dagblog - Comments for "The Amazing Endurance of Remarkable Words"

I hang around Vermont from

Oxy Mora — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 13:11:43 +0000

In reply to Sen. Sanders was born Sept.

I hang around Vermont from time to time. What do you think about what Bernie said? Will he make a third party run?

And do you agree with Robert Frost that a real Yankee is someone who eats pie for breakfast?

And, what year is your Subaru?

No offense, intended,

Ramona — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 12:40:40 +0000

In reply to Sen. Sanders was born Sept.

No offense, intended, Vermonter. In fact, just the opposite. I'm from Michigan. We value "plain speaking" as meaningful words not couched in rhetoric or hyperbole. It has nothing to do with the number of syllables in a word, but rather suggests honesty and integrity to me.

The fact that he is a legislator from Vermont simply cements that notion. Vermont has a reputation for individualism, and Bernie certainly fits the bill. Sorry if you thought I meant otherwise.

Sen. Sanders was born Sept.

Vermonter — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 09:37:51 +0000

In reply to The Amazing Endurance of Remarkable Words

Sen. Sanders was born Sept. 9, 1941, in Brooklyn, N.Y. He moved to Vermont at age 23 or 24.

With all due respect to the content posted here, to describe him as a "plain spoken Vermont man," is a bit ludicrous. That's talk usually reserved for the likes of Calvin Coolidge, aka "Silent Cal."

By Vermont standards - and this is not at all a commentary on his politics - Bernie Sanders is a very talkative, very long-winded, uses lots of "big words" in an accent clearly not from Vermont but right at home razzing the underachieving Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbetts Field circa 1941 (the year Bernie was born).

If that constitutes a "plain spoken Vermont man" then most Vermonters will have to re-evaluate their self-image.

Oh, and about Issa and

Ramona — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 23:00:13 +0000

In reply to I felt like crying, too, DD.

Oh, and about Issa and Bachmann. I dread to see what happens next year when they become committee heads. Damn those Dems, anyway. They gave it all away.

I felt like crying, too, DD.

Ramona — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 22:58:49 +0000

In reply to Bernie made me weep. Really!

I felt like crying, too, DD. Some would say it was futile, knowing how the vote was going to go down anyway, but he did what he felt he had to do, and it really was heroic.

No airs about him. He's a man of the people and he's proud of it. We sorely need more of that.

If I could rec your comment,

Ramona — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 22:56:08 +0000

In reply to Thanks very much, Ramona. I

If I could rec your comment, I would! Beautiful. That's it, exactly. Thank you.

Bernie made me weep. Really!

Richard Day — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 21:02:38 +0000

In reply to The Amazing Endurance of Remarkable Words

Bernie made me weep. Really! I get his email regularly. If I had any money I would send it to him regularly and I am sure richer folks do.

There was a sweet episode on West Wing that focussed on an elderly senator filibustering his own party and his own President. This reminded me of that.

All of the filibustering and/or cloture performed by the repubs lazily cannot match the drama that Bernie brought to the floor. That is for sure.

We are arriving at a new era where some guy named Issa and some gal named Bachmann are going to claim that there are 213 terrorists working in the WH, that there are traitors residing in the Congress and that certain newspaper editors should be imprisoned.

This stuff never goes away!

I get your meaning, Deadman

acanuck — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 20:29:52 +0000

In reply to Great post, Ramona. This is

I get your meaning, Deadman -- that Sanders is fighting a noble battle he's bound to lose -- but the metaphor is wrong. Don Quixote fought the windmills because he imagined them to be evil knights. Sanders sees very clearly the nature of the forces he's fighting. He calls them evil because that's just what they are.

Thanks very much, Ramona. I

AmericanDreamer — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 20:08:40 +0000

In reply to The Amazing Endurance of Remarkable Words

Thanks very much, Ramona. I had not seen any of Senator Sanders' remarks so am grateful to you for pulling these highlights.

When the curtain was pulled and the great, all-powerful, almighty Wizard of Oz was exposed as just a frightened man, it made for a compelling moment in that movie. The first time I saw a videotape of Welch's remarks to McCarthy I felt a chill down my spine. It was as though Welch had just decided he wasn't going to let all the naysayers tell him it would do no good, and probably harm, to attack Joe McCarthy. Those words he spoke, and the gravitas with which he spoke them, showed what a head and a heart working together could do. It was as though, for just one moment, all of the trappings of the high-drama Senate hearings disappeared, and what was left was one human being going straight to the soul of another and absolutely shaming him for the bully and the coward that he was.

It was electrifying for me to see that that could actually happen, that the little person at the witness table could do that to the all-powerful, almighty Senator McCarthy, could just shrink him down to size and place him in that small little place in hell where the bullies of this world every once in awhile get sent when they are stood up to. For all to see. With nothing more than the moral force of words powerfully and eloquently uttered.

Words can be a very powerful thing. You are right, Ramona.

Oh, and one other thing: Bernie Sanders is a hero.

Noted. But he did do

Ramona — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 19:34:39 +0000

In reply to I will do anything to stop

Noted. But he did do something. That's more than any of the others.