THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
For me, the working definition
of a chickenhawk is -- a chickenhawk is a cheerleader. A
cheerleader for war. And not necessarily just the war in
Iraq, or regional war in the Mideast, but war in general.
A chickenhawk glorifies war as an enterprise, enjoying the
heroics inside his or her head, mocking those less
enthusiastic military aggression as pacifists, appeasers
(Michael Ledeen's pet word), even traitors. Who patronize
anyone with qualms, from the Quakers to the Chuck Hagel,
with edgy impatience and disdain. Who treat the
destruction of human life as a stupendous flourish as long
as it's the US doing the destroying -- who, that is,
propose "creative destruction" on a geopolitical
scale as an instrument of transformation. Not to mention
an opportunity to teach those desert folks in sandals a
lesson upside the head.
-- James
Wolcott
Kevin
Michael Grace, 7.23 am, 31 August 2005►
SERENDIPITY
So I was reading about the great Larry
David, and what should come on the radio
but the Siegfried
Idyll. Oh, sweet lattice of coincidence.
Kevin
Michael Grace, 10.43 pm, 29 August 2005►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Trying on pants is one of the most
humiliating things a man can suffer that doesn't involve a
woman.
-- Larry
David
Kevin
Michael Grace, 5.48 am, 29 August 2005►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
The Darwinian
fundamentalists...cling to their absolutist position with
all the unyielding certitude with which Southern Baptists
assert the literal truth of the Book of Genesis or Wahabi
Muslims proclaim the need for a universal jihad against
"the Great Satan." At a revivalist meeting of
Darwinians two or three years ago, I heard the chairman,
the fiction-writer Ian
McEwan, call out, "Yes, we do think
God is an old man in the sky with a beard, and his name is
Charles Darwin." I doubt if there is a historical
precedent for this investment of so much intellectual and
emotional capital, by so many well-educated and apparently
rational people, in the work of a single scientist.
-- Paul
Johnson
Kevin
Michael Grace, 10.39 pm, 26 August 2005►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
If Vietnam was the "Great
Society War," perhaps Iraq is the "Compassionate
Conservative War."
-- Gene
Healy
Kevin
Michael Grace, 9.08 am, 25 August 2005►
NICK GILLESPIE'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE
Last year I wrote an essay for
Brainwash
attacking Reason magazine for purveying a
libertarianism that "is not a philosophy suitable for
adults." I stand by my arguments, but the subject has
continued to nag me: in particular, the suspicion that I'd
somehow missed the point. It occurs to me now that I'd
forgotten what McLuhan warned so strongly against and condemned
what I'd failed to understand.
Specifically, this: modern libertarianism -- or
Gilliespieism, after Reason's editor, Nick
Gillespie -- is not a philosophy. Neither is it a set of
truths or values or an ideology or even a worldview. It is
a style. Thus it is foolish to attack Gillespieism
for its lack of moral and intellectual seriousness. That's
not Nick Gillespie's "bag," as he might say. If
They complain that under Gillespie's leadership Reason
is far more interested in celebrating conspicuous
consumption and personal licence than in attacking
America's evolution into global hegemon and devolution
into national security state, so much the better. Fuck 'em
if they can't take a joke. And the (post-modern) joke is
this: Gillespieism is a self-referential private language accessible only to PLU:
People Like Us.
It is not just that Nick Gillespie has "inject[ed Reason
magazine] with a pop-culture sensibility"; he has
transformed libertarianism into nothing more than a hip
sensibility. Now it is
the essence of hipness that it decomposes under
examination -- "If you have to ask, you'll never
know." But if Postrelism -- after Gillespie's
predecessor at Reason, Virginia Postrel
-- can be
boiled down to one sentence, after Emile Coué:
Every day in every way we are
getting better and better,
then Gillespieism can be boiled down to one word, after
Bill and Ted:
Dude.
Gillespie: Party on
[Cross-posted
to Antiwar.com]
Kevin
Michael Grace, 2.08 pm, 24 August 2005►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Socrates: Every rhetorician has
speeches ready made; nor is there any difficulty in
improvising that sort of stuff. Had the orator to praise
Athenians among Peloponnesians, or Peloponnesians among
Athenians, he must be a good rhetorician who could succeed
and gain credit. But there is no difficulty in a man's
winning applause when he is contending for fame among the
persons whom he is praising.
-- Plato, Menexenus
Kevin
Michael Grace, 9.22 pm, 23 August 2005►
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
In multiracial societies, you
don't vote in accordance with your economic interests and
social interests, you vote in accordance with race and
religion.
-- Lee
Kwan Yew
Kevin
Michael Grace, 9.58 pm, 22 August 2005►
PENSÉE
Popes should be heard and not seen.
Kevin
Michael Grace, 9.55 pm, 22 August 2005►
REGULAR PROGRAMMING HAS BEEN RESUMED
I
suppose my mother was right then - these things come in
threes. First my DVD player packed it in. (Note to
consumers: avoid Panasonic.) Then my electric toothbrush.
Then my computer. The last was a month ago, so, no, I am
not dead, nor have I been lolling on the Côte d'Azur.
What I have been doing is gnashing my teeth. I couldn't
afford to get my computer fixed, and then after I did, I
had to rebuild everything from scratch, including The
Ambler. I won't bore you with an account of that
tedium. My apologies to all those whose email has gone
unreturned. I don't have access to most of my
correspondence (and it may be lost forever), so readers
and friends might want to email me again.
Such a pity. I set another record
for visitors in July, despite silence for its last week,
but continued silence has resulted in the loss of
one-third of my audience.
I've taken advantage of my absence
to make some changes: a slightly modified look, with a new
introduction to your host, which replaces the old CV and
FAQ. It's possible that none of this will work and that I
have busted my permalinks. Please feel free to deluge me
with error reports.
Just before I went on involuntary
vacation, this
interesting discussion about The Ambler appeared on
Antonia Zerbisias's site. I shall have lots to say about
it and Warren Kinsella shortly. Not least as to whether he
has inadvertently solved my money problems. And I'll have
lots to say about the other member of the Brothers
Malebogezov, Ersatz Levant.
Kevin
Michael Grace, 9.42 pm, 22 August 2005►
