While both benefited from affirmative action, they turn around and pretend that they pulled themselves up by their own little bootstraps. Theirs is the worst kind of lie because they have pulled down the hatch and denied similar opportunities to other African-Americans. And I am grateful. At the same time, though, I now believe that affirmative action is harmful. I have the greatest contempt for whites who do not know any black people, who would not hire a black person, who would die if their child dated or married a black but who preach that racism is not a problem in our fair land.
Curmudgeons also come down hard on incompetence, conformity and pomposity.
They can't compromise their standards and can't manage the suspension of disbelief necessary for feigned cheerfulness. Well, I am paying attention, and I am in a perpetual state of ticked-offness. A few days ago, a nice woman telephoned and said that she was sending a William Wordsworth poem that would put me in a good mood. I told her to keep her poem, that I was no mood for British Romanticism, that I do not want to be in a good mood. A curmudgeon in a good mood is no curmudgeon at all.