Maureen Dowd is on Vacation
By Stephen Barbara 12/12/2003, 5:25 AM
for Agora Magazine
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I think speak for America when I say that the words "Maureen Dowd is on vacation" (found on the website of the New York Times—yikes!) give me mixed feelings. I want Maureen to spend some time in the sun and relax, mind you, but I’m not sure I know what’s going on, what’s happening, without Maureen. She, Maureen, is our seer, our prophet, our weatherwoman—in short, our Cassandra.
The editors of the New York Times must know that David Brooks and Nicholas Kristof (Nicholas D. Kristof!!) can't really fill in Maureen’s void, so—am I crazy?—I’ve tried to write a little something AS Maureen. As Maureen! I know it won’t be as snarky as what she writes, but, hey America! here’s my 15 minutes of fame!
The Temperature This Morning: A Report from America
I had an embarrassing moment at the gym yesterday, when I remembered that I haven’t yet paid my personal trainer, Richard, this month. Oops. Not as bad as creating a 435 billion dollar budget deficit with huge tax cuts and off-the-chart spending, though. When your predecessor left you with an 80 billion dollar budget surplus, at that.
Faux pas, anyone?
I hear the holiday shopping season has begun nicely for the stores. Lots of action on 5th Avenue, with anxious consumers buying gifts for loved ones. I wonder how our troops in Iraq, who were misled into combat by a phony rationale and find themselves getting shot at every day by a supposedly grateful, liberated Iraqi populace, are feeling about Christmas? Season’s greetings, boys.
CBS is canceling its miniseries on the Reagans. It’s a pity; I had almost started liking CBS’s programming recently. Maybe they’ll replace the pulled Reagan series with weekly installments of Evangelical Christian preachers advocating right-wing crusades against Muslim infidels to rapt white audiences? It wouldn’t be much of a surprise, in Dick Cheney’s America.
So: mixed outlook—but lots of clouds.
agoramagazine.com
Army of Shoppers Descend on Stores
With weapons of MasterCards, Visa cards and cash, customers easily overwhelmed all sales resistance yesterday. Loosely organized troops of shoppers descended on stores over the weekend and came away loaded with spoils of the shopping war.
The stores were packed, the parking lots were full, and the money flowed. But, there were no losers in this war - it was a great day for retailers and shoppers alike. Take that Saddam!
sleepless.blogs.com |
