Current Wisdom
Jackasses, Assorted
C U R R E N T W I S D 0 M The Washington Post Nicholas Lemann caught in flagrante delicto describing the peace-loving reformers of the Communist Workers Party who, nonetheless, passed on v i o...
...All had given up promising careers to dedicate themselves to bringing about a violent revolution in America...
...This historic loss, to which zoos are a monument, is now irredeemable for the culture of capitalism...
...The hot social issues of civil rights, women's liberation, and alien workers have come to a head not in pleadings before the Supreme Court or in congressional committees, but in relations between the white middle-class woman and her Haitian housekeeper over cleaning up that perpetually grimy bathtub ring...
...The only, reason for the army to fight is that their leaders would have commanded them to do so, but how can they fight when there is no enemy...
...Yet nowhere in a zoo can a ~tranger encounter the look of an animal_9 At the most, the animal's gaze flickers and passes on...
...Why would they want to assume responsibility for, and administration of, so huge, complex and problematical a society as ours...
...June 22, 1980] like a rhinoceros or like a muscular man...
...As for the crowds, they belong to a species which has at last been isolated...
...An inventory of his acts through the days and weeks and months since November shows consistent and growing reliance on power to have his way...
...Another was an honors graduate of Duke University, and another a student leader at Bennett College here...
...Adults take children to the zoo perhaps in the hope of refinding some of the innocence of that reproduced animal world which they remember from their own childhood...
...The public purpose of zoos is to offer visitors the opportunity of looking at animals...
...April, 1980] The Nation Ratiocinations in a drunk t a n k - - t h e Hon...
...9 . . In a way being fat builds character...
...Is he dead...
...I think it's good to be able to comfort yourself, even if you get fat in the process...
...April23, 19801 Book D i g e s t A p r o p h e t i c i n t e r l u d e with K u r t Vonnegut, just seconds before all the potted plants in his room erupted in hysterical laughter and his Mickey Mouse wrist watch exploded: 1 think people will come to believe more and more that Abbie Hoffman was agreat man...
...The zoo is a demonstration of the relations between man and animals...
...Why doesn't he .move...
...I value comforting more in terms of survival--for where women are now, in this civilization...
...C U R R E N T W I S D 0 M The Washington Post Nicholas Lemann caught in flagrante delicto describing the peace-loving reformers of the Communist Workers Party who, nonetheless, passed on v i o l e n t l y when a n g e r marred t h e i r o t h e r w i s e p e a c e f u l "Death to t h e Klan" rally last November: The communists who died that day were, like those who survive, strong, intelligent, loving people...
...he hypothetical enemy has been magically whisked away,, and replaced by 200-odd-million smiling...
...strong, peaceful Americans...
...he also risked wider military action, Soviet intervention, world war...
...their attention...
...Appearing in the Santa Claus suit, for example, in front of a Congressional panel is so beautiful and interesting...
...nothing else...
...The marginalization of animals is today being followed by the marginalization and disposal of the only class who, throughout history, has remained familiar with animals and maintained the wisdom which accompanies that familiarity: the middle and small peasant . . . . The zoo cannot but disappoint...
...They scan mechanically_9 They have been immunized to encounter, because nothing can any more occupy a central place in...
...think of the vast new wealth, now available to make life rich, beautiful, clean, sexy, thoughtful, inventive, healthful, fun...
...Naturally, that the Soviet Union would come plowing in and take us over...
...One was a medical school dropout...
...John Berger, " a r t critic, novelist, and film s c r i p t w r i t e r . " Aristotle is surpassed...
...He was an enormously important figure in American history . . . . The ser~se of ridicute he brought to the protest movement...
...That look between animal and man, which may have played a crucial role in the development of human society, and with which, in any case, all men had always lived until less than a century ago, has been extinguished...
...But would they really...
...What would they do with us...
...They look blindly beyond...
...March 29, 1980] The New York Times An urgent philosophical inquiry exec u t e d in t h e modern manner by Mr...
...He risked the lives of our hostages, their captors, their liberators, innocent Iranian bystanders...
...But he does not have such power...
...Looking at each animal, the unaccompanied zoo visitor is alone...
...It is the rule of force and violence--terribly dangerous and absolutely lawless...
...Ramsey Clark maunders to fellow cellmates on flagitious Amerika's continuing victimization of the noble Iranian: From the moment the hostages were taken, President Carter seemed to need to show the American people that he was strong, decisive, fully capable of dictating the terms for the release of the hostages...
...It is unthinkable that a constitutional government could empower the chief executive to engage in worldwide police actions at his whim...
...And so one might summarize the felt, but not necessarily expressed question of mosf visitors as: Why are these animals less than I believed...
...As frequent as the calls of animals in the zoo are the cries of children demanding: Where is he...
...Such a Pretty Face: Being Fat in America Marcia Millman [Norton, 1980] The New Republic Musings of a sociological and economic nature prosily put by Miss Anne Colamosca, a writer boldly living at progressive America's cutting edge: If Milton Friedman were a 30-ish female academic struggling to get tenure, raise a kid, and run a household, he might begin to understand that the free market does not automatically rise to the occasion . . . . The thought of a harried Professor Friedman rocking a slobbering baby on one knee, mixing the ingredients for a Scarsdale poached fish natalia for the evening guests, and worrying over an afternoon lecture on the Federal Reserve system is comforting, but unfortunately he does not have to cope with free-market malfunctions on such a personal level_9 But a genuine problem exists and is growing...
...It was as "humanitarian" as attempted murder...
...The military expedition that President Carter ordered violated international law and endangered the hope for peace...
...And in English, yet...
...And think of the example that would have been st:r fur the whole world: think of the relief at no longer having to bluster and sabre-rattle and save face...
...The expedition was apparently prepared to kill people in another nation, whoever got in the way...
...This is what every terrorist knows...
...June 21, 1980] The New York Times On the incomparable op-ed page of the incomparable New York Times, Kremlinologist and composer Leonard B e r n s t e i n - - e n h a l o e d and ablaze with his s e m p i t e r n a l i d i o t s m i l e - - rises before us and throws up a boldly reasoned scenario as to what might happen were some g e n i u s o f an American president immediately to b o a r d up t h e Pentagon and unilaterally disarm: What is your first thought...
...All sites of enforced marginalization-ghettos, shanty towns, prisons, madhouses, concentration camps--have something in common with zoos...
...Besides, who is the Soviet Union--its leaders, its army, or its people...
...But it is both too easy and too evasive to use the zoo as a symbol...
...Now keep the fantasy going: the Russian peop/e certainly don't want v,a~: they have suffered far too much...
...Two of the five were doctors...
...They look sideways...
...Each aggressive act imperi!ed the hostages and serves to prolong their confinement...
...9 . . A lot of thin people are poor comforters of themselves...
...The animals seldom live up to the adults' memories, while to the children they appear, for the most part, unexpectedly lethargic and dull...
...Therein lies the ultimate consequence of their marginalization...
...anti ,t is more likely that they would displace their warlike leaders, and transform their Union of Socialist Republics into a truly democratic union...
...With each of President Carter's belligerent acts, threats and refusals to negot i a t e - a n d this can be easily and fully documented if necessary--the Iranians became more intransigent . . . . Each aggressive act by the United States hardened Iranian defiance...
...June I0, 1980] THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR AUGUST 1980 45...
Vol. 13 • August 1980 • No. 8
