Quaint, quaint, quaint…the good old days. Imagine a time when being an American citizen was justifiably a dream of humans from all over the world. This was the great experiment in democracy and finally, eventually, in the inclusive idea of civil liberties; and it still feels that way sometimes as we continue to fight for equal treatment for our minority populations: think of the continuing…
Nobel for Literature to the Transformers? No, that’s Transtromer!
*The “transformer” joke in this post’s title, if it can be called a joke, came at the insistence of “spell check” in WordPress. From the LA Times, Sweden Poet Tomas Transtromer Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature: For such works as “Baltics” and “Windows and Stones,” literary critics have praised Transtromer’s gift for making fine, concentrated observations without ducking larger questions. Later in life, he began…
Punitive “withholding”: How NOT to Care About Health and Welfare
Jesus, in Matthew, chapter 25, seems a little mixed up, or maybe seems intent on confusing his listeners (that’s what parables a are for, right?)…but that for another post. I just wanted to pull out the quote about “doing unto the least of these” as well as “doing not unto the least of these”; so, go there if you wish, but what I think must…
The Draft, the War at Home, and Occupy Wall Street
What do the demonstrations on Wall Street and those spreading across the country such as the one in Baltimore on Tuesday, praised and encouraged by the Baltimore Sun in an editorial with guts, and the one planned for Saturday in Indianapolis, have in common with the Tea Party movement and the Vietnam War protests? The concept most easily understood that ties these together is the…
Tony Bennett’s Barbarians of Profit Breach the Walls of Public Institutions
Yesterday the Bloomington Chamber of Commerce hosted a kind of dog and pony show they called an Education Forum that featured the salesmanship of one Tony Bennett (aka T.B. Sheets*), Indiana’s Minister of Public Deception. Others involved were two local Superintendents (who carry water for the elephants) and an IU policy researcher. The local paper reported on it today in an article titled “State schools…
Stewart on al-Awlaki Assassination
It’s nice to have one’s point of view exonerated almost immediately after a contentious argument about said point of view (note the past three posts). I asked in “Idle Curriculum”, “What joke will Stewart make about the al-Awlaki assassination?” Well, now we know. First, in the intro to the show Stewart plugs the guest for the night, Thomas Friedman, who Stewart calls “historian”. Seriously? “Suck…
Leaning on Straws: Further Comments on Jon Stewart
Yesterday’s post that centered on Jon Stewart in the hopes of making a larger point about our inability to see just how we are “molded and mollified” by our systems of message conveyance instigated a very intense transaction on the Facebook page of my dialogue partner, Kenny Childers. This conversation created in me a bit of a sense of being ineffectual. Horrors. I think often…
A Dialogue on Jon Stewart and the Politics and Commerce of Comedy
A friend, Kenny Childers of Gentleman Caller renown, posted two words to his Facebook Wall yesterday morning: “Jon Stewart”. The comedian and political satirist was in Bloomington Friday night and Kenny had been in attendance. The first comment to this “status” was “Hilarious”. What follows is a direct transcript of the dialogue that ensued between Mr. Childers and myself, Mr. Wet Blanket. Douglas Storm: I’m…
An Idle Curriculum as Salvific
Update (in the body of the text) “What Can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?” Vonnegut’s fictional holy man Bokonon asks in the “14th Book of Bokonon”. The answer is “nothing”. That is an interesting construction. A “Thoughtful Man” allows us to posit the opposite; a man, or human, without thought. “Thinking is the most…
The First Amendment Renamed the Gallows Doctrine
An unsound system requires as accurate a description and as severe an analysis as a sound one;…Error is not disarmed or disenchanted by caricature or neglect. (Frothingham, O. B., “Transendentalism in New England: A History”, 1896) Jon Stewart of Daily Show fame was in Bloomington last night. I’ve written briefly (honestly) about Stewart’s position and his type of humor before (“Not Disarmed or Disenchanted”) saying…