07.06.14
This NYT celebrity lady was so upset by the state of America on the 4th she interviewed some wealthy libertarians! You won’t believe what they had to say!
Maureen Dowd, NYT celebrity pundit for as long as I can remember, beneficiary of all the riches the kingdom can bestow, is upset on the 4th.
“The Fourth of July was always a celebration of American exceptionalism,??? said G.O.P. pollster Frank Luntz. “Now it’s a commiseration of American disappointment.???
From Katrina to Fallujah, we’re less the Shining City Upon a Hill than the House of Broken Toys.
For the first time perhaps, hope is not as much a characteristic of American feelings.
Ask Frank Luntz, of all people.
It gets worse. Dowd rounded up the swells she could find in an afternoon to explain it. It’s the always welcome parading of the gnomic wisdom from the six and seven-figure explainers for the benefit of the great mass of unwashed dolts on Sundays.
Most of them, not all, were glibertarians libertarians who, as a rule, generally know how to get to the nub of any problem immediately.
“The 23-year-olds I work with are a little over the conversation about how we were the superpower brought low,??? Ben Smith, Masturbaiter editor-in-chief of Buzzfeed, tells Dowd. “They think that’s an ‘older person conversation.’ They’re more interested in this moment of crazy opportunity, with the massive economic and cultural transformation driven by Silicon Valley. And kids feel capable of seizing it. Technology isn’t a section in the newspaper any more. It’s the culture.???
Like finding the newest publishing platform to bring you “”33 Photos of Corgi Butts,” a Buzzfeed piece I didn’t know about until Dowd mentioned it today.
Ben Domenech, [a] 32-year-old libertarian, tells Dowd “millennials are paralyzed by all their choices. He quoted Walker Percy’s “The Last Gentleman???: ‘Lucky is the man who does not secretly believe that every possibility is open to him.’ ???
Didn’t know I was so fortunate. I can see a book in it. “Down & Out: How That Means You’re One of the Lucky Millions & How to Capitalize On It.”
Walter Isaacson, Aspen Institute director, someone who has everything and “author of the best-selling ‘Steve Jobs:’ “[There’s] a striking disconnect between the optimism and swagger of people in the innovative economy — from craft-beer makers to educational reformers to the Uber creators — and the impotence and shrunken stature of our governing institutions.???
If only the country, and those not doing so hot, could just be more like “craft-beer makers” and Uber. Such ninnies we are not to see it.
I see a book: “From Craft-Beer to Uber: How American Genius Entrepreneurs in Suds to Rides Are Showing How to Virally Succeed and What You Can Do to Join Them.”
Personally, you know I think this is still the perfect song for the weekend.
I believe it’s the purest American exceptionalism, particularly in its artistic commiseration on bald-faced national disappointment and failure. A music for the House of Broken Toys, if you will.
But there was no way to post it to the Times website.