Joel Achenbach and Marjorie Williams
What Am I Bumpin' in My Ride? My Muffler
By Joel Achenbach
Posted Wednesday, April 12, 2000, at 1:43 PM ETMarjorie:
Why would someone devote their intellectual life to Holocaust denial when they could pick a more plausible cause, like arguing there's a secret civilization of Mole People at the center of the Earth?
Thanks for those fascinating anecdotes about your family. Tell us more! I bet your parents' personal papers are a great treasure for you. Your parents sound sophisticated and cosmopolitan and funny. Did your dad's use of the phrase "stand athwart the annals" inoculate you from ever having to use the word "athwart"? I wish my father had left some papers behind. I did recover a coffee cup, a mushroom brush, and a beat-up leather jacket. He was an intellectual professor, a Beatnik, probably the first in his department to smoke dope, wore a beard, and had an everchanging band of friends, like this one guy named Dave who considered himself a warlock and insisted on making a plaster cast from the naked body of my dad's fourth wife. Every time I visited my dad he had a new kind of transportation--motorcycle, VW bus, houseboat. He never lived long in one spot; he didn't live long, period, actually. I might note that my mother had custody.
About "left" and "right" in politics: I'm not sure what the words mean anymore. The people who rage against the government range from hardcore Deep Ecology environmentalists to gun-toting militia members. When I did my reporting for the aliens book I noticed that the belief in extraterrestrial visitors was intense on both the far left and far right. New Agers would throw a UFO conference, and the Ruby Ridge crowd would show up. What the extremes have in common is a strong antipathy toward received wisdom, the official narrative of reality, as promulgated by government stooges.
I probably can't go to the anti-WTO rally because I'm too busy being an appendage of the Matrix. Must keep typing. And as for the side trip to the inspection station, the car wouldn't pass anyway. Recently it started making this noise, a scary, metallic clacking every time I exceeded 40 mph, and I dealt with it the way I deal with many such problems, which was ignoring it and hoping it would go away. Maybe the car could just HEAL. (Oops ... Caps Lock reflex.) Eventually I looked under the car and saw a jagged, bent piece of metal dangling an inch above the asphalt, apparently something associated with the muffler. I tried to buy a new car, but the salesman refused to tell me the price, and in fact he was taken aback that I would even ask such a thing. We both knew that the price had nothing to do with what it said on the window sticker. The price was whatever I'd pay after a prolonged and painful negotiation, time for which I simply didn't have, hence my continued motoring in a tin can. Maybe I should buy a motorcycle, or a VW bus, or a houseboat.
Best,
Joel
What Am I Bumpin' in My Ride? My Muffler
By Joel Achenbach
Posted Wednesday, April 12, 2000, at 1:43 PM ETJoel Achenbach is a reporter for the Washington Post, where he also writes "Rough Draft," a thrice-weekly online column. Click here to buy his recent book on extraterrestrial life, Captured by Aliens. Marjorie Williams writes a weekly opinion column for the Washington Post Op-Ed page and is a contributing writer at Talk magazine. Reader Response from The Fray--to be read after the final entry:
Let me get this straight: they give out Pulitzer's for criticism [Monday]? Please--my heart is pounding, my blood pressure is rocketing, my hands now shake, please dear, please, please tell me, where do I sign up?
--Old Timer [who is well-known in The Fray for his expertise in this area.]
(To reply, click
here.)
Re: Elian Gonzales. I believe that immigration laws should be as open and welcoming as possible. But at the same time we need to look at the long-term situation of the country the people are fleeing. There is not always a whole lot we can do, and we also run the risk of becoming control freak America with it's thumb in every pie--oh, hang on, we already are that. Well, anyway, my point is that instead of trying to pass a bill to make Elian a citizen, why don't we lift the embargo and make life a little better for all Cubans?
--Anne
(To reply, click
here.)
"That's exactly what Castro wants us to do", I believe, is the stock response to either ending or continuing the embargo.
--Steve Dowling
(To reply, click
here.)
[This response almost
silenced
David Edelstein, but not quite:]
The embargo is a 40-year hissy fit, and it's time to give it a rest. Say what you will against Castro (I can say plenty), he'd have been long gone if the embargo had been lifted 25 years ago and Disney and all the other U.S. corporations had moved in with their sundry inducements to free (sic) enterprise.
--David Edelstein
(To reply, click
here.)
