Hugh Laurie's "Let Them Talk" sessions helping bring us to the very brink of a new year.
"Wicked" is the rare — maybe even unprecedented — show rich enough to effortlessly carry multiple meanings for multiple demographics, all of them valid, even if the messages that endeared it to my cynical heart are different from a 10-year-old's take-away....To recap: Women are hungry to be told that their friendships matter. Kids are hungry to be told that individualism is worth it, even at the cost of being bullied. Seniors relate to the show's wistful look back on relationships that had to pass. Sexual and racial minorities relish the themes of pride and prejudice. With all that cross-demographic appeal in one popular entertainment, is there anything left for the middle-aged straight malcontent?
Yes: Oddly enough, we're starved for stories that tell us no one in power can be trusted, life is full of persecution and politics and compromises, and ambiguous fates befall even the empowered and enlightened … in a show that's got a good Reagan joke and you can dance to it.
Solyndra: Politics infused Obama energy programs
Meant to create jobs and cut reliance on foreign oil, Obama’s green-technology program was infused with politics at every level, The Washington Post found in an analysis of thousands of memos, company records and internal e-mails. Political considerations were raised repeatedly by company investors, Energy Department bureaucrats and White House officials....The documents reviewed by The Post, which began examining the clean-technology program a year ago, provide a detailed look inside the day-to-day workings of the upper levels of the Obama administration. They also give an unprecedented glimpse into high-level maneuvering by politically connected clean-technology investors.
They show that as Solyndra tottered, officials discussed the political fallout from its troubles, the “optics” in Washington and the impact that the company’s failure could have on the president’s prospects for a second term. Rarely, if ever, was there discussion of the impact that Solyndra’s collapse would have on laid-off workers or on the development of clean-
energy technology.
Should be a major scandal. Is anyone paying attention on Boxing Day? Will Mitt make use of it? But the real shock is that this is appearing in the Washington Post. It's almost like real, objective journalism.
"A day, Bright Day of Glory! Glad day that ends our woe!
A day that tells of triumph against our vanquished foe!
For us this Christmas sunrise, this bright December morn,
So sing, let us be joyous, For Christ, our Lord, is born!"
Merry Christmas!