From pericles@astro.temple.edu Sun Sep 24 05:25:13 2000 Received: from mxu1.u.washington.edu (mxu1.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id FAA118472 for ; Sun, 24 Sep 2000 05:25:11 -0700 Received: from nimbus.ocis.temple.edu (root@nimbus.ocis.temple.edu [155.247.166.101]) by mxu1.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id FAA19357 for ; Sun, 24 Sep 2000 05:25:10 -0700 Received: from smaug.ocis.temple.edu (smaug.ocis.temple.edu [155.247.166.78]) by nimbus.ocis.temple.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id IAA13430 for ; Sun, 24 Sep 2000 08:25:13 -0400 (EDT) X-WebMail-UserID: pericles Date: Sun, 24 Sep 2000 08:25:33 -0400 Sender: pericles From: pericles To: classics@u.washington.edu X-EXP32-SerialNo: 00002713 Subject: politics/classics Message-ID: <39D177C7@smaug.ocis.temple.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: WebMail (Hydra) SMTP v3.61 Election buffs might be interested in the extended meditation on late-night comics' treatment of candidates, in todays NYT Mag by Marshall Sella. At the very least it has lots of good lines, refers to Aristophanes & Plato, and tells us that most good writers for these shows are avid Simpsons fans. Three quotes: Joe Lieberman as a man "ready to build that bridge to the 59th century" "Add the word intern and we're home" (one writer to another) "They executed a guy with an I.Q. of 63. Can you believe it? Bush turning his back on one of his own!" On Thursday, Don Imus had a long interview with Evan Thomas, biographer of Bobby Kennedy, whose vision of a not-quite Camelot, very anxious and even guilt-ridden (he blamed himself for the assassination) kid brother was far more interesting & engaging than the usual hagiography. Real lives for real people! Anyhow, RFK turns out to have been kicked out of school in 10th grade for cheating on a Latin test. "Isn't that what Latin tests are for?" said someone in the studio. Imus also does wonderful interviews with Bob Dole, whose non-election was a great blessing to comedy: he is hilarious, and really sharp. Daniel P. Tompkins Director, Intellectual Heritage Program Temple University 214 Anderson Hall 1114 W Berks St, Philadelphia, PA 19122-6090 pericles@astro.temple.edu 215 204 4900; fax 215 204 2359 Check our website: oll.temple.edu/ih "Yes, he said 'subliminable,' but he was probably distracted thinking about executing some criminables." Jon Stewart, quoted in NYT .