The good news is that Hillary Clinton gave a great speech at the DNC tonight. I fully approve. My favorite part – everyone’s favorite part, I’m sure – was when she directly addressed that recalcitrant group of holdouts who, like my friend’s friend, are considering giving money to John McCain.
(That is not a joke. You read that correctly. I have a friend who has a friend who is considering giving money to John McCain. When she said this to me, I did a quintuple take, each take getting me further and further into the question caught between pursed lips – “W…w…w…wh…wh…why?!?!” – like I had to shake it out of my head past my disbelieving face. She responded, vituperatively, “He hasn’t given us anything we’ve asked for! What has he done for us?!” Well, luckily we got interrupted at that point, which is to say I practically tackled an innocent bypasser.)
What was I talking about? Oh, right, unity. My favorite part was when she asked her supporters to ask themselves if they had done it for her, or for...whew, this just got a lot harder after writing that parenthetical paragraph. Neverthless, I thought her speech was spot on. There can’t be too many friends of friends left, right? Right?
Now the bad news. The LPGA just announced that it will require all its players to speak English. In other words, in order to be among the best female golfers in the world, you have to be able to speak English. See, time was, the whole point of America was that we could get the best of everyone at everything to want to come here because we were a nation of immigrants that welcomed people from around the world who wanted to work to succeed and make a better life for themselves and others. Here at the Pickle, we just try to do our best to make you aware of the little noises that that idea makes as it dies.
Finally, back to the good news part, because I just saw Peter’s post: Peter, why do you respect their desire to hold out? You can respect their prerogative, I guess, though not their judgment, and I don’t understand why their desire…
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
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1 comment:
Dan,
You're right. Desire was not the best word choice there. Prerogative would have been much better and was what I was trying to say.
But now that I think about it, I do have a soft spot for the desire to stand up and say "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this any more!" like that character in the movie Network. This type of act is always going to be a bit nutty and irrational. But sometimes doing something nutty is the only way to get people to listen to you. Even though I totally disagree with the reasoning, I can respect the impulse/desire to do something crazy like vote for McCain.
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