The LLama Butchers

Mmmmmmmmmm............

Asinine administrators conspired to try to ruin my day today: you know, the type of people who move you out of a perfectly good office into one that doesn't have a working phone, working network connection, the network printer is set up in a classroom, no bookcases, stuff like that. All sorts of ridiculous stuff.

But, they failed. Today was just too damn beautiful. I love June 30th, as its the apogee of the year in my mind. Today was clear, not really humid (the test is whether you can see the individual trees up on the Blue Ridge, which you could quite clearly), temperature perfect. The seven year old had a swim meet, and she had fun and tried hard. I came back and filled my baseball hat in the garden with beans and smaller variety of tomatos. I was going to take a picture for some tomato blogging, but we basically finished them off raw on the back porch. Nothing in the world of food tops a perfectly ripe June tomato that 30 seconds ago was attached to the mother plant.

Tonight is also the night before the Battle of Gettysburg, the critical moment in American history. Looking up the Blue Ridge, it was like I could follow the mountains in my mind's eye up the 200 miles to Chambersburg and its surroundings. John Buford, with his calvary troop, sighting out the land, feeling the ebb and flow of the battle to come in the landscape of the fields north and west of the little seminary town with the crossroads. Gettysburg has always had a link in my mind to Bastogne that way---small towns that could have lived and died for a thousand years with no one taking notice, save that they were a crossroads that because of the cruel fractal calculus of war became a focal point of pain, misery, destruction, and glory. Who lost Gettysburg for the South? Who won it for the Union? I do not know. But in many ways those three days at the beginning of July 1863 have slipped somewhat from our memory and our imagination. The mystic bonds of memory, as Lincoln called them in the First Innagural, have frayed. Fifty thousand plus soldiers were killed and wounded those three days. Fifty thousand. I think about Gettysburg and Shiloh sometimes when I'm at the Vietnam Memorial, carved as it is over the ten years of our involvement in Southeast Asia. And then I imagine what the memorial would look like if they had done that for Gettysburg: same effect, but instead of years it would be hours: The second day, the sixth hour. Little Round Top. And on. And on. And on.

I'm reminded of Lincoln's conclusion to the First Inaugural Address:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Amen.

COLD STONE JANE AUSTEN CAGE MATCH - FURTHER UPDATE

Are you ready for some more? 'Cos it's coming - Not only are Kathleen and I, fresh from our Round One battle, getting ready to enter the Cage for Round Two tomorrow, by popular demand we're gonna go to Round Three as well! That's right - the Final Reply Round in this epic grudge match between Elizabeth Bennet and Emma Woodhouse for the undisputed title of Greatest Austen Character will be next Tuesday. 250 word limit. No prisoners.

Two Ladies enter. One Lady leaves.

BE THERE! BE THERE! BE THERE!

You Talkin' To Me?

Outer Life has thoughts on Mr. Literal.

I resemble that remark!

Kerry/Clinton?

Drudge is reporting that Kerry is about to tap Hillary as his VP choice. Hmmmmmm......

Reading the "Insider's" reasoning on why Hill would be such a good choice, I begin to wonder what this person is smoking.

"There are three issues that this campaign will be decided on-- national security, health care, and the economy, not necessarily in that order."

"Kerry believes that no one is better on national security than he is, he served in Vietnam after all, so he has that covered and the suggestion that he needs to strengthen the ticket with someone who has national security credentials is dismissed as foolish."

The insider continues: "The Democrats feel like health care is the domestic issue. But how to make it the dominant topic of conversation-- break through war and terrorism? Hillary Clinton. She catapults it out front with her commission. She tried to provide health care before and the Republicans in congress attacked her and her husband and used a bunch of scandals dirty tricks to stop it, we know they are scandals dirty tricks because the former president book says so. So now you have the number two person on the ticket who is a 'health care expert' and what will Republicans do? Attack on health care pointing to her commission saying that it was government medicine. Her response-- it wasn't, and the Republicans are a bunch of dirty tricksters, "Liars and Crooks," as Kerry calls them, and its been too long and Democrats wont let the Republicans do it to them again. By the way, it puts prescription drugs on the back burner, the republicans health care ace. You will have a fully engaged national debate on health care from now until the election."

First, Kerry has very bad national security credentials. His Vietnam service is, at best, a mixed bag and plenty of his fellow vets hate his guts. Furthermore, his Senate record (such as it is) is appalling - remember the $87 Billion for the troops that he voted both for and against?

Second, even if health care is a hot enough issue to sway voters, do the Dems really want the Queen of HillaryCare bobbing back up? This was essentially a socialized medicine program and no amount of sticking fingers in their ears and shouting "Liar! Liar! Liar!" is going to change this for the Dems. And need they be reminded that they lost Congress in '94 in large part because of this?

Our Great Karnack continues:

"The Democrats economic plan is to say Bush sucks, it's never enough, we must get back to the Clinton Era when 22 million jobs were created. You can't do much better at making that point then-- Kerry/Clinton 2004.

If I were them I'd be reeeeal careful about pushing that Clinton Prosperity thing too far. People aren't fools. They learn. As time goes on, more and more folks may appreciate that what Clinton presided over was a bubble. I think if the economy continues to grow at its current pace, people will be content and the Bush Team can paint the Dems as unrealistic dreamers.

The Prognosticator also peers into the mind of Hillary herself:

"But what Hillary about having to wait to run for president? If Bush wins then she is the nominee for 2008 because it will be all Kerry's fault. If she wins she is the first woman VP of the United States, which would help her become the first woman president of the U.S. It would be historic in its own right and change the nature of politics in this country, and mark her place in the history books for ever-- a different history than her husbands."

Just like Geraldine Ferraro? Hillary loses nothing by sitting this one out. If Kerry goes down, she can still run in 2008 as the odds-on favorite. If he wins, she'll have to wait until 2012 and, even then, would have to gage her chances on the likelihood of a successful two-term Kerry presidency. Want odds on that, Senator?

There is a great deal about Hillary Clinton that I utterly loathe but I'll give the woman this - She's not stupid. I just don't see where this gets her that she can't get to anyway. On the other hand, attaching her wagon to Kerry's train is a risky proposition.

But what do I know?

Stone-Cold Jane Austen Cage Match - UPDATE

Round One of the battle between Elizabeth Bennet, champeened by Kathleen the Cake Eater, and Emma Woodhouse, carried by Yours Truly, is over. The crowd loves the fight and most are holding their breath for the bell to go again. I can't help noticing with some satisfaction, however, that the Pious Agnostic is giving the first round to my girl Emma, however reluctantly. [Insert Marv Albert "Yuuuuuus!" here.]

Okay, then! Round Two is tomorrow - and it's Rebuttal Time! I gotcha on the ropes, Kathy - now prepare to enter your House of Pain!

BE THERE! THURSDAY! BE THERE! THURSDAY!

What's Up, Doc?

Terry Teachout has an interesting post about Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and the way in which this movie helps remind us of the context from which the classic cartoons emerged.

I think Teachout is right about the lineage of these cartoons and also that it is perfectly fine to think of them as an art form, a legitimate branch of film-making. I don't think it's absolutely necessary to understand the cultural background of these pieces in order to enjoy them. The definition of a true classic is something that transcends its time, after all. One need only compare, say, a 1948 Bugs Bunny cartoon with any recent Saturday morning kiddie show for about two seconds to see that the former is real, adult comedy while the latter is garbage.

But it certainly helps with some of the more topical references. T'other day I was discussing with my six year old the classic 'toon Long-Haired Hare where Bugs goes toe to toe with the opera tenor "Giovanni Jones", ultimately sabotaging his concert. She wanted to know why everyone kept calling Bugs "Leopold". Because I know something about classical music, I was able to give her a brief account of Leopold Stokowski and his popular Hollywood Bowl concerts, which were the basis of this particular joke. Now I didn't know this when I was a kid and I still very much enjoyed the cartoon. However, I enjoy it all the more now because I do know this.

It occurs to me that someone ought to write a companion guide to the various classic cartoon collections, annotating this sort of thing. (Perhaps someone already has. I don't know.) There are hundreds and hundreds of both obvious and throw-away references like the Leopold gag in them. Even some superficial study of these would be very interesting indeed.

UPDATE: Needless to say, I love the musical riffs most of all. What's Opera, Doc? is a genuine masterpiece. (Check out this catalogue of Wagner's music used in it.) The Rabbit of Seville was also made by people who had an obvious appreciation of classical music. I love how a couple of bars of Mendelssohn's wedding march are tossed in right at the end. Whenever the Rossini overture runs through my head, it's about a 50/50 chance that I'm going to think of that departure instead of the original line. And of course, my all time favorite riff is the fact that the original Road-runner cartoons employed a piece called the Dance of the Comedians from Smetana's opera The Bartered Bride.

Book List Update

Liz at Truly Bad Films has jumped in on the multiple-choice books quiz and has added an additional interesting question:

11) Is it wrong to write in a book you own?

A. No - books are tools for expressing ideas.
B. Yes - books are sacred. Marking in them is disrespectful
C. It's ok to write in paperbacks only.

My answer is that there is nothing wrong with writing in books per se, but be careful what you write and who sees it. I went all through college armed with my mother's Riverside Shakespeare, industriously scribbling notes in the margins. At one point, we were examining the idea of communication between lovers in Midsummer Night's Dream and I wrote a note in the margin comparing this play's treatment of the subject with that in Romeo and Juliet. The note - next to some dialogue between Lysander and Hermia, said something like "But compare R&J, who can't comm."

Fast forward several years. I am in law school and have been dating the future Butcher's Wife for a few months. It just so happens my name begins with an "R" and hers begins with a "J". We had both just been cast in her school's production of Midsummer Night's Dream and she was idly flipping through my copy when lo and behold she stumbled across this note. Man did I have to do some fast talking!


YIPS from Steve: I mark up my books, but try just to use pencil.

Useless Book Game

A day late and a dollar short, perhaps, but I wanted to wait and do this in my library at home. Here's the deal:

1. Take five books off your bookshelf.
2. Book No. 1 -- first sentence.
3. Book No. 2 -- last sentence on page fifty.
4. Book No. 3 -- second sentence on page one hundred.
5. Book No. 4 -- next to the last sentence on page one hundred fifty.
6. Book No. 5 -- final sentence of the book.
7. Make the five sentences into a paragraph.

I took five books at random by criss-crossing the room with my eyes shut. Kept tripping over the ottomans. Anyway, here's the result:

For the first twenty-one of his no-quite thirty-seven years of life, Patrick Ronayne Cleburne was a resident of Ireland. He was a Whig, he was a bachelor, he was a gambler, he was immoral in every way, he was a man of no Church principle, a corrupter of youth, a sworn enemy of young wives, a swallower up of small men's patrimonies; a man whom mothers feared for their sons and sisters their brothers; and worse again, whom fathers had cause to fear for their daughters, and brothers their sisters; - a man who, with his belongings, dwelt, and must dwell, poles assunder from Lady Lufton and her belongings! Whereas Gaius Julius Caesar, the eldest son of Augustus has - as has been fervently prayed for - assumed in all its splendor the pure white toga (of manhood) in place of the purple-bordered toga (of youth), all men rejoice to see the prayers for his sons rising together to Augustus. Then a human oppression rose from the priest's worn clothes and mingled with the faint smell of old food in the corners. The hinge had turned.

1. Craig L. Symonds, Stonewall of the West - Patrick Cleburne and the Civil War
2. Anthony Trollope, Framely Parsonage
3. Kitty Chisholm & John Ferguson, Rome - The Augustan Age
4. F. Scott Fitzgerald, "Absolution" from Babylon Revisited and Other Stories
5. Winston S. Churchill, The Hinge of Fate

Thanks to Sheila.

YIPS from Steve: Sheila commands, I obey:

"Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways. 'Ah, I would say, sire, judging from what I heard, that General Hill thinks that, ah, Pettigrew is not a professional and tends to be overexcited and perhaps to exaggerate a bit.' With the revival of inherited opposition to France the ties to kindred began to tell; the memory of past alliance against the tyranny of Spain was recalled; and similarity of religious faith, still a powerful motive, drew the two together. But it was the Sixth and Twenty-fourth Corps that "could not cross," and so Humphreys stood up there before Lee's army in a very perilous position. Native American councils must always remember this admonition, for they are by no means secure from the ghosts of Tassels, Caldwell, and Forman."

The random stack sitting on the corner of my desk, some heading off on vacation with me next week, others needing to be reshelved:

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azikaban, J.K. Rowling.
The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara.
The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, Alfred Thayer Mahan.
The Passing of the Armies, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlin.
The Legal Ideology of Removal: The Southern Judiciary and the Sovereignty of Native American Nations, Tim Garrison.

(The last three are for different papers I'm working on, one on the role of Mahan and Frederick Jackson Turner on the new vision of the American Empire in the 1890s, the other on the legacy of a Supreme Court opinion from 1903 Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, which combines elements for Indian law of both Plessy v. Ferguson and Lochner v. New York, but has never been overturned or repudiated.

The Butcher's Home Companion

Aaaah. I'm taking this evening off to do some of those things that a husband and father is supposed to be able to do when temporarily liberated from "indulg[ing] in the felicity of unbridled domesticity."

To wit, in case you're interested:

1. Miracle-Gro the flower garden. My gladiolas are all busting out now. (I distinctly remember ordering a mixed collection of bulbs, but for some reason got sent a set of all the same color - it's that kind of blazing orangy-red I think is known as "Chinese red" that Nancy Reagan is so fond of.) Also, my black-eyed susans are opening up. Very nice.

2. Rib-eye plus loaf of french bread plus hunk of sharp cheddar cheese equals Dad's Favorite Steak Sanglewhich.

3. Some time at the keyboard. Currently, I'm back to fiddling around with one of my favorite Haydn sonatas - No. 59 in E-flat Major, Hob. XVI:49, written in 1789. I particularly love the first movement Allegro- it is lively, inventive and playful in a way that very much reflects the trio sonatas Haydn wrote at about this same period (which I also love), and is in fact one of his most intellectually sophisticated piano movements as well. The second movement Adagio e cantabile is a dreamy 6/8 time meditation that, like the first movement, contains several hand crossings - something rather rare in Haydn's keyboard works. Alas, the finale Tempo di minuetto is short and rather lackluster, certainly not living up to the promise of the beginning of the piece. Then again, I don't have to play it if I don't want to.

4. P'raps a DVD, my Preciousssss? I recently got the final season of Monty Python's Flying Circus. While Cleese is gone, I think "The Ant" - with its Victorian Poetry Reading sketch and "When Does A Dream Begin" (aka "Up Your Pavement") - with its unintelligable banter and the other "Anything Goes" are two of the most consistently funny episodes they ever did. If I'm feeling a bit darker, I may pop in Brasil, easily one of the blackest comedies out there.

5. On the other hand, p'raps it's music we wantsssss. In fiddling around with that musical meme post yesterday, I commented on the absense of Brahms' Fourth Symphony from the list. Now I can't get the damn thing out of my head and may have to exorcise it this way. We'll see.

In the meantime, what should you do? Get thee to the Stone-Cold Jane Austen Smack Down Cage Match, that's what!

Yip at you later!

*NB - Just so I don't get in a world of hurt, I do get to do these things often - just not all in the same evening. Also, a break every now and then is nice, but I'd much rather have everyone at home, of course.

