Council Winners
The Watcher's Council winners for the week are up.
First place went to Strata-Sphere for a tongue-in-cheek post purporting to offer the Democratic Party's "Contract with al-Qaida."
Second place went to ShrinkWrapped for The Academy Awards, Pan-Sexuality, Narcissism, & Loneliness, a meditation on the possible effects of what appears to be one of Hollywood's recent little crusades.
AmbivaBlog also has opened a discussion on this, if you're interested.
Out-of-council winner was a critique of the Coretta Scott King funeral by The Anchoress, one of my regular stops. This has been a controversial topic, with some saying the political grandstanding was inappropriate, and some saying it was just what Mrs. King would have wanted, and some, apparently, forgetting that it was a Democratic administration that ordered King wiretapped.
I didn't see the service, so I don't know. But I overheard a conversation the other day in my newsroom, which, as you may or may not know, is a passionately Bush-hating place. Two editors were describing the scene at Coretta Scott King’s funeral. And all the rhetoric that flowed between the eulogies. And they admitted to having a grudging respect for the way Bush handled himself. When Rev. Lowery went off on his chant, the president sat there and took it. Didn’t bow his head. And afterward he walked right up and shook the man’s hand. (Mind you, I didn’t see the funeral; I’m describing their description of it.) There’s a manly art to being a power figure and being dressed down in public and reacting with dignity. The political and religious figures engaged in open or thinly disguised bashing at the King funeral gave Bush the opportunity to show whether he had it or not. Call it a case of unintended consequences.
Second place in this category went to The Pathetic Last Children of Nietzsche's Pitiable Last Men, by One Cosmos, who writes with a nice Joycean touch. His post is yet another meditation on gender identity, but this one in a political context and keyed to the notorious Joel Stein "I Don't Support the Troops" column.
First place went to Strata-Sphere for a tongue-in-cheek post purporting to offer the Democratic Party's "Contract with al-Qaida."
Second place went to ShrinkWrapped for The Academy Awards, Pan-Sexuality, Narcissism, & Loneliness, a meditation on the possible effects of what appears to be one of Hollywood's recent little crusades.
Hollywood has done its part to help "normalize" pan-sexuality and will celebrate their open-minded tolerance in March (one of the nominees for best Actress is for a film about a transsexual); whether you believe this was wise or not, it is hard to argue that such re-definition of what at one time was considered deviant behavior comes at a high price. There is also a vast difference between teaching our children tolerance and teaching that "anything and everything goes" and all sexual behavior is equivalent and represent mere "life style choices."
AmbivaBlog also has opened a discussion on this, if you're interested.
Out-of-council winner was a critique of the Coretta Scott King funeral by The Anchoress, one of my regular stops. This has been a controversial topic, with some saying the political grandstanding was inappropriate, and some saying it was just what Mrs. King would have wanted, and some, apparently, forgetting that it was a Democratic administration that ordered King wiretapped.
I didn't see the service, so I don't know. But I overheard a conversation the other day in my newsroom, which, as you may or may not know, is a passionately Bush-hating place. Two editors were describing the scene at Coretta Scott King’s funeral. And all the rhetoric that flowed between the eulogies. And they admitted to having a grudging respect for the way Bush handled himself. When Rev. Lowery went off on his chant, the president sat there and took it. Didn’t bow his head. And afterward he walked right up and shook the man’s hand. (Mind you, I didn’t see the funeral; I’m describing their description of it.) There’s a manly art to being a power figure and being dressed down in public and reacting with dignity. The political and religious figures engaged in open or thinly disguised bashing at the King funeral gave Bush the opportunity to show whether he had it or not. Call it a case of unintended consequences.
Second place in this category went to The Pathetic Last Children of Nietzsche's Pitiable Last Men, by One Cosmos, who writes with a nice Joycean touch. His post is yet another meditation on gender identity, but this one in a political context and keyed to the notorious Joel Stein "I Don't Support the Troops" column.
