viz.

Image Credit: storyful.com

So last week I suggested that my post on tennis, David Foster Wallace, and postmodernism might be my last for the 2011–2012 academic year. I lied. Here’s another 500–1,000 words for your delectation. While thinking over what to write about last week, I decided to take coffee at Starbucks and read the paper. This was the day that Paul Krugman wrote his column “The Amnesia Candidate” (22 April 2012), and I’ve been thinking about what’s said there ever since. The Op-Ed is a thoughtful evaluation of Mitt Romney’s most recent campaign rhetoric, and it is especially efficient in the way it attacks the former governor for blaming some of Bush’s legacy on Obama. While Krugman does concede that Obama could have handled economic matters differently, he ultimately concludes by asking “Are the American people forgetful enough for Romney’s attack to work?”. This is a complex question. You hear cynics complain all the time that American voters have a 6-month attention span, which, if true, must surely be further compromised by consumer culture’s narcotization. There’s probably some truth to this. How could there not be given technology’s onslaught of information?