Holy cow. Listen to Fox’s Shep Smith eviscerate Joe the Plumber, who is starting to sound like a very scary man indeed. And near the end of the video, Smith puts up a statement from the McCain campaign that is absolutely stunning in its sleaziness. Truly, McCain knows no shame. Kudos to Smith (and thanks to Andrew Sullivan, where I saw this) for calling Wurzelbacher out on his idiocy.
Apologies to Philadelphians, but…does anyone else care?
This World Series felt deeply anti-climactic. Two small market teams, a measly five games, one of which was interrupted by rain, no memorable moments particularly.
Can’t wait for spring training, when the Yankees and the Red Sox get to go at it again!
“Introducing Charlie Rose on Slate.”
I’m a great admirer of Slate and Andy Bowers is a classmate of mine and a lovely guy, but—still…..
The Times reports on Sarah Palin’s future as the GOP standardbearer whatever happens next Tuesday….
Her prospects, in or out of government, are the subject of intensive conversations among conservative leaders, including the group that will meet next Wednesday in rural Virginia to weigh social, foreign policy and economic issues, as well as the political landscape and the next presidential election.
Ms. Palin’s aides insist that winning this time around is her sole objective. But there are signs that she, too, is making sure that she is well positioned for the future if she and Mr. McCain lose.
There certainly are. I think it would be a real mistake for liberals to underestimate Palin.
Alex Beam—the Globe’s resident curmudgeon, as the paper’s website brands him—had a terrific column yesterday about the virtue and scarcity of modesty.
Whatever happened to modesty? It is such a becoming trait. Did it die forever in the 1980s, when Donald Trump, Madonna, and Tina Brown embraced the “Look at me!” culture? “Conceit spoils the finest genius,” Marmee March tells her daughter Amy in Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women.” “There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long,” she continues, adding that “the great charm of all power is modesty.”
Among the people Beam suggests manifest modestly:
E.O. Wilson (multiple votes); writers Priscilla MacMillan and Richard Parker; Drew Faust (multiple votes); Derek Bok (What! No Larry Summers?); poet Frank Bidart; editor William Whitworth; sailor/mathematician Rich Wilson of Marblehead; Architects Collaborative cofounder Sally Harkness; MacArthur genius John Ochsendorf; Bishop Thomas Shaw; Roger Brown of Berklee College of Music; street doctor Jim O’Connell; Michael Dukakis, and Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farm.
Not, ahem, that my opinion matters so much, but I agree with Beam: Modesty is one of the rarest and most appealing of personal qualities. Isn’t it funny that the people who are modest are often the people who have the most to brag about, if they were so inclined, while the people who do the most bragging usually have inversely little in terms of achievement?
(That’s a ghastly sentence, but you know what I mean. I hope.)
Any nominations from you folks?
(I’m trying to think of someone who fits the bill…it ain’t easy.)
I thought of Beam’s column yesterday during a workout at my local gym, because “modesty,” of course, can have a slightly different meaning than the one Beam intends, a sense of physical restraint and decorum.
On one of the Stairmasters there was a clean-cut looking guy, maybe 30-something, wearing a t-shirt that read, “I Mow Your Mom’s Lawn.” Which of course means other than what it says.
I spent the rest of my workout trying to figure out why anyone would wear such a shirt, and never really came up with a satisfying answer….
One of my New Orleans cousins sent me this New Orleans tribute to Barack Obama. Catchy!
Loved this Wall Street Journal piece about Mitch Williams, who has become a Philadelphia fave 15 years after blowing a World Series.
Mr. Williams was not a classic closer. Most pitchers brought in late in games to shut down the other team have stellar control and allow few base runners. Mr. Williams’s pitching style didn’t inspire confidence. The rugged, 6-foot-4-inch fireballer had a mullet and a violent delivery. When he threw, the top half of his body went one way, the bottom half another. He nearly tumbled off the mound with each pitch.
It’s a nice piece of writing and a nice comeback story.
“You know, when we talked about offshore drilling, he said he liked it, blah blah blah, all this, and then he said, ‘I will consider – I will consider offshore.’ We don’t need to consider, we need to drill now!”
—John McCain, today in Pennsylvania, talking about Barack Obama’s energy policy.
“Well, it has to be safe, environment, blah, blah, blah.”
—McCain on the same subject, 10.26, in Iowa.
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Alternate post titles: “Blah Say” or “Blah-ging.”
Andrew Sullivan says the person in the video below shouts “redistributor!”, not something else.
Hope so.
Two disturbing things about this video of Sarah Palin speaking today. One is the absolute nonsense/incoherence of her dire warning that Obama is a communist.
The other is that, 41 seconds in, someone in the audience shouts, “He’s a nigger.” Palin appears to hear it, judging by the way she alters the pitch of her voice, but says nothing.
Meanwhile, the FBI has broken up a skinhead plot to kill Barack Obama and dozens of other African-Americans.
I don’t believe very many people walk around with such hate inside them. But then again, it only takes one. Let us pray that in the waning days of this campaign, none of them becomes so desperate as to do something irredeemable.