it's tempting to let the political storms rage on their own, to stay out of it, to let the crazies tire themselves before moving on.
so many of them are fronts to sow discord, to pit us against one another, to generate enough smoke that what really matters can be obscured.
sunday mornings honor thoughtfulness, whether you find your inspiration in scripture or newspapers, literature or film. it's when i most miss the kinds of shaggy conversations my parents excelled at, both natural and lifelong teachers who valued rhetoric and logic, poetry and passion, and could talk for hours about the lessons of history and civilization.
if latin -- which was called a "dead language" before its surprise return to high schools -- and the proudly low-tech game of chess can be rediscovered by the young, is it crazy to hope that debate teams could return as well? we have never needed them more, to bring back the art of weighing ideas on their merits, to understand that moral high ground is not the same as real estate. it does not belong to whoever shouts the loudest or pays the most. everything isn't relative.
two of the voices i came across this morning said what i was thinking far more persuasively than i could. i'm grateful for their voices.
opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/real-americans-please-stand-up/?src=me&ref=homepage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPPxBrtrH1c&feature=player_embedded
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