The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

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Merry Christmas

By Barth on Sat, 12/25/2010 - 8:43am |

This is not my holiday, but it is hard to miss the signs that it is one celebrated by many others in this country, though Bill O'Reilly and his colleagues think otherwise. Oddly, by mystical coincidence, Shabbat and Christmas coincide this year. To many confused people, Chanukah is a supposed equivalent holiday to Christmas, but it's not. Shabbat, on the other hand, means Jews and Christians will be praying at roughly the same time.

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The Road Ahead or Barth Wants to Ruin Family Get Togethers

By Barth on Sat, 12/18/2010 - 12:31pm |

There is nobody on "our side" of the political gulf who did not cheer, feel vindicated, or thought of the many people in their lives who just have to read the University of Maryland study of the misinformed viewers of what is laughingly called "Fox News." When we calm down a bit, it might occur to contemplate that a) what is being done is a deliberate political strategy and b) is working.

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This is how it works...

By Barth on Sat, 12/11/2010 - 1:40pm |

The founders of this nation did not, we have often been told, envision the formation of political parties and there remains a resistance to the idea that the party is more important than the actual office holder. There have been times, indeed, when the party label meant less than than the politics of the time. Stephen Douglas, for instance, was a Democrat when that party stood for slavery but, at best, it was unclear whether he did.

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Giving Thanks

By Barth on Sat, 11/27/2010 - 2:39pm |

Thanks. There is no reason to repeat why this is a great holiday, whatever its supposed derivation, or the more accurate and quite understandable basis for it. It is, in the end, a day for us to become one: an entire nation eating roughly the same foods and celebrating together, as best we can.

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Celebrating November 22

By Barth on Sat, 11/20/2010 - 1:16pm |

Monday is November 22. That month with that date next to it always appears as dark, sad, searingly so. It is the date which needs no explanation to almost anyone who lived through it and, amazingly, of little significance to everyone else. It is the date on which Everything Changed.

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Lost

By Barth on Sat, 11/13/2010 - 12:42pm |

They knew he had never
Been on their T.V.
So they passed his music by

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On Veteran's Day

By Barth on Thu, 11/11/2010 - 6:52pm |

Or, as it used to be known, Armistice Day, celebrating, as really Americans do best, a truce--the end of hostilities, with a mess all around, and one that still causes us trouble from Persia, and almost every other place beaten up by the war to end all wars, but did not.

So, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month and some of us get a day off to work from home.

And, of course, there is always a quote from some president or another that is worth noting:


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Right and Wrong: The Post Election Edition

By Barth on Sat, 11/06/2010 - 1:29pm |

When Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly were helping to define what news reported on television would mean determined that

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Wins and Losses

By Barth on Wed, 11/03/2010 - 12:13pm |

There will be more from this corner this weekend, but it would be worth hearing from those who share my general views about these things:

1. A “movement” built on the votes of young people will never succeed, since young people tend to vote for personalities before governmental operations and outlook and will not stick to it.

2. The President was right to get what he could when he could get it. There would be no chance for health care reform if it was not done in 2009/2010.

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