LINES OF THE DAY

". . . But the past does not exist independently from the present. Indeed, the past is only past because there is a present, just as I can point to something over there only because I am here. But nothing is inherently over there or here. In that sense, the past has no content. The past -- or more accurately, pastness -- is a position. Thus, in no way can we identify the past as past." p. 15

". . . But we may want to keep in mind that deeds and words are not as distinguishable as often we presume. History does not belong only to its narrators, professional or amateur. While some of us debate what history is or was, others take it into their own hands." p. 153

Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995) by Michel-Rolph Trouillot

Sunday, November 21, 2010

A Change in the Weather

Today: "Good Weather for Hunting!"

Too cold for the fish maybe.

The C'town harbor ducks and geese are remarkably quiet this morning.

We had dinner last night with lovely, intelligent, accomplished, talented people from the College, hosted by the provost and his delightful interior designer wife.  Thus it is probably needless to mention their home is beautiful.  It is necessary, however, to include the information there are also four cats, one of which has three legs. The party was eager to hear accounts of viewing Guare's A Free Man of Color; one of the other guests is an experimental playwrite, a man of color and the the head of WC's drama department; our hosts brought him to WC from Atlanta when they came to WC, and have tickets to see A Free Man of Color during the Thanksgiving weekend. For me personally, besides the costumes, which everyone loves and praises, the most interesting thing about the play was seeing all these historical characters personated on stage: Jacques Cornet! James Monroe! Thomas Jefferson! Toussaint Louverture! Merriwether Lewis! Robert Livingston! Tallyrand -- who I can never now picture as other than John Malkovich due to the Napoleon miniseries!  Ben Brantley demonstrated in his panning with the faintest of praise that the content of the play went over his head entirely.   The Capeman too, was entirely over his head, which his assessment of that history has already proven wrong.


There was a rainbow ring around the so full as to be full moon in a mostly clear sky. Yes, another beautiful night on the Eastern Shore, followed by yet another beautiful day.

So I spoil the mood by considering how, in light of the history of the Adams-Clay vs. Jackson-Van Bruen presidential election of 1828, the total cluelessness of the Adams and Clay people when faced by these extremely politically talented people, that indeed the unspeakable sp will be POTUS in a couple of years.  My one hope is that she will peak too early.  Nor am I certain she's got a Van Bruen political wizard to run things for her -- they are most secretive, according to the NY Times magazine this AM.  We do know she's cowed Rove, whose star appears to have dimmed.  His time blazed and is now finished.

But, she adds out of profound gloom, this only means she'll be replaced by someone even worse, who will win.  Certainly the confederates believe they've risen again -- and they never lost in the first place. * 
_____________________________

* For another nonsensical alternate history Civil War scenario go to salon dot com today.  This guy's supposedly a prof of Civil War history, and he came up with this?  Plus, he's so unoriginal that you can see the content of TN Coate's blog entries and the posts of his well-informed commentators all over this pastiche of sillyness written by this fellow so appropriately named Glenn W. Lafantasie. This is the sort of thing that makes one speculate, "Hmmmm.  On the internet nobody knows you're a dog."

2 comments:

K. said...

SP's unfavorables are too high for her to get elected president. My pollster brother tells me that a challenger's unfavorables are almost impossible to lower, but they can be raised.

She'd be more polished than in 2008 and is very cunning, but she doesn't have the presence independent voters require in a candidate. Independents won't respond well to the sheltering and limited access.

Plus, she'd have to run a better campaign than Barack Obama, and he's already proven that he's one of the best ever at that. There are very few instances of the best campaign losing a presidential election. In the TV era, Bush 2000 is the only one I can think of.

Foxessa said...

Judging by the mid-term campaigns, neither Obama nor his party were any good at running campaigns. It really looks like they were a one-shot fizzle, judging by the mid-terms.

That's what people said too, about Andrew Jackson. Even Jefferson declared that Jackson was too dangerous to be allowed to be POTUS. The Adams people snickered and wrote letters congratulating themselves that the opposition had picked such an unelectable. What did Van Buren do with that? Sent out to the world that Jefferson supported Jackson. Who got elected by such a margin that Adams-Clay were left with dust -- and Clay, was the consumate campaigner ....

Love, C.