Garrison Keillor's Blog, page 83

We white men are looking to expand our mission

It’s good to hear that Bill Clinton will be put in charge of revitalizing the economy in a Hillary administration and be sent to troubled areas such as Appalachian coal country and inner-city Detroit, and not just promote literacy or physical fitness, the usual First Lady things. But I hope that at state dinners and other major White House events, we’ll be able to read about what he’s wearing.

Read the full column at the Salt Lake Tribune’s site →

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The value of being sweet

The TSA lady at Nashville airport said, “Thank you, sweetheart” as she handed back my ticket and driver’s license — which sort of amazed me. Up north where I’m from, a woman would not say that to a strange man unless at gunpoint and then only reluctantly. It made me feel good. It is very seldom that a federal officer expresses affection to me. I’m sure the TSA did not train her to do that but her upbringing won out over indoctrination. Her mother told her to Be Sweet and she was.

Read the full column at The Eagle’s site →

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Bob McDonnell and the Rolex Christians

Every time Bob McDonnell talks about his corruption conviction in Virginia, he mentions how Jesus Christ is sticking with him all the way, which surely is true. Jesus does not dump a guy just because he is sleazy. The Lord has always been there for thieves and malefactors, but this is mercy; it doesn’t mean that Jesus approves of taking more than $150,000 in gifts from a man cozying up to a governor, as Mr. McDonnell seems to suggest. Jesus didn’t wear a Rolex. He did not hit up the Pharisees for thousands of shekels so the apostles could have rib-eye steak and a 35 B.C. cabernet at the Last Supper.

Read the full column at the Washington Post’s site →

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Minnesota stands ready to accept New York City’s refugees

Don’t quote me on this, but New York City is in the midst of digging a third tunnel, 60 miles long, deep underground, to bring in water from upstate reservoirs, and until it is finished, if either the first tunnel (1917) or the second (1936) should break down, half of the city would be without water and therefore uninhabitable, and several million inhabitants would need to find homes, and I believe that my state, Minnesota, which took in thousands of Hmong and Somalis, would stand ready to welcome New Yorkers.

Read the full column at the Washington Post’s site →

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No dementia for president, please

How did we wind up with these old people running for president? In 1960, the first election I voted in, Richard Nixon was 47 and John Kennedy was 43 and now, 56 years later, the candidates are mostly my age. Young people are flocking to Bernie Sanders who, given two terms in office, would be Leader of the Free World until age 83, setting a new record — Ronald Reagan was just shy of 78. Where is that new generation of leadership we keep hearing about at college commencements?

Read the full column at the Salt Lake Tribune’s site →

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Keillor: No dementia for president, please

How did we wind up with these old people running for president? In 1960, the first election I voted in, Richard Nixon was 47 and John Kennedy was 43 and now, 56 years later, the candidates are mostly my age. Young people are flocking to Bernie Sanders who, given two terms in office, would be Leader of the Free World until age 83, setting a new record — Ronald Reagan was just shy of 78. Where is that new generation of leadership we keep hearing about at college commencements?

Read the full column at the Salt Lake Tribune’s site →

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The Big Snapper slouches toward Cleveland

Back when I went to college to become a Great Author, I tried to be smarter than I actually was and so greatness eluded me and here I am, a newspaperman, sitting at a battered Underwood, my porkpie hat low over my eyes, smoke curling up from a Lucky Strike hanging on my lower lip, a snazzy blonde eyeballing me from the sofa, saying, “Is you and me goin’ to the Rialto, Lefty, or is we not? Just tell me. I gotta know.”

“I got a column to write, Sugar,” I say, and she says, “Oh, it’s always something, isn’t it. Write about the Republican primaries, that’s what everyone else does.”

Read the full column at the Washington Post’s site →

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A hymn for Jim Harrison

My friend Jim Harrison wrote to me last fall: “Nothing new here except aggressive aging that comes from working every day of the week. I don’t know what else to do. Since age 14 I’ve been a slave to language. There’s a new book about aging — ‘Travels with Epicurus.’ Penguin. Fine and discreet, elegant, truthful. With age all my opinions drift away. Who am I to say for sure? My people thought they’d see Jesus when they died. Now that we know we have 90 billion galaxies, I’m not inclined to discount anything. How can I say what is not possible in this universe? You can disembowel reality all you want and certainties are hard to find, the towering reality being death. I don’t mind. I was never asked. On death, a tour of the 90 billion galaxies would be flattering. Yes? Our curiosity is still in the lead. Wittgenstein said that the miracle is that the world exists.”

Read the full column at the Washington Post’s site →

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This next president better be president for everyone

The country is in the grip of fear and anger, riven by class conflict, so we hear, though this is not so apparent on a spring day as you awaken to the sweet smell of earth and the old farmer DNA in you thinks, This is going to be a good year. Things are looking up at last. Unreasonable optimism is what America was built on, people, and April is around the corner, the song of the meadowlark is heard in the northern latitudes. Baseball will soon head north. My grandson is eagerly learning Chinese. Tell me about injustice and I hear you, meanwhile the world is alive with possibility. That’s not a liberal or a conservative position, it’s your old father talking.

Read the full column at the Washington Post’s site →

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Think moving abroad will save you from Trump? Think again.

After Tuesday’s voting, several folks I know are talking about leaving the country if and when the Great White Snapping Turtle is elected president, and of course Canada is the favored destination: English-language predominant, handsome young progressive prime minister, socialized medicine, nonstop air connections — plus parallel geography of rockbound East, Midwestern prairies and Western mountain ranges. Well, I’m not up for it. For one thing, I’m lazy. And also there is no South up north — no New Orleans, no Delta blues, no high lonesome tenor singing “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” and no strip-mall evangelists proclaiming that Justin Trudeau is the Antichrist and was born in the Bronx — and so Canadian culture is of limited range. A nation of bookkeepers. It is missing the apocalyptic.

Read the full column at the Washington Post’s site →

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