The question of why people hate Janet Reno [Thursday] is a bit intricate and since I do hate her, I'd like to take a stab at it--the question, not her (I don't hate anybody that much). Reno reminds me of the Greek tragedy Antigone which shows us that strict enforcement of the law, by the book, isn't always the best thing. The Waco invasion wasn't the best thing, for example. I believe the law justified her actions, that the operation was by the book. But that doesn't mean it was a good thing. With Elian, there's that potential again that Reno will embark on the legal course, but that it won't be the morally right course.
Reno does not respect people who defy her. She assumes they are wrong and she acts on that and she has a tremendous amount of power to enforce her interpretation of law. This is the crux of my anti-Renoism: She doesn't talk to people, she barks orders at them. When people ignore the lectures they get punished. Hey, that's her job. But it'd be nice to have a more philosophical sort wielding all that power--someone with a better sense of proportion who realizes that every act of defiance is unique and deserves unique treatment.
--Michael Maiello
(To reply, click
here.)
Don Porges writes in The Fray about Thursday's entry:
"Random number generator" isn't academic-speak; it's perfectly standard math-speak, and if you're using dice to demonstrate probabilities, then they are being used as random number generators.
The definition and connotations of "dice" are much more precise in naming the objects in question. My old TI-99 had a "random number generator" command in its BASIC programming. Since it was just code, it resembled nothing that would help baby get a new pair of shoes. Besides "dice" fits into a headline nicely.
--Charles
(To reply, click
here.)
[No proposals this week. But that doesn't mean the Breakfast Table went unappreciated:]
These guys were the best. And that's granting that there were some close competitors. But Joel and Marjorie are the BT gold standard. The King and Queen are dead! Bring on next week's random number generators!
--Mike
(To reply, click
here.)
(4/14)
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Reader Response from The Fray--to be read after the final entry:
Let me get this straight: they give out Pulitzer's for criticism [Monday]? Please--my heart is pounding, my blood pressure is rocketing, my hands now shake, please dear, please, please tell me, where do I sign up?
--Old Timer [who is well-known in The Fray for his expertise in this area.]
(To reply, click here.)
Re: Elian Gonzales. I believe that immigration laws should be as open and welcoming as possible. But at the same time we need to look at the long-term situation of the country the people are fleeing. There is not always a whole lot we can do, and we also run the risk of becoming control freak America with it's thumb in every pie--oh, hang on, we already are that. Well, anyway, my point is that instead of trying to pass a bill to make Elian a citizen, why don't we lift the embargo and make life a little better for all Cubans?
--Anne
(To reply, click here.)
"That's exactly what Castro wants us to do", I believe, is the stock response to either ending or continuing the embargo.
--Steve Dowling
(To reply, click here.)
[This response almost silenced David Edelstein, but not quite:]
The embargo is a 40-year hissy fit, and it's time to give it a rest. Say what you will against Castro (I can say plenty), he'd have been long gone if the embargo had been lifted 25 years ago and Disney and all the other U.S. corporations had moved in with their sundry inducements to free (sic) enterprise.
--David Edelstein
(To reply, click here.)
The question of why people hate Janet Reno [Thursday] is a bit intricate and since I do hate her, I'd like to take a stab at it--the question, not her (I don't hate anybody that much). Reno reminds me of the Greek tragedy Antigone which shows us that strict enforcement of the law, by the book, isn't always the best thing. The Waco invasion wasn't the best thing, for example. I believe the law justified her actions, that the operation was by the book. But that doesn't mean it was a good thing. With Elian, there's that potential again that Reno will embark on the legal course, but that it won't be the morally right course.
Reno does not respect people who defy her. She assumes they are wrong and she acts on that and she has a tremendous amount of power to enforce her interpretation of law. This is the crux of my anti-Renoism: She doesn't talk to people, she barks orders at them. When people ignore the lectures they get punished. Hey, that's her job. But it'd be nice to have a more philosophical sort wielding all that power--someone with a better sense of proportion who realizes that every act of defiance is unique and deserves unique treatment.
--Michael Maiello
(To reply, click here.)
Don Porges writes in The Fray about Thursday's entry:
The definition and connotations of "dice" are much more precise in naming the objects in question. My old TI-99 had a "random number generator" command in its BASIC programming. Since it was just code, it resembled nothing that would help baby get a new pair of shoes. Besides "dice" fits into a headline nicely.
--Charles
(To reply, click here.)
[No proposals this week. But that doesn't mean the Breakfast Table went unappreciated:]
These guys were the best. And that's granting that there were some close competitors. But Joel and Marjorie are the BT gold standard. The King and Queen are dead! Bring on next week's random number generators!
--Mike
(To reply, click here.)
(4/14)