When rhinos are dogs
Feeling guilty that it's been months. The Web hardly needs another blogger who can't commit and get the job done. But a guilty blogger might be even worse, so I'm over it.
Now on to business. My son N has a thing for stuffed animals, as many 3-year-olds do. Nothing strange there. He also likes dogs--wishes he could have one, but he's got some stuffed animals instead, though some of them aren't really dogs.
In fact, none of his three favorites, named Moshe (small grey rhino), Pup (smaller bear), and Joey (polar bear), are dogs--though you couldn't explain that one to N at all. In his view, Joey is a polar dog, Pup is a pup (though it's really a bear), and Moshe, the rhino, is a "horn-dog." N, of course, has no idea what a "horn dog" connotes in the impossibly immature grown-up world, so he delivers this explanation with a perfect poker face. It's brilliant.
Saw Mary Matalin and James Carville speak today. How the heck they get along every day is just astounding to me. It's wonderful that they can accept that there are multiple ways to progress if both conservatives and liberals want essentially the same core notions of progress, freedoms, etc. It might also help that they know political leaders as people, and not just soundbytes, which offers the possibility of humanizing the likes of even the neo-cons (shudder to think). It hardly seems possible.
That said, they did agree on one political item today that impressed me--the need for an independent, non-partisan commission to investigate the relief response to Hurricane Katrina at both local and federal levels. They also agreed that this commission should not be congressional--the biggest political quagmire of our system. Hats off to both for saying this--hopefully the Bush folks get the message that nothing else will really do.
Carville got big yuks with this one. A friend in Hollywood, which was hit by a huge power blackout yesterday, asked him, "Do you know what it's like to be without power?" Carville said that he replied, "I'm a Washington Democrat--what do you think?"
--D
Now on to business. My son N has a thing for stuffed animals, as many 3-year-olds do. Nothing strange there. He also likes dogs--wishes he could have one, but he's got some stuffed animals instead, though some of them aren't really dogs.
In fact, none of his three favorites, named Moshe (small grey rhino), Pup (smaller bear), and Joey (polar bear), are dogs--though you couldn't explain that one to N at all. In his view, Joey is a polar dog, Pup is a pup (though it's really a bear), and Moshe, the rhino, is a "horn-dog." N, of course, has no idea what a "horn dog" connotes in the impossibly immature grown-up world, so he delivers this explanation with a perfect poker face. It's brilliant.
Saw Mary Matalin and James Carville speak today. How the heck they get along every day is just astounding to me. It's wonderful that they can accept that there are multiple ways to progress if both conservatives and liberals want essentially the same core notions of progress, freedoms, etc. It might also help that they know political leaders as people, and not just soundbytes, which offers the possibility of humanizing the likes of even the neo-cons (shudder to think). It hardly seems possible.
That said, they did agree on one political item today that impressed me--the need for an independent, non-partisan commission to investigate the relief response to Hurricane Katrina at both local and federal levels. They also agreed that this commission should not be congressional--the biggest political quagmire of our system. Hats off to both for saying this--hopefully the Bush folks get the message that nothing else will really do.
Carville got big yuks with this one. A friend in Hollywood, which was hit by a huge power blackout yesterday, asked him, "Do you know what it's like to be without power?" Carville said that he replied, "I'm a Washington Democrat--what do you think?"
--D
posted by Dan @ 4:10 PM
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