Today's Non-Austen-Smackdown-Related Required Reading

Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities has taken the trouble to compare a selection of critics' raves about Farenheit 9/11 with those same critics', er, ravings, about Mel Gibson's The Passion.

Hilarity ensues. No hot beverages please. Go over and read. Now.

HT to Taranto.

We interupt this legitimate intellectual exercise with this important announcement from the world of plastic figurine food art...

What a relief! A federal court has ruled that the "Barbie Enchiladas", described as follows:

The photos often depicted Barbie dolls placed in sexually provocative positions. One called "Barbie Enchiladas," shows four Barbie dolls inside a lit oven, wrapped in tortillas and covered with salsa in a casserole dish.

are art, and do not violate Mattel's intellectual property, and that Barbie's lawyers have to shell over $1.8 M in their thwarted yet valiant attempt to prevent their darling from being served up as an appetizer to a horde of hungry GI Joe's.

This is a banner day, for what is the first amendment supposed to protect other than the inalienable right to call the most ridiculous crap art? Oh yes, the right to publish sealed divorce records of Republican politicians (but oddly, not Democrats).

STONE COLD JANE AUSTEN SMACK DOWN!!!!

It's here. It's now. It's Ruuuuuuuuuumble Tiiiiiiime!!!

Presenting the challengers - First, Kathleen the Cakeeater brings your Elizabeth Bennett, star of Pride and Prejudice:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

And so begins Pride and Prejudice, a novel that has enthralled readers for almost two hundred years. The plot could be summarized thusly: how to bag a rich husband when you yourself are not rich. Women all over the world are still enslaved to this task. However, our young heroine Miss Elizabeth Bennet has a heavier load to bear than just trying to inveigle a man into buying her a beach house: she wants to be in love with her husband, and if the man just happens to be rich, well all the better, but it’s not really necessary. The odds are not in her favor, yet Lizzie succeeds. She bags Mr. Darcy and he loves her.

Why? Because Lizzie has character. She has strength. She knows what she wants. She’s not Wonder Woman, but she could be. And what a spectacular superheroine she’d be. There wouldn’t be any Peter Parker-ish quibbling over the heaviness of her burdens; there wouldn’t be any Batman-like whining about loneliness---although Alfred would undoubtedly hector her over the state of the Batmobile, just because he’s Alfred. She may not be able or fly above the skies of Metropolis, but Lex Luthor is a chump compared to Lady Catherine De Bourgh. You have to admit, on a super heroine level, Lizzie would make the League of Justice blush for all the whining they’ve done over the years. And she’s just looking for a husband---she’s not out to save the frickin’ world.

Yet, while our Lizzie possesses admirable qualities, the people she encounters are not charmed. They think her coarse and opinionated; that she does not know her station. While they plot against her, she never willfully blinds herself to their intentions, hence she is able to retaliate on her own terms. Lizzie chooses to be different: not simply to be contrary, but because she trusts her own heart and mind---and that makes her different. Whatever issues she may wrestle with, she is confident in her own abilities to suss out the situation in a rational manner. She is a woman of sense, not silliness.

Lizzie is admirable because she chooses a challenging path; Emma chooses to make her life more interesting by meddling in the affairs of others. There’s honestly no comparison between their virtues: Lizzie is far superior and is much more interesting to read about because the world conspires against her goal: to find a husband she loves and respects. Emma has nothing to lose and her blunders are of her own making, while Lizzie, by following her path, deliberately places herself in a precarious situation where to make a mistake would be to sabotage her entire future.

Who would you rather read about? A character who is naïve in the extreme? Or someone who knows the world is against her yet has the courage to follow through?

Next up! Robert the Llama Butcher gives you Emma Woodhouse of Emma fame:

There is a certain “pitchforks and torches” character to most criticism of Emma Woodhouse. This often takes the form of facile dismissal – Emma is a rich, selfish, thoughtless bitch: why should we care? More’s the pity, because in fact Emma is one of the most emotionally conducive figures in literature.

First of all, there are the charms that bind us to Emma in the opening chapters. Among these are her innate goodness, as illustrated by her happiness for the Westons’ marriage, her exertions to ensure her father’s comfort, and other smaller episodes. Indeed, it is critical to remember that in taking Harriet Smith under her wing, Emma genuinely believes – however wrongly – that she is doing a good thing.

Emma also is undoubtedly intelligent. Indeed, Mr. Knightly believes that her natural cleverness at an early age is a factor in her spoiled condition. But Emma’s intelligence is manifested in more than mere cleverness or competence. For example, her declamation to Harriet on why she (Emma) plans never to marry, despite containing a certain amount of posturing vanity, demonstrates a very clear understanding of the politics of marriage in her world. Second, I do not believe that Emma has a sudden epiphany about herself after the Box Hill incident. Rather, she is aware of her own shortcomings at a subconscious level from the very beginning, as illustrated by her constant attachment to Mr. Knightly despite the fact that he is the only character in the story who criticizes her - She seeks out his opinion because she knows this is good for her.

It is these qualities in Emma, together with her charm and beauty, that make us love her – and make us all the more emotionally involved in the fallout from her shortcomings, chief among which, of course, is her self-blinding vanity. We cringe on Emma’s behalf when she so cruelly dismisses poor Farmer Martin and nearly destroys Harriet. We wish to flash warning signals at her as she idly muses about Jane Fairfax and Mr. Dixon and dallies with the shadowy Frank Churchill. We howl with laughter at her surprised indignation over Mr. Elton’s feverish proposal in the carriage. We genuinely weep with her over her Box Hill disgrace. Finally, we feel Emma’s distress at the sudden horrid thought of losing Mr. Knightly and her painfully humbling realization that such loss would, indeed, be entirely her own fault.

And here, really, is why I enjoy Emma more than Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth Bennet is a paragon of virtues. But she comes pre-packaged. Elizabeth’s struggle is with the world around her. Emma’s struggle is within herself and we, the readers, are made an intimate part of it. We are not treated to an omniscient third-person view of Highbury. Rather, we see what Emma sees and what Emma ought to see. The pattern of growth in her character is mapped by the eventual merger of these two viewpoints in her eyes. The true joy of the novel is watching Emma’s progress and arrival.

Ladies and Gentlemen, there you have it - the battle of Austen Titans, Round One. Round Two will commence shortly! Stay tuned....

UPDATE: D'OH! I forgot to mention - comments! We want comments! Leave 'em here or with Kathleen. And go tell all your friends - you know how no one can resist a catfight!

More Sheila

What are your favorite words? Not words as concepts, but words as words, how they sound and taste and feel?

I'm going to have to go with

virulent
toboggan
slovenly
participle
vixen
luge
valence
penumbral

YIPS! from Robbo: Now that my girl is in the ring (scroll up), allow me to jump in with a few really woody words-

Transubstantiation
Horseguards
flank
draconian
naval
Bysshe (I know, I know, a proper name. But very useful.)
Imperial

The list du jour

Reliable sources in the regulatory law world inform me that the long-awaited Jane Austen Smackdown! is about to begin.

So as another warm-up, here's today's blog list questionnaire, on, of course, books and bookstores (from the one and only Shelia O'Malley's, of course!)

1) What is your favorite type of bookstore?
A. A large chain that is well lit, stuffed full of books, and has a café.
B. A dark, rather dusty, used bookstore full of mysterious and vaguely organized books.
C. A local independent bookstore that has books by local authors and coffee.

"B" is the perfect description of Heartwood Books, a great used book store on Elliewood Avenue here in Charlottesville. Heartwood has been a gold mine the past year, as a large retirement community just opened catered towards university types. Net result: huge, and I mean HUGE personal library dumpage on the market. Think emeritus professors disposing of most of their private libraries. I bought an entire shelf of American Civil War stuff on one visit.

Yips from Robbo: Mmmmmmm....Heartwood Books. Mmmmmm. "B" for me, too. I hate large chains because I'm becoming increasingly sensative to the "blockbuster" flogging they do. When I need a standard, I just hit Amazon.com - the devil's own website.

2) What would excite you more?
A. A brand new book by your favorite author.
B. Finding a classic you've been wanting to read.
C. Receiving a free book from a friend in the mail.

"A" for right now, as I'm in a serial sort of mood and will read everything by an author I find and like. Granted, my preferences are all around the ballpark, so that it covers the Navy Seal novels of Richard Marcinko as much as classic or "real" literature.

Robbo: "B" please. I'm still way behind on my classics....

3) What's your favorite format?
A. Novel
B. Short story
C. Poetry

"A" novels, by far. I'm a philistine as poetry has never really done anything for me. I like short stories--I have a colleague who published a collection last year (The House on Belle Island) which were awesome, but I like the room for character development that the novel affords.

Robbo: I'll agree with Steve-O on this one. Poetry has to be especially good - like Milton or Keats - before I take much interest.

4) Favorite format, part II.
A. Contemporary fiction.
B. Classic novels.
C. Genre (mystery, espionage, etc.)

"C" I'm a genre guy, as is probably clear from my how should we say, ah yes, diverse blogging interests.

Robbo: B. Contemporary fiction is produced by, well, contemporaries. And we live in a Tinsel Age.

5) Favorite format, part III (none of the above) Fiction or non?
A. Almost entirely fiction.
B. Almost entirely non-fiction.
C. A mix of both.

"C" I'm particularly a fan of the good non-fiction science writing of the past decade, since Longitude caused such a stir and opened up that market.

Robbo: "C" as well. I keep my fiction on one side of the library, non-fiction on the other, and generally ping-pong back and forth.

6) Does the design and condition of the book matter?
A. Yes, I love a well designed book and keep mine in mint condition.
B. No, the words are what matter.
C. Yes and no, I appreciate good design and treat my books with respect but I am not obsessive about it.

"C" I agree with Sheila on this: I really like good font selection, and when a book has that great combination of font, paper, size proportionality, and cover design, hey that's great. But some of my favorite books are beaten and completely cracked-spine paperbacks.

Robbo: "C" - Steve-O and Sheila are right. You should see my poor old copy of The Irish R.M.

7) On average how many books do you read a month?
A. I am lucky to read one.
B. I am dedicated. I read 4 or 5.
C. I am a fiend. I read 10 or more!

"B" counting for work, C, just for myself, between A & B. I usually average out to about 2-3 novels a month.

Robbo: Probably "B" although it comes and goes depending on what else I've got on my plate. Throw in children's books and I'm off the graph.

8) Do you prefer to own or borrow?
A. There is a particular joy in owning a book. I have a large library.
B. Why spend money when you can read it for free? I use the public library.
C. Different tools for different job. I do both.

"C" I own a lot of books, but I love our public library. It's in a little former train station, in that classic early 20th century train station design replete with the name "CROZET" on the side by where the platform would be. The collection there is small, but we're part of a large regional library system that can get you most anything in a day or three.

Robbo: "A" - I hate borrowing books.

9) Where do you get (the majority) your book news?
A. Newspapers.
B. Magazines.
C. TV
D. Blogs.

"A"

Robbo: "A" "B" and "D". I certainly don't get any such news from the tee-vee.

10) Are books a professional obsession?
A. Yes, I work in the field (writer, reviewer, publisher, teacher, etc.).
B. No, I do it for fun.
C. Kinda, I write the occasional review but have a regular job outside of books.

"A" but as is clear I have a number of obsessions, some of them not even having anything to do whatsoever with the movies of Kurt Russell.

Robbo: "B" - the professional book I read most? The freakin' Code of Federal Regulations. Are you kidding me?

Run! Ruuuuuuun!!!!

Ever wondered how you would fare if faced with one of those on-coming Hollywood dangers like a tornado, bees or the Undead?

Well wonder no longer because here is a nifty little chart that matches the speed of Man with the speed of Big Scary Things That Kill People In Movies. Bottom line - don't waste your money on track shoes.

Thanks to John who got it from Alan Brain.

The latest surprise from Iraq

Washington Post: Saddam to be handed over to Iraqis Wednesday, charges to be filed Thursday. Trial to begin shortly, one would assume.

All I can say is Johnnie Cochran, call your office.

"The mass graves are a Nit,

so you must acquit!"

Seriously, this is fabulous, assuming the security situation is airtight. What better way to change the storyline inside Iraq as well as around the world than to put Saddam on trial to show what a monster he was.

JANE AUSTEN SMACKDOWN! The Warmup

So no one pulls a hammie during Smackdown, I thought a little warm-up poll would do some good. I tried to get it to sit over in the right column, but no dice. As soon as our current traffic wave from the Fahrenheit 12/7 poster link subsides, we'll make the leap over to Moo-knew and such troubles will be a thing of the past.

Who is the best Austen character?
	Elizabeth Bennett
	Emma Woodhouse
	Mr. Darcy
	Mr. Bingley
	Stone Cold "Steve" Austin
Free polls from Pollhost.com

It's Gettysburg week in Llama world

First week of June is DDay week, second week is end of school week, third is US Open week, fourth is solstice week.

The last week of June is Gettysburg week.

One hundred forty one years ago this week, the Army of Northern Virginia was banging around central Pennsylvania, staggering around blind while "the eyes and ears of the Army" was diddling around coming up the wrong way. Meanwhile, an untested yet thorougly crusty general was taking command of the Army of the Potomac, George Gordon Meade.

As I do this week each year, I'm re-reading Shelby Foote's masterpiece "Stars in Their Courses," which is just a section of his great triology on the Civil War. Stars in their Courses I think might be the best single work of history I've ever read. It is a perfect example of how something can be at once beautiful and terrible at the same time, a concept familiar to our ancestors but lost in our neon age. Back when "awesome" meant something literally so beautiful and powerful that it made you drop to the floor to hide your eyes in fear.

Later in the week, I'll read Michael Shaara's The Killer Angels. Chamberlin's speech to the mutineers from the other Maine regiment always makes me cry. I always also enjoy how he had to lie to his Dean to get a sabbatical to enlist in the Army. Talk about a different age.

Turnaround is fair play, Punk

In the lead-up to the War last year, France, through some rather dastardly back-channel bribery, convinced Turkey to not let the United States launch offensive ground troops from its territory. The 4 ID, which was supposed to launch from Turkey, had to reposition and redeploy via sea to Kuwait. The Hammer of 4ID was supposed to strike the anvil of the "Rock of the Marne" 3ID west of Baghdad, in the Sunni Triangle.

The rest, as they say, is history.

So how does the United States repay its former ally France for its "diplomacy?"

Why, have the president of the United States demand to know, while EU and NATO leaders are meeting in Turkey, when Turkey--the only Muslim democracy in the world--will be made a full member of the EU? When exactly, Jacques?

Needless to say, Chirac blew a gasket.

That's the funny thing about those simplistic cowboys from Texas---how do they keep winding up on top with their enemies hogtied?

The inability to implement the original war plan hurt us over the course of the last year. However, having Turkey in the EU will hurt France much more over the decades AND CENTURIES to come. Let's make that a central part of our diplomacy towards Europe--that, together with moving NATO headquarters east to Prague or Warsaw.

