Blog: Views from a hill

Another blog I read occasionally is "Views from a hill", written by Mark Bittner, the guy behind the book and movie about the Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill in San Francisco (I recommend both the book and the movie). Friends and I had dinner with him when he visited Olympia 5 years ago, and he was a very interesting dinner companion.

Some of his latest posts:

The Republican Party’s Idea of Freedom. "Stephen Gaskin once said something along the lines of, “When the Republicans talk about freedom, they’re talking about the freedom to loot the ship.” He said that shortly after Reagan became president, and it stayed in my mind. I return to it over and over as I see, nearly thirty years later, and after a tremendous amount of damage being done, just how accurate that description was."

The Nature of Evil. "... One thing that I know is evil is egotism. Yet a lot of people nowadays see egotism as a virtue. Ayn Rand considered it such. The Reagan Revolution was founded on the idea that selfishness and greed are virtues. ..."

The Tea Party. "... I know I’ve said much of this before, but I’m bringing it up again because of the Tea Party convention in Nashville. I had an exchange with one of them recently, and I realized that they’re not really bad people. But they do live in a delusion—the Reagan fantasy—and they don’t spend much time being thoughtful. This guy had quite a few hatreds, and he was willing to give up most of them when pressed. But he demanded simple answers. The Tea Party wants the old America back, the America of a constantly increasing standard of living. They seem to see money as the only real pleasure in life. They’re going to be getting angrier and angrier as time goes on because no matter what happens in the future, no matter which political party is in charge, that dream is over."