First Dish

by Andrew Sprung

Greetings, Dish readers, from the newest Dish understudy.  My warmest thanks to Andrew, who is I think all but unique among top-tier bloggers in his receptivity to a multitude of voices and willingness to link to anything he thinks deserves a hearing. Thanks also to Patrick and Chris, who help him cast such a wide net. The Dish has been a key support of my blog, xpostfactoid, ever since its birth in October 2007, right around the time that Andrew was helping the world begin to imagine an Obama presidency.  The emergence of Obama and my addiction to the Dish will be forever associated in my mind.

By way of brief introduction: I'm a media consultant with a lasting interest in how democracy works, how it malfunctions and self-corrects. I have a Ph.D. in medieval English literature and a propensity to parse the rhetoric and logic of our political leaders as well as that of media pundits and scholars who jump into the national debate.   I wrote a dissertation on the remarkably humane and subtle medieval English anchorite Julian of Norwich, a mystic nun whose knack of squaring circles and framing paradoxes reminds me a little of our current President. Who knows, maybe I'll pursue that strained analogy later this week.