Oh, and open up the visa programs offering unlimited green cards to people with technical skills and training from European countries which have worked to undermine us. Back when I was in France, the most viciously anti-American, anti-Semitic person I might was a bona fide aristocrat, a countess, who was sneering, simpering, and a royal bitch. I did my best Mark Twain impersonation and had fun with her, as much as could be allowed given that she was the hostess at a dinner and I was seated directly across from her. (What made it particularly hilarious was that a critical part of her snobbery was based in the fact that her husband is a member of the Society of the Cincinnati, the fraternal order of descendants of French officers who fought in the American Revolution. Needless to say I had fun with that, noting that there was a trailer park in our town that bore their last name, so I wondered if they had distant relatives they hadn't met. For some reason, our guide failed to translate "trailer park" correctly). But, the true source of her anti-Americanism became clear half way through dinner: when the conversation turned to her children, it turned out that the Comtesse was bitter because......both her sons work and live in America, and that her grandchildren are----MON DIEU!---American citizens. Seems that the boys, highly educated at home, couldn't get work that challenged them or provided opportunity in the here and now, so they both followed three centuries of European tradition and headed to the states to find freedom, opportunity, and fun. Both married Americans, and both aren't coming back.

Heh.

HTML experiment

I'm playing with the popup image commands, so let's see if it works:

here's the note Condi passed to W yesterday



I'm sure somewhere in the National Archives there's a similar note from John Hay to Lincoln, saying something equally pithy like "Mr. President--Atlanta has surrendered. John" I'm not sure whether this will be the equivalent for the election of 2004 what the fall of Atlanta was for the election of 1864, but I think it's pretty clear (at least to me) that the dynamics of the whole situation have now changed. The early handover was brilliant, as it completely disrupted whatever plans the terrorists had for tomorrow (not to mention forcing the Koppels and al-Jazeera to rewrite the story arcs for the week). Yet, I have a strong hunch the surprises aren't over: Bush is still just a 90 minute flight away from Baghdad in Turkey...

Random Commuter Thoughts In Which Only I Am Interested (Probably)

Seen on the back of a Susuki SUV on the way in this morning, vanity plates that read:

4U2NVUS

"For you to envy us"? Lock photon torpedoes, Mr. Checkov.

What's that you say, Herr Doktor Shackleford?

Our old pal Rusty Schackleford at My Pet Jawa constructs an amusing post detailing the seven deadly sins of blogging, of course designed around the cardinal virtue of blogging, which of course is link whoring. The Llama Butchers get tagged, of course, with the odd penance of a couple of Hail Marys and assorted Our Fathers. First of all, what's this English crap? If you want to make us bleed, make us do them in Latin! Second, I don't want to go all Judd Nelson in Breakfast Club on you Rusty, but is that all you've got? Wuss. We've been endangering our blogging souls regularly when you were still reading "Cathy" online, thinking how fun it would be to tell complete strangers the whole truth about how you like to kill cute, fluffy bunnies in the service of your Dark Sith Lord John Ashcroft.

See if I invite you to Robbo's 40th birthday bash in Las Vegas!

PS (special to Rusty): I'm going to tell Howard on you!!!!

Your one stop shopping for blogging insanity

Top two posts over at the Geek Empire right now are a quiz on which historical lunatic are you?, and what's in his zombie survival pack.

Geek empire---it's kind of like Lileks on electro-shock treatments that aren't quite working.

(And that, of course, is a compliment.)

Signs that things are breaking your way

So I popped into "All things Jen" a funny new blog Robbo had pointed out, and promptly got a pop-up ad for Red Lobster! Sweet!

Anyhoo, Jen's feeling a bit jumbled upon turning the big three-oh, so drop on by and give her some of that Tasty Bits (TM) love. She's got five goals for the week which include the usual get a new job blah blah sort of stuff, but number 3 is to become a slithering reptile in the TLLB. Ambition, thy name is Jen!

"What we have here is a failure to communicate."

The sign that Zaraqwai's getting desparate is the insane decision to execute an American Marine. Oddly enough, the con law professor list-serv I subscribe to, which clogged my email box with a 100+ posts a day during Abu Grahib, is oddly silent on the issue.

Fortunately, as can be expected, Blackfive is not quiet, and is posting a letter from a Marine in Iraq to the insurgents. Short version: update your life insurance. Long version: take my word for it, click and read the whole thing.

Stone-Cold Jane Austen has met her match

Michele Catalano confesses why she secretly desires to be a biker chick. All I know is Paul Sr. could wipe the floor with Darcy any day of the week and twice during Sweeps Week.

Some days I really and truly love the internet.

Iraqi bloggers on their Independence Day

Michele has the full roundup.

Sad, but it's not like it's a surprise or anything...

The latest on the Olsen Twins, as one of them is in the hospital with "Callista Flockhart-itis." Which makes my post below with them pshopped as hostages taken at the Damascus premiere of "Triumph of the Shrill" that much more in bad taste. Errg.

We're presenting this Olsen-update only as a public service to cheer up INDC Bill, who's still recovering from his run-in with blogger Andrew "love dem Bears!" Sullivan:



Let's just say Bill's not going to be sleeping between the Winnie the Pooh sheets any time soon....

Bill's feeling down about all us ingrates who laugh yet don't hit the tip jar: I once saw a mime holding a toy Uzi, gesturing at the hat set out for tips at South Street Seaport in NYC. Let's just say that Bill's in a similar mood: right now he's a pissed off, heavily-armed mime.

My advice? Hit the tip jar and back away slooooooooowly.....

(Seriously, he's got a good cause over there, rather than the usual venal stuff that goes on with those types of things).

Trying to be cranky, but it's not working

I've been trying to download the Supreme Court detention cases, but Adobe PDF keeps crashing my computer---or, actually, freezing it up for a good long time. Whenever the program opens, it searches for updates, and this has the effect more often than not to bring things to a screeching halt. I want to do a piece "The Hanson Brothers interpret the Supreme Court," featuring the Hanson brothers from Slapshot, but that might take time.

Today was somewhat of a wash---our college administration moved us to new offices, which is great in theory as the old office was smaller than a penalty box, and the new one is quite spacious and has a fireplace even. But, it's in an old dormitory they were renovating, and my hunch is they ran out of money. Anyhoo, they moved us back when I was in France a month ago, and we still don't have any bookshelves. So, I can't unpack. Furthermore, the only phone jack that works is a good distance from the desk. And the computer network, I have on very good authority, is screwed because they used a top dollar indoor line to go in the underground tube connecting us to the other buildings. I have a good feeling someone's brother-in-law was involved in the transaction. Why they couldn't just go wireless is beyond my comprehension.

Anyhoo, all that silliness aside it was a beautiful day. The garden is producing some serious tomatos--we got our first slicers out at the end of last week, and the zuccini bread is first rate. The kids and I played Monopoly when I got home.

My first cut on the decisions I think is actually good news for the administration: I have a hunch that this will allow them to find the way out of the thicket that they got themselves quite legitimately into on this matter. It's time for the tribunals to go forward. I am also stunned in a good way over the transfer of power, and how that completely messes with the timetable and themes of both the media and the terrorists. That Churchill line has been going through my head about this being the end of the beginning.

As for that asshat Michael Moore, he'll get his in the end. Give him credit for the creation of the best documentary since "Triumph of the Will" and with about the same moral power. I think we should all congratulate him by having a bucket of the colonel's finest extra greasy sent to his apartment in NYC.

I wonder if I can get Crisco to deliver a truckload?

Stone-Cold Jane Austen Cage Match - UPDATE!

Thanks for the thousands of email inquiries as to when we're going to start the damn show - your continued interest is gratifying.

I've got a meeting to get to in a while. If it doesn't run over too late, I should be able to spend a pleasant evening putting my contribution in final form. (I've always been one of those people who thinks about a subject for a long time and then writes down what I want to say fairly quickly.) If it does go long, I think I can still finish up at lunchtime tomorrow. So I believe we're on.

Before we actually go into the Cage, tho, I wanted to thank Kathleen for working this thing up with me. Too often we have these great ideas that want airing out, but don't really have any place to do so. (Try a 500 word discussion of Jane Austen heroines at the average cocktail party some time and see how far that gets you.) Using the blogsphere and a little game of friendly rivalry, we've created the framework to do so in a manner that I, at any rate, haven't had a chance to enjoy since college. I've really had lots of fun working on this project.

Also, I'm going to tip my hand a bit here and say a few things ahead of time:

1. Despite all the trash talk last week, to me, at any rate, the difference in merit between Elizabeth Bennett and Emma Woodhouse is really a matter of inches. To say that I prefer Emma to Elizabeth is no more of a condemnation of Elizabeth than is saying that I prefer Mozart's "Prague" Symphony to his "Linz" a condemnation of the latter piece of music. In each case, we're talking about a choice of masterpieces from someone head and shoulders above everyone else. So I have no real interest in trying to talk Elizabeth down, and will instead concentrate on why I enjoy Emma so much.

2. Kathy may well have a different approach. Emma is the type of character who genuinely infuriates some people, even devoted Austen readers, without also engaging their affections. That's cool, because we're also doing rebuttals. Any attack on my Emma will be repulsed with heavy loss.

3. I find that it's very difficult to talk about the merits of a fictional character solely as a person and not as a literary creation as well. So my theme is not going to be "Why I think Emma Woodhouse is such a wonderful woman." Instead, it's going to be "Why I enjoy reading about Emma Woodhouse" (although certainly a strong part of that theme is "Why I care about Emma Woodhouse" as well). And although we agreed ahead of time on no outside sources to aid our arguments, I think it's not out of bounds to discuss our heroines in the context of other literary works, so long as we're still using only our own brains. When I get done, I want you to know why I like Emma. To know that, you need to know something about my tastes and what else I've read.

4. The notion that I like Emma so much because I identify with Mr. Knightly is of course, and despite the suggestion of the Butcher's Wife to the contrary, ridiculous.

5. Even from here, I can sense Steve-O's genuine urge to post something about me that contains the words "Spandex" and "DuPont Circle". Fight it, Man. Fight it.

See you in the Cage!

YIPS from Steve: Moi? I am SO hurt by these accusations. I am the sole of discretion in such matters....

I mean, right now I am searching the internet desparately to find just the right picture of Colin Firth to pshop onto the head of Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, as he crashes down from the top rope onto the head of Alan Rickman, pshopped onto the body of Sgt. Slaughter. Spandex, hmmph!

Ha! Another Favorites Boldies List!

Oh, you know I can't resist these things. And this time, it's classical music! I'm going to vary things a bit - I'll bold the pieces I know, or at least have heard several times all the way through. I'll italicize those of which I've heard bits and pieces or not often enough to really sink in. As always, I reserve the right to hurl gratuitous commentary.

Ready? Here we go:

1. Handel, Messiah - My parents and I used to sing this at home to an ancient recording every Christmas Eve. My favorite chorus of the piece has always been "For Unto Us A Child Is Born."
2. Handel, Water Music
3. J.S. Bach, Brandenburg Concerti - I'm especially partial to the 5th because of the long keyboard solo in the 1st movement, which I from time to time play.
4. J.S. Bach, The Passion According to St. Matthew - For some reason, I've never heard this.
5. J.S. Bach, Toccata and fugue in D-minor - I'm not sure what the original rules were, but in my game the Leopold Stokowski orchestration doesn't count. We don't want to encourage that.
6. Vivaldi, The Four Seasons - I remember the first time I heard a period instrument performance of this. Wow, what a difference.
7. Pergolesi, Stabat Mater
8. Haydn, Symphony No. 104 in D "London" - I love all of Haydn's London symphonies (he wrote 12 altogether). My current favorite is No. 101, "The Clock."
9. Haydn, The Creation
10. Mozart, Requiem
11. Mozart, Le Nozze di Figaro - I can never make up my mind whether this, Don Giovanni or Cosi fan Tutte is the greatest opera ever written. Tough call.
12. Mozart, Die Zauberflote - Frankly, I think it's kinda silly. And in German.
13. Mozart, Symphony No. 40 in G-minor - I'm not as crazy about this piece as many people. My favorite mature Mozart symphony has been and always shall be No. 38, the "Prague."
14. Mozart, Sinfonia concertante for violin, viola and orchestra - Delightful.
15. Beethoven, Symphony No. 3 in E-flat "Eroica"
16. Beethoven, Symphony No. 5 in C-minor - Despite all the hype and overexposure, this symphony really is as great as its reputation.
17. Beethoven, Symphony No. 9 in D-minor - I have to admit that I've never liked the choral bits. The scherzo movement is probably my favorite.
18. Beethoven, Piano sonata No. 8 in C-minor "Pathetique" - I play this myself, usually with as many histrionic gestures as I can jam in. We call it the "Pathetic" Sonata 'round the Butcher's House.
19. Beethoven, Piano sonata No. 29 in B-flat "Hammerklavier"
20. Rossini, Overture to "Guillaume Tell" - You can't cheat and claim this one if you've only heard the "Lone Ranger" finale.
21. Schubert, Symphony no. 9 in C-major "The Great" - I really enjoy this piece despite its structural problems. Good length for smoking a cigar.
22. Schubert, Quintet in A for Piano and Strings "Trout"
23. Weber, Der Freischutz - Well, the overture anyway.
24. Donizetti, Norma
25. Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique
26. Berlioz, Harold in Italy
27. Berlioz, Romeo et Juliet
28. Berlioz, Grande messe des mortes
29. Berlioz, La Damnation de Faust
30. Mendelssohn, Concerto in E-minor for violin and orchestra
31. Mendelssohn, Symphony no. 4 in A "Italian" - Why so much Berlioz, but Mendelssohn's Scotch Symphony doesn't make the list?
32. Mendelssohn, Symphony no. 5 in D "Reformation"
33. Mendelssohn, Overture and incidental music to "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
34. Schumann, Concerto in A-minor for piano and orchestra
35. Schumann, Symphony No. 3 in E-flat "Rhenish"
36. Schumann, Symphony No. 4 in D-minor - I've heard all of Schumann's symphonies. This has always been my favorite.
37. Liszt, Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 - A self-absorbed show-off and not at all a nice man.
38. Liszt, Les Preludes for orchestra
39. Brahms, Symphony No. 1 in C-minor - Toss up whether this or the 4th is my favorite.
40. Brahms, Symphony No. 2 in D
41. Brahms, Academic Festival Overture
42. Brahms, A German Requiem
43. Wagner, Der Ring des Nibelungen - Yes, bits and pieces only. German romantic opera bores me to tears.
44. Wagner, Lohengrin- Overture only.
45. Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg - Overture only.
46. Verdi, La Traviata - Overture and a few bits and pieces.
47. Verdi, Rigoletto - Bits and pieces. Italian romantic opera also bores me to tears. It also gives me a bloated feeling.
48. Verdi, Aida
49. Offenbach, The Tales of Hoffman
50. Franck, Symphony in D-minor - I'm sure at some point, but just don't recall enough.
51. Smetana, The Moldau (Symphonic poem No. 2 from "Ma Vlast")
52. Bruckner, Symphony No. 4 in E-flat "Romantic"
53. J. Strauss II, Tales of the Vienna Woods
54. J. Strauss II, On the Beautiful Blue Danube - sound of head banging against table, hoping to end it all.
55. Saint-Saens, Symphony No. 3 in C-minor "Organ"
56. Saint-Saens, The Carnival of the Animals)
57. Bizet, Carmen - Only the suite.
58. Mussorgsky, A Night on Bald Mountain
59. Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition - This is actually a keyboard piece. Ravel's orchestration is what most folks hear these days. One of the few instances I know where the orchestration actually improved the piece. Nonetheless, I have the keyboard score and occassionally stumble through some of the dances.
60. Tchaikovsky, Romeo And Juliet Festival Overture
61. Tchaikovsky, Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor for piano and orchestra - further sound of head banging against table, hoping to end it all.
62. Tchaikovsky, The Nutcracker - We used to watch that old Barishnikov production on PBS every Christmas religiously when I was a kid. This is a great intro ballet for children.
63. Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 5 in E-minor
64. Sullivan, The Mikado
65. Sullivan, HMS Pinafore - I'm pretty sure I can sing almost all of it.
66. Dvorak, Symphony No. 9 in E-minor "From the New World"
67. Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade
68. Faure, Requiem
69. Puccini, La Boheme- Merciful God in Heaven Above - Nooooooo!!!!

