Ossobucco & Bill Buckley's Heir, Or Lack Thereof

It snowed last night, here in Urbana. Piper and I have errands to run this afternoon. Last night's dinner was a very fine Ossobucco, with lots of carrots, peach wine, and tomato paste. Very tasty. We had it with some german noodles. Tonight I will do the fish I was going to do yesterday. I have a recipe from a book of domestic french recipes, which is essentially broiling the fish with a coating of breadcrumbs and paremsan cheese. Nothing too extreme there. I've thought about toasting some white corn tortillas and doing a fruit salsa (mangos and peaches). I think that would go well.

I sent an email to Jonah Goldberg who runs the National Review these days. He's been critical of Juan Cole lately, and I've seen quite a bit of the give and take on this. The problem with the rightwingers is always the same: they won't engage the facts. They won't actually argue. They just create a reality in which their position is the only possible one and they exclude all actual data that doesn't support it. So I emailed this guy and said why don't you actually argue the points with Cole? That might actually help this country. And he replied (and I quote) "yawn". And that is what is wrong here. He has no respect for me. I read him and actually paid attention to his points and went back and looked at Cole's rebuttals. Until we actually have dialogue there is only one direction we can go as a culture, and that is away from democracy.

These guys talk about democracy and the constitution and freedom, but they actually don't give a crap about those things. They are all about winning. And winning isn't actually the best way to run a culture. It may even prove to be the worst way.

But, like my acquiantance Bryan, Mr. Goldberg isn't actually interested in any opinion, or the facts that support it, that isn't his opinion and/or the opinion of the people who make him an important and successful member of the new american reich.