Miscellany

[elfs]

In no particular order.

I'm fighting a head cold. So far it has manifested as a sore throat, but this evening my allergies kicked on and no amount of drugs seems to be holding back the tide. My sinuses are clogged and I feel awful.

I wrote another 2,400 words in the past two days, completing episode two of a five episode Journal Entry arc. Omaha's right; I'm in a rut. It's not my best work, but at least I'm writing again. I also wrote the first 800 words of a Valentine's Day Special Episode (but not a "very special episode"), which was mostly sparked by some amusing dialog with a friend of mine.

Omaha and I were discussing this picture of George W. Bush on inauguration day, and the feelings he must have been having knowing he was going to go down as a tragic president, one of the worst, and that he was about to stand on stage and face the rebuke of the American people and his successor. Kouryou-chan asked if we thought he was such a bad president, and Omaha and I agreed that yes, more or less, he was certainly one of the most incompetent and fundamentally wrong-headed men to hold that office, and that most Americans agreed with this assessment. "And yet," Kouryou-chan said, fluttering her eyelashes with innocence, "I can't help but feel a pang of pity for him."

Okay, who raised this kid?

Comments

[gromm.livejournal.com]

While that picture *does* suggest just what they're saying on boingboing, it's also just as likely that, as a candid photo of a moment caught off guard, he was saying "What was that?" to some reporter or other person off camera.

I've had pictures taken of me that look equally as bad. Usually when I was talking to the person behind the camera.

See also tabloid photos where the reporters spread unfounded rumours of impending divorces or murder-suicides.

In every exit interview I've seen where he's been asked "do you have any regrets" (and there were many such interviews!) he's been as unrepentant as ever. There's no doubt in my mind that he's been dismissing every bit of damning criticism out of hand since he took office.

(pardon me, I'm just wandering through LJ)

[dornbeast.livejournal.com]

I think you're giving W too much credit. He's never shown any sign of being introspective before this. For all I know, his last speech was written so he could look like somebody who actually took the time to see if he'd made a mistake, and he was reading it without actually believing any of it. ("Just read this, it'll play well in Peoria.")

I don't like him, because he wasn't Presidential material. At the same time, I pity him a little, because he wasn't smart enough to realize he was going to be in over his head.

Kouryou-chan sounds like somebody who has learned to see people as people. Not a heartless conservative, or an idiot President, but a man in over his head, who wasn't smart enough to realize it, and will be remembered as the man who delivered on a speech he never made, one that was intended to be a joke. (http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28784) A man who, in the end, trusted the wrong people and didn't know how to get honest opinions.

[shunra.livejournal.com]

It seems to me that the people who raised that kid did a very good job of instilling compassion into her.

Nuances are appropriate for a later age: moral ambiguity is not an attribute of most under-teens. I would count compassion even for someone as horrible as Bush - when he is portrayed as hurting - to be a parental success.

I'd want compassion in prison guards, too. Even the ones who guard the worst criminals. Resolute prosecution of wrongdoers does not require vindictiveness.

[amythis.livejournal.com]

Heh, my first thought was She's read the Harry Potter series and understands that even villains have human sides. (No, I'm not saying Bush is Voldemort, I'm saying if even Voldemort can be pitied, then....)

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

To me he looks more petulant than sad. Kinda like a kid who's just been told he can't have something.