Paul July 24th, 2011
Princeton professor Cornel West, when asked by New York Times columnist Andrew Goldman as to how Obama can be the president West wants him to be when he’s facing this Republican Congress, replied thus: ”You’ve got to be a thermostat rather than a thermometer. A thermostat shapes the climate of opinion; a thermometer just reflects it. If you’re just going to reflect it and run by the polls, then you’re not going to be a tranformative president. Lincoln was a thermostat. Johnson and F.D.R., too.”
Okay. If President Obama is a thermometer, where and how is he taking our temperature?
Tags: Andrew Goldman, Cornel West, Obama
Paul August 16th, 2010
Kreon’s downfall in the play Antigone by Sophocles is that he chose to pursue the Letter of the Law instead of the Spirit of the Law. Although “freedom of worship” is one of our most sacred constitutional rights as American citizens, Republicans are now vehemently against the building of a mosque within two blocks of Ground Zero in New York City; they claim it would celebrate the triumph of Muslim terrorists on 9/11. So President Obama now finds himself between Iraq and a hard place. The irony of all this, of course, is that in the play by Sophocles, Antigone was upholding a more ancient law. She violated the king’s new edict when she chose to bury her dead brother according to the religious custom of her time. With regard to the building of this mosque, I’m afraid that the Republicans are more like Kreon, in wanting to legislate new laws to suit their political and religious purposes; and Obama is the heroic but unfortunate Antigone, the one who upholds the Constitution of the United States. I hope that what happens to Antigone does not happen to Obama, when the same hypocritical right-wing religious fanatics who argue against our “freedom of worship” begin to rally yet again for our “right to bear arms.”
Tags: Antigone, freedom of worship, Ground Zero, Kreon, mosque, Obama, Republicans, right to bear arms, Sophocles, U.S. Constitution
Paul May 26th, 2010
Says President Obama to BP.
Says the rabbit to the tree after Alice fell into Wonderland.
Says American cheese to Swiss cheese.
Says the flat tire to the garage mechanic.
Says the IRS to all the loopy tax laws.
Says the dike to the little Dutch boy.
Says the wounded gunman to the Mafia medic.
Says the unhappy stigmatist to God in heaven.
Says the dietician to the obese teenager.
Says the porn star to the dentist.
Says the Octogenarian Mom to her obstetrician.
Says the pharmacist to the leaky bottomless dancer.
Says a reformed Tiger Woods to another acquiescent cocktail waitress.
Says the priest to the altar boy.
Says the bishop to the priest.
Says the Pope to the bishop.
Says Who to the Pope?
Tags: BP, Obama, Tiger Woods
