www.thornwalker.com/ditch/newrecent.htm
(Back home for on-siters.)
and recent postings
July 26, 2010. These are "strange days — strange days, indeed," and to do justice to them you really need a chronicler with a sharp sense of humor and a healthy sense of the normal. Comes now our redoubtable David T. Wright, puncturing balloons with characteristic élan in a new installment of Wright from Washington City: "Silly but deadly."
July 16, 2010. If this spring's circus of embarrassment starring Dr. Rand Paul failed to lay bare the mindlessness of our politics, Dr. Joseph Audie now exposes it in his rigorously argued essay, "Dr. Rand Paul: A rare opportunity to teach." Our writer shows just how daunting the hurdles are that an honorable man must surmount to justify state action. How oblivious to those hurdles, then, is the man of power!
July 11, 2010. Military Genius David Petraeus has now replaced Military Genius Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan, provoking Dr. Stephen J. Sniegoski to produce a gem of analysis about the rivalrous machinations of both Palace and Bunker: "The duel of the Machiavellians: Obama vs. Petraeus."
July 9, 2010. After the interminable soccer marathon in South Africa got rolling, I proposed to Andy Nowicki that he might try extracting a few significances from the Mandelite rugby movie "Invictus," which neither of us had seen. (All I knew was that I didn't like the smell of it.) Proving he is made of stern stuff, Mr. Nowicki decided to subject himself not only to "Invictus" but also to another movie set in South Africa that's much lesser known hereabouts (and for good reason). I'm glad he did, and I think you will be, too: "Farm attacks and World Cups: A South African diptych."
June 9, 2010. One of the more peculiar "patriotic" displays that have evolved in the wake of the Empire's wars of the past forty years is the biker extravaganza known as "Rolling Thunder." In a new Wright from Washington City installment, David T. Wright kicks a tire or two, and — yikes! — the wheels fall right off: "Rolling Flatulence: Biker dudes and empire dupes."
June 2, 2010. Since letters and their replies quickly subside into obscurity on the site, I decided to convert this exchange between a reader and me into the form of an article: "'You people ...' / An exchange of correspondence about the Israeli raid on the Gaza convoy."
May 20, 2010. "We will not, we cannot, at any cost or for any reason, cease to believe in ourselves and our inherent wonderfulness," writes Andy Nowicki in the latest installment of Notes from Underground. On the basis of that, even one new to Mr. Nowicki's writing may begin to suspect his attitude toward the old saw, "Vox populi, vox dei."
"Tea Parties, Rocky, Ahnuld, and Jesus: God bless the U.S.A.!"
I don't know what Mr. Nowicki will do for an encore, but I'm pretty sure that this column is going to stand up as one of my all-time favorites.
April 7, 2010. We may never be able fully to understand how our tyrannical adversaries (and their dupes) think: their minds have become so alien. But we can at least understand some of their errors. That has been my aim in writing about what I call "statish thinking." Recently two writers, one an established contributor and the other a longtime friend of TLD, almost simultaneously offered articles to me that deftly analyze some of the moral (or immoral) aspects of statish thinking. I'm pleased to present their writings as a package.
• By Dr. Joseph Audie: "Standard American doublethink: Maxims and anti-maxims."• By our guest Tony Pivetta: "Agape's abattoir." (Welcome, Mr. Pivetta!)
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