Oops, it’s Brooks again — this time with a squitchy-good communitarian column

TweetOK, I promise to try not to overuse "squitchy." Or at least, not to misuse it. I've coined a new use with my "squitchy good" thing, whereas Melville meant something else by it. (I actually use it correctly, as Melville intended, in a comment on this post). Where was I? Oh, yes… A few days […]

David Brooks is exactly right today about Joe

Tweet In today’s column, David Brooks gets Joe Biden exactly right. The headline is “Your Average American Joe.” The subhed is, “Biden is not an individualist.” Absolutely. And amen to that. An excerpt from the end: … The character issue will play out in all sorts of subterranean and powerful ways this election. We have […]

The mind of a soldier, and the soul of a country

TweetI’ve mentioned before that I’m cleaning up old emails that backed up way last summer when we were in Europe. Well, I’m still doing it, making my way through a few hundred each day. Which is progress, just not fast progress. Anyway, today I ran across something I had set aside to consider writing about […]

Today’s explanation for Trump: Idolatry

TweetSmart people keep struggling to figure out and explain why other people would do such a dumb thing as make Donald Trump president of the United States of America. Here’s an excerpt from David Brooks’ effort today, headlined, “When Politics Becomes Your Idol:” When politics is used as a cure for spiritual and social loneliness, […]

Obama provides strong finish to successful convention

TweetOK, the quick, overall assessment: However this election turns out, in the short term the Democrats will likely get the bigger convention bounce. They earned it these last two nights. Yes, there was just as much irritating nonsense at this convention as at the one last week — I turned down the sound and picked […]

The private sector (a tiny part of it, that is) meets accountability (sorta kinda)

TweetLet me call your attention to the David Brooks column (what, him again?) that I chose for tomorrow's op-ed page, in which he chronicles the relatively new phenomenon in which honchos in the private sector are held publicly accountable for the kind of wasteful foolishness that they normally get away with completely and utterly:     […]