Barth | dagblog

My midweek correction and another one long overdue

By Barth on Wed, 03/25/2009 - 10:45pm |

Post under this name usually appear only on the weekend, since I am barely able to eat breakfast during the week, much less dispense gibberish. Last weekend, trying to put the issue of the week in some perspective, and to...

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Trying to Focus

By Barth on Sat, 03/21/2009 - 2:51pm |

It's always the same thing. A cascade of bad news includes one item which seems to allow for howls of outrage or other displays of heightened morality which a) blots out all the other bad news, b) diverts attention to...

Right and Wrong

By Barth on Sat, 03/14/2009 - 4:21pm |

This never happened: A President, a Democrat, whose daughter has been kidnapped, possibly by Arab terrorists, decided to step aside temporarily so that government policy was not directed by a distraught father. Since there was no Vice President at the...

Defender of the Faith, Redux

By Barth on Tue, 03/10/2009 - 12:11am |

On the occasion of our new president determining that his religious beliefs permit stem cell research---I hesitate to thank God for that---it seems appropriate to republish, with slight editing to take out references which may not have much meaning today,...

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Making the most of what is happening

By Barth on Sat, 03/07/2009 - 5:32pm |

. Obligations elsewhere require that this week's post be somewhat edited versions of observations sent hither and yon during the week concerning how bad things are, how they got that way and what happens next.The best thing to come from...

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March 4

By Barth on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 6:00pm |

After New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the Constitution on June 21, 1788, making it effective under its terms, the Congress operating under the Articles of Confederation set March 4, 1789 as the date on which the Constitution...

We Were There

By Barth on Sat, 02/28/2009 - 2:25pm |

As with most born in the decade after World War II to parents who understood what the New Deal and the GI Bill meant for their lives, the era of a forward thinking government started to end on that bleak...

Hope

By Barth on Sat, 02/21/2009 - 2:52pm |

This is the last weekend of the winter, at least the way I see it. It is the last weekend that will pass without a Red Sox game to occupy some of the time, and to accompany me while battling...

Presidents on Presidents Day

By Barth on Sat, 02/14/2009 - 2:10pm |

It's been so long since we had a President with an appreciation of what this country---this nation---means, and how important our history is to what we are today, that every time he speaks seems to be an astounding event. The...

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What the president meant

By Barth on Sun, 02/08/2009 - 2:03pm |

I generally put new posts here on Saturdays, the only day I can really spend writing things for which I do not get paid. With not much time for writing here today, I will let a few presidents do my...

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The Consequences of Our Failures

By Barth on Sat, 02/07/2009 - 12:29pm |

In July, 2007, we watched the debates in the United States Senate over the progress in Iraq and was struck by the huge gulf between the views of the elected representatives and that of those they represented. That "disconnect" as...

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Shibboleths

By Barth on Sat, 01/31/2009 - 3:01pm |

In one of the endless number of great West Wing episodes, the biblical story of the shibboleth comes front and center as only WW could do. The point of this diary is not to repeat that story, or its West...

Rabbit Remembered

By Barth on Tue, 01/27/2009 - 5:16pm |

Josh's postI never met Ted Williams and never met John Updike. They are somewhat intertwined in my head, of course, because of this essay from 1960, republished in the Boston Globe on the occasion of Williams' death.Now Updike has passed...

The State We are In

By Barth on Sat, 01/24/2009 - 6:08pm |

By all rights, this week should be a celebration of the return of our nation to its role as the beacon of liberty and freedom throughout the world. We all know people, or stories of people, born in other countries...

reruns

By Barth on Mon, 01/19/2009 - 2:44pm |

I have two. One is from 1961 and will help get you set for the day's doings on Tuesday. The other is from last year and was entitled Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr....

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The West Wing comes to life

By Barth on Sat, 01/17/2009 - 3:22pm |

We sat there for all those seasons wondering why we could not have a real President Bartlet, with all those smart people worrying about our country and its problems. When the Bartlet administration came to an end, and the series...

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Read more about Hopes for 2008
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My midweek correction and another one long overdue

Trying to Focus

Right and Wrong

Defender of the Faith, Redux

Making the most of what is happening

March 4

We Were There

Hope

Presidents on Presidents Day

What the president meant

The Consequences of Our Failures

Shibboleths

Rabbit Remembered

The State We are In

reruns

The West Wing comes to life

Charles Morgan Jr. or asking not what one's country could do for him

A Public Service

Teach Your Children

Hopes for 2008

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