
That Should Be Considered a Problem

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“Finally, after repeating several phrases unnecessarily (the sermonic equivalent of blinking fuel gauge), John decided that he had to wrap up. He didn’t feel any better. He felt like he had just tried to give a tar baby a bath in vegetable oil. Lester didn’t look any cleaner, and John just felt gunked.”
“Chad Lester was appalled by this dishonesty, as only a dishonest man can be. For those who have never seen this phenomenon in action, he was the kind of man who was entirely unaccustomed to looking at lies from this end of the barrel. He was now counting the rounds in their chambers. He could see their pointed, silvery tips. He licked his lips.”
Introduction: So the Iranian general Suleimani was taken out by an American missile a few days ago, and this has resulted in a good deal of agitated discussion. And there is a pressing temptation, whenever things like this are done, for all the participants in our public life to default to their factory settings. Conservatives …
“His sentence rolled to a stop against the wall and just sat there, abandoned.”
Letter to the Editor: The article at this link is a case in point to your argument in "Suppose for Just a Moment That Trump Takes It Walking Away": The process has already begun. ...
“This was not because Cindi did not know how to handle her cousin Cherie, but rather because her husband was better than she was at deciphering code whenever Cherie was hysterical. And Cherie, on the other end, was speaking something like high-volume Navajo under stress.”
Introduction: We do not yet know if this is what will happen, but we should at least know that this is what we should be bracing for. I know, it is almost a year until the voting in the general election happens, and I also know that these months could be a political eternity. All …
A symposium in Hollywood took a surprising turn yesterday, when a panel of experts spent about ten minutes bashing the evangelical film “industry.” Since the normal pattern for Hollywood insiders is to refuse even to acknowledge the existence of any such industry, observers took careful note of what was said. The discussion began with a …
“John was mildly irritated, not at Cindi, but with that special kind of vaguely aimed irritation that we for ourselves when in the presence of people who are being correct in our direction.”