This week Lucretia and I decided to take a break from our recent seminar format—in other words, no schoolwork this week—and just review some of the week’s news instead. Or perhaps we should say non-news, since most of the “news” items we review turn into examples of what’s wrong with journalism today. Call it “The Age of Al Hunt,” in homage to Evelyn Waugh’s device about “the Age of Hooper” in Brideshead Revisited, in which the increasing “sophistication” of journalists in the ordinary sense masks a near complete ignorance of history beyond the last election, a total lack of philosophical depth, an absence of literary imagination, and a scarcity of wit.
Hunt is Exhibit One this week, with a lugubrious article on how “Democrats are worried” about President Biden, not because of the substance of what he’s doing, but because those evil Republicans are able to frustrate his big, bold agenda. Like I say, they call this “journalism.”
From there were look over a couple of news items from the business world this week, again noting that they aren’t getting the full story at all. And then we end by observing how the rarified world of “diversity, inclusion, and equity” (or “DIE!” as Lucretia likes to render the acronym) reminds us of alien invasion movies. And we get in some important whisky news and cheeky reviews, just to keep current with our malts, even while we’re skipping metaphysics for once.
You know what to do now: settle in here, or wander over to the one-room schoolhouse better known as Ricochet.
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