It's funny how things stick to you. A ten year old boy goes to see "My Fair Lady" and the little joke in lyrics about "Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?" or the even more obvious

Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose
English is painful to your ears?
The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears.
There even are places where English completely
disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!

remains a metaphor for the guy almost fifty years later when he reads the governing agreement reached by two political parties with virtually nothing in common.

There is no way to know how sincere the agreement is and whether it or even the government they are forming will hold. Still, for those whose lives will be directly affected by it, the agreement holds far more hope than a week of articles about whether Elena Kagan playing softball means she is gay, whether finishing "the danged wall" would restore our lost national sovereignty, or why the President's social security number proves he was not born in Hawaii.

If the Conservative Party of Britain was the Republican Party of the United States, would it (could it?) support "a green deal for energy efficiency investment"?

Would it be willing to support a government which says it will

seek a detailed agreement on taxing non-business capital gains at rates similar or close to those applied to income, with generous exemptions for entrepreneurial business activities

or

bring forward detailed proposals for robust action to tackle unacceptable bonuses in the financial services sector; in developing these proposals we will ensure they are effective in reducing risk

or

to pursue a detailed agreement on limiting donations and reforming party funding in order to remove big money from politics.

or

agree to promote the reform of schools in order to ensure:

• That new providers can enter the state school system in response to parental demand;

• That all schools have greater freedom over curriculum, and that all schools are held properly accountable.

Higher education

We await Lord Browne's final report into higher education funding and will judge its proposals against the need to:

• Increase social mobility;

• Take into account the impact on student debt;

• Ensure a properly funded university sector;

• Improve the quality of teaching, advance scholarship, and attract a higher proportion of students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

No need to keep listing these things. You can read it yourself. Since your blogger doesn't even know who Lord Browne is, he can't judge the worthiness of any of these proposals, but the point is that two parties seem to find a place where they can agree to focus attention and to try to leave political rhetoric or advantage behind.

Would that we could. Of course, we have a president whose father was a black man from Africa which so infuriates a significant number of our citizens that they cannot consider any issue of public discourse without suggesting that said president is trying to establish a Soviet state here. (A pickup truck which was seen in the norther reaches of Westchester County, NY, yesterday, bore a bumper sticker which spelled out some broadside against "Obamacare" with the use of the communist hammer and sickle. Lovely.)

Certainly other countries have to deal with their own screwballs. History has, sadly, confirmed this for us repeatedly. Still, is there any place that permits or fosters prolonged discussion of whether playing softball means a person (or a woman) is gay. (And, for crying out loud, what about the blogger who begins his post with a lengthy quote from a Broadway musical, and yet insists he is resolutely heterosexual?)


There is no winning with these towel snappers, though. They are certain that snowstorm in February discredits warnings of "global warming" and that Vice President Gore must be embarrassed by them. They will never listen to you. Stop trying.

For the rest of us there is only reason. We do not need to try to load the Supreme Court with people who can assure us that they will agree with our point of view on any issue. All we need are justices who are smart, well versed in the law, and who will decide the cases based on those analytical skills, their knowledge and the arguments directed to them and not to further some political view or party. A Court with nine such justices (we have not had that in many, many years) would be one which decided most cases in a way that would make us proud, if not happy each and every time.

In any event, we need something better than the House of Lords which has taken over the Supreme Court building.