Yesterday's was:
They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives, something that will relieve a chronic loneliness or lift them above the exhausting, relentless toll of daily life. They need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them -- that they are not just destined to travel down a long highway toward nothingness.(Contextualized by me, here.)
Posts
18 comments:
Barack: I also think that she knew at the beginning when I was doing this that if she came to me and said don't do it, I wouldn't have done it.
Michelle: That's the key, for sure.
Barack: And if I ever thought that it was ruining my family, I wouldn't do it.
Michelle: We're constantly balancing each other. I know that if I were to say, "I can't take this," it would be over.
She's the commander of the chief.
"Michelle: We're constantly balancing each other. I know that if I were to say, "I can't take this," it would be over."
Will this be the case even after he's (hypothetically) elected President? In the midst of some foreign policy crisis, if Michelle says "I can't take this!" will "it" be over? He'd better pick a good running mate, that's for sure.
That's right - someone ready to step in at a moment's notice, the moment Michelle says, "I can't take this."
"Barack: And if I ever thought that it was ruining my family, I wouldn't do it."
Be a little too late then, wouldn't it? Sort of like his plan to go back into Iraq if, after withdrawing, AQ comes back and sets up bases.
Ugh.
Nothing can talk Obama's use of the Royal WE, as in:
We(I) are the one(s), we have been waiting for.
"peel off" = "flake out"
Did you notice the caption to the photo?
Barack calls his poised older daughter Malia (sitting next to him July 4) "Little Miss Articlulate."
Is "articulate" the new "n----r"? That is, acceptable when used by a black about a black, but a heinous slur when used by 'whitey' about the same person?
Joe Biden wants to know...
Here's a reworked version of my too-polite comment on the contextualized quote thread:
...putting Obama's remark in context makes the whole thing worse.
Obama sounds like a sociologist or marketing consultant when he talks about religion. He does not sound like he's had much of an internal, personal experience. His tone is superscillious and patronizing.
Despite what he goes on to say about his own background, it all sounds too external, too separated from his core understandings, motivations, and goals, too compartmentalized, and, in the end, he protests too much.
This sort of thing is easily recognized and troubling to truly religious people. If you've had any religious experience or even experience of religion as an adult, you will instantly know the humbug.
By way of contrast, I've just finished The Faithful Departed: The Collapse of Boston's Catholic Culture by Philip Lawler. This book's main purpose is to examine the sociology and recent history of a complex and controversial religious subject.
The difference in tone couldn't be more striking. Philip Lawler is the conservative former editor of the Boston Archdiocesan newspaper, The Pilot. Agree or not with his politics and theology, the thing that shines through his writing, even when he is at his most analytical, is his deep personal faith and committment to the Church.
This colors and informs his writing in a thousand ways that are gratingly lacking in Obama's book. Obama writes a self-serving position paper on his supposed religion, not an intelligent, personal statement.
At least Hillary didn't even try to pretend. She jumped through the obligatory religious hoops, but nobody believed it for a moment. She's so phoney that she's refreshingly honest. I say that as a former supporter. I want someone experienced, competent, and preferably with a spiritual life. Lacking that, I'll take experienced and competent.
Obama is none of the above, and his patronizing and unbelievably stupid comments about religion are pretty much a deal-breaker for me.
Looks like I'm going to peel off before I get to the top of my ballot again this year.
Barak: Malia is articulate."
Michelle: Say WHAT?!
O has a nice way with words. At some point in this campaign, he may even figure out that they are normally used to say something.
...travel down a long highway toward nothingness.
Obama is an atheist?
Who knew?
Theo Boehm,
I posted mine before reading yours.
Great minds etc.
PEOPLE: Someone told me today that you don't do birthday presents.
Michelle: No, because we spend hundreds of dollars on a birthday party and movie tickets and pizza and popcorn ...
Want to guess what Malia and Sasha will give their kids when THEIR kids celebrate their birthdays?
Presents. Lots and lots of them.
This is the kind of logically-thought out parenting gesture that haunts kids forever.
Case in point: When I was a kid, my parents took me to Disney World and bought me mouse ears, took me on all the rides, and my rather cheapskate dad even bought me some super expensive hot dogs in Adventureland.
When I went into the Disney Store, I fell in love with a 2 foot Minnie Mouse doll...and my father refused to buy it for me. He told my mother that I would learn a lesson in not being overindulged.
I love my dad, and appreciate all he's done truly, but the moment I grew up and got my own money, I went inside a mall, went into the Disney Store, and got me that Minnie Mouse.
Because nothing leaves a mark on a kid so much as putting your foot down, just to make a point.
Cheers,
Victoria
M.Simon: Indeed! ;-)
O man: git them girls some bling, yo!
Victoria is right.
Arbitrary strictness isn't really effective and often is just a cover for something else.
There's a lot about the O-man that is cover for something else.
Tell me what is is and who's doing the covering, and I'll buy you all the bling you can rattle your wrists in!
Speaking as an atheist - judging by that passage, if forced to bet on it I'd say Obama was one of us.
IMHO Theo above nails it. The tone is all wrong for a real believer.
Post a Comment