Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Oh, no ...

... Here's a really Right-wing idea: learn poetry. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I have no idea what the English think of him - he won an election, so enough must think reasonably well of him - but I can't think of a single American politician remotely as interesting as Boris Johnson.

6 comments:

  1. "This organ has long maintained that posterity will view Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, to have been the greatest statesman of this or any other age. That aside, his weekly column in the Daily Torygraph is well worth reading . . ."--Henry Gee, "Boris Johnson, Master of Scientific Metaphor,"I, Editor, Tuesday, 03 Mar ch 2009.

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  2. I can't say for sure, of course, but I've always gotten the impression that the British look at Boris Johnson as a cute puppy who they don't take entirely seriously but who they like because he's adorable.

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  3. LOL. FDL? When I first read your comment, my eye read "orgasm," FYI :) . . . Guess seeing the name of the dad of the girrafegrrl did it . . .

    Frank, he's cuter than a puppy, IMO. Intelligent and sensitive, women love him! (I like him.)

    But, hey, what about Blago? I know he's infamous as opposed to famous, so to speak; but, he's certainly interesting, in a prurient kind of way. He's also adorable as a pitbull. (You must mean living politicons, though, eh? 'Cause I'd vote JFK.)

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  4. Anonymous8:51 PM

    He has real intelligence and he took Classics, which i think is an excellent preparation for life. He seems unable to consistently censor himself so he comes out with some wonderful blunders. He went down in my esteem somewhat after becoming Mayor, when he suddenly did an about-face on Islam, proclaiming it a 'religion of peace' etc., etc.

    Still, an interesting man.

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  5. Blago, I'm afraid, Judith, is a garden variety pol, perhaps a little dumber than some (though the competition in that regard is quite stiff). What I mean is someone who actually does have a mind to have a life with. JFK did to some extent. Reagan's letters indicate that he definitely did (but he was someone who kept very much to himself). Boris Johnson obviously did write the piece I linked to. It didn't just has his byline attached. I met William Hague some years ago, the former Conservative leader. No American politician of that intellectual caliber comes readily to mind.

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  6. Totally agree, Frank. Seems a part of the job descrip for anyone in the bizthness of politics, anymore. Image dominates. Handlers call the shots. Leaders flatline in terms of individuality because they best appeal to LCD (or Lowest-Common-Denominator Dynamics); the bland leading the bland proliferates.

    Politics and entertainment are nearly indistinguishable. Four of our previous PMs actually star in a reality-TV programme here; I think it's called Who Wants to Be A Primillionaire or something; but, for this (and many other) reason/s, I wish McLuhan was alive since I think he'd have much to say about reality TV. He invented the concept, after all (with the creator of Gilligan's Island, BION. (Damn, dead-brain cells, Schwartz? I think he was a guy called Schwartz.) Show called The New People. Got yanked after four eps.

    Funny, McLuhan said he believed by 1980, a four-year stint in the White House would most closely resemble a four-year Hollywood contract (paraphrastically speaking here). Reagan, whom you ID, moved into the Oval Office that year, IIRC. He did have personality; but, then, so did Maggie "TINA" Thatcher.

    I'm with Guy Debord when it comes to all of this. When he inked Society of the Spectacle, synchronistically, our PM was Trudeau; and, he seems to be closest to your JFK in terms of possessing flair, panache, and a solid sense there was a thinking man beyond the red-rosed suit.

    It's been proven, apparently, that the taller person wins most political races, for example. (So, I'd lose big muchly, all five-foot shortie of me.)

    Debord wrote, in '67, the most important statement concerning all of this:

    The society whose modernisation has reached the stage of integrated spectacle is characterised by the combined effect of five principal factors: incessant technological renewal, integration of state and economy, generalised secrecy, unanswerable lies, and eternal present . . .
    — Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle (Zone)

    A different kind of Hunter S. figure, one who drank too much, wrote too little, and put himself out of his misery with the business end of gun. His obitrib in The Utne Reader really impressed me. Talk glow-job to the Nth degree; one wouldn't be faulted for thinking G-D was some kind of spectac minor deity :) . . .

    Have been trying to think, historically, who did have a good mind and compelling way of communicating with his / her subjects / citizens; and, invariably, I end up in bloody corridors with all sorts of shady dealers and wheelers. In that respect, elberry's correct. Boris (and, I do feel comfortable calling him Boris) is compellingly interesting; plus, he walks a fine line between being branded a renegade and all-right dynamite. I do like him and what he's doing; he's human (or, at least, gives that impression; but, who really knows?).

    Our current PM's a cardboard cut-out figure, right down to his perfectly coiffed hair (or up to it, I guess); the leader of the opposition's not much better, also a kind of rugged intellectual pretty boy; and, Gordon Brown's got the same kind of blanketty look on him. I didn't mind Tony Blair; but, I did mind Nixon (who liked dogs and hated Sesame Street, ICK!).

    Yeah, Boris is the genuine article; was a journo before he took up his current position. Love the idea he donates the proceeds of it to various charities. I think that's really lovely and speaks to a connection with the RW not many "leaders" can claim these glaze-haze daze. Just my deux. But, at least he's kinda real, unlike most of 'em who can't even own a Blackbury (sp?) without consulting with a joint-commission inquiry with the Mother Ship. The cost of doing bizthness; and, yeah, I do think of Lily Tomlin's idea concerning the problem with the rat race: "Even if you win, you're still a rat."

    (Can't top that splat; plus, there you go: Blago abso-deffo provides ample proof of precisely that.)

    Yay! Spring just arrived. Time to go skinny dipping in Lake Wilson (which is jes' down the road, just past the Distress River). Happy Sringing!

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