David Plotz and Hanna Rosin
Dear David,
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StumbleUponShall I compare thee to a summer's day? Speaking of summer, sun shines on the Gore and Bush campaigns today ... (that was for you Gabe--pillow talk awkwardly mingling with wonkdom--but more on that later).
I thoroughly agree about the McCain coverage. I'm not one of the swooners, but I think it's fair to say he ran one of the most original primary campaigns any of us can remember. McCain scrambled the usual rules of running for president. He shifted as he went along but somehow didn't seem shifty. He just seemed responsive, instinctive, like a man who was really loving the race. His peevish moment--the "evil forces" quote--was not a sudden shift of temperament but a moment of routine bus bombast some reporter new to "Straight Talk" mistook for a real quote. I will miss him.
Now for my peevish moment: Papers report that Bill Bradley will give his withdrawal speech in New Jersey in a few days. Can he do it today, or just skip it? Even in defeat, the man is unbearable. He won't even say defeat; he calls it "lack of victory." In his noble campaign, "we don't ask where the wind's blowing and then follow it to gain the people's approval." Give me a break. You just lost, nobody liked you. "Voice to the voiceless," he calls himself, the brave one who talks about issues no one else is talking about, such as ... "campaign-finance reform." Huh? Aren't we forgetting someone?
The VP talk around here is mostly about the fairer sex. For Bush--Elizabeth Dole, Jennifer Dunn--two of my favorites. Otherwise maybe Frank Keating, governor of Oklahoma. The conventional wisdom right now leans against Pataki and Ridge because they are pro-choice. For Gore, maybe Nancy Pelosi, or Dianne Feinstein. Or possibly Gray Davis? (campaign slogan: "Dull and Duller," says a colleague).
Now back to my piffles:
1. A few days ago Bob Jones University announced it was reversing its policy forbidding interracial dating. Yesterday, on a day they were sure no one would notice, they amended it, the papers report. Now, you can date a member of another race, but only with your parent's permission. What would those letters look like?
Dear Mom,
I met this great guy in "Intro to Antichrist" last week, but there's something I think you should know about him. He's, uh, well, he's really nice, but he's also an Oriental. Would you mind writing a letter to Bob saying that's OK? Thanks.
2. I can't help myself: The bichon frisé returns: As we predicted, the masses are in full revolt over their dearly departed pooch. Thousands of people have logged on to the Web site, hundreds of angry citizens are calling Virginia police. The reward fund, which started this weekend at $40,000, is growing by $5,000 a day, thanks to small donations. The paper quotes one lone dissenter: "The real sickos are the people who care enough about a dog to put up that kind of reward money," one person wrote on the Web site. "Where's the perspective when there is so much poverty and suffering among humanity."
3. Michael Bolton is here to support the Violence Against Women Act? I would say the sappy crooner himself constitutes a one-man assault on womankind.
Finally, back to our friend Gabriel. Yes, I agree it was rather mild, and I'm thankful. But I have to have the last word. Personally, I think the abruptness of this dialogue mimics the real rhythm of the actual breakfast table. Domestic chatter is not strung together with smooth transitions, unified thoughts. It's all "Did you see that amazing story?" followed abruptly by "Pass the jam."
Boy, am I petty this morning.
Peevishly yours,
H
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Highlights from The Fray:
Obviously I'm biased, and in mourning, but Hanna's outburst about Bill Bradley [see Wednesday's entry] still seems to be a bit much...it's pretty hard to exit one of these races with any grace and dignity, and I think my guy's doing a pretty dang good job of it. Regarding "you just lost, nobody liked you" - Bradley picked up a fairly consistent 30% of the vote nationwide, but many more didn't hate Bradley but they simply thought Gore was the better candidate. Could you imagine if Gore hadn't gone through a primary? Six months of getting killed in the press every night by the GOP? And certainly Bradley did raise a number of issues that the veep wouldn't have prioritized--including universal health care, race relations, and, yes, campaign finance reform.
--Sad Bradley Fan
(To reply, click here.)
[And see Thursday's entry where Ms Rosin responds: that Bradley mourner in The Fray made me feel bad.]
The Breakfast Table asked [see Tuesday's entry] why science reporters haven't written articles explaining the reason TRW and other contractors have such a hard time making a workable missile defense. The short answer (I'm a correspondent for Science magazine, which I assume makes me a science reporter) is that they have written such articles, and the reason that the contractors are having such trouble is that the task is extremely difficult. It's like shooting a bullet at a bullet, only much, much harder. Longer explanatory analogy: I once saw Pief Panofsky, the Stanford physicist who helped negotiate the test-ban treaty, talk about this subject in Cambridge. He asked the audience to imagine some nutty guy who liked to drive into his garage by hitting the garage-door opener at precisely the right moment so that the door flew open exactly as he rolled in. If you think about it for a moment, you can see that this is quite like flying into the path of a missile at exactly the right time so that you hit its forward section -- it's a matter of split-second timing. Now imagine that you are doing this at thousands of miles an hour. Now imagine that instead of a regular car, you are driving a jet-powered car, which shudders and shakes and has to be constantly course-corrected just to stay in a straight line, which of course must be factored in to your garage-door opening. Now imagine that the garage is moving, too, and it's jiggling through the air just like you are. Now imagine that you have to make a whole lot of the crucial decisions when you are miles away and can't even get a good look at the garage. Now imagine -- Panofsky went on like this for a good while, and in the end pretty much convinced everyone in the audience that the ABM treaty was a good idea primarily because it would prevent nations from spending billions of dollars to build systems that simply could not work. Or, rather, that it was supposed to do that -- I guess we're doing it anyway.
--Charles C. Mann
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You asked {Tuesday's entry] what TRW stands for.
Two brainy guys formed Ramo-Woolridge in Los Angeles and showed up on the cover of Time in the late 1950s. Soon after, the big successful machine shop, Thompson Products, acquired them. I don't remember if they named their company Thompson-Ramo-Woolridge, but if they did, they soon changed it to their italicized monogram, TRW.
--Thomas Tersigni
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I love this word, "ironists," as in "committed Democrats and ironists all" by Hanna [See Tuesday's entry]. As for me, I try to live without irony, but sometimes my shirts are just too damned wrinkled, especially the cotton ones. And "canicide!" Fabulous.
--Tim K.
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Plotz has a dizziness accumulated only from his great rareness in common folkish observations without realizing that greatness comes from all around him and manifests itself only to those who are not so encumbered as he obviously is in his own importance and cowering adjectives self learned and looking for a target that is worthy of his very dubious talents and one that is not likely to object as he reads much more worthy...stuff.
--bill schwarz
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To hell with Gabriel Snyder--more domesticity please.
--Jim Crowley
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