Tuesday, February 24, 2009

The best political writing I've encountered in quite a while


Below is the introductory paragraph from an article called When Atheists Attack, by Sam Harris of Newsweek. Even though Sarah Palin is old news (please,dear god, let that be true), I had to share at least this intro. The article is long, and well researched, and worth a read if folks feel they need a primer on the subject. This intro, though, is some seriously spot-on writing.

Let me confess that I was genuinely unnerved by Sarah Palin's performance at the Republican convention. Given her audience and the needs of the moment, I believe Governor Palin's speech was the most effective political communication I have ever witnessed. Here, finally, was a performer who—being maternal, wounded, righteous and sexy—could stride past the frontal cortex of every American and plant a three-inch heel directly on that limbic circuit that ceaselessly intones "God and country." If anyone could make Christian theocracy smell like apple pie, Sarah Palin could.


Enjoy watching a ball being hit out of the park, even if it is a couple months late,

Bp

[image credit in linked article]

4 comments:

Dale said...

Sam Harris does rather kick butt. I consider him to be among the two or three most important public intellectuals to have surfaced in the last ten years.

If you do the aggregator thing, his assorted content (Newsweek pieces, Beliefnet pieces, edge.com pieces, other columns that reference him, etc.) can be pulled into your reader with this link:

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/SamHarris

Though it might not be down your exact alley in content, I do strongly recommend his two books, "The End of Faith" and "Letter to a Christian Nation." The latter will take you all of an hour, maybe 90 minutes, to read. The same no-holds-barred prose is evident in both.

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, Palin is not old news. We will have to smell her Moose Chili for quite some time...barring act of God...like maybe a fortunate snowmobile accident.

Anonymous said...

I'm just saying, I saw a bumper sticker a while back that said "Putting the 'O' back in Country" - I believe it was in reference to music, but for better or worse (worse) it lodged in my mind, and now "God and Country" brings that up for me.

help. me.

Bpaul said...

LOL John!


Again, Sharky, honored to have another blogger on the site.