“The institutions of college athletics exist primarily as unreality fueled by deceit. The unreality is that universities should be in the business of providing large spectacles of mass entertainment. The fundamental absurdity of that notion requires the promulgation of the various deceits necessary to carry it out.” ShouldCollegeMassInstitutionsFundamentalsNotionUniversityVariousEntertainmentDeceitProvidingAbsurdityAthleticsSpectaclesUnreality Author:Charlie Pierce
“Ronald Reagan was a dim hack who did horrible damage to almost everything he touched.” HorribleDamageTouchedHacks Author:Charlie Pierce
“Bill Clinton was not a symbol. People did not invest in him their idea of what America should be or, worse, their pride in what they thought America had become. There was no great moral self-congratulation in having elected a president from Arkansas.” PeopleShouldIdeasSelfAmericaPresidentMoralPrideBillsClintonSymbolsCongratulationsArkansas Author:Charlie Pierce
“There is a barbarism in the American soul, and we must protect some of it by law. To root it out is to endanger our lives on the one hand, and our liberty on the other.” SoulHandsLawLibertyOur LivesProtectRootsBarbarism Author:Charlie Pierce
“The idea that America elected a black man to be its president forty years after it declined to allow Martin Luther King Jr. to stand on a balcony without getting shot still maintains its power to awe and inspire.” MenYearsStillsIdeasAmericaBlackPresidentInspireKingsShotsAweFortyLutherBalconies Author:Charlie Pierce
“As a writer, I have to admit, there is something darkly compelling about Alzheimer's because it attacks the two things most central to a writer's craft - language and memory, which together make up an individual's identity. Alzheimer's makes a new character out of a familiar person.” PersonsTwoCharacterTogetherIndividualLanguageMemoriesIdentityFamiliarCraftsTwo ThingsCompellingAlzheimerAlzheimer's Author:Charlie Pierce
“We, The People is more than a statement of purpose. It is an acknowledgement of an obligation to each other.” PeoplePurposeStatementsObligationAcknowledgement Author:Charlie Pierce
“One of the great changes wrought by the increased public awareness of Alzheimers - and thank you, Nancy Reagan, you wonderful tough old dame, you - is that people in the early stages of the disease are now speaking out while they still have the capacity to do so.” PeopleStillsWonderfulStageAwarenessDiseaseToughCapacityNancyAlzheimerSpeaking OutDamesGreat Change Author:Charlie Pierce
“It is the doctrine of the oligarchy that there is nothing that we hold in common, that the commonwealth is a myth, that it is even a sign of softheadedness and weakness. The oligarchical power feeds on the sense that we are all individuals, struggling on our own, and ennobled by the effort.” IndividualCommonEffortStruggleWeaknessMythDoctrineCommonwealthOligarchy Author:Charlie Pierce
“There is a reason why conservatives talk about 'government' and not 'self-government,' because to refer to the latter is to concede that 'the government' is really the most basic product of our political commonwealth, that it is what we produce among ourselves so as to order the production of everything else that we do together.” SelfReasonGovernmentTogetherPoliticalOrderProduceProductsProductionsReason WhyLatterCommonwealthSelf-government Author:Charlie Pierce