have six words. Are they truly a ‘Narrative Genre’? David Fishelov, believes that they maybe. He’s a professor of comparative literature. At the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. See his essay on the subject. ‘The Poetics of Six-Word Stories’
From Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged:
But why so much obstruction? For what? Why? What is Trump hiding with all the vehemence he reserves for his net worth and the real story of his vital statistics?
The polls and the boos and the news show that something is changing in how Trump is viewed. But for now, he stays the same: in denial, and thinking he is a beloved leader who can survive his multiple scandals by changing address or brazening them out. I don’t expect a lot from Trump. I expect a lot from us all, in voting, finally saying the best, most brutal kiss-off “Goodbye” to him. The final, most raucous, boos.
From Andy Borowitz:
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a move that raised eyebrows in the nation’s capital, Donald Trump on Saturday secured a note from a podiatrist exempting him from impeachment.
The note, written by Trump’s personal podiatrist, Dr. Harland Dorrinson, said that the strain of undergoing impeachment could “catastrophically inflame” a foot malady that has bedevilled Trump since the nineteen-sixties.
A different sport in many ways.
The concussive violence of football, the long term damage to players, was never in the national consciousness in those days. Back when I was a kid, such thoughts never intruded. We had no idea.
There is something about football crowds. I’m not sure exactly what it is. But if most of us were blindfolded and put into the middle of a crowd at a professional game, we’d be able to tell if it was football or some other sport. The raucousness of the crowd, maybe? The yelling of the vendors? The play-by-play enthusiasm? Hard to say what the rhythm is, exactly, but it is unmistakable.
The Redskins vs Eagles game at Franklin Field in Philadelphia had been billed as a big deal. The stadium itself seemed like the setting for it. It was the oldest stadium in the country. The Eagles had been there only a few years.
By the time the coin was tossed that Sunday, there were over 60,000 fans in the stadium. But, on that Sunday, you would not have recognized the sound as happening during a football event. In fact, there was an eerie silence during the entire game.
Continue reading “No Booing, No Cheers:
Seven Silent Stadiums”
Continue reading “World Series Boos and Blues, God, Gaetz, Overconfidence, Balance”
From Jonathan Bernstein:
Protest is an important part of democracy, and that includes raucous and pointed protest. This is not a plea for civility. It’s an argument that the content of protest matters. Communications scholar Jennifer Mercieca put it this way: “Chanting ‘lock him up’ feels good, but it’s also an act of desperation that says that you don’t believe in the rule of law.”
From North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz:
In Hong Kong and Lebanon and Barcelona and elsewhere, people are reminding us that there is a cost to freedom, a price to be paid for fighting injustice, there is collateral damage to pushing back against tyranny. There is more required than a few keystrokes and a new status update. We need to get into the trenches and put skin in the game. We need to incarnate our convictions.
In the face of unprecedented corruption and human rights violations and legislative overreach, Americans are going to need to sacrifice more than two-inch space on our timelines.
We’re eventually going to have to show up.