Friday, September 26, 2008

 

You'd Think It Never Rains in NYC

Why are New Yorkers so afraid of rain? They are obsessed with the possibility that, Hashem forbid, they might get wet. And when it's raining -- while still driving like jerks, they also at various points (where it makes no sense to do so) decide to slow down suddenly as if they don't know how to handle their cars on wet roads. The way traffic gets in NYC whenever there is any bit of rain (forget about snow), you'd think New Yorkers have lived in the Atacama all of their lives. WTF is up with that?

Thursday, September 18, 2008

 

Quick Thoughts

* Obama gave an excellent sound-bite which was almost Rovian in attacking McCain for his experience. Kudos to Obama! More of this, please. And would it be too much to ask that next time Obama deliver a line like "McCain calls a meeting of 7 top lobbyists a staff meeting" with a bit of a chuckle (but not a big laugh -- it's a sin to laugh at your own jokes in the circles we're trying to reach here: think Ronald Reagan chuckle not Jon Stewart "can you believe this" chuckle ... the latter strikes some people as condescending and cocky) rather than in a strident manner? Couldn't Obama have delivered his killer line with a cadence more like Bill Clinton and less like Hillary Clinton?

I suspect what could have been the killer line of the whole campaign has been ruined because it seems that, like every Dem., excluding The Big Dawg, since Truman (including honest to goodness salt of the earth types like LBJ and JC), Obama has flunked Folksiness 101.

Come-on folks ... the reason why we Dems do poorly in Red 'Murka is that we don't make an effort to be folksy. Let's at least try a little (but without seeming like we're trying too hard). Think Ronald Reagan. Think Bill Clinton. Please, Mr. Obama -- you're lines are witty enough and you have the voice for it ... just look at their body language and cadences ... we know you can do what they did so well!

* (extra credit for guessing the relation between this point and the last ... rephrasing a slightly different post made on another blog, I forget which): it isn't that Americans reject the politics of class warfare. It's that the "proletariat" vs. "bourgeoise" politics of class warfare in this country are being waged by an aristocracy (and their "clerical" retainers in the media and the mega-churches) to their own benefit. Communism's class warfare assumes a prior death of the aristocracy and liberalism assumes unity of the bourgeoisie and proletariate. But what happens when neither obtains? Neo-conservatism, I guess ...

Friday, September 12, 2008

 

I Guess I'm All Grown Up?

It occurred to me: I now have a semblance of a real job, a wife, a kid, a commute, the whole nine yards. I guess that means I'm a grown up?

Monday, September 08, 2008

 

I blogged it last year ...

... so I don't have to re-blog this this year. Am I yotzei with Parsha Blogging now?

Oh well ... off to get a quick coffee before class.

Cheers!

Update -- back from class ... why do I have (of all songs for a nice Jewish boy to have in his head) "This is my story / this is my song" in my head? I guess it's better than when I get "Oh Come Emanuel" stuck in my head ...

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