Speaking Ill of the Ted

The last of the Kennedy dynasty / disease has passed from view, except for the endless retrospectives on various news shows and cable "history" channels. I told myself that I would refrain from comment, but given the outpouring of pure hyperbole, hysteria, and nonsense on this most dear of topics to Americans, how can I?

First, there is the irony, dear to my heart, in the death not only of the last of Joe & Rose's sons, but of his ambitions for them. The lust for power at any price has ended in dust, more graphically than in any case since the end of World War II. This is as it should be; such a family always represents danger to a republic, and I like to imagine that I still live in one.

Then there is the sordid exemplar of the myth that any boy can succeed to high office in the United States- despite the most egregious bad character imaginable, in a career fueled (and kept alive) by the application of periodic applications of the family fortune and political influence.
If we need to look to Ted Kennedy in his passing as any sort of accomplished politician, then it is indeed a measure of how far we've sunk, and how crowded our national life is with politicians- and how void of statesmanship.

Still- Requiescat in pace, if only so the whole sorry business his life and times may be forgotten as quickly as possible. I intend to try.

{Note: After reviewing the above post, it may well be that my original motivation -that I needed to do another post before August passed from view- was the only worthy one. Nevertheless, I'll let it stand.}

Rocky Observations

Having had occasion to spend the better part of a week in the environs of Boulder, CO and visits to a few locations in the Front Range of the Rockies, I have formed several opinions of this area:

1. We had a vastly enjoyable visit with our daughter; visiting her in her home was too long in coming.

2. Boulder, CO, despite the culture of tanned outdoorsy people busily walking, jogging, running, and biking (waiting, I gather, for skiing season), is basically an annoying university town filled with far too many entitled, self-important white people who are constantly looking to see who's looking- at them.

3. Colorado itself appears to provide just another huddle of human beings in the middle of the Wide Open Spaces. They either huddle in the cities, or huddle in the resorts and tourist traps, or huddle in the parking lots (amazingly crowded, for the middle of nowhere), and even the trails are somehow a group activity. At the risk of becoming discursive (a risk I am always prepared to take), the open spaces, or wastes -and despite the spectacular scenery, that is what a good bit of Colorado IS- have always been places of solitude, places for human beings to find themselves, or God, in reflections of nature. Nature in great big doses exists most emphatically in Colorado; of solitude I felt not the slightest trace.

4. As something of a postscript, if you are a-pining for the maximum amount of fragmented and thoughtless Green- or eco- babble....well, let's just say you won't be disappointed.