Norman Mailer

November 10, 2007

RIP, Norman Mailer

Two weeks until Thanksgiving. Yawn. What a pointless holiday.

I would be perfectly happy to stay at home and be left alone. Then again, that is true of me every minute of every day, so why should Thanksgiving be any different?

I hope the people in my life know that I appreciate them, through my words and actions. We don’t need a day for it.

And I don’t like the food either.

“My family thinks of me as a schmuck with a pen.”-Saul Bellow

Currently listening to: 90 minute lecture about Saul Bellow’s “Herzog” produced by a Canadian television station. I love the Internet.

Instead of being the one to talk other people in off the ledge, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to be the one talked back in instead?

Great Bill Moyers Journal about the death penalty. There are few things more American than the death penalty-accomplishes nothing, but makes you feel better.

Bernard Kerik got indicted, apparently. Mr. Love Nest above Ground Zero was apparently mobbed up, as well. On KCRW’s Left, Right and Center, Robert Scheer makes the point that Giuliani and Bush, who, if nothing else, claim to be able to defend us, wanted to make this guy the director of homeland security. That being said, you have to question their judgment.
According to Mark Shields on the News Hour Podcast, 65% of Americans are satisfied with their own lives. That sounds really, really high.

I would obviously be in the minority on that one.

Another special, this time on NOW, about the SCHIP program. The moral outrage of denying children health coverage makes me so angry I can barely see. The Federal government has $6 billion dollars they can LOSE in Iraq. Lose, as in gone, as in went away and is never coming back. The Federal government has billions and billions of dollars for Halliburton and Kellogg, Brown and Root. But children’s health care? That’s “irresponsible”, according to the president.
No, Mr. President, what is irresponsible is sending Americans to die in the desert for no good reason at all. What is irresponsible is letting CEOs and hedge fund managers grow obscenely wealthy while poor Americans die in the streets like dogs. What is irresponsible is two things-everything you have done, and everything you have said.

I just wish corporations would make up their mind-either they are part of this society or they’re not. If they’re going to get tax breaks, they have to act like citizens, and be held responsible for the things that they do.

“The Great Gatsby” again on Studio 360. I’ve heard it before, but it’s worth listening to again. One of my favorite novels, and the way Studio 360 deconstructs and retells it, it is an engaging way to spend an hour.