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the breakfast table: An e-mail conversation about the news of the day.

Katha Pollitt and Andrew Sullivan

the breakfast table
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from: Andrew Sullivan

Headline

Posted Wednesday, April 22, 1998, at 3:40 PM ET

Katha,

Ah, yes, space, the final tedium. Do you remember the Simpsons episode when Homer was desperate to switch channels because there was a shuttle launch being broadcast? I'm with Homer. I've never gotten the space thing. I remember watching the shuttle blowing up live-I absentmindedly had the TV on in a friend's apartment where I was staying at the time-and feeling it was sad and a shame, but essentially carrying on as normal. Then I switched on the news and everyone was having a national identity crisis. Still can't figure it out. I tried watching the Tom Hanks HBO miniseries on the moon landings, but it was like watching Cuban television on the feats of the agrarian revolution. A horrible mixture of boredom and uplift. But we better get used to it. Two words for you: President Gore.

Talking of dead people, can you bring yourself to say something nice about Linda McCartney? It seems to me that Paul (my favorite Beatle) really is an admirable fellow, and his marriage was of a kind that all the family-mongers really should celebrate. True love, in all its banalizing, talent-wrecking, middle-brow glory. Poor Linda got a terrible p.r. deal. Could Bob Barr or Trent Lott speak up please in her behalf? She made Tammy Wynette seem countercultural. Or are we reduced once again to the charming Mr. Kasich to speak the truth to his generation?

best,
Andrew

the breakfast table
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from: Andrew Sullivan

Headline

Posted Wednesday, April 22, 1998, at 3:40 PM ET
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Katha Pollitt is a columnist at The Nation. Andrew Sullivan is a senior editor at the New Republic.
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