Great Quote - Eric Alterman

I just started reading "What Liberal Media?" by Eric Alterman. Alterman is a liberal pundit, the guy who takes on the likes of Ann Coulter and Bernard Goldberg. He is also the author of the MSNBC.com weblog "Altercation", a provocative daily read.

Alterman is set to visit our campus for a convocation lecture on April 14th. Having visiting authors come to campus is always enjoyable. We've had a good group of people that have visited in the last few years: Maxine Hong Kingston, Alan Lightman (my personal favorite), Steven Pinker, Sy Montgomery, Morris Dees, Ramsey Clark and James Fallows, among others.

I volunteered to be on the planning team that is preparing for his visit. I like doing this, especially when the speaker is someone I'm interested in meeting. I got to pick up Alan Lightman at the airport and take him to dinner. It was a great opportunity to have a one on one conversation with someone whose work I really admire.

I get to do the same with Alterman. While not as familiar with his work as I was with Lightman's, I am still looking forward to the opportunity. I did not consider myself a staunch liberal until the current occupant of the White House moved in, but still I think I'll enjoy speaking with him.

As I started reading his book in preparation for the visit, I was immediately struck by a simple quote on page 3 of the introduction:

Ideas, especially bad ones, have consequences.

For some reason, this is ringing in my head right now. Must have something to do with the fact that I think some of the people causing stress and irritation in my life recently have had multiple bad ideas, and they are trying to force those bad ideas on me and my colleagues.