June 15, 2008: Ten Years Ago at Grasping Reality
Why do people do this? Why clickbait: Jack Balkin Is Wrong: Jack Balkin says that the Bush legal revolution has failed. He is wrong: it has just not yet succeeded. A McCain victory in November and another statist Supreme Court appointee, and that's it for the rights of any whom the president classifies as an outlaw. Balkin acknowledges this at the end. Better he had done so at the beginning...
Why do people do this?: Ummm... No!: "Barbara Ehrenreich's Fear of Falling, Blood Rites, and The Hearts of Men are among the finest works of sociology I have every read or ever expect to read. Which is why it is so very hard for me to read things like this—to which the only reaction is "that's simply not true!".... "This Land Is Their Land.... The general rule, which has been in effect since sometime in the 1990s: if a place is truly beautiful, you can't afford to be there..." And the essay has gone totally off the rails. The places she talks about: Sun Valley, Idaho; Drigg dollars for a season; The Hamptons; Cape Cod; Telluride. Yes, Sun Valley, Driggs, Jackson Hole, Key West, The Hamptons, Cape Cod, and Telluride are beautiful. Yes, they are expensive‚ as are Vail, Aspen, Back Bay, the Upper East Side, Santa Monica, Pacific Heights, and La Jolla. But it is a truly impoverished person who thinks that those rich yuppie watering holes are the only truly beautiful places in North America. The place I really want to go back to right now is the spine of the Canadian Rockies from the corner of Moose and Squirrel Streets in Banff to Malign Lake outside of Jasper. But Yosemite is always tugging at my heart. What's your favorite truly beautiful place to go that's cheap? The essay continues. But what's the point?...
#hoisted
#tenyearsagoongraspingreality
