... featuring 2 of my favorite writers. (In terms of pages written that I've read in the last 10 years, these 2 writers rank first and second.)
From "The Secrets of Lyndon Johnson’s Archives/On a Presidential paper trail," by my hero, Robert A. Caro:
There are certain moments in your life when you suddenly understand something about yourself. I loved going through those files, making them yield their secrets to me. And here was a particular and fascinating secret: that corporate executives were persuading a government agency to save them some driving time at the expense of a poor kid getting an education and a better chance in life. Each discovery I made that helped to prove that was a thrill. I don’t know why raw files affect me that way. In part, perhaps, it’s because they are closer to reality, to genuineness—not filtered, cleaned up, through press releases or, years later, in books. I worked all night, but I didn’t notice the passing of time. When I finished and left the building on Sunday, the sun was coming up, and that was a surprise. I went back to the office, and before driving home I wrote a memo on what I had found....From "Cream" by Haruki Murakami (and I've read 6 of his books in the last year):
The old man spoke again. “Listen, you’ve got to imagine it with your own power. Use all the wisdom you have and picture it. A circle that has many centers but no circumference. If you put in such an intense effort that it’s as if you were sweating blood—that’s when it gradually becomes clear what the circle is.”
“It sounds difficult,” I said.
“Of course it is,” the old man said, sounding as if he were spitting out something hard. “There’s nothing worth getting in this world that you can get easily.” Then, as if starting a new paragraph, he briefly cleared his throat. “But, when you put in that much time and effort, if you do achieve that difficult thing it becomes the cream of your life.”
“Cream?”
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108 comments:
The old man spoke again. “Listen, you’ve got to imagine it with your own power. Use all the wisdom you have and picture it. A circle that has many centers but no circumference. If you put in such an intense effort that it’s as if you were sweating blood—that’s when it gradually becomes clear what the circle is.”
That's some pretty serious bullshit right there.
"...that’s when it gradually becomes clear what the circle is.”
And that's when you cream your jeans.
Would you please recomend which of Haruki Murakami's novels would be a good one to read first? Thanks.
The document Caro refers to in this snippet reveals the essential and eternal nature of the plutocrats: all for them, nothing for anyone else.
“And here was a particular and fascinating secret: that corporate executives were persuading a government agency to save them some driving time at the expense of a poor kid getting an education and a better chance in life.” Did the author provide the evidence he found for this “secret” or are we just supposed to believe his interruption?
"A circle that has many centers but no circumference."
A novel that has many words but no meaning.
"Would you please recomend which of Haruki Murakami's novels would be a good one to read first? Thanks."
I can say with confidence: "Norwegian Wood."
Who will be Obama's Robert Caro?
Why did he make that Iran deal? How deep was he into the spying on the Trump campaign?
I hope Caro lives long enough to finish the last volume of his Johnson biography. He was working on it several years ago but he is even older than I am. It is about Vietnam.
"There are certain moments in your life when you suddenly understand something about yourself. I loved going through those files, making them yield their secrets to me."
I have never minded getting up before 4am because that's when the data is uploaded to my server. I sometimes whine about having to go to bed so early, but it's a minor whine.
I love going through the data, making a table yield it's secrets to me.
Would you please recomend which of Haruki Murakami's novels would be a good one to read first? Thanks.
I think the "Wind-up Bird Chronicle" is Murakami's best novel. "Kafka on the Shore" is also very good.
I think there's been a decline in form with his recent novels. I recently finished Killing Commendatore and found it to be flaccid compared to his earlier works.
His short stories are very good, so you could read those. His non fiction work, Underground, is an excellent reporting of the Sarin gas attacks in Tokyo - it gives and excellent insight into the Japanese mentality.
In terms of pages written that I've read in the last 10 years, these 2 writers rank first and second.
That's true with me as well for the last 20 years, but I'd have do to the math to figure it who comes out on top.
I've been reading this blog pretty much daily for well over 10 years. I wonder how many pages that would be? It would be hard to figure out exactly as I don't read all the posts, but I think it would average out to at least a half page of text a day. Rounding down to 150 pages a year that make for a conservative 1500 pages over 10 years. So I guess this blog is in third place for pages I've read in English during the last ten years.
well dave garrow wrote that war and piece, doorstop about Obama's early years, which is surprisingly shallow in key details,
Robert A. Caro!