70. Puccini, Tosca - See above.
71. Puccini, Madama Butterfly - Very much see above.
72. Mahler, Symphony No. 2 in C-minor "Resurrection" - I've heard bits and pieces of Mahler's works, but not enough to I.D. any of them.
73. Mahler, Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor
74. Debussy, Prelude on the Afternoon of a Faun
75. Debussy, La Mer - You can do an awful lot worse than having to listen to Debussy. But please - small quantities only.
76. Strauss, Death and Transfiguration - No, thanks.
77. Strauss, Also Sprach Zarathustra - Only the "2001" bit. Doesn't count.
78. Strauss, Don Quixote
79. Sibelius, Finlandia
80. Dukas, The Sorceror's Apprentice
81. Scriabin, Symphony No. 4 "La Poeme de l'extase"
82. Vaughan Williams, The Lark Ascending
83. Vaughan Williams, Symphony No. 2 "London" - I've never sat still for a Vaughan Williams symphony. I like some of his incidental music, but enough is enough.
84. Vaughan Williams, Symphony No. 5 in D-Major
85. Holst, The Planets - "Mars" and "Jupiter" are the only ones really worth listening to, IMHO.
86. Rachmaninov, Concerto No. 2 in C-minor for piano and orchestra - Still more sound of head banging against table, hoping to end it all.
87. Rachmaninov, Symphony No. 2 in E-minor
88. Rachmaninov, Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini
89. Schoenberg, Transfigured Night - No, thanks.
90. Schoenberg, Five pieces for orchestra - See above.
91. Ravel, Daphnis et Chloe
92. Ravel, Concerto in D-Major for piano (left hand) and orchestra
93. Bartok, Concerto for Orchestra
94. Respighi, The Pines of Rome - Just so long as it's not "The Birds." I HATE "The Birds."
95. Stravinsky, Petrouchka
96. Stravinsky, The Firebird
97. Stravinsky, The Rite of Spring
98. Stravinsky, Symphony of Psalms
99. Berg, Wozzeck
100. Berg, Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
101. Prokofiev, Romeo and Juliet
102. Prokofiev, Symphony No. 5 in B-flat
103. Ives, The Unanswered Question - I don't like Ives.
104. Milhaud, The Creation of the World
105. Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue
106. Gershwin, An American in Paris
107. Copland, A Lincoln Portrait
108. Copland, Appalachian Spring - Copeland came to our house once when I was a little boy. I had fallen asleep and didn't get to meet him, but we've still got an autograph somewhere. Reports are that he was a cantakerous old sh*t.
109. Hanson, Symphony No. 2 "Romantic"
110. Korngold, Concerto in D-Major for violin and orchestra
111. Shostakovich, Symphony No. 5 in D-minor
112. Shostakovich, Symphony No. 8 in C-minor
113. Finzi, Concerto in C-minor for clarinet and strings
114. Messiaen, Quartet for the End of Time
115. Messiaen, Turangalila Symphony

Thus, I think you get a pretty good idea of where my tastes lie. I'm curious why the list is so top-heavy with second and third rate moderns when so many older names don't make it. How 'bout Monteverdi? Or Couperin? Or Purcell? Or Telemann? (Ed. - Don't like it? Get yer own damn list! - Yeah, you're right.)

Thanks to Lynn.

YIPS from Steve: What? No REO Speedwagon or Rush? Dude!?

Gratuitous Cranky Mozart Posting

In this case, it's more like gratuitous cranky Mozart-mutilation posting. I've always thought the likes of Peter Sellars who delight in "updating" Mozart's operas with stunt staging to be (how to put this delicately?) self-promoting pond scum. (Yes, that will do.)

Well, it appears that where I condemn others seek to emulate. Comes now a report of a
new production of the delightful 1782 Singspiel Die Entführung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio) by a Spanish director named Calixto Bieito.

Not content with leaving Belmonte, Konstanze and their fellow captives in an 18th Century Turkish palace, Senor Bieito seems compelled to move the company "to a brothel, full of forced prostitution, drug abuse and violence." Very nice.

Have you always been a bit bored with the drinking duet of Pedrillo and Osmin? No worries! Apparently the new production includes an onstage massacre of prostitutes, just to liven things up a bit! Always thought Konstanze's marathon aria "Marten aller Arten­" was rather tedious? Dude! She was sooooo stoned! Pasha Selim - decent, honorable Oriental monarch or Major Pimp Daddy - you be the judge!

Yeah, nothing like taking Mozart's joyous little gem and setting it inside a wretched hive of scum and villiany. Just what it needed to make it (of course) relevant. Well bloody done!

Gangerl must be spinning somewhere.

Having Your Yellowcake And Eating It Too

Well whaddaya know?

The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
Joseph Wilson's a partisan horse's ass;
Iraq did try to buy uranium from Niger:
God's in His heaven—
All's right with the world!

The trouble with this is that the Niger/yellowcake/Wilson/CIA/Plamegame star is already so firmly fixed in the firmament of Accepted Truths by the anti-anti-Saddam astrologers, that there is no way they are going to let it fall to earth now. (Think not? - Joshua Micah Marshall is already, what?, re-poo-pooing the story.)

HT to Jeff Goldstein.

Geez

Try to be nice, get slapped with penance. I suppose if we don't perform said acts of contrition, we go to Circle Number Four of Blogger Hell.

This Jawan Bull brought to you by Dr. Rusty.

The best material being written on Iraq today

One of the great mysteries to me about the blogosphere today is not who is Allahpundit---because of course, He is nothing more than the embodiement of the Creator of Worlds Himslef--but rather who is writing under the name "Wretchard" at Belmont Club.

If you are not reading Wretchard religiously, you can't begin to make sense of what is going on in the world today.

Reading Belmont Club is like reading Parameters in real time. Remember that old saw about journalism at the NYT being the first draft of history? Well, that was a crock. But Belmont Club is the real thing.

Case in point, the whole counter-offensive this spring, in Fallujah and with Moqutada al-Sadr. Wretchard's analysis was right on the money strategically and tactically.

So check out the latest over there:

is NATO moribund as an alliance?

Grudging media respect for the strategy and tactics that defeated al-Sadr and why Fallujah was fought the way it was.

While the idiots in the mainstream media still look to Stalingrad and Mogadishu as analogies, what the US and the insurgents have learned from the Russian war in Chechnya not to mention the Soviet War (remember them?) in Afghanistan. This analysis will probably become required reading at Carlyle Barracks.

The weakness in Zarqawi's strategy, and how we are exploiting it.

And probably the single best thing I've read about US domestic politics so far this year.

So, go and read what Ralph Peter's was capable of before he started bitching about the wrong type of pineapple dip in the green room at Fox.

WAIT! DON'T ORDER NOW! FREE BONUS LINKAGE FROM THE LLAMAS!

Speaking of Parameters, the journal of the Army War College, the summer issue is in. I haven't had a chance to read any of these yet, but the titles alone look well worth the effort:

"Counterinsurgency lessons from Vietnam and other small wars" by Robert Cassiday

"The Army's Dilemma" by Gordon and Sollinger
"Overreliance on Technology in War: the Case of the Yom Kippur War" by Robert Bolia

and most importantly

"Serving a Nation at War: A Campaign Quality Army with Joint and Expeditionary Capabilities" by LES BROWNLEE and PETER J. SCHOOMAKER, the acting Secretary of the Army and Army Chief of Staff.

HOLY SMOKES!

What a beautiful weekend!

And what a neck-turner in Iraq, getting inside the decision curve.

Big thing around here is the long-awaited move over to mu.nu is imminent: the new address is going to be

http://www.llamabutchers.mu.nu

We'd been hung up for a couple of weeks by a persistent design bug that was not letting us post---I finally figured out what it was, and so we should be ready to roll in another couple of days. Let us know what you think of the design as well as any features you'd like to see. We're still messing around with colors and fonts and what not, so don't mind the saw dust.

Feh

Let me just add one follow-up to the post below: Because I was too jangled to get to sleep last night and because it was there, I dialed in to the pay-per-view showing of Return of the King. My first viewing.

I can think of not a single good thing to say about this movie. And I will just say one bad thing:

One of the most dramatic points of the entire novel is the high tide of the siege of Minas Tirith. The doors are blown apart by Grond, the giant battering ram, and in rides the Lord of the Nazgul. Facing him across the space before the gate is Gandalf on Shadowfax. The two face off, Good vs. Evil, the power of Evil waxing to its fullest, the power of Good steady but hanging by its last thread. The Nazgul is just about to move forward in triumph when suddenly somewhere nearby a cock crows, heralding the dawn that cannot be seen owing to the Darkness that has spread over Gondor. At that moment, as if in response, the horns of the Rohirrim are heard in the distance, heralding the (literal) last-minute arrival of the cavalry. "Horns, horns, horns," goes the line. The Nazgul vanishes. Pippin, who witnesses the whole thing, is later never able to hear a horn blowing in the distance without tearing up.

The Battle of the Pelennor Field that follows, though dramatic in itself, has nothing of the power of this moment that proceeds it. And if ever there was a scene in a novel that could be translated into a screenplay by a two year old, this is it. Needless to say, the whole thing was totally ignored by the movie.

Grrrh.

Stumbly Llama Monday Morning

Not too much to say this morning. Yesterday, I packed the Butcher's Wife and the Llama-ettes off on one of their periodic visits to relatives scattered about southern Connecticut, Westchester and Lon Gyland.

As much as I joke about getting to wallow in a few days of renewed bachelorhood and peace and quiet, I miss them as soon as they leave. Also, as is my perogative, I spent the day yesterday worrying a great deal about them being on the road and waiting for the phone to ring to let me know they arrived safely. The result of all this is that last night, as with every first night they are gone, I got very little sleep.

Of course, because the Gods have a cruel sense of humor, our hit quotient is going through the roof this morning. This is because Steve-O spent the weekend closeted with his favorite combo of paint thinner and photoshop. So don't mind me - just croll on down and wallow in the insanity.

Jane Austen Cage Match Update Plus Bonus Llama PSA

This is just to let all of you eagerly dialing in today to see the Cat-Fight of the Millennium between Stone-Cold Elizabeth Bennett and Emma The Rock Woodhouse that we're postponing the smackdown for a day or two owing to too much stuff going on in my corner. My worthy opponent, Kathleen the Cake Eater has been more than gracious in granting an extension.

To show our appreciation and because it's a good cause anyway, I heartily urge that you please go see this post by Kathleen regarding her nephew James and an upcoming Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Walkathon. It's a very worthy cause and our experience of the blogsphere is that you guys are a very decent and generous bunch of people. We hope you'll consider chipping in and/or spreading the word about this event.

Thanks to all! Yip! Yip! Yip!

Mon dieu! How did I miss that one?

Tainted Bill of course remembers June 23rd, a proud day in the history of France.

Another satisfied customer!



Remember the things you need to keep in mind to enjoy Fahrenheit 9/11:

1. Al Quaida came into existence January 21, 2001.

2. The World Trade Center was certainly not attacked in 1993, nor were our embassies bombed in Africa, nor the Khobar Barracks bombed in Saudi Arabia, nor the USS Cole attacked when Bill Clinton was busy shagging the help. Nut-uh, didn't happen.

3. Afghanistan didn't go to hell because of the Soviet invasion of that country on Christmas Day 1979, because there was no Soviet Union. Duh, communism has never really been tried, so never really failed. The Soviet Union was just another form of rapacious capitalism, like WalMart and jock itch.

4. Jimmy Carter's presidency never welcomed the coup in Iraq that brought Saddam to power, nor was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the fault of Carter's feckless foreign policy. See #3.

5. Iraq/Saddam was armed by Amerika, so ignore the fact that their military sported Soviet made hardware. See #3.

LLAMABUTCHER EXCLUSIVE!!!

MUST CREDIT LLAMAS!



Tragedy struck the Damascus, Syria, premiere of Fahrenheit 9/11, as special guest-of-the-director Michael Moore's long-time skeet shooting buddy and al-Quaida terrorist Mohammad al-Bingaling, feeling festive, decided to celebrate by taking the Olsen Twins hostage, and threatening to behead them if "the criminal Zionist gangster isn't soon replaced by that earnest and forthright man of the people John Kerry, who you know served valiantly in Vietnam, and if the second season of "Saved by the Bell" isn't released on DVD forthright."

Mr. Moore, reached in Tehran, where he's planning his new documentary "To Truly Hate America, You Must Also Hate Jimmy Carter. Really" had no comment, other than punching the cameraman and demanding "DON'T YOU BASTARDS RESPECT ANYONE'S PRIVACY?" Later his spokesman issued a statement that "the fact that Mr. Moore's epic new documentary is being hailed throughout the Middle East and that Mr. Moore personally eats the livers of children murdered by Fatah thugs, does not have any bearing on the evil that is George Bush or the fact that everyone on the Today Show, noted source of journalistic integrity and objectivity that it is, loves this movie!"

YIKES! A woman of courage at last!

Rae over at Like the Language is trying to kick coffee AND twinkies at the same time!

Shiver me timbers, it hurts even thinking about it..... I remember when I went cold turkey on Diet Doctor Pepper New Years Day 1998---I felt like I had all seven dwarfs plus Gimli's tribe burrowing into my cranium via my sinus cavity using those giant drilling caterpillars that they used in "SuperFriends" to tunnel to the center of the earth to fight some bad guys (which were than cheaply stolen conceptually in Matrix Trois). Bbbblllahew.

Good luck, Rae!

Hollywood Total Access with the LLAMABUTCHERS!

We get you behind the scenes at the Fahrenheit Cast Party



"Excellency Lord Hutt, there is a man here, named Shaitan, he's here for your soul"

"BURP! Send him in! AND GET ME A BUCKET!"

(annoying robot droid noises, coupled with a sexy purr from Jabba Moore's sex slave, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Looney Tunes))


That's right......Nancy Pelosi in the Princess Leia slave-girl suit....try getting THAT image out of your cornea.

I'd suggest Drain-o and a wire brush, or as Robbo would say, "it burnssss, it burnssss, hobbittses are tricksy!"

NEW BONUS FEATURE: ASK STEVE'S THERAPIST "WHAT THE EFF?"

Why did Steve pshop Nancy Pelosi (D-Venus) into the iconic pic of Princess Leia that most American men of a certain age hold a, er, certain fondness for, it being their first experience in porn? The answer, my friends, is not just that Steve the Llamabutcher is deeply, deeply, disturbed---you don't need to be a freakin' Harvard educated shrink to figure that one out! Rather, it stemmed apparently from an overwhelming desire to offend the male readership in a proportionate manner that he did earlier in the day by posting that photoshop for the A&E Pride and Prejudice mini-series, with the glaring face of professional wrestler and amateur hooligan Stone Cold "Steve" Austin over the face of Colin Firth. I've been trying to counsel him for over a year now that in civilized society, asking yourself "what WOULD Douglas MacArthur do?" is the road to unhappiness, despair, not to mention gingivitis.

As his therapist, I can only say, please, PLEASE, for the love of gawd, DON'T encourage him, or make loud noises! He needs help!

More Llama Yips!

