While it starts a bit on the slow side, this interview with Christopher Hitchens is superb. One thing in particular that stuck me was how I feel his attitude towards religious believers — particularly Christian believers — has seemed to moderate somewhat over the past few years. While Hitchens sill sees religion as a problem in the sense that he does not see how such beliefs can exist within a secular, democratic system without the danger of those very beliefs being “imposed” on everyone else, it seems to me he has found a certain bit of humility and has developed a curiosity of sorts at the scores of very intelligent people who have looked at the arguments in favor of and against the existence of God and have decided that they find God’s existence to be a more convincing argument. Gone are the disparaging remarks about his intellectual equals (which are few and far between to be sure) who disagree with him. Gone is the rhetoric about how religion is irredeemably destructive to society. Perhaps there is still some hope for Hitchens after all!
For those of you who “regularly” read my blog… I apologize, I have nearly abandoned my passion for political commentary and nuanced discussion due to my hectic work schedule, my desire for fellowhip, and a series of unfortunate events that have taken alot out of me the past 6 months. You will be pleased to know then that I hope to resume blogging on a much more regular schedule from this day forward.
I did want to pass along a short story, however, in the hopes that it might be just as much of an encouragement to you as it has been to me. Today at work, a co-worker handed me a book and thought I would get a kick out of the rather crazy writing style of the author (which is itself almost an oxymoron when it comes to books about marketing… but I digress)
In a chapter discussing experimentation and failure in the business world, he referred to a quote by Michael Jordan… it really floored me:
I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life…
… and that is why I succeed.
- Michael Jordan
There is some degree of comfort to be garnished from someone who has failed so often… but who has persevered through those failures to become a success… I think we can all learn from that.
I found out something interesting over the weekend. From the Washington Times:
It turns out that Harry Reid using the ‘N’ word in reference to Obama’s dialect (or lack thereof) is actually a statement “[I]n the context of saying positive things about Senator Obama” — according to Tim Kaine, DNC Chair.
Um… O.K.
So as long as we are using the N word in a *positive* context… and you are a Democrat… you are cool. Everybody forgives you. The Media accepts your apology and moves on. Grace is extended to you and explanations of how you “really meant to say it in a positive context” are proffered from Liberal leadership. If, on the other hand, you are Trent Lott, and you tell an old congressman that you are proud of him for his accomplishments… you are unquestionably a racist… no apologies or excuses could possibly suffice.
I can’t decide whether to love or lothe this sort of prose. It’s… it’s just SO READABLE.
America is a constant tug-of-war between order and chaos. When you smoke, that just shines out at you as a fact. People glare. They hustle past. Nonsmokers. Bah! To them, my smoking represents lawless inconsideration. The brainlessness of an animal. The order of the world once lay in the absolute calming pleasure of the smoke. But they reordered it, and now smoking is the upset, the smokers stand on street corners, at the fringe of everything, stamping their dead soldiers against their shoe bottoms. When I drive past, I feel them. That’s my country right there. They remind me of the updraft, of the stovepipe of heat, they make me want to smoke! And yes, I even like the coughing. I actually like the hurt in the chest plate. It lights up my brain. It sets me into a state. But — that’s just because I’m new to it. For a real smoker, it provides calm, it provides order against the chaos of their lives. Columbus! He didn’t discover anything, except cigarettes. There were no cigarettes in Europe before him. That fucking guy. And the Puritans! Those guys made rules. They wanted to lay order on the land and stamp out what they didn’t understand. That’s the smoking-ban people. Puritans. Black and white. Smoking is the essential American rip — the need for moral order versus the instinct for exploration.
Notice that Washington is pictured as the heart of nation, where tired, oxygen-depleted blood is replenished and returned to the hinterland. Its a perfect illustration of the worldview of the Left.
Public-Sector employes and Unions are bleeding our country dry… creating a two-tiered system where those in the Public sector enjoy salaries, benefits, and leisure time far in excess of their private-sector counterparts. From the City Journal:
The old deal seemed fair: public employees would earn lower salaries than Americans working in the private sector, but would receive a somewhat better retirement and more days off. Now, public employees get higher average pay, far higher benefits, and many more days off and other fringe benefits. They have also obtained greatly reduced work schedules, thus limiting public services even as pay and benefits shoot ever higher…
The story doesn’t end with the imbalance in pay and benefits. Government workers also enjoy absurd protections. The Los Angeles Times did a recent series about the city’s public school district, which doesn’t even try to fire incompetent teachers and is seldom able to get rid of those credibly accused of misconduct or abuse. Misbehaving teachers are sometimes kept from teaching, but they may spend years, even a decade, getting paid while they fight attempts to fire them…
The media have finally started to take notice… News reports have also focused on scandals at CalPERS, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, which has faced record losses after making risky leveraged investments in bizarre real-estate deals. (The government pension system encourages such risky behavior: with defined-benefit systems, union members stand to gain if the investments go well, while taxpayers shoulder the burden if they don’t.) Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reported on a politically connected insider who received $53 million in finder’s fees from CalPERS, raising questions of pay-to-play deals.
But the real scandal is a two-tier society where government workers enjoy benefits far in excess of those for whom they supposedly work. It’s past time to start cleaning up the mess by reforming retirement systems and limiting the public unions’ power. If we don’t, California’s financial problems will become insurmountable.
Here’s a brilliant quote to chew on this evening. Leo Tolstoy:
I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.
Wow. Clive Crook literally destroys the IPCC in on ‘The Atlantic’ Blog. Kudos for his honesty:
I’m also surprised by the IPCC’s response. Amid the self-justification, I had hoped for a word of apology, or even of censure. (George Monbiot called for Phil Jones to resign, for crying out loud.) At any rate I had expected no more than ordinary evasion. The declaration from Rajendra Pachauri that the emails confirm all is as it should be is stunning. Science at its best. Science as it should be. Good lord. This is pure George Orwell. And these guys call the other side “deniers”.
“Highway-construction companies around the country, having completed the mostly small projects paid for by the federal economic-stimulus package, are starting to see their business run aground, an ominous sign for the nation’s weak employment picture.”
But… I though Obama’s stimulus package was specifically designed for (how did he put it?) SHOVEL READY jobs?! I guess when Obama meant “shovel-ready” jobs… he didn’t mean what we all THOUGHT he meant. Kind of like when he told us all about healthcare REFORM… that wasn’t what we thought it meant either…. or when he said that it would be crazy to give Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a full civilian trial… I guess he didn’t really mean that either. Or maybe when he said he’d get the troops out of Iraq… maybe he meant something else there too…
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say I was being lied to.
Just wanted to RE-TWEET this blog post over at the American Enterprise Institute. You wonder why our economy hasn’t turned around?? Well, it might be that nobody in the Obama administration has any experience in the private sector… and doesn’t have a clue how it works. Here’s the Graph:
It turns out that Harry Reid using the ‘N’ word in reference to Obama’s dialect (or lack thereof) is actually a statement “[I]n the context of saying positive things about Senator Obama” — according to Tim Kaine, DNC Chair.
