J.D. Salinger, 1919-2010

Would this come under the category of "Compassionate Conservatism"?

The headline, in a story from The Boston Herald: "South Carolina Lt. Gov. compares welfare to ‘feeding stray animals’":

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/south/view/20100124south_carolina_lt_gov_compares_welfare_to_feeding_stray_animals/srvc=home&position=recent

And another story, about the same subject:

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2010/01/25/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry6139186.shtml

The Disaster in Haiti

There are, obviously, a great many organizations raising funds to provide relief to those affected by the disaster in Haiti.

Here is a list of groups providing aid (and links to their websites), via msnbc.com:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34835478/ns/world_news-haiti_earthquake/

In addition: if you’d like to find out more information about a charity you may wish to donate to, please see:

www.charitynavigator.org

Thomas Friedman, November column

Here (a month after the fact) is an essay by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.

The piece appeared in November, and is called “America vs. The Narrative.”

“The Narrative,” Friedman writes, “is the cocktail of half-truths, propaganda and outright lies about America that have taken hold in the Arab-Muslim world since 9/11.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/opinion/29friedman.html

“The general public didn’t exactly understand what we were going after.”

A belated update to the posting, below, concerning the planned burnings-in-effigy, in Danville, Virginia, of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Virginia Congressman Tom Perriello. The event didn’t take place.

The organizer, in discussing the cancellation, argued that the event had been “misinterpreted.”

Actually, I'm guessing many people understood, quite properly, how offensive the idea was.

Greg Sargent, a blogger, wrote the following, about the cancellation:

Nigel Coleman, chairman of the Danville Tea Party, says the local property owner hosting the rally asked him to pull the plug.

“We will not be going forward with the plan,” a crestfallen Coleman told me by phone...“We had to cancel it. The property owner won’t allow us to do it. The media attention was something that he didn’t want.”

Coleman said he was upset that people had gotten the wrong idea about his plan. “I’m disappointed that the story got out of hand and people misinterpreted something we thought would be a little historical lesson. They made people believe that we were committing an act of violence,” he said, adding that the “they” in question were the “liberal blogs.”

Last week, Coleman defended the plan as reminiscent of the American Revolutionaries, a historical comparison that’s somewhat tenuous, given that the revolutionaries were rebelling against a monarch, while the Tea Partiers are protesting a plan created by a government that was elected by a sizable majority.

But Coleman said he didn’t feel that his right to free expression had been tread upon, blaming himself for not anticipating the backlash.

“It was a mistake not to see beforehand that this would be controversial,” he allowed. “The general public didn’t exactly understand what we were going after.”

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/health-care/tea-party-leader-nixes-plans-to-burn-pelosi-and-perriello-in-effigy/)

Some people really need to consider decaf.

Tea Party organizer vows to burn Pelosi and Perriello in effigy

From CNN web site, November 14th, 2009, Posted at 11:28 AM ET

WASHINGTON (CNN) – The organizer of a "Tea Party" protest in Virginia says he intends to move forward with plans to burn House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Tom Perriello in effigy next weekend at a rally to protest Democratic health care legislation.

The event is scheduled for next Saturday in Danville, which borders North Carolina and sits at the southern end of Perriello's congressional district. Perriello, a Democrat, narrowly won his House seat in 2008 and is considered a top target of Congressional Republicans in next year's midterm elections.

When news of the rally surfaced Friday, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen condemned the plans as "shocking and despicable."

But Nigel Coleman, the organizer of the Tea Party, told CNN he doesn't see what all the fuss is about. The attention, he said, should be on the Democratic plans to overhaul the health care system.

"We're not going to actually set Perriello on fire or Mrs. Pelosi on fire," Coleman said. "But we have been trying to months to get our point across just how vehemently we are opposed to this health care legislation. For the House vote to come so close and to know that Mr. Perriello is on the other side, it's a kick in the stomach that a lot of people couldn't take."

Coleman said none of Perriello's potential Republican challengers have been invited to the event, which he expects will draw about 100 people.

"Something shocking and despicable is how they've handled this health care legislation," Coleman said, responding to Van Hollen's statement. "Going behind closed doors, writing a bill that is going to fundamentally change what America is. More people are going to be killed by this health care legislation than this bonfire."

Vegetarianism

People ask me, now and then, why I turned to vegetarianism (next month it will be eighteen years), and it’s not always asked in an entirely friendly way. There’s an edge, at times, to the question; some people regard vegetarians as being somehow alien. I usually mention, when asked, that my decision did not have to do with health concerns, but that it was because of the animal issue.

I think my favorite response to questions about vegetarianism came from the Nobel Prize-winning writer Isaac Bashevis Singer. I have read different versions of the story. One of the versions, roughly, is this: Singer was at a dinner, and was asked if he had declined to eat the chicken which was being served “for health reasons.” Yes, he said—for the health of the chicken.