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.
Charlie PierceEvery president learns on the job because nobody`s really prepared for the kind of decisions that cross your desk every day. No one`s prepared for that. No vice president who has scended to the presidency has ever truly been ready for that. Certainly, no vice president who`s assumed the presidency in extremis, like Harry Truman, has been ready for that. But this Trump guy doesn`t seem to be ready for a career in government.
Charlie PierceThe 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.
Charlie PierceIt 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.
Charlie Pierce