Nancy Pelosi Steps into the Fire

Just heard her first post-caucus leadership address to the media . . .here’s what struck me, about what she said and how she said it:

a) She isn’t comfortable with public spiritual-speak but apparently feels she needs to use it, so it rings false — she said her parents were “looking down from up there” (if she couldn’t even say “heaven” why not simply say “they are with me” or some other variation?) and then later she stumbled to backtrack into a “church” reference: “as we say in church, let there be healing and let it begin with us” (??)

That’s not what anybody says, in church or otherwise, is it?

b) She annoyed me right off the bat, by blowing off being the first “woman” speaker –which I nodded to, figuring she’d follow up with saying she planned to be everybody’s speaker, for principles beyond gender/ sex. The Speaker represents the whole house and all the people, not just her party.

But no! She said PARTY was more important than being a woman — she’s delighted to be a Democratic speaker, not a woman speaker. Ruined the whole thing, at least for me (as a woman) who thinks party politics obstruct rather than advance principles and progress for all Americans. And it sure made the healing unity message that followed ring false!

Shouldn’t she be better at this by now? Of course she had just suffered a loss of face, but still . . . that’s politics. Oh well, I’ll think more about it, this is just my instant impression. Anyone else see her differently today?

UPDATE: NYT’s take on it:

The speaker is the party’s top figure in the House, but that position also carries a broader role as a constitutional officer charged with representing the interests of the full chamber.

Some Democrats said . . . many lawmakers had concluded that the best chance of limiting any bitterness was to install Mr. Hoyer and, in effect, save Ms. Pelosi from

Why Society Defends School

With conventionality, no one has to anxiously block experiences or invent rationalizations. The problems remain unconscious (ignored) because they have become a part of the social background.

Whenever we feel that something must be the way it is, or that it is only natural or rational, when we say that of course we must have war, or of course there have to be rich and poor, or of course this must be forbidden and that absolutely required, we may be facing a society-wide defense!

Facing Down Doctors and Dragons

Have YOU intelligence and courage enough for the study of dragons? Enough even to believe and be curious, for a start?

Dragonology: The Dragon’s Eye
By Dugald A. Steer

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Your father suggested that you might like to stay with Uncle Algernon, but we have talked things over and decided that it is time for you to get to know our old friend Dr. Ernest Drake. He has a house in Sussex and a little shop in London that he keeps as a sort of hobby. I have asked him to meet you at Waterloo if he can. If for any reason he is not there to meet you, you can find his shop quite easily by going to Trafalgar Square and walking up St. Martin’s Lane until you see a street called Wyvern Way. You can’t miss the shop because there is a large sign with his name on it hanging above the door.

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“The scientific study of dragons requires intelligence and courage above all else, as young dragonologists find out soon enough.”

—Dr. Drake’s Dragon Diary, January 1842

 

In July of 1882, I was twelve years old and had never heard of Dr. Ernest Drake. I had certainly never met a dragon . . . This was the second summer that our parents had failed to meet us on short notice. The year before, there had been another mysterious emergency that had seen us packed off to Uncle Algernon’s. Life there had been so monotonous that I had been almost glad to get back to boarding school.

“Who’s Dr. Drake?” I asked.

“Don’t you remember him?” said Beatrice. “He came to visit us when Father was ill. He has an enormous moustache that gets soup in it. All he ever talks about is dragons. Uncle Algernon told me that he has dangerous ideas and that we shouldn’t listen to people like him if we want to grow up to be intelligent members of society.“

I didn’t remember clearly. I had a vague impression of a jolly man with a big moustache coming to stay with us when I was five. I remembered pretending to be an iguanodon and chasing him round the garden while he laughed. But I had no idea his name was Drake.

“Is he a real doctor?” I asked.

“No,” said Beatrice. “I think he’s a dragocologist or something. But I’m sure he got Father the job in India. I hate him.“

“At least he sounds better than Uncle Algernon,” I said.

We looked round the station. There were a lot of porters carrying luggage and people hurrying to catch trains, but no men with enormous moustaches, apart from a couple of guards.

“You see,” said Beatrice after we had been waiting for an hour. “He hasn’t even bothered to turn up and meet us. I expect he’s too busy with his dragons.”

“Does he really know about them?” I asked.

Beatrice laughed. “No one really knows about dragons, Daniel. They don’t exist.“