Yea!
"And here was a particular and fascinating secret: that corporate executives were persuading a government agency to save them some driving time at the expense of a poor kid getting an education and a better chance in life."
Feel the hate course through your veins. Yeah, that's the stuff... Sorry, but my bullshit meter must be acting up. It seems to be asking for actual evidence. This can't be a matter of interpretation and ignoring other issues just to hit a rhetorical sweet spot and attack someone you hated before doing the research? I guess it could be true, corporations are not perfect, but...
"I think the "Wind-up Bird Chronicle" is Murakami's best novel."
That is one of the 6 Murakami books I read this year. It's much stranger than "Norwegian Wood." I'd recommend saving that until you trust the author a little.
The other novels I read were "Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage" and "Killing Commendatore." And I read the short story collection "Men Without Women" and the nonfiction "What I Think About When I Think About Running."
The other ones I could see reading first are "Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage" and "Men Without Women."
The one I would least recommend reading, as you have lots of Murakami books to choose from, is "Killing Commendatore."
"Wind-up Bird Chronicle" is great if you have patience and like weirdness.
Is this sarcasm?
If that kind of synchronicity occurred with my preferences and a publication, I would examine my preferences and wonder if I'm unduly influenced by that publication.
It would kill my taste for the pub and for the authors. At least it would momentarily cause me to wonder if I'm in the driver's seat or if the publication is.
It's NPR/NYT/Atlantic/New Yorker equivalent of showing up at a party and discovering that you and five other people are wearing the same "novelty" t-shirt.
Cream is that frisson of superiority one gets when one finds a subtle new rationalization for one's prejudice, the secret garden of the heart where the stash of good hormones is buried, the real deal feel good stuff is what I am talking about.
Who could stand to write like that all day?
It must be like painting cloying pictures of kittens and puppies for a living.
" So I guess this blog is in third place for pages I've read in English during the last ten years."
Thanks Amexpat!
Ann Althouse: have you ever been to the Reagan Presidential Library? If you have, you'll see an item that I would happily pay a man all of my wealth to steal. You see, President Reagan held a diary of quotes, poems, and ideas. All handwritten, with his personal annotations on them. I very nearly asked the woman manning the info booth to open up the glass for me. At any rate, the sheer volume of knowledge that Reagan personally developed and used on a daily basis -explodes- the idea that he was a senile imbecile.
It is the same lie that the left and Chuck (birm) repeat now about President Trump.
Starting a new paragraph with "but" seems...cumbersome ;)
Thank you to Michael K for mentioning the Caro series a year ago. I was amazed at Caro's ability to dig up secrets. Everything Caro described, like the Hill Country and Texas politics, came to life. This New Yorker article was delicious. The immense volume of Johnson's papers and Caro's determined digging are so impressive. Caro's decision to live in the Hill Country is another indication of how determined and serious he is.
"And here was a particular and fascinating secret: that corporate executives were persuading a government agency to save them some driving time at the expense of a poor kid getting an education and a better chance in life."
Unlike the carpers, above, I read the piece. Caro explains that there was no direct statement to support his conclusion. He pieced it together, bit by bit, from a mass of letters and reports.
I suppose if you don't want to believe it, fine, since you'd have to read a history of the airport to learn the details. But since this anecdote was to demonstrate the value of "read every piece of paper," it's beyond the scope of an already long New Yorker article to go into the details of why he reached that conclusion.
Such sniping belittles Caros' dedication to ferreting out the truth, no matter where it lays. The contrast between him and today's "investigative journalists" is extreme and depressing, especially to this former journalist.
I read Caro's biography of LBJ many years ago. Enjoyed it, but not floored by it as AA was.
LBJ lead a very public life for 30+ years and engineered many policies that impacted millions of Americans. To me, this is the most important aspect of his life - his public works. At his apex, was the Civil Rights Act. His Great Society was atrocious, his handling of the Vietnam War was atrocious too.
