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4.22.05

Culturally Speaking #62: Pope Overload

By Sarah Stodola

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I'm sure a lot of readers are already familiar with the Slate feature called The Complete Bushisms (given the title, the feature really needs no explanation).  I have recently revisited the compilation, and find it necessary to reproduce a few of my favorites here:

"If you're a younger person, you ought to be asking members of Congress and the United States Senate and the president what you intend to do about it. If you see a train wreck coming, you ought to be saying, what are you going to do about it, Mr. Congressman, or Madam Congressman?"—Detroit, Feb. 8, 2005

And:

"We need to apply 21st-century information technology to the health care field. We need to have our medical records put on the I.T."—Collinsville, Ill., Jan. 5, 2005

And finally:

"That's why I went to the Congress last September and proposed fundamental—supplemental funding, which is money for armor and body parts and ammunition and fuel."—Erie, Pa., Sept. 4, 2004

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This is really just plain old exciting...researchers have figured out how to decipher some previously enigmatic writings that were found in an "ancient garbage dump" in Egypt.  Works by Sophocles and Euripides are in there, as well as --possibly -- some early Christian texts.  The extent of this could become overwhelming.

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Please read the lovely Mark Grueter's review of James Wolcott's new book in Chicago-based magazine Stop Smiling.

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The State Department's report for terrorism in 2004 didn't please some certain high level government officials (you know, because terrorism is increasing in the midst of their supposed war to do away with it).  So what did they do?  Why, eliminate the report, of course!

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Enough.  About.  The Pope.  Already.

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Can you imagine the American president doing this: printing one million copies of a great literary work and handing it out for free in the country's public spaces?  Me either.

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If everything in this article is true, then it's safe to say that it's damn near impossible these days to know what's really going on in the world...it's all about powerful people paying for what they want you to think.

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I don't agree with Steve Almond's definition of the purpose of art in this column (see the last paragraph), but I do think that his discussion of Safran Foer's new novel is important.  Especially parts like this:

[T]he real charge derived from reading ELIC [Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close] is the chance to re–experience the melodrama of 9/11, those bracing weeks when we all stood transfixed by the tape loops and slapped brave bumper stickers on our cars and pretended that we had suffered something profound, when all most of us had suffered was the vicarious thrill of a genuine televised catastrophe.

Exactly.   Foer doesn't work through any 9-11 issues, he simply exploits the drama of the whole thing.

 

Click here for the last Culturally Speaking.

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Sarah Stodola is the Executive Editor of Me Three.  She can be contacted here.

© 2005 Me Three