21 November 2008 
How President Bush can save his legacy
President Bush is not a popular man these days. If his approval ratings fall any lower, they might be mistaken for the current Dow Jones Industrial Average. The lamest of ducks at this point in his career, a turkey might be the only way for him to salvage his legacy.
Every year, the president is presented with the National Thanksgiving Turkey. And every year since 1989 — when the Bush’s father granted a stay to the national bird — a turkey has been pardoned by our commander-in-chief.
Now is the time for George W. to differentiate himself. Don’t grant the pardon. Eat the bird.
Pardons in the waning days of an administration are the stuff of Bill Clinton, not George W. Bush. It would be a final, Machiavellian exercise in strategery. Sure, PETA would cry foul (or fowl?), but he’ll likely never win their hearts anyway.
There will be a whole host of turkeys headed to Washington in the coming days, many of whom will undoubtedly require post-tenure pardon by the Obama administration. This Thanksgiving, it’s time for the president to make his mark upon history by returning to the great American tradition of eating turkeys — there will be plenty to pardon later.
8 October 2008
The end of the world as we know it
What would the world be like without humans?
If a recent special on the National Geographic Channel is correct, it would be much better off. “Aftermath: Population Zero” takes a hypothetical look (and I emphasize the hypo) at what would happen should every human on the planet suddenly disappear. From the show’s description:
This is the astounding story of a world we will never see. A world without people, where city streets are still populated by cars, but without drivers. Nobody to fix bridges, repair buildings or maintain power plants. After being controlled by humanity for millennia, nature reclaims the earth. But how would that work? How long would skyscrapers, nuclear power plants, and our homes last if abandoned? How would wild and domestic animals fare without us? Will the Eiffel Tower outlast the Statue of Liberty? Aftermath: Population Zero gives us a chance to see the impact of human beings by seeing how Earth would adapt without us.
It’s a concept that could be very interesting — a philosophical pause on an I Am Legend scenario that shows us how humans really are the pinnacle of creation. It could be interesting, except for the one thing “Aftermath” forgets: humans are a part of nature.
Following a textbook environmentalist script, the show postulates how our nuclear power plants, suddenly unmanned, will explode and cause mass devastation upon the world — we apparently can’t stop tearing stuff up even after we’ve left the building.
Not to fear, the planet soon heals itself and recovers just fine without us. Even the “green” movement gets a boost without those pesky people to interfere. As the narrator observers, “Manhattan turns from gray to green.” And as the Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty finally crumble after a millennium, we learn that it’s all just part of how “nature is reclaiming the world, city by city.”
All documentaries, even the speculative ones like “Aftermath” — have a moral at the end of the story. It’s the take-away message that we’ve all learned from what we’ve just seen. As nearly all traces of human existence are wiped out, our narrator encourages us with the fact that “earth is resilient — in time, it cleaned up every mess we made — all we had to do was get out of the way.”
24 September 2008
Introducing the 2008 Chevy Corvair
Parade of the also-rans:
Ralph Nader
Just when I thought the race was down to two candidates, I realized that I had left out the perennial Ralph Nader. That’s right, get ready for lots of ballot counting, because Nader has swung into the race faster than an unsafe car to once again capture the heart of the disaffected voter.
Nader is not threatened by fellow also-ran Mike Gravel. He’s willing to take on the erstwhile Alaskan for the title of weirdest campaign video. If Gravel can stir up the avant-garde in each of us by staring down a camera, Ralph Nader’s conversation with a parrot can lead us to presidential sanity:
Looks like the Nader campaign is unsafe at any speed…
[This post is fifth in a series on the other 2008 presidential candidates called "Parade of the also-rans." See the whole series here.]
23 September 2008
Hating the Gators from the west
All tied up with GodBlogCon/BlogWorld in Las Vegas, this was the first Tennessee-Florida game I’ve not watched in a decade, and it’s just as well. Apparently it was all I expected and more. Last year, I predicted that the massive defeat to the Gators marked the end of the Phil Fulmer era. Premature, perhaps, but I stand by that statement.
Come on Phil, isn’t it about time to “spend more time with your family?”
Sigh.
GodBlogCon 2008
Just returned yesterday from GodBlogCon 2008 in Las Vegas. It’s a funny name for a conference, but nomenclature aside, it lived up to its reputation as the premiere conference for Christian bloggers. Conference organizer Dustin Steeve and his crack squad from the Biola’s Torrey Honors program ran an excellent show, and made a great first impression on this first-timer.
I’ve seldom attended a conference that offered such a combination of challenge, community, and camaraderie. If you missed it, you can listen to all the speakers at The Scriptorium Daily.
I’d tell you what else happened in Vegas, but you know the saying…
7 September 2008
Better off in 2008
Commenting today on John McCain’s “We’re worse off than we were four years ago” ad, George Will observes that the question of being better off should be quantified in terms of more than one’s pocket book:
Unfortunately, the phrase “better off” is generally understood as a reference to your salary, your bank balance, your IRA and the like. But wait. Are you better off being four years older? That depends.
If you are young, since 2004 you might have found romance, had children, learned to fly-fish and become a Tampa Bay Rays fan. In which case you emphatically are better off, even if since 2004 there has been only a 0.6 percent increase — yes, increase — in the median value of single-family homes.