The other parts of his political and policy-making career were smaller, much less important. Above all, LBJ craved power. When his own party rejected him in 1968, he lost his power, and quietly died 5 years later at his vast ranch.
The immense volume of Johnson's papers and Caro's determined digging are so impressive.
Caro got very little assistance from the Johnson people.
Bill, I read the linked article. I don't believe his conclusion and wondered why Althouse included the quote. She said Caro was one of her favorites and thought it possible Caro had provided evidence for his conclusion in another article or book. If he has no real evidence for this claim, he is not demonstrating his dedication to ferreting out the truth, but rather giving us an example of him making shit up.
A circle that has many centers but no circumference.
.....and that's where I stopped reading.
i will definitely read the Caro article. On the recommendation of Althouse, I'll give the story a try, but the quotes offered don't whet the appetite. Well, it's only a short story. How big a waste if time can it be. Plus I've always wanted to partake of the wisdom of the east. I've never found the center or, for that matter, the circumference. Maybe this story will help. I'll get back to you if it changes my life.
i'm half-way through Caro's LBJ work, and the New Yorker article was fascinating background into how he'd done it. I'd wondered where/how he'd dug up so much, and assumed it was probably hearsay; Imagine my relief at finding he found a paper trail for it all!
I'll never be able to hear the words Willet Creek Dam without thinking Marshall Ford Dam again
1) Having traveled over the Triborough bridge ad nauseam and playing HS football on Randal's Island,I read "The Power Broker" as soon as it was published. In a tiny office underneath the Manhattan section toll station, sat the most powerful man, Robert Moses,in NY politics. Why?. He was in control of all the toll money, which was and probably still is a staggering amount. Quite a complex character with a interesting career. Also read first LBJ book and that was enough of Caro.
2) Insight to all electrical engineering analysis always flows back to the properties of the circle and it's symmetry. To an electrical engineer and mathematician the circle is indeed a thing of beauty. When you marvel at the results of the MRI technology, think circle.
It's much stranger than "Norwegian Wood." I'd recommend saving that until you trust the author a little.
It's hard to recommend something without knowing a person's tastes. "Norwegian Wood" is the best of the few "conventional" Murakami novels where nothing weird or strange is going on. It is very well written and succeeds in doing what it sets out to do. So it's a good recommendation for someone who is more comfortable reading conventional fiction (but I suspect that, generally speaking, it has more appeal to women than men).
But the intermingling of the strange with the humdrum is what makes Murakami unique. It would be like not recommending one of Dylan's three great mid-sixties albums to someone who had never listened to Dylan before because they might be put off by the surreal imagery.
The gateway Murakami book for me was "A wild Sheep Chase". I read it around 1990 and it led me to read anything of Murakami that I could. (I reread it a few years ago and it didn't seem as good as when I first read it).
If you are looking for a recommendation for your next Murakami novel, I'd recommend "Kafka on the Shore". It does have weirdness, but the weirdness is different than his other novels - no wells, underground passageways or strange little beings, just a senile man that can communicate with cats and an evil Johnnie Walker figure. Like his better novels, the weirdness fits and adds to the story. The protagonist is also quite different than the usual Murakami male.
"Why don’t I just include this material in the longer, full-length memoir I’m hoping to write?," writes Robert A. Caro. And then notes that he might not live long enough to complete it.
Then again, the first four books in his Lyndon Johnson series weigh in at 736, 960, 592, and 1232 pages. So, many of his readers might not live long enough to read even these. Let alone that promised "full-length" memoir.
They're a pretty-good value on a per-pound basis, however. Although not so much if you buy them as e-books.
(And I'll bet Amazon knows how many of the e-books it sells are never read, or abandoned after just a few pages. But I'd also bet they'll never ever tell.)
"I suppose if you don't want to believe it, fine, since you'd have to read a history of the airport to learn the details. But since this anecdote was to demonstrate the value of "read every piece of paper," it's beyond the scope of an already long New Yorker article to goderder into the details of why he reached that conclusion."
It just seems freighted with value judgments presented as irrefutable fact and presented in a form sure to be lapped up by a certain class of reader, kind of like a story about white kids in MAGA hats. Call me jaded.