If you direct your attention over to the right, you may notice some new additions to the Llama blogroll. As always, whether this is viewed as an honor or a badge of shame is left entirely up to the individual blogger.

First, two folks who have carried us for quite a while without my realizing it (owing to the bizarre Internet filtering here that blocks out blogrolls on other sites):

The Cracker Barrel Philosopher at The Country Store shares my horrified fascination with Bahbwah!

Matt Navarre is in a permanent Bad State of Gruntledness. Matt hasn't posted in a few weeks, so you might want to clap your hands and repeat over and over "I DO believe in Tinkerbell!" I'm not sure if it will do any good, but it will certainly give us all a laugh.

Then there are some more recent initiates in the world of Llama Madness:

Rob A. may ask Fine? Why Fine?, but he's got a fine looking site anyway. Check out this b'yoot.

The Techie Vampire is fond of Poisoning Pidgeons. Her writing reminds me somewhat of that line from Lawrence of Arabia where the Bedouin fighter, eyeing the retreating Turk column, says simply "No prisoners."

I guess it must be Ladies' Week here at the Butcher Shop (except in New Jersey). One of our new readers is Jen of All Things Jen(nifer). She came across us just the other day and even from here I can sense that she's wondering what she got herself into.

Another such newbie is Liz of Em Tasol. She's been following the run up to next week's Jane Austen Cage Match and thinks Kathleen and I are both wrong, backing Persuasion's Anne Elliot.

As always, go on over and say hello to these folks!

Yip! Yip! Yip!

YIPS from Steve: Thanks! I still can't believe people read this.

What do I think of Michael Moore and Fahrenheit 9-11?

I think this movie would have been about the equivalent, in 1944, for vulgarity and simple venomous hatred of America that his movie represents today:



Fortunately, someone would have been publicly stoned for trying something like this two and a half years after Pearl Harbor. Thomas Dewey would have been first in line to kick the director's ass. Alas, we don't live in that country anymore, rather one where Hollywood liberals would rather see more Americans die from terrorist attacks than to have a Texas Republican in the White House.

The funny thing is, given the choice, AQ would rather probably kill them first....but hey, that's just me, Mr. Vegas.

Cap'n, the spam, she's a muu-TAY-ting!!

This just arrived in the Tasty Bits Mail Sack:

For The Attention of: OWNER / CHIEF EXECUTIVE LLAMABUTCHER INDUSTRY
This is for your urgent attention. First, I must solicit your strictest confidence as you read this letter. Though this might come to you as a surprise since we have not met or spoken with each other before. I plead for your understanding and tender my humble apologies if I had taken you unaware.
My name is KEN AMOBI, a member of the committee set up by the Federal Government of Nigeria to supervise the activities of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), the agency that manages proceeds from the sale of crude oil in my country. At the inception of the new democratic government in my country, the Petroleum Trust Fund was ordered to wind up its operation to enable the new committee take over. The former Chairman of the agency in the person of Major General Muhammed Buhari (Rtd.) was also retired.
In its place a new committee in which I am a member was appointed to take over and oversee the activities of the agency. The duty of the committee amongst others includes verifying all outstanding contract claims and debts with the sole objective of settling such long overdue claims. I therefore decided to contact you directly having gotten your name and company's information from a business handbook of your country I discovered in the former chairman’s official study, which he left behind in his office.
Going through some of the files left behind by the former chairman, we discovered that he has secured out of the Central Bank of Nigeria a forex release to the tune of US$25,500,000.00 for the payment of goods and services supplied by foreign contractors for the execution of KUBUWA WATER PROJECT in the oil rich Niger Delta. He was trying to transfer the funds to a ghost company abroad when he was removed from office. In confidence, we know that the goods and services were not supplied but used his office to approve the payment in favour of a foreign firm with no fixed address. He confided in me as a member of the new committee that he used his position to over invoice the contract. After his removal from office, this over invoiced amount is floating in the system and left unclaimed. He has therefore requested me to help look for a foreign company into whose account the funds will be transferred.
I am now soliciting for your cooperation to enable us process the transfer of the funds to your account. You should provide us your company's name or any other name as long as you will be able to receive the amount. It will be treated as one of the outstanding payments due to you on executed contract. We will take measure to duly register your company here in Nigeria to give it legitimacy. We need your company's name and account particulars to enable us file application for foreign exchange allocation order at the Federal Ministry of Finance. The moment we accomplish this, we will raise Contract Award Certificate in your company's name to show that a contract was actually awarded and executed by you. The nature of your business does not matter.
For your participation and investing in this project, we are prepared to concede 25%of the total sum to you. On completion of the project, we will commit a substantial percentage of our share into investments in your country and we will direct you on how to repatriate the balance of our share.
I wish to state here again that confidentiality should be our watchword. If the above proposal meets your approval, please respond immediately.
Endeavour to furnish me with your secured private telephone and fax line for easy reach.
KEN AMOBI

What made me laugh was not that they were spamming the llamabutchers---I mean, been there, done that back in high school when we got a golden retriever named "Bunny" into "Who's Who Among American High School Students."

What made me laugh was that the spammers are mutating their message, and reacting to the UN Oil for Food Scam. They're updating their scripts, for chrissakes! Fortunately, Kofi Anan has a nice career ahead of him (assuming he has to work and didn't sock away too much in the secret Swiss bank accounts brimming with bribes and skimmings from money supposedly going to feed starving Iraqi children).

Achtung!

Der forces of der blogsphere ist even more organized zen we thought! Here ve haff der Alliance of Digital Brownshirts, mit headquarters at Jessica's Well.

Found via Herr Commizzar, who ve tink may be ze double agent.

Stump The Chump

Mr. Enoch Soames, Esq., has an interesting trivia question about Steve-O's favorite movie. (Which I have seen, by the way, just to set the record straight. My general thought is usually How could Angel Eyes have come to this?)

Steve-O, if you can't nail this one, you deserve to be hurled out of the Brotherhood of St. Snake and burned at the stake for heresy.

Achtung!

I am back at mein post now. Having read more about Herr Gore's "digital brownshirts" remark, vy ist it dot I hoff zis overpowerink urge to make mit der zilly speach?

Vouldn't it be ein hoot if all ze conservative bloggers started doing ze same tink, just to show Herr Gore vat ve zink off his shtupit furshlugginer commentz?

Vouldn't it be ein bigger hoot if ve dropped by der
Democratic Underground und did it?

Ja, I ist just zinkink out loud here.......

Fresh from the Tasty Bits (TM) Mail Sack

Don't forget---MONDAY'S the big day!

And I'm not talking about the Olson Twins going legal.

Rather, it's.....



Take no prisoners, Robbo! And remember, like a true Llamabutcher colleague, I'll be waiting by the side of the ring to bonk Cake-eater on the head with a folding chair if necessary.

Lite Posting This Morning

I've got to run off to a number of meetings shortly. After that, I'm headed over to church to meet the family and see the girls' little end-of-vacation bible school show. I probably won't be catching up with what's going on in the world until later on this afternoon.

These VSB things are, well, interesting. Our church orders a packaged program from somewhere and a group of volunteer moms runs the thing. Every year features a different theme and the package of stuff contains props, activities and music CDs that go along with that theme.

The first year we did this, the theme was "God's Workus Circus" - I kid you not. The kiddies were split up into groups - ringmasters, clowns, tigers, etc., to learn songs and skits and so on. So far as I can tell, the emphasis was supposed to be on Creation. All I really remember about it was that the music was appalling. (I've always felt that Christian pop music was rather dopey. But Christian children's pop can be downright bizarre.)

Last year the theme was "Rancho-Roundup" - Lost sheep and the Good Shepherd sort of thing. Some of the music was a bit better, in large part because it had a Tex-Mex flavor to it. The girls spent the rest of the summer playing the CD over and over and OVER again.

This year they are doing some kind of Construction theme. All I know about it so far is that the mascot depicted on the posters looks like a pretty actionable copyright violation of both Bob the Builder and Sponge-Bob Squarepants. My six year old was telling me about a skit her group is going to put on of the Crucifixion. Apparently, she gets to be one of the Romans who nails Jesus to the Cross. Her eyes were positively blazing at the prospect as she told me about this.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Wraith-Rabbit Watch

I had another encounter with the furry little minion of Sauron last evening. This time, I spotted him before he could slink in to the garden. He was still out on the lawn, but he was edging down toward the garden fence, all the while making a queer snuffing sound.

I immediately slipped out the basement door, grabbed a handful of rocks and, trying to look as if I hadn't noticed him, started strolling toward the back fence, hoping to get between him and the woods. Well, apparently all wraiths are not blind to the living world because he spotted me pretty fast and scurried out of the yard and into the forsythia hedge. I immediately ran down to the back gate, got out into the clearing behind and headed for the hedge myself.

Just as I got close, the little fiend bolted for the brush. Saying to myself Oh, Elbereth! Gilthoniel! I sent a shot after him. I don't know if I actually got him, but there was a rock closing fast on his hellish white powderpuff just as he disappeared into the woods. I sent a couple more down the track just for good measure.

On inspection, it didn't look like any more damage had been done since what I had seen the previous evening - a couple of leaves missing from the purple magnus. I also found that I could use a couple of those six-foot metal stakes laid lengthwise to temporarily block the part of the fence where he had got through. Hopefully, that will hold back the Shadow until I can get some Liquid Fence or chicken wire or, probably, both.

Big Al is officially off his meds

Kevin at Wizbang! has the AlGore moment of the day:

According to Al Gore, exercising your free speech on the internet makes you a "digital brown shirt" if you happen to think that, for example, Al Gore is demonstrably off his rocker and that Michael Moore would prefer more Americans would be beheaded by terrorists to put Ted Kennedy in charge of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Of course, there's a "digital brown shorts" joke there, but hey, not even I'M going to go that low...

(editor: you already did, you numbskull!)

Oops.

So this raises the question: what does Al really mean? And, where can you find these "digital Brown shirts?"

The answer, of course, is here, at the Brown University Bookstore website, which has a quite extensive selection of, er, digital Brown shirts. Which leads us to the type of cheap shot Big Al must be talking about, albeit:



Of course, that's not really accurate, as it's more of a digital Brown jersey to be really honest. Of course, to be a true cheap shot would be to pshop that head of Al on something preparing to fellate a sheep, with the faces of either Osama or Jacques Chirac on the head of said sheep. Now THAT would be funny.

Or, to be a true digital Brown shirt cheap shot, something like this:



Al, gallivanting about with former staffer and new love interest Omarosa Manigault Stallworth of "The Apprentice."

UPDATE from Steve: Now something like THIS would be a real cheapshot, and really beneath our dignity to run:

Getting into the spirit of things in a way that Robbo will never speak to me again!

Believe it or not, I actually like Jane Austen, although let's face facts: Colin Firth is a wussie.



Total and complete wuss. I've seen limp dishrags pout and emote better than old Colin.

So, what better to bring the true spirit of Jane to the screen than this heart-warming holiday rendition, coming soon to video from Llamabutcher Studios:

Be afraid.....be VERY afraid....

Coming MONDAY MONDAY MONDAY to pay-per-view blogs:






Me, personally, I've got a fiver riding on my main hombre Robbo in his defense of Emma against that shrill and shallow social climber Elizabeth Bennett!

It's The Kiss Of Death, Bay-Bee! - UPDATE

AlGore has another public nervous breakdown. Here's the whole thing if you want it. Unfortunately, every time I try to wade through this latest outburst of puerile bloviation I start to get allll sleeepy andntigajon nnanzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...........

Ouch

Michelle Malkin rips P.J. a new one. I've got to agree with her. From the comments, I'd say some other folks do too.

Jurisprudence test

I teach con law (yeah, do I have my employer snowed or what?), and one of the enduring themes is the question of judicial activism. We go into great depths understanding judicial activism, restraint, how a judge grabs hold of an issue and sometimes just has to shake it repeatedly to get at the truth.

So here's today's quiz: is this paragon of American jurisprudence a judicial realist or formalist? If he's a realist, is a he a rule or fact skeptic? If a formalist, is he a, um, an Ares or Gemini?

I mean, I've heard the whole Brennan theory about how judges need to take today's realities to the Constitution, but I've never heard of them taking today's, er, realities, on the Constitution....

Gratuitous Llama Opining - World of Sports Division

I may be going out on a limb here, but Lance Armstrong kinda gives me the creeps.

I know he's supposed to be a hero and all, but, well, I dunno. Something isn't quite right.

Oh, No - Another Book List!

That's right folks! Only this time, it's Top Ten Historical Novels, as chosen by Elizabeth Chadwick. I don't know any of these books.

Dan has some excellent additions, all of which I heartily endorse with two addenda:

First, Patrick O'Brian falls off very sharp after The Wine Dark Sea. I don't really even bother with the last few any more. My personal favorite is probably The Mauritius Command, although the run-in with Linois and the French Fleet in HMS Surprise is probably my favorite sea-battle description in any of them.

Second, be very careful which Shaara you pick up. Michael Shaara's Killer Angels is indeed a superb book. Jeff Shaara, his son, is going to go straight to his own special circle of hack-writer's hell some day, the one reserved for authors who plagiarize their own father's ideas.

Finally, allow me to add another author who ought to be on the list: Robert Graves. Everyone has heard of I, Claudius, but he wrote numerous other really good period pieces as well, including Hercules, My Shipmate, which retells the story of Jason and the Argonauts, Homer's Daughter, which recreates the homecoming in The Odyssey with a different twist, Count Belisarius, which tells of Constantinople during the reign of Justinian, Wife to Mr. Milton, yes that Milton, and Sgt. Lamb's America, which includes an account of the Battle of Saratoga from a British foot soldier's point of view.

I know I've carried on about Graves' novels before, but believe me - they're worth it.

And Don't You Forget It.....

How to make a Robert the Llama Butcher

Ingredients: 5 parts anger 5 parts ambition 3 parts instinct

Method: Layer ingredientes in a shot glass. Add wisdom to taste! Do not overindulge!

Username:

Personality cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com


HT to Jen.

Message to Iraq: This Is Your Fight Too

According to the article I posted yesterday, one of the key ingredients in our recent success over bad boy whannabe Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr is that average Iraqis simply got tired of the looting and kidnappings by this guy's goons and turned on him.

All I can say about last night's strikes across the country is that I hope they have the same effect on a larger scale.

These people are the Bad Guys, plain and simple, whether you're an Iraqi or an American. At the least, I hope last night's exercise removed any remaining doubts on that point.

Calling BJ and the Bear

Interesting update from Blackfive: it seems Muslim Civil Liberties groups have their shorts in a twist over a new Irish regulation that Muslim men seeking citizenship via marrying an Irish woman must sign an affadavit swearing off polygamy. Money quote:

Muslim men also have to agree they will not seek residency for a second wife if granted Irish citizenship. A man must swear he has "one spouse only" and "has no intention of entering into a simultaneous marriage".

A spokesman for the Department of Justice in Dublin said: "Obviously, we don't recognise polygamy under Irish law."

Any bets on whether Andrew Sullivan touches this one?

Jane Austen Trash Talking - Part IV

Here we go - it's getting kinda heavy now. Kathleen is practically strangling herself with her own dope rope, swallowing the medallions for good measure, in her latest diss.

Let's go through these one by one, shall we?

1. He says Seldom Sober is cheaply bought. HA. I think not. Seldom Sober is probably going to cost me more to host than when my sister, her husband and three kids show up in a few weeks. The bar has been set high and I plan to set it even higher.