If you are near “the sear, the yellow leaf” of life, in the past four years your expected remaining years of life have declined. But that does not mean you cannot be better off.
Read the whole thing. It’s George Will at his best.
As someone who has two more children than he did four years ago, I’m certainly better off. In an election year we must not forget that our prosperity most often has less to do with presidents than it does providence.
2 September 2008
Junior League
In football, experience can make or break you. The fact that Tennessee had a young, inexperienced team this year was no surprise. The fact that they were inexperienced enough to lose to a UCLA team that played like a mediocre high school squad was more a disappointment than a surprise.
There were holes all around, undoubtedly camouflaged by Bruin QB Kevin Craft’s 4 interceptions in the first half. Foster’s crucial fumble, missed field goals, and missing players. Crompton looked rough, but in all fairness didn’t have much help. The Vol offensive line — the one aspect of the Tennessee team that had experience — handled UCLA’s blitz as effectively as a screen door on a submarine.
On the bright side, overtime offers some extra experience, right? Ughh.
27 August 2008
Summer hibernation
Bears hibernate in winter; bloggers hibernate in summer.
Contrary to popular belief, I have not been:
- competing in the Olympics as a stealth athlete
- attending the DNC as a superdelegate
- catching state record channel catfish with a Barbie rod & reel
I have been:
- working like a dog
- pseudo-exploring obscure shipwrecks in the Outer Banks
- riding my restored 20 year-old bike with a little bit heavier load
- reading some good books
Now that the weather’s getting uncharacteristically cooler (in August!), does this mean hibernation is over?
Perhaps some posting in the days to come…
7 July 2008
Nonfailure is not an option
Writing on the nature of our cultural mood, Marilynne Robinson contrasts a time when “meaning had a larger frame and context than this life in this world,” to what our civilization aims for today:
I think the true name for what we aspire to is nonfailure. Most of those who are household names in this strange time are objects of horror or derision, a fact which in many instances reflects our need rather than their deserving. My son came home from school once staggered by a discussion of Abraham Lincoln, whom he revered. None of the other students would be persuaded that Lincoln went into politics for anything but the money. The grandeur of his speeches merely proved the depth of his cynicism. In the same way, we can refuse evidence of actual merit, and we can discredit seriousness, and we can feel morally acute while we do it. Our defenses against real success are invulnerable. Our hostility to success of every kind is demonstrated afresh every day.
But nonfailure is another thing. Income and credit shrewdly managed, desiderata learned from the better shops of catalogs and systematically acquired — for better and for worse, this is not much to aspire to. It is because our hopes are in fact so very modest that we can be made to fear another teenager with a baby might snatch them all away. It is because we hope to acquire rather than to achieve — in the old language of religion, to receive rather than to give — that the good we imagine can truly be taken from our hands.
The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought, “Reality,” pp. 84-85
This is a good observation because it touches on the mediocrity that is — more often than not — more popular today than true excellence. Excellence seems so often unattainable that the purveyors of low culture win the day because it’s something which people see within reach.
Thus, we end up with “reality shows” setting the tone for our national discussions, and “not getting kicked off the island” as the hallmark of success.
6 July 2008
Now hiring
If you’re web-savvy, politically pro-family, and looking for a job in the Washington, D.C. area, Family Research Council is now hiring for the position of Web Editor:
The Web Editor serves as the editing and preparation channel through which all publications, papers, and communications from all FRC departments are funneled for the most effective presentation on FRC website. With assistance and expertise of information technology staff, insures posting, revision, and arrangement of material on website. The incumbent works to enhance FRC’s Internet presence and image as a public policy research, education, and advocacy organization.
See here for more details, and please pass along if you know of anyone else who might be interested.
Welcome
Welcome to TruePravda, an eclectic hive of commentary, opinion, & general mischief from the pen of Jared Bridges.
On The Side
The ‘Trophy Kids’ Go to Work: “For this generation, work is not a place you go; work is a thing you do…”
Princeton prof Robert P. George takes Obama’s abortion extremism to task.
Oxymorons for Obama: My friend Tom McClusky takes a closer look at what some of Obama’s more unlikely supporters might be missing.
Touchstone’s Anthony Esolen gives us a quite profound — and amusing — list of rules for finding whom to marry, and whom to not.
Is pornography adultery? Ross Douthat thinks it might be closer than you think.
What would your name would be if you had Sarah Palin as a mom? With the Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator, you can find out.
Michael Gerson on a civil rights breakthrough from an unexpected source — Trig Palin.
Here & There:
Blogs of Renown:
- Acton PowerBlog
- Albert Mohler
- Anti-Climacus
- Antioch Road
- Between Two Worlds
- Challies Dot Com
- Charles Halton
- Crunchy Con
- Evangelical Outpost
- Founders Blog
- Gideon Strauss
- In The Agora
- J. Mark Bertrand
- Jollyblogger
- Matt Hall
- Mere Comments
- Mere Orthodoxy
- Pyromaniacs
- Rabe Ramblings
- Randy Thomas
- Reasoned Audacity
- Robert Bluey
- Said at Southern
- Scattered and Covered
- Scriptorium Daily
- The Conservative Intelligencer
- The Point
- Tulip Girl
- Words
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