So, many of his readers might not live long enough to read even these. <
I've read them twice and the audio books version we have listened to twice in the car.
On the other hand, if you're actually a fan of what they used to call "Speculative Fiction" (i.e. literary science fiction/fantasy), I can highly recommend Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World where Murakami goes all in on the surreal elements.
Thank you ann for the Caro link.
Wonderful article.
John Henry
doctrev said... "You see, President Reagan held a diary of quotes, poems, and ideas. All handwritten, with his personal annotations on them. "
I started doing the same thing about 10 years ago. Transferred them all into Notes on my iPhone several years ago. Not handwritten, of course, but always accessible on any of my Apple devices and easy to search. Comes in handy from time to time.
Tim in Vermont:
I understand your point about Caro accusing the FAA of corruption by corporate CEOs. When you say it will be lapped up by "a certain class of reader", do you mean brainless liberals? Because both the left and the right are opposed to this kind of corruption. "Regulatory capture" is a conservative economic idea. So even though Caro is a liberal, he is an honest one as far as I can tell, and I am not bothered by his relating of the airport story. And he only relates it in order to explain his passion for digging in files. The examples he gives of discovering LBJ's corruption provide a balance to the airport/corporate story.
@Althouse, you don't have a tag for Robert Caro? Surprising.
Althouse, have you seen the series of interviews that Robert Caro did with Brian Lamb (television’s best interviewer) concerning each of the volumes of his LBJ biography?
I think that they can all be streamed through the C-SPAN website. You would love them. It is as much about Caro’s personal craft as it is about LBJ. And each of the Lamb/Caro interviews occurs over a period of years, as with the publication of each of the volumes.
Harold Bloom, who has memorized more poetry than most people have read, has often said that the key to understanding Emily Dickinson is that she writes and thinks about the circumference of God's love - he ties this to the Kabbalah, in some way, but that is not important - what he is getting at is that Dickinson, whom he considered the most brilliant writer in the United States, ever, and the most intellectually brilliant writer any where in the world in the nineteenth century of whom he was aware - that she wrote about God's love as someone who is fascinated with circles and circumferences would do.
Anyway, both Lyndon Johnson and this commenter went to the same law school, and I read what Caro had to say about Johnson's time at the law school, but I didn't recognize any continuity with my experiences, half a century later. Also, Johnson and me both spent lots of our time as Lieutenants and Captains (or whatever grade the brass gave Johnson) flying on military planes without being pilots, he got a Silver Star out of it and I didn't, but he volunteered for at least one, and maybe more, very very dangerous flights (I never had the opportunity to volunteer for a very dangerous flight). Caro's version of the events, which I read several years ago, did not strike me as very insightful. That being said, Caro's biography of Johnson may be very very good, I am just saying the parts I read seemed to be underwritten. Maybe law schools and military planes are not the center of what Caro cares about.
"Caro got very little assistance from the Johnson people."
Could you go into detail about this, Michael K? In the article, he talked to Lady Bird, LBJ's fixer and one of the brothers who was an early financial backer (and how he got him to talk was pretty cool).
Not to mention all the files in the LBJ library.
All I am saying is that when a story seems too cute, it bears checking, especially in the context of "cream" which sounds a lot to me like a metaphor for the frisson of superiority liberal bigots live for. He might be right, maybe some executives spent corporate resources and political capital to shorten their commute and keep some kids from benefiting from a shot at an education. Sounds like a fascinating story of good and evil with clearly defined mustache twirling villains and pity inducing victims!
Cruella DeVille wants a new coat made from puppies! It just makes me skeptical.
I don't doubt that Texas politics is corrupt, BTW.
If they moved a school, did any children benefit? I doubt that he checked.
Kill more trees than Robert Caro!
“Norwegian Wood”
“Chopping, Stacking, and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way”
Lars Mytting
Tim, i read the story about the airport and the school as being somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as in "I was young and idealistic and this was a perfect good versus evil story"
“@Althouse, you don't have a tag for Robert Caro? Surprising.”
Forgot to finish tagging. Thanks for the nudge.
The brilliance of Caro's writing almost makes me like that SOB, LBJ.
"Caro got very little assistance from the Johnson people."
