This Witch’s Brewing
So many aspects of my life are in the air right now. It’s not my way to share such details online but suffice it to say I’m living in Destabilization Nation, and my back knew this upheaval was on the horizon long before my conscious self could tolerate such information. If I’m quiet–and I really have been–it’s because I don’t have much that’s nice to say and I know these problems are mine alone to solve. Only one thing is really conferring joy, and it’s writing the book I’ve been afraid to write ever since I became a grownup (which was 40 years or 4 months ago, depending on who you are talking to). I pray for the temerity to finish it and the providence to find it many homes. Writing something big and personal is like tunneling in the darkest of mud with no guarantee of light to come. The hope remains, though, and the existence of that hope gives me more hope. Experience has taught me that my dreams come from a source that I can trust more than anything around me. It’s the biggest love, the one we all share–the one to share. Really, that’s our only job.
‘The Best of Enemies,’ the Worst of TV
If it’s hard to imagine that there once were only three television networks, it’s not hard to imagine that ratings were abysmal for their political coverage; disengagement has been the American Way for as long as this ’70s baby can recall. In 1968, even as public division around the Vietnam War reached its boiling point, ABC news executives were in such a panic about low audience numbers that they scheduled ten nightly televised debates between conservative commentator and National Review founder William F. Buckley Jr. and essayist and novelist Gore Vidal to dovetail with the Democratic and Republican conventions. In their documentary, “The Best of Enemies,” directors Morgan Neville and Robert Gordon take an eagle-eyed look at those legendary events, including the cultural climate that spawned them and their unfortunate legacy in contemporary public discourse. Continue Reading →