Speaking of your peeps, if suggesting I've not read P&P and that my only connection with Emma is via the movies is disagreement in a "19th Century sort of way," I suppose the only suitable response is pistols at dawn.

2. Elizabeth's a "little miss goody two shoes"? I think not. After all, if you were a poor, but gentrified girl in the early 19th Century and your mother told you to marry that bore of a preacher, Mr. Collins, and you were a goody two shoes, you would have married him. You wouldn't have refused him and you would have spent the rest of your life praying for Mr. Collins to drop the hell dead. Lizzie was a rebel in an empire style dress and ballet slippers, Robbo, and don't you forget it.

And she has "fine eyes" so that's gotta count for something.

You don't dig my rap. Here's what I've said about Elizabeth: Ha! Kathleen is already dissing my girl Emma Woodhouse, coming over all big and bad with her "paragon of virtue" Elizabeth Bennett. Ooooh, the poor widdle baby - trapped in a life of misery with a hectoring mother, a retiring father, a pack of silly sisters and impending financial ruin, to say nothing of having to deal with being taken down by some rich.....snob! So noble, so patient, so virtuous.*****I see all this talk about Miss Bennett - she's so strong and good and smart and.......booooooringg! (That last was my own.) What's with you people? How much fun is that, really? How bout a little pizzazz?

Goody-two-shoes here means all that - Super Liz, the "rebel in the empire style dress and ballet slippers" as you put it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. "I am Miss Bennett. Hear me roar!"

3. Then he says that Emma was a "player." That she's out there, making moves, stirring the pot, adding spice to everyone's bland lives. That's a laugh. I have yet to see a character more lacking in self-awareness than Emma. She's clueless.(That's why the movie based on Emma is called that. Like, duh.) So bound and determined to have things her way, to puff up her already dubious character, she effectively blinds herself to the truth of the situation: that no one cares what she thinks. Well, except for Knightly, but he's a wuss, so who cares what he thinks. And I'm pretty sure there was a land grab in that deal so all of his motivations are suspect from the beginning.

Um, helloooooo? It's a comic novel fer chrissakes! You sound just like Aunt Agatha describing Bertie Wooster. Killjoy. And as for the cluelessness, well ye-uhh. But here's the secret of good characters: They grow! They go somewhere! They learn something! That's what the story's about! News Flash: Emma Finally Grows Up - details of Bates-Slapped Epiphany at 11. Why do you think we keep turning the damn pages to get there? As Chauncey Gardiner might say, "I like to watch."

Dubious character? Bah. She's spoiled and shallow and self-centered. That's nurture, not nature. Underneath there's plenty of good in the girl. My man Knightly sees that - why else would he bother?

And speaking of Mr. K, wuss? Wuss? Why - because he doesn't stalk around with a broomstick up the backside glowering at everyone in moody dudgeon like someone else we know? Because he can be mostly good-humored and yet come down on Emma when she most needs it? I think not.

You want some resolve-weakener? I got yer wish: The Missus and the Llama-ettes are off Sunday for a few days to visit grandparents, leaving me alone. Eye of the Tiger Time, bay-beh. No more of this sloppy quick-draw stuff. You should be afraid. Very afraid.



YIPS from Steve: I don't know if I can speak for the readers, but I am very afraid, but perhaps for different reasons....

YIPS Back from Robbo: Steve, I know exactly where you're headed with this. Don't make me have to come down there and whup you.

FURTHER UPDATE: Outer Life has a fiver on Miss Bennett. Eh, it's his money. However, I'll go easy on him since he's got a photo of Plum Wodehouse up on his page.

There's a first time for everything!

Time stamp for this Allahpundit pshop "I'm Jack Ryan: Vote for me because I've been to the Mountaintops" beaut: 5:55 PM.

Time stamp for the Llamabutchers' Jack & Jerri pshop tastybits (TM): 2:20 PM.

In your face, oh creator of worlds!

UPDATE from Steve:

Memo to self---don't mock the creator of worlds. Typing is difficult with these newly sprouted cloven hoofs.

Wow - Llama-Inspired Poetry!

Our old pal Willow evidently has been at the paint thinner again, because she's written a nifty little haiku at least partly in our honor. Allow me to quote:

Llamas are snippy
eyes squinted, irritated?
disdainful delight

We're very proud of this honor, let me tell you!

I don't know how to do the picture thingy, but if you follow the link back to Willow's place, you'll see a pretty good picture of Steve-O.

Yip! Yip! Yip!

YIPS from Steve:

BUSTED!!!!!!

I don't know HOW Willow got that pic of me: here of course is the original. I don't know how the heck Willow tracked it down from the Eton Alumni Notes:

What would Tyler Durden do? Not sing and dance, for chrissakes!

The Tyler Durden (the loveable psychotic character played by Brad Pitt in Fight Club) for President meme launched here last week has taken an interesting turn: our very own Lawren Mills whispers that Chuck Palahniuk, author of the novel, is turning to produce Fight Club as......a musical.

Let's review the rules of Fight Club:

The first rule about fight club is you don't talk about fight club.

The second rule about fight club is you don't talk about fight club.

You don't say anything because fight club exists only in the hours between when fight club starts and when fight club ends.

... that's the third rule of fight club, when someone says stop or goes limp, even if he's just faking it, the fight is over.

Only two guys to a fight. One fight at a time. They fight without shirts or shoes. The fights go on as long as they have to. Those are the other rules of fight club.

Fifth rule of Fight Club: DON'T MAKE A FREAKIN' MUSICAL OUT OF FIGHT CLUB!

That is all.

Awake! Awake! Fear! Fire! Foes! Awake!

Yes, the Enemy is indeed at hand - I spotted one of Sauron's wraith-rabbits in the garden last evening. This is terrible news.

That these furry little bastards stand or fall by the power of their dark master is evident in the fact that the rock I chucked at this one went wide and instead neatly clipped a new shoot right off one of my Joe-Pye bushes.

Closer investigation indicates he may have been starting in on some of the purple magnus babies. He or they might also be what has been playing hell with the sunflowers.

What power can stop these fiends? Well, since the Missus continues to maintain that a pellet gun is out of the question, we're just going to have to build stronger defenses - This one got in where the garden cuts into the hillside - it's a drop of about a foot and the recent heavy rains have eroded it enough to make a new gap under the fence.

In the meantime - our neck of the woods is crawling with owls and foxes. Why aren't they helping out? Where is Radegast? Whose side is he on anyway?


YIPS from Steve: Our new motto:

"The Llamabutchers: The Official Blog of Farmer McGregor and Rabbit-Hating Gardeners Everywhere!"

Starfleet Nazis. I Hate Starfleet Nazis.

Star Trek as Fascist Utopianism.

I have always been amused by the idea that in the future world of Star Trek all material wants have been satisfied by technological advance and everyone is free to pursue whatever path they want all to the greater good. What rubbish. I don't care how many whistles and bells they have, someone still has to run the sewer system. And nobody's going to do that just for the benefit of all mankind.

And don't even get me started on that child daycare crap on board Picard's Enterprise.

HT again to Ghost of a Flea.

YIPS from Steve: I grew up in a quasi-naval family (which was a polite way of saying my dad was in the Coast Guard), and so from a very early age I harbored deep distrust and suspicion for anyone wearing stars on their collars. In my house, the term "FLARAFU" (flara-fu) was used to describe a truly royal screwup that could not be questioned, corrected, or acknowledged: something that could only be described as a "FLAg RAnk Fuck Up."

Hence, young Stevie Llamabutcher was always amused by the machinations of the Star Fleet Admiralty. How in the world could such an excellent space navy be run by such a hoary collection of pencil-necked, pea-balled, shit-for-brains admirals? But the lesson, of course, was that Star Fleet was NOT run by them: it was run by the Mr. Scott's and the other worthies out in the fleet. I thought the one thing really missing from Star Fleet were the Chief Petty Officers: if they had only a solid cadre of Chiefs, they'd be parked for fleet week knee deep in green-haired whores on newly conquered Romulus in about two weeks time. No matter how much the admirals tried to screw everything up, Kirk, the ultimate captain, insulated his crew from the stupidity of the higher ranks and allowed them to accomplish their mission. Picard, on the other hand, is the perfect example of what happens when you let the UN bureaucrats in. Hey look, we have a multi-culti bridge crew, but, hey, ignore how often I keep getting the Enterprise shot out from under me.

And don't get me started on Picard and the Borg: Kirk would've nailed the Borg queen on First Contact and that would have been the end of that--giant Borg cubes, sailing the galaxy, Barry White music blaring from their ultimate speaker system.

That's Right, Pilgrim.

Check out the F-Scale, a test that is, I guess, aimed at quantifying who might be a candidate for the Brown Shirts.

My score: 3.36666666. "You are disciplined but tolerant; a true American."

The Duke would be proud.

HT to Ghost of a Flea.

YIPS from Steve: 1.6666666 "You are a whining rotter."

Well, duh.....

Although, it could've been worse, I guess: it could have said "You are a whining rotter, blogging in your basement in your underwear." Now THAT would've been cruel....accurate, but cruel.

So You Wanna Be A Lawyer?

Doug Kern has a humorous article up over at TechCentralStation in which he exposes the bar review/bar exam racket. I say humorous, but he's really not that far off the truth of the matter. It is old-fashioned guild protection. (BTW, if you link over there and read the article and you're not a member of a bar? Well, I'm afraid we're going to have to kill you.)

For. The. Love. Of. Gawd. Noooooo!

The Cranky Neocon decided my tomato blogging of last week was lacking a certain something, how do you say it in your language? ah yes, feline.

My only reaction is: what, no smiley emoticons?



YIPS from Robbo! My friend, I have the cure - meet The Terriorists.

Llamabutcher Consulting, a wholy-owned subsidiary of Llamabutcher Industries

More Gratuitous Llama Family Lexicon Posting

From the overwhelming response I've received to my two earlier posts on the subject today, I thought I'd let you all in on one more expression commonly used in my family: Somebody get the squirt gun.

Before you go beetling off to Google to try and track down the reference, let me hasten to point out that this one is absolutely home-grown. Allow me to explain.

We always had dogs when I was growing up, mostly American Pointers because my father liked bird hunting. One of the last of this long line was a dog named Jake. We got Jake as a puppy when I was about seven or eight. He was white with a heavy coating of black spots, big black patches around his eyes and black ears.

Jake eventually grew into one of the biggest, strongest pointers you've ever seen. He must have topped out at close to 90 pounds, all of it solid muscle. On top of that, he was ceaselessly energetic. And to cap it all off, he was the friendliest creature you could imagine, almost pathetic in his eagerness to please.

The combination of all of these factors often made Jake something of a pest when people wished to sit out on the patio. He would cruise around amongst the chairs trying to figure out a way to heave his 90 pounds into people's laps. His tail, which never stopped wagging, was known as the chopper blade - in its time, it smacked more than one unsuspecting soul right in the face (this hurt) as well as knocking several glasses, bowls and other objects off the tables. And even if he couldn't succeed in climbing into the chair with you, very little could stop Jake from thrusting his long snout and even longer tongue into your face as you sat there.

Various remedies were tried to make Jake stop buzzing about, to get him to simply lie down within hand's reach of someone and let them gently scratch him. None of them worked until we hit on the dodge of the squirt gun. For some reason, Jake didn't like getting sprayed in the face with water. So we got in the habit of always keeping a loaded squirt gun lying about when we sat outside. When Jake got overly frenetic in his clamoring for attention, someone would reach for it and spritz him in the face. This almost invariably got him to calm down and back off.

So there you have it. To this day when someone gets overexcited about something in my family (which happens about every 45 seconds), the stock line is Somebody get the squirt gun!

Back in the saddle again

You know the blogpipe has you reaaaaal good when you feel like you have to apologize for not posting for a couple of days.....

I was in DC for a conference of civic educators, basically a bunch of college professors and a great mass of high school civics/history teachers. Of course, only one word comes to mind: Par-tay! But of course!

The weekend started off on a high note Friday, when I brought the car in to get inspected, only to be told to they needed to keep it until Monday so they could replace the steering rack system. Ka-ching, or whatever the equal but opposite of the sound when you are the giver. Hey, the car's got 160K on it, and fixing a car that it very reliable and is paid off is much better than the alternatives.

But, of course, that meant I had no way to get up to DC, except my old favorite Greyhound. Now, I hadn't ridden Greyhound since grad school, to be perfectly honest, but for $20 one way it beat the hell out of all the other alternatives. The funny thing is is that either long-distance bus riding has gotten better, or maybe my memories were particularly jaded. First thing is that it was much cleaner than I remembered it to be. Everyone on the bus appeared to be sober, no one was playing loud and ridiculous music. It was at least three Nathan Detroits and a Nicely-Nicely short of a Damon Runyan story, although I did have a couple of candidates for inter-state drug couriers. I was the only one with a laptop bag, but I was the only one without a cell phone. Go figure.

The adventure was that the bus from Charlottesville to DC didn't arrive: it was broken down. Suh-weet! Instead, we got on the bus to Richmond, to transfer to DC. This wasn't as bad as I initially thought it would be. The bus out of Richmond was right there, and was perfectly fine---the driver was kind of a shorter, broken down version of Erik Estrada, but twice as funny. He started a sing-a-long. Really. It was quite funny. In the row in front of me were three Marines on leave, which made me feel like I was 953 years old.

The scary part was when we arrived at the bus station in DC at 1:45 in the morning. Now, I'm sure INDC Bill or others who know DC are pinching off a loaf at the thought of that, because the Bus Station is at First and L, which let's just say has a certain Fort Apache feng-shui thing going for it. Conveniently, a whole range of rather polite crack heads line up outside to help you get a cab, if you'd only walk around the block. I adopted my best, "ABSOLUTELY DO NOT THINK OF FUCKING WITH ME---I AM YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE" look on my face and was in a cab in less than 30 seconds. When I told the cabby that I needed to go to the Marriot in Woodley Park, he laughed and said I sure as hell liked to get around, didn't I? He was hilarious---it was a twenty minute rant about how the Wizards had traded away all the players that became the Detroit Pistons. I got in about a dozen words---mostly six or eight "damn straights", two or three "you can say that again"s, and a couple of "what a jerk"s when the subject of Daniel Snyder, owner of the Redskins, came up.

All in all, I think the bus and air travel business experiences are starting to converge: the bus was a whole hell of a lot more pleasant an experience than it was 15 years ago (granting that I didn't have to deal with the Port Authority Station in New York, which Dante would sure to include as the new entrance to Hell), while air travel has increasingly started to suck. If anything, I'd say that Greyhound and US Air are getting to be pretty damn close. Maybe that should be Greyhound's new motto: "Greyhound: almost as shitty as USAir, at 1/5th the price!"

The rest of the weekend was good: made a lot of contacts, got much work done, and had a fair amount of fun on the side. I was able to sneak in a Llamabutcher Lunch with Robbo--we went to his deli, which reminded me instantly of the Hello Deli of Rupert G's, and we ate over at the Navy Memorial, all the while laughing at what a pussy INDC Bill was for not coming. "Oh Brother Bluto, I'm afraid! I have too much work to do!" All I can say is: waaaaaaa!