Could you go into detail about this, Michael K? In the article, he talked to Lady Bird, LBJ's fixer and one of the brothers who was an early financial backer (and how he got him to talk was pretty cool).
I should have said "resistance" to his burrowing into some of the stories, like the 1948 Senate election. It was from the staffers, not Lady Bird or the people in Johnson City. I can't remember where I read/heard that. Maybe he mentions it somewhere but he was messing with the legend. Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote the hagiography that the staffers liked.
My wife and I have listened to the audio book twice driving back and forth to California. Our daughter is going to have a baby next summer so we will be making more trips. I'll listen again.
The New Yorker piece was very nice. No mention of Helen Gahagan Douglas who was his mistress in DC for years. Until Nixon knocked her off in the election of 1950.
If Caro is reading this, maybe he will explain what I missed.
There is nothing wrong with a writer defending against mild criticism.
If he does, God bless him, if he doesn't, well, that is just fine too.
"Sometimes I feel The New Yorker is written especially for me."
So do I.
"I can't remember..."
Bedtime for Doco.
Pete and Jane will tuck him in.
Stephen said....
Anyway, both Lyndon Johnson and this commenter went to the same law school, and I read what Caro had to say about Johnson's time at the law school
???
I wasn't aware that LBJ Went to law school? Could you share where this was? I've read Caro, and don't recall him mentioning it either?
I was under the impression that he just was a bobcat (SWTSTC, now TSU in san marcos).
Or, do you mean that You're a Bobcat? I'm pretty sure LBJ just had a teachers degree.
please correct me if i'm wrong?
also, LBJ was given an O-4, Lieutenant commander (like a major), and he got his Silver Star because MacArthur wanted him (a congressman) to get one.
I found Wild Sheep Chase to be a good starter, 1Q84 riveting and unsettling, and read Underground, the English version, for a very different style and focus of his writing while my wife read it In Japanese discovering that she went to the same middle school, a year apart, as the man on trial. in depth reporting concluding on an interesting reexamination of his thoughts on the death penalty.
{sorry, me again]
Johnson and me both spent lots of our time as Lieutenants and Captains
by Given, a Lieutenant Commander commission, i mean: GIVEN. He never spent one second (let alone 'lots of' time as a Lieutenant or a Captain. His FIRST DAY in the service (His FIRST SECOND) was as a Lieutenant Commander. No Basic, no OTS, no ROTC... Just a commission to an O-4
"In the fall of 1934, Lyndon briefly attended Georgetown University Law School in Washington, D.C."
- LBJ Presidential Library
thanx Rabel! That's news to me!
In my opinion - which may be wrong, but may be right --- LBJ deserved his Silver Star, Caro was not clear enough about that.
He was a Congressman who could have just sat around at the airbase but he said when they asked, do you want to fly in a plane to do reconnaissance over the Japanese held islands of the South Pacific, he said Yes. Good for him. The plane he was in was one of a small squad (I know the technical word and it is not squad, the technical word is .... but that is not important) of planes, most were shot down, his plane turned around after taking so much flak that even the very brave pilot thought "For God's sake if I do not turn around I will have to ditch this thing" - Caro got that episode wrong, I think and wrote about it in a way that did not take into full account Johnson's (whom, by the way I would never have voted for) bravery. Not because he (Caro) did not like Johnson, just because he did not, as far as I can tell from his rhetoric, fully appreciate how dangerous it was to fly back then in an American military aircraft in a part of the world where the Japanese had military superiority.
For the record, I was never a bobcat, and Johnson's attendance at GULC was not all that brief, he sweated it out for several months. I put up with it for three years, most of it paid for by the GI Bill, and I still have intense dreams about those very unusual three years.
To change the subject a little, biographies of John Wayne almost all have a similar deficit. If you understood how likely it was that the planes Wayne flew on, as a civilian, were to be the sort of planes that land somewhere other than the runway ... resulting in Death for all aboard .... you would never ever criticize him for not signing up as a private or as a lieutenant. Just saying.
gilbar - I have no argument with you there, with respect to Johnson starting out as an O-4 (I had forgotten that detail) but I have to say, lots of people could have been given an O-4 commission back then, and lots of people said, no, I will remain a civilian.
