Today I happend to see the press conference from the White House about the swine flu.
It is so absolutely refreshing to hear people from the administration who speak clearly, use the English language well, seem to know what they are talking about, and are honest about the situations and complexities the face (as far as one can tell: I realise that not everyone is honest all the time, and government officials in general should not be considered honest until proven so. Don't send any responses along that line. I know what you are going to say and in general I agree with u. ;-).
That for me is one of the biggest positives of the last 100 days.
I am loving it.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Literally risen
Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells' dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.
It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.
The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that — pierced — died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.
Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.
The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.
And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.
Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.
Seven stanzas at Easter
John Updike
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Misunderestimed
This is how GW characterized a part of the stress with the press he experienced during his terms as President.
Through it all, it's been -- I have respected you. Sometimes didn't like the stories that you wrote or reported on. Sometimes you misunderestimated me. But always the relationship I have felt has been professional. And I appreciate it.
Misunderestimed.
Ah, I see.
Through it all, it's been -- I have respected you. Sometimes didn't like the stories that you wrote or reported on. Sometimes you misunderestimated me. But always the relationship I have felt has been professional. And I appreciate it.
Misunderestimed.
Ah, I see.
Friday, January 09, 2009
100 Things
President Bush has published a document outlining 100 accomplishments of his administration during the last eight years. Click here to read the document.
Just one thing: he forgot to number the items, as Jon Stewart pointed out.
Consistent to the last day.
Just one thing: he forgot to number the items, as Jon Stewart pointed out.
Consistent to the last day.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Monday, December 22, 2008
George Will doesn't like it either
George Will is not known as a flaming leftist liberal.
But he has often been a harsh crisitc of GW Bush.
And he thinks very little of the administration's use of TARP funds for the auto industry. At least the fact that the administration has made Congress moot:
The president is dispensing money from the $700 billion Congress provided for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. The unfounded assertion of a right to do this is notably brazen, given the indisputable fact that if Congress had known that TARP -- supposedly a measure for scouring "toxic" assets from financial institutions -- was to become an instrument for unconstrained industrial policy, it would not have been passed...
The administration has not confined its aggrandizement of executive power to national security matters....
Most of the administration's executive truculence has pertained to national security, where the case for broad prerogatives, although not as powerful as the administration supposes, is at least arguable. With the automakers, however, executive branch overreaching now extends to the essence of domestic policy -- spending -- and traduces a core constitutional principle, the separation of powers...
Read the whole article here.
But he has often been a harsh crisitc of GW Bush.
And he thinks very little of the administration's use of TARP funds for the auto industry. At least the fact that the administration has made Congress moot:
The president is dispensing money from the $700 billion Congress provided for the Troubled Asset Relief Program. The unfounded assertion of a right to do this is notably brazen, given the indisputable fact that if Congress had known that TARP -- supposedly a measure for scouring "toxic" assets from financial institutions -- was to become an instrument for unconstrained industrial policy, it would not have been passed...
The administration has not confined its aggrandizement of executive power to national security matters....
Most of the administration's executive truculence has pertained to national security, where the case for broad prerogatives, although not as powerful as the administration supposes, is at least arguable. With the automakers, however, executive branch overreaching now extends to the essence of domestic policy -- spending -- and traduces a core constitutional principle, the separation of powers...
Read the whole article here.
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