What's funny about conventions is how the other groups that are also there mix together. Saturday, there was this left-wing commie group the American Constitution Society (true elevator quote: two tall, rather good looking women in the elevator, one says to the other "I was disappointed Janet Reno wasn't there!", taking me about 45 seconds to realize Hey! She's not kidding!) They were replaced by a convention of Cops, literally: it was a community policing group whose acronym spelled out "COPS." Let me tell you, they were hilarious, loud, and funny. I'm sure the hookers made a fortune, as long as they brought their spare keys, if you know what I mean.

Culinary highpoint came at the Lebanese Taverna, on Connecticut Avenue right across from the Woodley Park Metro stop. I've eaten there at least a dozen times at conventions and it never disappoints.

So that's just me, Mr. Vegas. I've got a huge inbox to purge, plus a nagging head cold. But other than that, it's back to business.

So anyway, I figure I'm about 24 hours late on this story, but I'm giving myself a Mulligan as yesterday was a travel day. So, this guy's running for Senate in Illinois, and his ex-wife is Jerri Ryan, she of "Star Trek: Voyager" fame, and their divorce records are somehow unsealed, and it turns out he is a superfreak who wanted to have sex with her in some club. Now, everyone on the tee-vee news was treating this as if it was going to hurt his campaign or something.

My first thought, unfortunately, was: nut-uhh! I mean, and guys, you need to be honest about this: who wouldn't want people to know you had slept with Seven-of-Nine? I mean, I'm surprised he hasn't built his whole campaign around this, with bumper stickers proclaiming "Vote Ryan: He Nailed Seven of Nine, and Lived!" and "Vote Ryan: Seven of Nine thinks he's an asshole, but hey, she's just a fucking Borg!" or just simply "Fuck the Borg: Vote Ryan!" It would work for me.....

Gratuitous Geeky Lawyer Posting

Our Llama Military Correspondent points me to Curtis Edmonds' column on NRO today. Edmonds writes that the recent Newdow decision by the Supremes, far from being a punt on a thorny issue under the Establishment Clause, is really a victory in the fight to preserve the concept of judicial standing.

I think his argument makes a good deal of sense. Standing may seem like a silly legal technicality but without it the system simply wouldn't work.

Care For Some More Crow?

Remember how bully-boy Sheik Muqtada al-Sadr was going to single-handedly ruin our entire Iraqi campaign and (some hoped) bring the Administration to its knees?

Well, stick a fork in him. He's done.

Whaddaya Mean "Rumsfeld Ain't Himmler"?

Sullivan is watching the release of the Administration materials on prisoner interrogation policies. So far it looks (surprise surprise) like all the hysterical claims that Bush & Company were up to their necks in lawless mayhem and gore are, well, just plain wrong.

Sullivan does mention the use of dogs. Let me make clear my feelings on that point:

1) Local soldiers using dogs to scare the hell out of prisoners just to get their sadistic jollies - wrong.

2) Interrogators using dogs to scare the hell out of prisoners in an attempt to get them to spill information about the bad guys - I'd hold the leash.

More Required Reading

INDC Bill has another installment of his invaluable Field Guide To The North American Moonbat.

No hot beverages, please.

Today's Required Reading

George Will on the joys of punctuation. Trust me, you'll like it.

(Courtesy of the Emperor of the Geeks.)

More Lexiconic Thoughts

Touching further on the post below, over the years my family has incorporated a rather large assortment of quotes, paraphrases and riffs into the household language, tailoring them to our own purposes. We tend to beg, borrow or steal from a wide variety of sources - books, movies, tee-vee, etc. In terms of numbers, I would estimate that the richest source of such plunder probably is Fawlty Towers. I don't know - somehow it all seems to fit.

Rather than try to give a long list of familial phrases and their sources (perhaps another time), I thought I would pass on what is probably the most obscure one in the set. It is based on a joke that my mother picked up somewhere and told me years and years ago. Our English cousins might know it in a slightly different form, but this is the version I know:

It seems a retired Royal Navy admiral built a house on the cliffs overlooking the entrance to the harbor at Malta, there to watch HM ships attempt to negotiate the very tricky channel and to offer comment and criticism via signal flags hoisted on a pole next to his chair and telescope. This admiral became quite notorious for his exacting standards and dry, withering commentary.

One day, a young captain was attempting to negotiate the channel for the first time - and making a genuine pig's breakfast out of it. Nervously, he glanced up at the clifftop and noticed a hoist flying at the admiral's house. Raising his glass, the captain read the signal "Good". However, just as he started to unclench, the flags were lowered and a new hoist ran up. The second signal read, "Add to my first - God".

Okay, I think it's funny. Anyhoolios, "Good add to my first" has become an expression in our family that we use to indicate exasperation with someone who is doing a bad job at something.

I'll bet you lot have many of your own favorites. Why (meme) don't (meme) you (meme) share (meme) some (meme) of (meme) them (meme) with (meme) everybody?

The Circle Is Now Complete

I love these moments. Last night I saw Only Angels Have Wings for the first time. This is a 1939 film about the adventures of a group of pilots flying for a bush airline somewhere in the South American Andes. It's probably most famous now as the movie in which Cary Grant says to Rita Hayworth, "You're no good, Judy. And you never were." (Contrary to popular myth, there is no "Judy, Judy, Judy" at the beginning of this line. That got added in a cartoon send-up of the piece.)

The picture is actually half-way decent. It has one of those solid Golden Age casts you simply can't get any more and some great dialogue. Also, some of the flying sequences are genuinely sick-making (although some are awfully silly, too).

But what really struck the chord for me were the cheesy, flat voices everyone used when radioing in to the airport from their planes: "Calling Barranca....Calling Barranca...."

The reason for this chord-striking is that my mother has been mocking that line for time immemorial. Indeed, it entered the family lexicon years and years ago and to this day, whenever we want to express the idea that something has gone over the top in an extra silly way, we need only say in a flat, nasal voice...

Calling Barranca......Calling Barranca.....

Out, Out, Brown Cow!

My four year old informed me this morning that a cow is getting into her room in the middle of the night and waking her up by mooing and saying a bad word. (She wouldn't tell me what the word is because she says it's bad.) She asked that I get rid of it and I said I'd see what I could do.

Does anyone have any tips on bovine exorcism?

Thanks!

Pucker Up, Baby! Here Comes AlGore's Kiss of Death!

Drudge is reporting that the Gorebot is going to give a speech Thursday accusing the Administration of lying about the links between Al Qaeda and Iraq.

We all know what a track record Al has when it comes to endorsing people and memes.

And in the D'OH! category, note that Big Al is calling on the Administration to release its documentation regarding terrorist prison interrogation policy. Oops! Never mind, they already are!

This should be guuuuuuud.

Oh, No, It's That Damned Artistic Vision Thingy Again!

Sheila, in her thorough way, has posted a whole batch of writings by the playwrite Clifford Odets (of whom I frankly had never heard before). Start here and scroll your way down.

Actually, these are interesting pieces, several of which touch on musical subjects such as Mozart and Mussorgsky. In particular, tho, Odets seems to have had an infatuation with Beethoven. Allow me to copy out what he had to say about Beethoven's music as opposed to that of Brahms or Bach:

Entry from Journal

March 24, 1940

You cannot live in old forms, or work in them, when your life has brought you ahead to a new point. Try better to keep a child in last year's coat. It is simply an intolerable contradiction which must be resolved consciously in order to bring the life and/or work up for a higher level of creativity. Otherwise the spirit dies a death and sterility is the only outcome.

Beethoven is the only man or artist I can think of at the moment who never once faltered in this difficult task: he was a fanatic! He hacked and chopped, twisted and tortured, but he did not EXCLUDE a drop of his experience from his work; in each phase of his life he found the right form for an increasingly higher and deeper experience. That is Beethoven's final lesson, if an artist may teach a lesson. Life is a series of rebirths, year after year more difficult, never to be refused, but always to be worked with, coped with, understood, used and used by, never going back, but always moving ahead and higher. Which is what Beethoven did. Easy words to write, these!

Why is Brahms an inferior artist, all other things equal? Because his last period is given over to "resignation" and acceptance. he did not have that same passion of the HEART which was Beethoven's. That is why any last Brahm's work is child's play compared to any last Beethoven work.

Beethoven's work, it must be said, represents the deepest expression of man's faith in life which has ever been written by a man. No artist before or since has expressed so deeply the will to live and accept every fact of life, to be both figuratively and literally crucified for his belief that the way to conquer life is to live without ever once relenting or letting up in that living.

It was Beethoven who understood the passion of Christ, not Bach, for he lived it and experienced it while Bach heard about it in a sort of secondhand way. What some writer once said is true: Bach sacrificed the Church, Beethoven sacrificed himself. His last quartets, a record of his sacrifice (or crucifixion), are more moving to the modern man than any page in the Bible.

Now I am not really qualified to quibble with Odets' comparative assessment of Brahms' and Beethoven's later works, because I'm really not that familiar with them (I know much more about Beethoven's early and middle periods). And in general, there is something to what Odets says about an artist perpetually driving forward as opposed to coasting. However, what I really understand, based on his other writings posted by Sheila, is what Odets thinks he sees in Beethoven - it is a case of egomaniac calling to egomaniac across the wastes of time.

What gives this away? Well, think about what Odets says about the parallels between Beethoven and Christ. Beethoven was literally crucified on the cross of his final quartets? Um, no. Christ's Passion consisted of living without ever once relenting or letting up in that living? Makes him sound like a real Mountain Dew-chugging X-treme Sports kinda dude.

Even if you accept that it's just figurative, Odets' description of Beethoven's life as a second Passion of Christ betrays a fundamental misconception about the relative roles of Man and God in the Universe, a belief that a sufficient amount of ego or gusto or whatever you want to call it will propel a man to eternal salvation. Well, that's all well and good for card-carrying Humanists, but I don't think it's going to get very far in more spiritual circles. In fact, it will get you in trouble rather quickly, since if anyone can become Christ just by trying hard enough, it makes J.C.'s original sacrifice largely pointless.

But what really irks me is that Odets uses this bizarre formula to blithely toss overboard the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, who was more in tune with all that is Heavenly than any other human being ever to walk the planet. Bach had a far greater understanding of the true meaning of Christ's Passion than did the Beethoven portrayed in Odets' writing, as is perfectly obvious in the glory of his music. Bach worshipped Jesus. Odets' Beethoven worshipped himself. Odets is entitled to his preferences, but he is not entitled to claim-jump the Cross.

WHOMP!

I'll second that.

The Enemy Within

Self: Aw, I don't wanna review these dumb contracts this afternoon.

Inner Self: Buddy, if you don't do it now, you're doing it tonight.

Self: D'Oh!

UPDATE: Tariffs. We hates them!

FURTHER UPDATE: But at least working on this has allowed me to duck having to go to another booooring meeting a number of blocks away. Right now. With a thunderstorm in progress and rain bucketing down. I can live with that.

It's Always Funny Till Someone Loses An Eye

David Bowie takes one in the eye. ("Love on a stick" as a weapon. Who knew those Norwegians could be so sly and subtle....)

This is almost, but now quite, as humorous as the legendary encounter between Fabio and the Killer Goose.

Surely, Ladies and Gentlemen, whatever we're paying the brave members of our Entertainment Community, it's not nearly enough.

UPDATE: See what I mean? All she wanted was a cute li'l puppy.

Meanwhile, it seems one of the Gollum Twins can't even get a decent meal.

Oh the shame. Hollywood Aid Now!

More Required Reading

Go and have a look at Debra Burlingame's disillusion with the 9/11 Committee Hearings. (She is the sister of the pilot of AA Flight 77 that hit the Pentagon.)

I must say, I'm rather surprised it's taken her this long to come to her conclusions. The so-called "Jersey Girls" and the Moonbat Left, aided and abetted by the press and Beltway grandstanders, have been aiming to make political hay out of all this since Day One.

What does seem to be occurring now is that more and more people are beginning to realize what a farce the whole business is. Let's hope so.

Today's Required Reading

In case you haven't already done so, go read Hitch take apart uber-pigman Michael Moore.

Go. We'll wait for you.

Jane Austen Trash-Talk - Part III

Kathy is getting her posse together in Elizabeth Bennett's corner. (I notice with glee that at least one of her homies can be bought pretty easily. Hey Seldom! Sure you can stay here. But you have to take the cat when you leave.)

So what you all got? I see all this talk about Miss Bennett - she's so strong and good and smart and.......booooooringg! (That last was my own.) What's with you people? How much fun is that, really? How bout a little pizzazz? Sure Emma's a spoiled ditz - but she's out there. She's a player! She's mixing it up!

You people want to sit around your little Sunday Tea at the Bennetts' admiring Little Miss Goody-Two-Shoes, then go ahead. Me, I'm partying down with my girl.

Movie Meme Part II

Sheila adjusts for inflation to give us a slightly altered list. (See below for any comments I have the first time around.)

1 Gone With the Wind - The Missus was classmates with a woman whose grandmother was a great friend of Margaret Mitchell's and tells many stories of the film premier in Atlanta. When we met her a few years back, she took one look at us and her face said, with extreme distain, "Yankees".
2 Star Wars
3 The Sound of Music
4 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
5 The Ten Commandments - Once you start listening for the extra voices saying things like "Look! Moses turned his staff into a stronger serpent!" you can't get them out of your mind.
6 Titanic
7 Jaws
8 Doctor Zhivago - I'm pretty sure "Lara's Theme" is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.
9 The Exorcist
10 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
11 101 Dalmatians
12 The Empire Strikes Back
13 Ben-Hur
14 Return of the Jedi
15 The Sting
16 Raiders of the Lost Ark
17 Jurassic Park
18 The Graduate - Am I the only person in the world who thinks Dustin Hoffman's character was a self-absorbed little bastard and that the poor girl who clung to him despite all his beastly behavior should have been high-tailing it the other way from the beginning?
19 The Phantom Menace
20 Fantasia - When I was very young. All I can remember is the bit from Night on Bald Mountain. I need to rent this again, now that I am so much more conversant with the music.
21 The Godfather
22 Forrest Gump
23 Mary Poppins - I went through a serious Julie Andrews phase.
24 The Lion King
25 Grease
26 Thunderball - Oh, I must have.
27 The Jungle Book
28 Sleeping Beauty - With three daughters? Are you kidding me?
29 Ghostbusters
30 Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid
31 Bambi - I understand the book is considerably less, well, Bambi-ish.
32 Independence Day
33 Love Story - Wasn't Algore in that?
34 Beverly Hills Cop
35 Spider-Man
36 Home Alone
37 Pinocchio
38 Cleopatra
39 Goldfinger - Terrific henchman: Oddjob. Terrific repartee: "You expect me to talk, Goldfinger?" "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!"
40 Airport - Oh, at some point, I'm sure.
41 American Graffiti
42 The Robe
43 Around the World in 80 Days
44 Blazing Saddles - As I say, Brooks just can't keep up the story line. Some funny bits, but it all fizzles out.
45 Batman
46 The Bells of St. Mary's
47 The Return of the King
48 The Towering Inferno - How can you not?
49 National Lampoon's Animal House
50 The Passion of the Christ
51 The Greatest Show on Earth
52 My Fair Lady- I have this Berlin Wall-like demarcation between Pygmalion and MFL. Shoot to kill is my standing order.
53 Let's Make Love- Eh?
54 Back to the Future
55 The Two Towers
56 Superman - No, I really didn't believe a man could fly.
57 Smokey and the Bandit - Another Guys Must See flick.
58 The Sixth Sense
59 Finding Nemo
60 Tootsie
61 Harry Potter / Sorcerer's Stone
62 West Side Story - I rather like some of Bernstein's music, but let's not encourage him too much.
63 Lady and the Tramp
64 Close Encounters of the Third Kind
65 Twister
66 Rocky
67 The Best Years of Our Lives
68 The Fellowship of the Ring
69 The Poseidon Adventure - Classic disaster flick. But in this post-Airplane! and Police Squad era, you can never take Leslie Nielson seriously again.
70 Men in Black
71 The Bridge on the River Kwai
72 Its' a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
73 Swiss Family Robinson
74 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Nope, believe it or not.
75 M*A*S*H - "Goddam army!"
76 Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom
77 Attack of the Clones
78 Mrs. Doubtfire
79 Aladdin
80 Ghost
81 Duel in the Sun
82 Pirates of the Caribbean
83 House of Wax
84 Rear Window - I saw this for the first time in college at the campus cinema. When Raymond Burr noticed the ring on Grace Kelly's finger and looked up directly into the camera, the entire audience gasped, "Oh, sh*t!.
85 The Lost World: Jurassic Park
86 Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade
87 Terminator 2: Judgment Day
88 How the Grinch Stole Christmas
89 Sergeant York
90 Toy Story 2
91 Top Gun
92 Shrek
93 Crocodile Dundee
94 The Matrix Reloaded
95 Saving Private Ryan
96 The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
97 Young Frankenstein - The absolute best of the Mel Brooks films.
98 Peter Pan
99 Gremlins - I love Tony Randall's bit.
100 Monsters, Inc.