Me too. Obviously he didn't take his post-graduate education seriously.
But it worked out for him, so there's still hope for me!
there's no doubt; it takes much more bravery to volunteer than to be ordered.
I just remember growing up, that you had to go back to LBJ to find a non-lawyer President; Plus I've had the honor of going to Herbert's Taco Hut in San Marcos (i was Dating a Bobcat)
If any of you are in San Marcos, go to Herbert's! yummmm
Yes. I think that the New Yorker is deliberately slanted to appeal to Upper Middle Class Men and Women with Graduate level degrees. Pretentious enough to help them feel haughty, but accessible enough to not confuse or bore them with something too high brow. And definitely NO MATH!
I adopted a very unusual cat once: fostered the poor creature, actually:
they told me it was a housecat, a regular short-haired American domestic cat. They were wrong!
Good luck, Rabel, good luck, Gilbar.
That was no housecat it was a wild beast!
It is no small thing to be a friend to a wild beast who never had a friend in this world!
Having a wild beast in the house was good for my health, he woke me up when he saw, in the long stretches of darkness after midnight, that I was having those PTSD nightmares that I had figured I would just have to get used to, and he made me laugh, and he made me smile. No human could have been so perceptive and kind!
God bless that creature!
Otto @2:46 PM: Very true. Once it clicks for you, many previously puzzling things suddenly become understandable. Circular polarization: What is it? How does it work? Light passes through a linear polarizer at a pi/4 angle to a quarter-wave plate. The transmitted wave now has two components pi/2 different in phase, so its polarization is circular. Incredible!
Nature is equally beautiful and strange, especially when we look closely. And it is intimately tied up with mathematics. That connection is very strange in and of itself.
Look at the fate of the 4 contemporaries of the era:
1. JFK - shot and killed in '63
2. LBJ - dumped by his own party in '68, died 4 years later.
3. RN - won epic landslide in '72, but then resigned in disgrace in '74
4. Nelson Rockefeller - VP under Ford, but dumped by the party in '76. Died while getting a blow job in '79.
Arguably, of the 4, Nixon had the smoothest political retirement!
“That's some pretty serious bullshit right there.”
Yup. Each day I notice the pile of things I need to read grows smaller and smaller.
“Nelson Rockefeller - VP under Ford, but dumped by the party in '76. Died while getting a blow job in '79.“
This I did not know. At 79? Maybe the suction needed was too great.
Arguably, of the 4, Nixon had the smoothest political retirement!
maybe, but if you're going to go; going while in the arms a 25 year old sounds pretty good
oh, i guess i should have said;
if you're going to go; going while coming sounds pretty good!
1975 Cadillac sedan deVille?
Megan Marshack
Ben Stein is the go to guy if you want to really understand Nixon.
I just watched Chinatown (1974) with Jack Nicholson, and came across this funny joke, funny now because it's nowadays offensive.
I want to say something literary about it below.
Jack tells it slowly with deliberation, a story that features its own digressions. Read it slowly, or have in mind reading it slowly. It has to sound like a long joke.
There's a guy who's tired of screwing his wife. His friend says to do it like the Chinese do it. "How do the Chinese do it?" "Well, first they screw a little bit, then they read a little Confucius, come back, screw a little bit more, then they stop again. They go back and they screw a little bit more, and then they contemplate the moon. It makes it more exciting." So now the guy goes home and starts screwing his own wife. So he screws her a little, then goes out of the room and reads Life magazine. He goes back in and screws her a bit, then goes out and smokes a cigarette. His wife is sore. So the next time he's going out to look at the moon she says: "Hey, what's the matter with you? You're screwing just like a Chinaman."
unquote
Okay it's offensive because you can't say Chinaman. That's a plus.
But it describes its own telling, the delays to contemplate the story to further the enjoyment, leading to the punchline about enjoying the delays.
You tell a joke like a Chinaman.
Won't find that in your literary New Yorker.
Just wanted to Comment on LBJ's military service. Yes, Caro doesn't really give LBJ much credit for his military service. After all, as a 35 y/o Congressman with a family, LBJ was deferred from the draft (and wouldn't have been storming Iwo Jima in any case).
