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David Foster Wallace to the Rescue

Let’s not speak of suicide. Let’s not encourage the cottage industry bent on reducing David Foster Wallace to a literary Kurt Cobain, a romance of self-demise. This is a significant temptation for any posthumous reading of Wallace, whose writing is populated by suicides and addicts and clients . . . . Continue Reading »

Turnout and Principles

In a way, this piece,  The GOP Turnout Myth, by Kimberley Strassell in the Wall Street Journal is very good to read.  It makes me happy.  I had heard and had been saying that conservatives stayed home and felt terrible about that.  They didn’t care?  How awful is . . . . Continue Reading »

What! Again?

The morning reading about politics is all about the realization that America, despite complaining about the inefficiency of a divided legislative branch and a president constrained by a House controlled by the other party, voted for just the same again for the next two years.  We like the . . . . Continue Reading »

The Election from my Corner of the USA

If I am reading the results correctly, in the precinct where I worked as a poll judge yesterday, turnout was high.  We had a ten minute lull of no voters at midday in a day that began when the doors opened at 6:30 and went until the doors were locked at 7:30.  None of us had seen anything . . . . Continue Reading »

Politics on the Lincoln Highway

We spent a few days in Bethesda, visiting our son and his lovely wife for an extended weekend, taking advantage of the early Columbus Day official holiday.  (No wonder no one takes Columbus seriously, since his day of memorial wanders around the month like a boulevardier on a stroll.)  . . . . Continue Reading »

We’re Not Listening — Lilla and Levin

I read two articles yesterday about how little the Left and Right listen to each other.  One is thoughtful, by Yuval Levin in The Weekly Standard , ” The Real Debate “, Each party is pulled into this debate by what it sees as the deeply misguided views of the other. Democrats . . . . Continue Reading »

Republicans: Character Counts

Pete Spiliakos has been complaining about Romney’s performance at the Republican convention and about the lack of definition and specification of policy in convention speakers as a whole .  It didn’t bother me.  I figured that the next week and all through the fall, Romney, . . . . Continue Reading »

What’s it all about, Romney?

All right, I do begin to wonder at the direction of our Republicans.  Sadly, my conversion was not through the good points made by my colleagues on the deficiencies of the Republican convention, neither those fierce ones of Mr. Piss and Vinegar, nor the lengthy argument I had with Pete.   . . . . Continue Reading »

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