feb 13&20th issue: hertzberg talks
Generally I like Hertzberg's political talk in Talk of the Town. I like this one, on the State of the Union address, which I watched on (stuttering, blurry) streaming CNN, making it a little like an avant-garde new media project.
I was a little surprised that Hertzberg didn't mention the very particular 'emptiness' of the war rhetoric from this angle; the speech had originally included a more detailed policy type discussion of health care reform, Bush style. But at the last minute, the admin decided they didn't have the political capital (god forgive me for using this abominable phrase) to make it an issue again, especially after the horror stories about seniors, and others, in January and the record drug company profits. I think the health care policy left in the speech was basically, "There will be a committee on that."
So the speech writers just added more war rhetoric to take up space.
I think I read this in the NYT the day after, you probably did too. But I think it's interesting that we're supposed to be distracted from other policy issues, on such a basic level, by this war rhetoric. Maybe there's more on this in Goldberg's article. I'll go see . . .
In addition, my partner in crime thinks Gladwell is on to something. I'll go see about that too . . .
Categories: newyorker, currentevents
I was a little surprised that Hertzberg didn't mention the very particular 'emptiness' of the war rhetoric from this angle; the speech had originally included a more detailed policy type discussion of health care reform, Bush style. But at the last minute, the admin decided they didn't have the political capital (god forgive me for using this abominable phrase) to make it an issue again, especially after the horror stories about seniors, and others, in January and the record drug company profits. I think the health care policy left in the speech was basically, "There will be a committee on that."
So the speech writers just added more war rhetoric to take up space.
I think I read this in the NYT the day after, you probably did too. But I think it's interesting that we're supposed to be distracted from other policy issues, on such a basic level, by this war rhetoric. Maybe there's more on this in Goldberg's article. I'll go see . . .
In addition, my partner in crime thinks Gladwell is on to something. I'll go see about that too . . .
Categories: newyorker, currentevents
posted by zoe p. at 3:01 PM
1 Comments:
gladwell's always on to something; it's just that he occasionally fails to bring things to a close with a great deal of impact, and maybe tidiness. some people think this habit is the result of laziness and/or ineptitude, but i find it endearingly boyish that he would rather introduce a topic for discussion than push a point. lately, though, he's been pretty tight (the harvard article, i think, is a strong example), and he's right on about the pit bulls.
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