A wish list of better tomorrows
Beginnings
By TIMOTHY EGAN, NYT
A day in a fresh year that begins with a sunrise view of Mount Rainier and ends with a sunset at Key West forces inevitable questions about the implausibility of this oversize nation. Is it crazy to think that a few broad ideas still hold together a land of earnest strivers represented by a Congress of window breakers?
The view from one Washington, with its self-inflicted and phony political crises, offers no hope. Let's start 2013 by stating the obvious and repeat until fixed: the Republican House of Representatives is beyond broken, stuffed with politicians who lack the ability to divide up juice boxes in a kindergarten. Three-fourths of Americans think they are harming the rest of us. "Dereliction of duty" was Gov. Chris Christie's apt phrase, referring to the failure to vote on promised aid for hurricane relief.
Lucky for us that the rest of the country, even in a slide of doubt, is full of people who believe that we still have something in our shared opportunity commensurate with our capacity to wonder, to borrow from F. Scott Fitzgerald.
In the season of starts and deep sleeps, the darkest, coldest time of the calendar, it's always worthwhile to force a wish list of better tomorrows. So, to beginnings:
(More here.)
By TIMOTHY EGAN, NYT
A day in a fresh year that begins with a sunrise view of Mount Rainier and ends with a sunset at Key West forces inevitable questions about the implausibility of this oversize nation. Is it crazy to think that a few broad ideas still hold together a land of earnest strivers represented by a Congress of window breakers?
The view from one Washington, with its self-inflicted and phony political crises, offers no hope. Let's start 2013 by stating the obvious and repeat until fixed: the Republican House of Representatives is beyond broken, stuffed with politicians who lack the ability to divide up juice boxes in a kindergarten. Three-fourths of Americans think they are harming the rest of us. "Dereliction of duty" was Gov. Chris Christie's apt phrase, referring to the failure to vote on promised aid for hurricane relief.
Lucky for us that the rest of the country, even in a slide of doubt, is full of people who believe that we still have something in our shared opportunity commensurate with our capacity to wonder, to borrow from F. Scott Fitzgerald.
In the season of starts and deep sleeps, the darkest, coldest time of the calendar, it's always worthwhile to force a wish list of better tomorrows. So, to beginnings:
(More here.)
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