The Changing of the Guard

Marsha and I are getting the greatest of kicks out of the new crop of on-air pundits ... the young ones. When parents greet their newborns, many can get excited over their ten little fingers .... "Comes with fingernails, at no extra cost" ... and the toes and the little nose. It's not quite like that with this new generation but sitting back and listening to Chris Hayes talk in fully-formed ideas ... 'Geez, Louise ... he's not even Forty.' I think it was on his show that he had an Ezra Klein who according to his Wikipedia page is 26 and actually thinks quantitatively .... puts together solid arguments based on thought and number-crunching. So, here's a Chris Hayes and an Ezra Klein and a Jonathan Capeheart and Alex Wagner (and I could go on) ... and Marsha and I are awestruck by their clarity of thought and -- for that matter -- that a generation is beginning to look like they can get along despite differing religions and skin-tones. We looked at each other, at one point, and opined how sad it was that we couldn't adopt them. True, there are other youngins who are sharpening their teeth and on the attack and whose thinking is purely "which side are y'on" thinking, but so many of them seem to have all ten fingers .... Love it.

I suppose that Playing in the Last Quarter is somewhat akin to playing poker. There are those who, like Miniver Cheevey (sad that feww read the poetry of EA Robinson, these days .. but times change), "curse the darkness" ... always wishing that they had better hands to play. Two thousand years ago, the pundits of the Ethics of the Fathers asked: Who is rich? and answered: he who rejoices in what (s)he has. This morning, the bathroom door was not fully closed and I was seeking to complete the task of clothing myself for what promises to be a quiet Sunday. I was struggling -- well, at least groaning -- getting into my undershorts .... socks were worse. Marsha and Gunther-dog, I'm convinced, were both lying in bed (Gunther has developed an Oedipal problem) amused by der groaner.

And it was this weekend that one of my grand-daughters led a congregation in cantllating part of a liturgy.

Sonny Bono and Cher (or was it Mamma Cass) had it right: And the beat goes on.

Except for those poor wretches who cannot apparently revel in the flight of this next set of shooting stars ... of the Alexes, Chrisses, Ezras and Jonathans.

I guess this was all said by Anna in the The King and I