or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
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"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
October 30, 2007
Thank You
Arthur says it so I don't have to.
What I will add is: there's a real threat that I don't have presents, and Santa Claus should, in his role as present-giver within the present-giving process, be giving presents to me.
UPDATE: In fairness to Ezra Klein, he did previously write this.
Posted at October 30, 2007 03:53 PM | TrackBackPeople in restrauants and grocery stores often call me Santa Clause. (if you saw my picture you probably would too) The children, I tell them I'm not Santa but to be good and wait for Christmas.
THE ADULTS, I tell them, "I ain't Moses, I ain't Jesus, and I Damn Sure ain't Santa Clause, I'm Michael Meyer."
wow. ezra sure has been thoroughly absorbed into the beltway opinionating machine. so sad, yet so predictable. i left when he started quoting that john cole guy favourably. too much balance!
Posted by: almostinfamous at October 30, 2007 09:29 PMThere's a key difference between saying what the media should do and expecting that they will. The first is idealism, the second is naivete. But activism, reform efforts and the like depend on some idealism, of the sort one would hope is tempered by recognizing reality (that Santa doesn't exist, as you put it).
Klein notes the shallowness of the media, as well he should. I'd say he's essentially asking why the sniping tribalism of the chattering class can't achieve something good for once. Perhaps he's being naïve in supposing it will, or that most of them care at all about such things, but it's one friggin' blog post. If that's his tendency overall (I only read him occasionally), okay, then. But Silber's line strikes me as snarky nit-picking over a single phrase where Klein's being a bit snarky himself. The MSM's shallowness is a feature, not a bug. Still, especially after reading the piece you linked in your update, I find myself wondering if the gap in viewpoints is really that wide.
Point well taken, putting too much faith in the media or politicians is foolish, especially if it leads to complacency or waiting for some hero, just as I'd say a skepticism, cynicism or 'clear-eyed thinking' that spurs activism is preferable to a type that leads to apathy or inaction.
I do like the idea of somehow exploiting the vanity of the chattering class (to do good against their own nature), since at least some of them do have pretensions of being Murrow, Halberstam and whomever… but hell, most of them aspire to be Maureen Dowd, Bill Kristol, Tim Russert and Brian Williams. Paddy Chayefsky, Jerzy Kosinski or George Orwell might be able to pull it off. Hmm…
