Proposed: Any lengthy, aphoristic, musing essai on the Internet and its deleterious impact on "significant speech"—whether by the hordes it summons, the criticism it debases, or the men of privilege it removes—be called a turning aspen.
Here's Leon Wieseltier with a turning aspen on the sorrow and resignation that he feels after a peer and friend embraces the Walt and Mearsheimer position on the Israel lobby. Note, though, that embedded in his pensive pen is the audacious capacity for hope, the recognition of and appreciation for the renewal that is bound to come. This is a necessary feature of the turning aspen. The emptiness Wieseltier feels now is real but his remove from considered commentary, alas, is only temporary.
Posted by Kriston at May 29, 2008 11:14 AMPer the Aspen Institute? I had the *cough* pleasure of watching McCain and Lieberman fellate each other there a few years back. Better than midget porn.
Posted by: Devo at June 3, 2008 4:30 PMNo, it's a reference to the sappy letter that Scooter Libby wrote to Judith Miller while she was in jail. I couldn't tell you what, exactly, brought it to mind, except the strategy of writing broadly and abstractly with respect to very specific subjects.
Posted by: Kriston at June 4, 2008 2:08 PM