And in early 1942 he did tour Hawaii/South Pacific/Australia for a couple months and he did go on *ONE* dangerous combat mission. Certainly flying around on military transports in WW2 had a small element of danger.
But that's all he did. 6 months after Pearl Harbor he was back in DC - and out of uniform.
And LBJ's political career depended on his going on "THE MISSION". He'd been one of the biggest War-Hawks prior to Dec. 7th 1941, and told his constituents that when the bullets started flying ol' Lyndon would be there in the front lines. So, he did the absolute minimum necessary to fulfill that promise. He also exaggerated his military service for the rest of his life.
Certainly compared to JFK (who lied his way into combat), Wallace, Goldwater, McGovern, Bush, or Dole - LBJ'w war-service is pitiful. Even Nixon was in more danger.
"I just watched Chinatown (1974) with Jack Nicholson, and came across this funny joke, funny now because it's nowadays offensive."
So, if you don't find it offensive, its not funny.
Unlike most, I've never been impressed by Chinatown. Nicholson and Duanway are good, but the story is old hat.
rcocean - yeah, I get that.
But on the other hand, most guys who did lots of dangerous missions married really hot women, because in the 1940s, unlike in my day, having been a brave soldier was a big deal to the womenfolk: and LBJ married "Lady Bird", an awkward but kind woman, whom only a gentleman who overlooked a lack of hotness would marry.
So there's that, this world is a complicated place. People make fun of LBJ but he was braver than most of his critics, and in his way a gentleman.
As an enlisted man during the LBJ administration, I never heard anybody refer to him without the F-bomb intensifier.
Well if you screw something as significant as Vietnam, almost from the outset as moyar puts it, well I give them less benefit of the doubt.
Just kidding, Johnson's wife was very pretty, she looked, when young, like a prettier smokier version of that girl from Friends - the one who liked to cook and who eventually married Chandler - Courtenay Cox, I think was her name - but he (LBJ) would have married her (his wife not Courtnay Cox) , even if she wasn't pretty, for her personality. That is to his credit!
I am very very old and I understand these things, I could be wrong, but old people are often wrong.
Admittedly he was using JFK's advisors who I wouldn't trust to make an omelet and he had tried to avoid intervening since dien Ben phu, but ignoring those caveats.
narciso yes but we all make big mistakes.
remember that girl who wanted to marry you and you thought damn she has nice hair and she looks good when she does the makeup right and her skin is so soft but damn she is too fat ----- and if you had married her back in 1974 your kid would be president now? and Trump would just be enjoying life, and your kid would be a better president than even Trump, who is trying so hard, while people all around him are trying to bring him down, and attacking his family, his wife, his in-laws, even his young son?
so tell me that you don't feel bad about not marrying that sort of fat girl 44 years ago, dude.
tcrosse - thanks for your service.
Rockefeller would have pursued many of the same policies but he had the cache that neither Nixon nor nbj had, he was the definition of the deep state, having become part of it when he ran propaganda operations in south america.
Say he wins the nomination in 64, and then challenges Goldwater, well it's unlikely he wins that time.
Certainly flying around on military transports in WW2 had a small element of danger.
In Frank Kurtz's book, "Queens Die Proudly," there is a story about Johnson who was on the old B 17, "The Swoose," when they had an emergency landing in Australia. He was quite complementary about Johnson.
But Goldwater flew over the hump, on the path to the Burma road.
Why yes. The NYTimes and New Yorker are written primarily for upper middle class, professional middle aged white women.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just their audience, and you're their audience.
Enjoy your reading.
Death isn't a person, Stephen cooper, it's a state of being (or nonbeing) what one has done in ones life, determines how one will experience this state.
Re Johnson, I bet he thought doing good works with other peoples money was the key to being a good person, even if one has to destroy the opponent as it was gokdwater. Even if one had to make common cause with segregationists to win the primary
Well if anthropomorphing it reassures you whi am I to argue, as for Johnson I'm willing to concede he had some good impulses, now did the great society do more harm than good thats an open question. Certainly project 100, 000 cannot be charitably depicted.
Narciso - it is not a question of me being reassured.
