8:24 PM – Nancy Pelosi is the least inspiring public speaker in the country. Maybe her prompter was broken, but she fumbled her words, and even when she could get them out, she spoke them without conviction. Even if she is a brilliant Speaker of the House behind the scenes–and I don’t think she is–whenever I see her on camera I instantly feel that she is part of the reason that Democratic Party is held in such disregard by so many people. She seems feckless and artificial.
8:32 PM – Jimmy Carter is a great American, and the living president I most wish I could meet in person.
8:40 PM – Barack Obama’s sister doesn’t share his gift for inspiring rhetoric.
8:44 PM – Jesse Jackson, Jr. is a good speaker, and probably less crazy than his father.
9:30 PM – Ken Burns’ movie about Senator Kennedy was great. It’s also good to see the senator feeling up to speechmaking.
9:35 PM – Kennedy is a titan.
10:50 PM – Mrs. Obama seems pretty freakin’ smart.
Filed under: Current Events, Politics on August 25th, 2008 | No Comments »
Today is the first day of the Fall 2008 semester, and already I am met with a surprise. It seems that my lofty goal of getting a head start on my reading for a course I’m taking about the Eighteenth Century novel has been thwarted. I had been reading Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, but I now find we will instead read that author’s Roxana. Such is life.
An observation: of the thirty-one students in class this morning, only ten were male.
Filed under: Literature and Books, School on August 25th, 2008 | No Comments »
So, the games of the 29th Olympiad are finished, and, were it not for my broken TV they’d have been the best I’ve ever seen. The extent of NBC’s coverage was astonishing, and though I might quibble a bit about what they chose to promote in prime time, and what was on TV and what wasn’t, the generous online coverage almost renders that point moot. There is almost no event I really wanted to see that I couldn’t, and this is the first Olympic games that that has been the case.
The last event I watched was rhythmic gymnastics, which I love, but which some people refuse to call a sport. Suit yourself. My only disappointment with the event this year was the absence of the ball (each Olympics features four of the five possible apparatus, and this year ball was out, and ball is my favorite, rope my least favorite).
The biggest story may have been Michael Phelps’ gold rush, and May and Walsh’s victory in beach volleyball was expected, but there were also surprises, like the American athlete who won the decathlon, and the American team losing softball, plus the wrestler rejecting his bronze medal, and the martial artist kicking the judge in the head.
All in all, it was a great Olympics. I can’t wait until Winter 2010!
Filed under: Current Events, Sports, Television on August 25th, 2008 | No Comments »