Of Cabbages And Kings
By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing wax —
Of cabbages — and kings.”
Have you seen John Kerry and Al Gore lately? They look like villains from an old James Bond movie. What did they do to themselves? Is it just plastic surgery and Botox gone wild? Or does it have something to do with George Orwell’s observation about everyone getting the face he deserves by the age of 50?
I can understand why conservative commentators make the point that Martin Luther King would not agree with modern black leaders like Al Sharpton and Charles Rangel. It is a way to score points. But I doubt that it is true. King, if he had lived, would likely have moved as far to the left as his colleagues at the time have moved. I can remember comments he made while supporting a sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis just before he died. They gave me the impression that he was arguing that social justice required a socialist agenda.
In a similar vein: I think it is time for conservative commentators to give up on making the point that Democrats were the leading proponents of segregation in the South in the 1950s and before. No one will be won over by that fact. Everyone knows that times change; that groups change. Isn’t it like arguing that the 19th-century Robber Barons were Republicans?
People mock conspiracy theories — Skull and Bones, Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission, etc. — by arguing it is far-fetched to imagine powerful people meeting in private to reshape society with secret plans. But why is it implausible? If I had billions of dollars, I would try to find ways to coordinate the efforts of likeminded people to push my agenda, in secret if that seemed the most effective way. So would you.
Hasn’t it struck you that Barack Obama, if he were still a Chicago community organizer, would be making the case for the legitimacy of the radical Islamist agenda in the Middle East?
I guess it doesn’t mean anything, but why is it that Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, and Laura Bush never changed their hairstyles while they were First Ladies, but Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama seem to change theirs every month?
I hate to say this, but I am beginning to get the impression that two-parent families have become a subculture in this country.
Could it be that President Obama misread Theodore Roosevelt’s old maxim — perhaps during one of those days in high school he tells us he spent in a marijuana haze — and thought it was: “Speak loudly and carry a small stick”?
In regard to the new version of the SAT exam: Sometimes a comic strip can make a point more effectively that the political analysts. Recently, Mallard Fillmore featured a panel depicting the head of the SAT organization. He was shown nodding in agreement to the comment that his company “won’t be happy until everyone gets a perfect score.”
I know that taking delight in the misfortune of others is not a Christian virtue. But I can’t help but think that there is room for us to find some satisfaction in watching people like the Kardashians fall from their high horses.
You know, I finally found something good to say about homosexual activists: They kept Bill de Blasio and an array of phony New York City politicians out of this year’s St. Patrick’s Day parade.
When you watch folks under the age of 40 manipulating their iPhones and iPads with such dexterity, you have to admire their know-how. But it also makes clear that expertise in technical matters is not the same thing as wisdom and virtue. The odds are they are using their gadgets to access some goofy Hollywood insider website.
I have always had a hard time finding a good example of what Hitler’s henchman Joseph Goebbels meant by the “big lie” technique, the theory that repeating a lie often enough can convince the masses to accept it — until I listened to then HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Press Secretary Jay Carney make the case that Obamacare is a great success.
I think even liberal Democrats will agree that Democrats get elected by promising the voters “free stuff” — education and health care, for example. Doesn’t that mean if Bill de Blasio and President Obama succeed in getting the votes for universal pre-K programs, it won’t be long before there is a push for pre-pre-K programs?
Is there a chance that liberal Democrats mean it when they say they have no intention of making the voters pay for abortion as part of Obamacare? Or is it their plan to say that only until they think the time is ripe to push for taxpayer-provided abortions? I can remember when the liberals acted as if it were preposterous to think that their demands for “gay rights” would ever go so far as to include same-sex marriage. Or that the call for legalizing medical marijuana would result in legalized recreational use of the drug.
There was a kerfuffle for a few days over whether or not Jay Carney was given in advance the questions that reporters intended to ask him at press conferences. Isn’t the bigger question the extent to which the Obama team understands it can fudge the truth — and even outright lie — on important issues because they know the press will not put them in a corner over it?
I do not watch Stephen Colbert’s Comedy Central program. But, come on: The “outrage” being expressed over his skit in early April, in which he spoke with a grossly exaggerated Chinese accent, is over the top. From what I saw, Colbert was not making fun of Asians, he was making fun of people who make fun of Asians.
From what I can tell, the average American is putting up admirable resistance to the switch from BC and AD to BCE and CE Still, I can’t help but wonder why the academic leftists who are pushing for the switch don’t seem to mind words such as Thursday (Thor’s day), Wednesday (Odin’s day), and Friday (Frige’s day), as well as March (the month of Mars), and January (the month of Janus). Why is it OK to mark our days with the names of Norse and Roman gods, but not designations based on the birth of Christ? I’m waiting. . . .
