Perhaps he's right. We don't have enough information. We know that the policies of the left result in more government, less freedom, and diminished personal property. But we don't quite get why that's a good thing.

Prawn: where'd you get that? I swear that's a graphic I used years ago on my site, from a scan I did.  

Like me, Gatsby was born in North Dakota, and attended college in Minnesota. The similarity stops there; I can't stand Daisy. 

Looks better than the Alan Ladd version, or the gauzy and inert Redford take. I'm not a fan of DiCaprio, who always seems to be angry about constipation, but it's  a tough character to play.  

I’ll go to the 3D version just for the scenes in Times Square. There’s a wealth of buried detail in the trailer’s brief look at the Crossroads of the World: The Hotel Sayre, for example.  There wasn’t any such place.

That’s the Astor. 

Why would they do that? I’ll bet the shot lasts just a few seconds, hardly long enough for anyone to notice, unless you’re struck immediately by the obvious contours of the Astor. (The curved lights at the top give it away.) Even then, only a few would get it.

“Sayre” was Zelda’s maiden name.

Grendel: I'll give that another look. I started the "Silver Pigs," but found the tone too . . . jocular. The SPQR series is breezy, but the amount of historical detail seems more substantial. 

Thanks, Dogsbody - I was trying to get it in AND get to the guest. Even though it always seems like such a crime to cut off Peter and Rob.

How did "austerity" become conflated with "recession"? I understand the use of the term to mean "profligate leech-states sucking blood from the economy at a reduced rate of slurp," but now it means "economic contraction" as well?

I keep waiting for someone in Europe to say "The government cannot spend less money; it would destroy the economy. Hold on, what did I just say? Good Lord, when exactly did I take leave of my senses?"

And now I write this paragraph, which is the third to end with a question mark?

Lest anyone say "oh, all presidents did this," there's a little thing called the Internet Wayback Machine, which proves that they didn't. The additions are quite recent - within the month, I'd say. 

I'd love to see someone put this to the POTUS or the White House Spokesman: "Recent presidential biographies have been re-written by staffers to include the President's accomplishments. What was the rationale for deciding that biographies of previous presidents were incomplete without mentioning Barack Obama?"

I agree with the great post and the comments, but there’s something to be said for keeping monsterism as an element of human nature, not something outside of it that can be described in bestial or demonic terms. 

I was having this very conversation with my daughter last night; she’s writing a novel, and every so often we go to the large room and kick around an inflated ball and talk about the story. (Man, I hope she remembers that.) I was telling her not to make her bad-guy character Bad for the Sake of Being Bad, and she said he wasn’t: he was doing what he thought was right. His intentions were interesting and helpful to the story, but they didn’t make his actions moral. That’s far more interesting than a mwahahah I must conquer the world! ubervillain. 

Actually, that's not true. I don't feel fraudulent,which now makes me think I might have Narcissistic personality disorder . But maybe that’s better than what’s being described in this thread, which is  Impostor Syndrome. It’s the flip side of Dunning-Kruger effect, “in which incompetent people find it impossible to believe in their own incompetence.”

But enough about the President. I think I’ve been spared Impostor Syndrome because A) I have a raft of non-professional deficiencies that keep me humble, and B) I have no trouble admitting that half the time I’m just recycling a verbal casserole assembled from the kitchen cabinets of my intellectual betters. 

By the way, my real name is Dick Whitman. 

The only time I feel like a fraud is when I'm supposed to write something good, and the ability to write at all deserts me.

Thanks, Leporello! <blush>

PJS: the ad for this page is now "run background checks!" from "BeenVerified.com."

Ansonia: Peter DeVries didn't have much luck with movie versions, but I remember that one well. 

EJ: agreed: Sendak was part of that 60s style that never grabbed me. My daughter was equally indifferent, and gravitated more towards the brilliance of William Joyce. (Who said he had few books growing up, but loved Sendak. So go figure.)

Meet her grandpa:

Tabula: ever heard the story of the guy who inherited all the royalties from "Goodnight Moon"? Here.