Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Ambling
Sutton Library have had stacks of books for sale on both occasions in the last few months that we have paid them a visit. All spread out in a rough and ready way in a bunch of carrels. A lot of popular fiction but with a few nuggets lurking amongst them.
One such 50p nugget was 'Ambling into History' by Frank Bruni, being mainly a portrait of former President Bush the younger, a portrait mainly derived from the author's assignment to the press team covering the first Bush presidential campaign. But also a commentary on such campaigns in general, a commentary which makes one wonder again whether the way in which we organise the election of our leaders is likely to result in good leaders. Bearing in the mind that the answer no is not a solution to the problem; no is not a prescription for some better way of doing things.
Bush emerges from the portrait as a more complex phenomenon than he went in. While there were a few blots on his record and he not a clever clogs in the way of a Blair or a Clinton, the man was no slouch. For example, both he and his (popular) wife appear to be serious readers. And his presidential campaign was a very tightly organised operation, assiduously cultivating his image as a man of the people, of the people and down among the people. An act which he pulled off far better than many others. He managed to appear with representatives of pretty much every minority and special interest group - other than those obviously a bit commie. He worked the fact that he could speak a bit of Spanish. He managed to say very little about tricky issues, sticking to homespun observations about the importance of the family.
The man of the people thing was a good way of turning his risky penchant for loose, chatty and jokey talk to good advantage. He managed to make a virtue of not turning in the kind of virtuoso performances of the Blairs and Clintons. He was just himself while they were just puffed up fakes. How could you possibly know where their real men were? He managed to make a virtue of not being that keen; he carried on taking his time out come hell or high water. Not being that keen is something that I like, finding the greed and lack of scruple or constraint with which our politicians hang on to power rather distasteful.
I was amused that he spent much of the time while seeking nomination fighting off challenges from the right. Trying to be be more right and more holy than they were. But once he was seeking election he had to fight his way back to the middle ground occupied by a large proportion of the electorate. Without giving it much thought, I suppose this is much the same as what happens in our own Labour Party.
I was also amused by the fact that while he spent so much time cultivating his image as the salt of the Texan earth and loved wearing a stetson, the family palace was in Kennebunkport in Maine. Just where all the rich wasps whom he affected to despise had theirs. And, as it happens, not far from where the Canadian branch of my family took their trailer for their holidays.
Some of the wondering about the way campaigns are organised came from incidents which Bruni relates, which were pretty much trivial in themselves but which the campaign teams and the press whipped up out of all proportion. To the point where the froth became the story. Where the way that a campaign team handled this white hot froth was an important indicator of how their candidate might one day handle an issue for real. But maybe a story which was only read by campaign and media types. The rest of us, while munching on our breakfasts, just glanced idly at it before moving onto the next preacher who had had his hand up a skirt or the next dog which had bitten a man.
PS: there is now some doubt in my mind as to the meaning of the word carrel. I had thought it was the sort of specialised trolley used in libraries to hold books in transit. Usually about three feet long, three feet high, two sided with perhaps three shelves to a side. One might use one at home to hold the books one happened to be using at the time. But Wikipedia alleges that they are a sort of high sided study cubicle, designed to allow private study in an otherwise private space. The precursor of the sort of thing that you get in some open plan offices. And OED says that it is an obsolete (obsolete that is in 1893) word for a sort of unspecified fabric which gets the occasional mention in books of the 16th and 17th centuries. So I don't know any more.
One such 50p nugget was 'Ambling into History' by Frank Bruni, being mainly a portrait of former President Bush the younger, a portrait mainly derived from the author's assignment to the press team covering the first Bush presidential campaign. But also a commentary on such campaigns in general, a commentary which makes one wonder again whether the way in which we organise the election of our leaders is likely to result in good leaders. Bearing in the mind that the answer no is not a solution to the problem; no is not a prescription for some better way of doing things.
Bush emerges from the portrait as a more complex phenomenon than he went in. While there were a few blots on his record and he not a clever clogs in the way of a Blair or a Clinton, the man was no slouch. For example, both he and his (popular) wife appear to be serious readers. And his presidential campaign was a very tightly organised operation, assiduously cultivating his image as a man of the people, of the people and down among the people. An act which he pulled off far better than many others. He managed to appear with representatives of pretty much every minority and special interest group - other than those obviously a bit commie. He worked the fact that he could speak a bit of Spanish. He managed to say very little about tricky issues, sticking to homespun observations about the importance of the family.
The man of the people thing was a good way of turning his risky penchant for loose, chatty and jokey talk to good advantage. He managed to make a virtue of not turning in the kind of virtuoso performances of the Blairs and Clintons. He was just himself while they were just puffed up fakes. How could you possibly know where their real men were? He managed to make a virtue of not being that keen; he carried on taking his time out come hell or high water. Not being that keen is something that I like, finding the greed and lack of scruple or constraint with which our politicians hang on to power rather distasteful.
I was amused that he spent much of the time while seeking nomination fighting off challenges from the right. Trying to be be more right and more holy than they were. But once he was seeking election he had to fight his way back to the middle ground occupied by a large proportion of the electorate. Without giving it much thought, I suppose this is much the same as what happens in our own Labour Party.
I was also amused by the fact that while he spent so much time cultivating his image as the salt of the Texan earth and loved wearing a stetson, the family palace was in Kennebunkport in Maine. Just where all the rich wasps whom he affected to despise had theirs. And, as it happens, not far from where the Canadian branch of my family took their trailer for their holidays.
Some of the wondering about the way campaigns are organised came from incidents which Bruni relates, which were pretty much trivial in themselves but which the campaign teams and the press whipped up out of all proportion. To the point where the froth became the story. Where the way that a campaign team handled this white hot froth was an important indicator of how their candidate might one day handle an issue for real. But maybe a story which was only read by campaign and media types. The rest of us, while munching on our breakfasts, just glanced idly at it before moving onto the next preacher who had had his hand up a skirt or the next dog which had bitten a man.
PS: there is now some doubt in my mind as to the meaning of the word carrel. I had thought it was the sort of specialised trolley used in libraries to hold books in transit. Usually about three feet long, three feet high, two sided with perhaps three shelves to a side. One might use one at home to hold the books one happened to be using at the time. But Wikipedia alleges that they are a sort of high sided study cubicle, designed to allow private study in an otherwise private space. The precursor of the sort of thing that you get in some open plan offices. And OED says that it is an obsolete (obsolete that is in 1893) word for a sort of unspecified fabric which gets the occasional mention in books of the 16th and 17th centuries. So I don't know any more.
# posted by Jim @ 2:01 AM 