Here is what is important ---- NEVER abandon your friends.
There is no better advice I could ever give, I realize you are, like me, someone who has lived much in this world, and for that reason I say maybe you do not need my advice ----
but if there ever comes a moment where you need my advice, my advice is this:
Never abandon your friends,
and NONE OF MY FRIENDS are anthropomorphized, they are , like you and me, children of God.
All politicians are puppets, qua politician,
What, we ask ourselves, were they when they looked into their hearts?
I have said many unkind things about the evildoers of our day - the trashy Bushes, poor cold-hearted Bergoglio, the puppet Obama, but I also know this, they are all children of God, and they could all be no different than a child of mine, with hopes to be something better than they were.
Nobody wants to grow up to be that FAMOUS THING that we call a celebrity or a successful politician, all any of us want is to be a good father or a good mother, to be a beloved spouse, to be a prayerful person who appreciates the good things God wills for us.
ALL CELEBRITIES ARE LOSERS, Narciso, I am surprised that you argued with me, you are better than that. Please tell me I misunderstood, God loves you so much. More than God loves me,but that is another story.
You make it hard to agree with you, there is death and life, the fmr is due to to sin in its physical and spiritual realms.
People dont want to be just average people they want to be celebrities and experts and activists
1975 Cadillac sedan deVille?
1976 Buick Electra.
Both are GM C Bodies, but the Buick had 127" wheelbase and 455 CID V8, overall length about 19 feet, 2 feet longer than the largest sedans now. DeVille had 130" and 500 CID (8.2L) V8, the largest production V8 ever made.
narciso - nobody agrees with me on everything, partly because I am not an expert, partly because I am human and humans are always wrong about something
also, narciso, I realize I do not use words the way most people do, when I say I do not anthropomorphize I mean it, but when I also say I am not a good Christian but my faith is not only strong but stronger than strong I mean it, and when I say that my favorite underrated verse in the Bible is that verse where John the Baptist, the greatest of prophets of the olden days, tells the Scribes and Pharisees, among whom were many good men and future saints, despite what you may hear from cold-hearted commentators, that God can make Sons of Judah from the rocks on the side of the road, I don't think "nice metaphor" but I think, in the strength of my faith, "why of course he can, and I probably see such people every day, and probably number a few of them among my friends".
That being said, I would never anthropomorphize, say, the 'Adirondacks' or the 'Golden Age of Spanish Literature' or the "New Year" coming in or the "Old Year" going out, or 'Secretariat a.k.a. Red' or even the beloved White House beagle 'Dutch Junior'.
And if I did I would not expect anyone to agree with me in doing so!
and notice I said "of the olden days", not of "the old Dispensation," which I almost said.
Back in the day me and Candace ( a friend of mine who died from a stroke long ago) would talk about these things --- well, I would talk, she would listen, and I would say:
"Candace" (I always called her Candace, funny thing, I never used a nickname), "Candace, do you think John the Baptist thought of himself as living under the Old Dispensation?" Well, she would look at me with her kind green eyes - you know that look - and if you were there, you would probably know what she was thinking --- probably just that I often talked about things that nobody for sure knows everything about, and that she loved me anyway ---- well those were good times, olden times or not, the old dispensation or the new dispensation.
This whole thing has shaken me up, and I hope that many of the evil-hearted people who said so many nasty things about the victims of these Alinskyite activists, with their curses and their drums and their hatred for white people, immediately seek forgiveness.
Maybe Twitter is a unique neighborhood where hatred flourishes - but it is amazing that so many semi-famous people react to a typical Washington DC encounter between, on the one hand, hateful loons and run of the mill crazies with their ethnic schtick and, on the other hand, decent human beings from the provinces who are not used to that lying craziness---- it is amazing to me how many semi-famous people said, when looking at a picture of a young white person and his friends who were being more tolerant than the average person would be: hey, those semi-famous people said, let us put a bounty on those white children and hope they die and that their parents die!
While it is indeed better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness,
so many of those haters with violence in their heart towards innocent children do not even know they are in darkness!
It is sad, they need our prayers, and, in certain cases, they need to be prosecuted for soliciting murder and soliciting assault.
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