Sunday, October 16, 2005

Magical thinking

"Didion has always juxtaposed the hardware and the soft: hummingbirds and the FBI; nightmares of infant death and the dawn light for a Pacific bomb test; disposable needles in a Snoopy wastebasket and the cost of a visa to leave Phnom Penh; four year olds in burning cars, rattlesnakes in playpens, earthquakes, tidle waves and Patty Hearst.

The daughter of conservative Republicans who...voted 'ardently' for Barry Goldwater in 1964 [describes] the abduction of American democracy by a permanent political class, an oligarchy consisting of not only the best candidates big money can buy, their focus groups, advance teams, donor bases, and consultants, but also the journalists who cover the prefab story, the pundit caste of smogball sermonizers, the spayed creatures of the talkshow ether, and aparatchiks in it for career advancement, agenda enhancement, a book contract, or a coup d'etat".

- John Leonard, The Black Album.

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