Tag: Blithe Spirit
Emanuel attacks criminals? Sorry, no.
Had to read hard copy head for this Sun-Times story twice: “Emanuel leads attacks on criminals” — SORRY — on Romney.
Same head,continued: “Dems concede excitement level lower than” — SORRY — unlike 2008.
It’s not lower. It’s different. Like level 2 for men’s shoes, level 3 for ladies’ undergarments. It’s all in how you say things, not in whatever the hell you are saying.
And let us pass over in silence another Sun-Times hard-copy head, about what Obama plans for the convention this week: “MESSGAGE: LOOK WHAT I’VE DONE.”
It shows how hard it is to get good help these days.
Labor Day preacher, watch out!
Beware the Labor Day sermon with preacher reference to third rail of Chicago teachers union vs. city of same name and its impasse including strike threat, “I know it’s a complicated issue, but . . . “
Now stop right there, Father. The word you want is not the coordinating conjunction “but,” meaning complicated or not, I’m going to talk about it, but the adverbial conjunction “so,” as in “. . . so I’m not going to say anything except love your neighbor, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who persecute and calumniate you . . .”
Demographic here, reporting on Paraddidle Joe
Mature demographic! That’s me! As in Chi Trib hard-copy caption (for Hartford Courant article by Kevin Hunt):
. . . over-size, amped-up, large-print Clarity Pal cellphone [featuring] old-school style and substance.”
That’s me too!
Oh yes, the days of early clock radio, 1946 with three brothers home from wars and waking of a morning to “Paradiddle Joe . . . beats out the rhythm in a rudimental way . . . Paradiddle Joe all the day,” about an indefatigable drummer. Wake to that sound, you’re ready for anything.
Tony Pastor and orchestra, Johnny Morris on drums. Yeah!
Where black doctors live or lived: shoot-’em-up
Four people, including an 11-year-old girl, were shot and wounded late Sunday when a gunman opened fire at a family party in the Pill Hill neighborhood on the city’s South Side, Chicago police said.
The 10:45 p.m. shooting in the 9100 block of South Chappel Avenue was only a block from the scene of a fatal shooting earlier in the day, though police said it was too soon to tell if they were connected.
Yr black and successful? No place to hide.
Personal recollection: In the 70s in Oak Park, we would sit with black neighbors to talk about problems, block from city-limit Austin Blvd. One discussion, a black guy, a CTA bus driver, told of young male passengers boarding in Pill Hill heading north, kids he’d seen at church with their parents. On the way, they would pull out the hat that tilted a certain way said what gang he belonged to or some other identification. Young men on their way to where the action was.
Nailing newsies
Russell Shaw on overdoing it at National Catholic Reporter:
News that the doctrine committee of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops last year adopted protocols to guide its procedures and those of its staff set the juices predictably flowing at the National Catholic Reporter. An overwritten story on the NCRwebsite let readers know that this particular USCCB committee was “tasked with enforcing church doctrine.”
Enforcing? How do you do that with doctrine? This is the way we journalists talk when we don’t like something and want you not to like it either.
It’s the narrative, you know: God proposes, Vatican enforces. The perfervid approach.
Labor Day is Empty Chair Day!
Evil Blogger Lady on the empty-chair schtick:
I thought it was funny that night. But I did not realize how much it would upset the left! Even Barack Obama did not ignore it (which suggests it is worrying Obama 2012)… .
I was there and it was darn weird. But at times it was funny and devastating in its dismissal of the president’s excuses. And in clips and sound bites the day after the live performance, the oddness is diminished and the punch lines seem more biting. In simple terms, the movie icon encapsulated the message of the convention: If someone is doing a bad job, you have to fire him.
Yes.
She adds reference to Obama supporters’ “obsessive plea for more details about Romney’s policies.” Which he has given, she adds to that. But no matter: Chi Trib today has its “short on details” story (LA Times story)
It was an old man’s delivery, but overstatedly so for effect. It was a cutting delivery and for that reason delivered in low key. But for all of Clint Eastwood’s rhetorical cleverness at the Republican convention it derived its effectiveness precisely because it wasn’t one of those “I take this platform tonight with pen in hand, bearing in mind the immortal words of Clancy M. Duckworth” type orations. It wasn’t the speech of someone who was running for office.
Rather it might have come from Mr. Weller down at the corner office musing on simple things to not very important people. How it wasn’t good form to mess things up continuously. How one might lose faith in a man who made one broken promise too many. How at the end of the day everyone either did the job or quit out of decency. Even Presidents.
Remember. Empty Chair Day tomorrow.
(H/T the irreplaceable Instapundit)
Teachers strike? Against the public, which includes themselves?
Chi Trib vs. striking teachers who might "walk off the job and abandon their children in 10 days":
One big stumbling block in negotiations is teacher recall. The union wants teachers who are laid off to be first in line for new jobs. Principals would not be free to hire the best teachers they can find.
How does that serve students? It does not.
No, but the principal might have in-laws who are dying for work. But again: there are safeguards against that?
Gets complicated.
Best argument is FDR’s in 1937::"A strike of public employees is unthinkable and intolerable," echoing his predecessor Calvin Coolidge in 1919, when as governor of Massachusetts he broke the Boston police strike: "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, at any time,"
Not arguments, true, but statements of principle.
Pay schools the answer
All Eyes Are on Romney To Mark the Strategy for Growth as Ryan Sticks To Debt
Ryan disappointed Kudlow:
He dwelled on debt to an extreme point. I don’t think discussing debt connects with people who are unemployed or marginally employed. I think they want a good-paying job, and debt is almost an academic abstraction.
When Republicans run on debt and deficits, they almost always lose. When Republicans run on growth, limited government, lower spending, lower tax rates, and deregulation — they win. Mr. Ryan’s speech was confusing on the growth issue, and that was disappointing; I don’t want to be confused and the American people shouldn’t be confused.
It will be left to Mitt Romney on Thursday night to clarify his own growth policies.
I want growth, growth, growth. Wednesday night, I didn’t get growth, growth, growth; I heard debt, debt, debt.
His argument: growth solves all. Good argument. Dems don’t get that.
Blithe Spirit 