Archive - 2004
August 25th
Where I've been
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 08/25/2004 - 14:57I spent last week out on Cape Cod. Other than a mild stomach bug, it was a pretty good week. We spent a lot of time playing in the sand and the waves at the National Seashore. I am back in Stamford now, and trying to catch up on everything.
About 1200 emails piled up while I was gone. I am slowly working my way down through them. Many are just mailing list messages that I’ve filed in different folders and I may get back to at some point, or they may remain unread. Others I flagged for follow up, but knowing how things go, they may remain flagged for follow up with no action for a long time.
There are still about 400 that I haven’t gotten to, so if you have written to me and I haven’t responded, that is why.
Have you left no sense of decency?
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 08/25/2004 - 12:58(Originally posted at Greater Democracy)
As I have spoken about before, I like the sense a narrative in politics. I like tying in stories that people remember and that resonates with them.
Popular stories include the emperor’s new clothes, the boy who cried wolf, and perhaps Pinocchio. However, there is another story that I like to talk about, which I don’t think is getting enough attention.
On June 9th, 1954, Joseph Welch confronted Senator Joseph McCarthy, asking him, “Have you left no sense of decency?”. As an aside, for a transcript, and a wonderful recording of the interchange, please check out: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/welch-mccarthy.html
The recent advertisements by Swift Boats for Bush raise some interesting questions. To what extent were the activities illegally coordinated? What role should 527s have in the political process? However, the most important question to ask of Swift Boats for Bush is, “Have you left no sense of decency?”
August 23rd
Multiply?
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 08/23/2004 - 21:22On Aug 12th, I received an email from a friend asking me to join Multiply.com. I joined and checked to see whom else I knew that had joined already. There were three or so other people and I linked up to them. On the 16th, I used their tool to invite people from Orkut, and sent out quite a few invitations. About a dozen and a half more people joined my network there.
One Man’s Meat
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 08/23/2004 - 18:00(Originally posted at Greater Democracy)
I am sitting at a beach house out on Cape Cod. Half the family has gone out whale watching and the other half is still sleeping. We spent much of yesterday at the beach, playing in the sand and the waves. It seems like a perfect setting for reading E.B. White’s One Man’s Meat. It is a collection of essays that White wrote while living on a saltwater farm in Maine during World War II.
In the foreword, his stepson, Roger Angell writes, “Who amongst us can be certain that when another time as vivid and dangerous sweeps us up we will find an E. B. White somewhere to talk to us in these quiet and compelling tones?” While I may be a long way from being an E. B. White in what seems to me to be another vivid and dangerous time, I do strive for his tone.
This morning, I read White reflecting on the war coverage of Hendrick van Loon. White writes, “I have liked his reports on the day’s events because he has made them seem like part of a whole, not like an isolated moment in time.” It has seemed to me that much of the coverage of 9/11, Al Qaeda, Afghanistan, Iraq, and this year’s presidential election has been ‘breaking news’, isolated in this post turn of the millennium moment.
August 15th
Sunday in August
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 08/15/2004 - 10:34It is a lazy Sunday morning in August. Kim and Fiona are on the Cape. Mairead and Miranda are on their way back from Michigan. Hurricane Charley, now a tropical storm, or even less, is on his way out into the North Atlantic. I should probably be at church, but I am doing a little last minute packing and cleaning as I await the kids’ return and then head out to Cape Cod with them.