Why I Hate Cats - Reason #83

So the Missus and I were in the kitchen this evening, leaning against the counters and chatting amiably of this and that.

Well. This did not suit the schedule of Jeeves, our 11 year old tiger tabby. As I may have mentioned previously, Jeeves does not like anyone in the family except me. Every evening, the instant I get home, he starts mooing at me to sit down so he can jump into my lap.

Apparently, this evening Jeeves was miffed because I was not adhering to the regular plan. As the Butcher's Wife and I were standing there, this little stink strolls into the adjacent laundry room and, not four feet from his litter box, proceeds to start peeing on a pile of laundry next to the washing machine. Right in front of us. Just to show us what he thought of things.

Selfish little bastard.

If anyone wants a middle aged, neurotic, orange and white striped cat (with some Bass boatshoe imprints on his backside), please contact me via the Mail Sack. I'll mail the rotter to you. In pieces, if I can get a cheaper rate.

UPDATE: The fiend yacked up his dinner at the head of the stairs, very loudly, at about 3:00 AM lat night. This is another one of his tricks to show he's mad wuf us. Sulky toad.

Jane Austen Trash Talk - An Aside

I just wanted to pause for a moment to salute a seriously worthy opponent.

Earlier today in accordance with the Jane Austen Cage Match we're going to have, I whipped out a post that combined Austen and South Park. My totally awesome opponent, Kathleen the Cake Eater immediately picked it up and whipped it right back at me.

To quote Ted "Theodore" Logan, "Whoa".

Not that it's going to do Kathy any good - You're going down - but I really respect that depth.

Huh? Report From The Front Lines

As I was trudging back to the office with my partner this evening, we got talking about the election prospects. This guy is pretty liberal, but he admitted that Kerry didn't stand much of a chance so long as his platform was nothing more than "Well, I'm not Bush."

When we got talking about the critical 20% or so that constitute middle of the road swing voters, this guy was of the opinion that such voters were too complaisant and stupid not to turn out in great numbers to vote against Bush. (I had argued early on that Kerry's problem was that no one was really voting for him.) I could feel his pain, because I was saying exactly the same thing in 1996 when I was attempting to whip up anti-Clinton furor in support of Bob Dole.

But then the strange part came - my colleague suggested that one of Bush's attractions for these people was his "false Christianity". That's what produced the Huh? in the title of this post - I've heard a lot of comment on Dubya's religion. But most of it accuses him of being a Jebus-freak. I have never heard anyone suggest it's all a con job. Perhaps I am just sheltered that way.

Well. I grew up in Texas. I know the type. Anyone who has been subjected to the tee-vee commercials of Buckner Fanning, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio, knows what I'm talking about - you simply cannot fake that brand of Southern Evangelicalism.

Look- you can call Bush a nut, you can call him a Jebus Freak. As Sully loves to do, you can call him a tool of the Religious Right. But if you think you're going to shoot him down by calling him a spiritual fraud, well, as Dr. Phil would say, that dog won't hunt.

My Brain Hurts

Spent all afternoon in meetings out of the office. Committee meetings. With corporate types. Can't....stay.....awake.....zzzzzzz

Gott und Himmel, I Never Get Any Peace Around Here!

Over the weekend, The Guardian ran an article exploring Beethoven's love life. Interesting stuff. (I'm glad to see the author ripped apart the movie Immortal Beloved.) Somehow, I don't think our man was really cut out for the joys of domesticity.

I can't think of Beethoven's domestic life without being reminded of that outstanding Monty Python sketch in which John Cleese (as Ludwig van) is at the piano trying to compose and is constantly being interrupted by a miming mynah bird, the Missus (Graham Chapman), large numbers of rats and Colin Mozart, "Munich's Leading Rodent Liquidator" (Michael Palin). When things get especially noisy around my house, I always borrow the line Mrs. Thing used to sum up the situation: "So anyway, Beethoven was really rather glad when he went deaf."

Thanks to Mr. Soames.

Hippie Accounting 101

Err America and the gentle art of alternate-reality financing. $30 million? $6 million? Dude, whatever. Like, I'm good for it, man.

HT to
Pejman.

Outstanding

SpaceShipOne makes it into space and back. Congratulations to everyone involved.

Sweaty Palm Theatre 2004

Check out Terry Teachout's review of a new off-off-Broadway show, Charlie Victor Romeo and tell me if it doesn't give you the screaming heebie-jeebies. Occasionally, I read the cockpit transcript from a plane crash. I almost always regret it. Gah.

Jane Austen Trash-Talk - Part II

Thanks much to Kathleen for not kicking me when I was down over the weekend. Kathy, you're quite a, er, gentleman.

Now that I'm back on my feet, however, allow me to quote Ned from South Park: "Mnnnnnnnn, what you got, beyotch?"

(Don't forget, folks. Next Week - Elizabeth Bennett vs. Emma Woodhouse. In the Cage. No rules. Just pain. Be there!)

MonkeyWatch Gets Results!

Rowland will go.

Congrats, Ed!

Monday Morning Movie Meme

Okay, it's not original, nor is it the kind of laser-like socio-political commentary that you look for at the Llama Shop. But I'm still a wee bit woozy from Saturday's heat stroke attack, so just humor me. (As an aside, got to spend all day yesterday napping. Now that's a sweet Father's Day present!)

Here via Jen is a list of the top 100 grossing movies. The game is to bold the ones you've seen. I also borrowed Jen's idea to italicize the ones I've seen either on video, pay-per-view or tee-vee. I'll go a step further and add some commentary here and there as well.

1. Titanic (1997) $600,779,824 - I think I'd rather drown than watch this.
2. Star Wars (1977) $460,935,665 - Han shoots first!
3. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) $434,949,459
4. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) $431,065,444 - Biggest con job in history.
5. Spider-Man (2002) $403,706,375
6. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The (2003) $377,019,252 - I'll catch it when it hits PPV just to get good n' cranky.
7. Passion of the Christ, The (2004) $370,025,697
8. Jurassic Park (1993) $356,784,000
9. Shrek 2 (2004) $356,211,000 - See comments below.
10. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The (2002) $340,478,898 - Evidently the Cliffnotes didn't cover Farimir very well.
11. Finding Nemo (2003) $339,714,367 - I thought the seagulls (mine! mine!) were awfully funny.
12. Forrest Gump (1994) $329,691,196 - I don't care for the idiot savant. (This goes for Chauncy Gardiner as well.)
13. Lion King, The (1994) $328,423,001
14. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) $317,557,891 - Never had any interest in the whole Harry Potter thing.
15. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The (2001) $313,837,577
16. Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) $310,675,583 - I've seen this far more times on HBO than it deserves.
17. Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) $309,125,409 - Die, Ewoks! Die!
18. Independence Day (1996) $306,124,059 - One day I'm going to do a survey of all the movies this one plagerizes. The list would be very long indeed.
19. Pirates of the Caribbean (2003) $305,411,224
20. Sixth Sense, The (1999) $293,501,675
21. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) $290,158,751
22. Home Alone (1990) $285,761,243
23. Matrix Reloaded, The (2003) $281,492,479
24. Shrek (2001) $267,652,016 - Am I the only person who thought this was just okay?
25. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) $261,970,615
26. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) $260,031,035
27. Jaws (1975) $260,000,000
28. Monsters, Inc. (2001) $255,870,172 - Much funnier than Shrek.
29. Batman (1989) $251,188,924
30. Men in Black (1997) $250,147,615
31. Toy Story 2 (1999) $245,823,397 - My girls, when in roguish mood, call me Stinky Pete.
32. Bruce Almighty (2003) $242,589,580
33. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) $242,374,454
34. Twister (1996) $241,700,000
35. My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) $241,437,427
36. Ghost Busters (1984) $238,600,000
37. Beverly Hills Cop (1984) $234,760,500
38. Cast Away (2000) $233,630,478
39. Lost World: Jurassic Park, The (1997) $229,074,524
40. Signs (2002) $227,965,690
41. Rush Hour 2 (2001) $226,138,454
42. Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) $219,200,000 - Robin Williams gives me cramps.
43. Ghost (1990) $217,631,306 - So does Demi Moore.
44. Aladdin (1992) $217,350,219
45. Saving Private Ryan (1998) $216,119,491
46. Mission: Impossible II (2000) $215,397,307
47. X2 (2003) $214,948,780
48. Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) $213,079,163 - I always thought the Austin Powers shtick was a one-joke wonder that was funny for about 30 seconds. Stretching it out over three movies? Neh.
49. Back to the Future (1985) $210,609,762 - One of the hallmark movies of the 80's.
50. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) $205,399,422 - See above.
51. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) $204,843,350
52. Exorcist, The (1973) $204,565,000 - I tried, but just couldn't.
53. Mummy Returns, The (2001) $202,007,640
54. Armageddon (1998) $201,573,391 - One of those movies that guys are required to watch when on tee-vee. It's in the Guy Code.
55. Gone with the Wind (1939) $198,655,278
56. Pearl Harbor (2001) $198,539,855
57. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) $197,171,806 - You call this archeology?
58. Toy Story (1995) $191,800,000 - A rare instance where the original is not as good as the sequel.
59. Men in Black II (2002) $190,418,803
60. Gladiator (2000) $187,670,866
61. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) $184,925,485
62. Dances with Wolves (1990) $184,208,848 - No. Freakin'. Way.
63. Batman Forever (1995) $184,031,112 - I guess I've seen all the Batmans, but it's hard to keep track.
64. Fugitive, The (1993) $183,875,760
65. Ocean's Eleven (2001) $183,405,771
66. What Women Want (2000) $182,805,123
67. Perfect Storm, The (2000) $182,618,434 - I thought the movie was kinda hokey. But the book is fantastic.
68. Liar Liar (1997) $181,395,380
69. Grease (1978) $181,360,000
70. Jurassic Park III (2001) $181,166,115
71. Mission: Impossible (1996) $180,965,237
72. Planet of the Apes (2001) $180,011,740 - I don't know why.
73. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) $179,870,271 - I watched about 20 minutes of this. Hard to believe how awful it was, considering the other two.
74. Pretty Woman (1990) $178,406,268 - I simply don't get why people think Julia Roberts is attractive.
75. Tootsie (1982) $177,200,000
76. Top Gun (1986) $176,781,728 - Navy Tomcats and Michael Ironside. What more do you want?
77. There's Something About Mary (1998) $176,483,808
78. Ice Age (2002) $176,387,405
79. Crocodile Dundee (1986) $174,635,000
80. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) $173,585,516
81. Elf (2003) $173,381,405
82. Air Force One (1997) $172,888,056
83. Rain Man (1988) $172,825,435
84. Apollo 13 (1995) $172,071,312
85. Matrix, The (1999) $171,383,253
86. Beauty and the Beast (1991) $171,301,428
87. Tarzan (1999) $171,085,177
88. Beautiful Mind, A (2001) $170,708,996
89. Chicago (2002) $170,684,505
90. Three Men and a Baby (1987) $167,780,960
91. Meet the Parents (2000) $166,225,040
92. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)$165,500,000 - I'll bet you didn't know there was a parallel between the Crusades and Vietnam. Well it's true. Costner says so.
93. Hannibal (2001) $165,091,464
94. Catch Me If You Can (2002) $164,435,221
95. Big Daddy (1999) $163,479,795
96. Sound of Music, The (1965) $163,214,286
97. Batman Returns (1992) $162,831,698
98. Bug's Life, A (1998) $162,792,677
99. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) $161,963,000
100. Waterboy, The (1998) $161,487,252 - I don't get the whole Adam Sandler thing.

Llama Celebratory Tips

Hey, kids! Want to add a novel twist to that next anniversary or other meaningful date? Try a little touch of heatstroke!

Honestly, though. As Joliet Jake Blues said, "It wasn't my faaauult!"

For a while now, I've been eyeing a lot near our house where tree-clearing crews had been wont to dump piles of woodchips ever since the cleanup from the hurricane that blew through here last fall. Despite the prominent display of "No Dumping" signs, recently a fresh pile had been left at the place. This, I thought, was where I get some free mulch for the garden. So yesterday morning, I cleaned out the back of the Cherokee, put down some paper matting on the floor, tossed in my shovel and got to work.

I reckon I moved something close to six cubic yards in two trips. It was a laborious process - first I had to shovel the stuff into the car. Then when I got home, I had to shovel the stuff out of the car. Then, pausing only for a quick trip to the corner gas station to use the industrial strength handivac to clean up the mess, I had to ferry it down to the garden in umpteen wheelbarrow loads.

So far so good. In my own defense, although it was broiling hot and humid, I was very conscientiously drinking lots of water. I didn't feel all that overheated at the time.

Anyway, once done with that job, I decided to get as much of the grass cut as I could, in order to avoid having to spend all day today doing it. By the time I got done with that, I was awfully beat, but again did not feel especially overheated. And I was still drinking lots of water.

Well, comes now last evening and going out to dinner and a movie. I was feeling quite stiff and sore, but was all ready for a pleasant evening of it. Little did I know I was walking into a trap of my own making. We went to the wife's favorite Chinese place. After knocking back a martini, I set in on a big dish of General Tso's chicken (they make it very spicy at this place). Biiiig mistake.

By the time we got to the movie, I was sliding rapidly downhill, with a headache starting right at my temples and swinging round to the back of my head. (We had meant to see The Stepford Wives but muffed the times. Instead, we wound up seeing The Terminal with Tom Hanks. "Interminable" would have been a better title. As the ending credits rolled, I blurted out, "This was a Spielberg movie?")

By the time the movie ended, I was about ready to die. I've never had such a fierce headache in all my days. Furthermore, I was violently chilled and my skin felt extremely prickly. Also, my lungs were all raspy with something, causing me to hack like a three pack a day man every time I tried to breathe. It was all I could do to drag myself into bed, but even then I was in so much pain I couldn't sleep. I spent most of the night - are you ready for it - in a delirious semi-dream about blogging the incident. As I say, nothing says "Happy Anniversary!" better than reducing yourself to a pitiful, shivering, hacking hulk.

Well, anyway. Lots of aspirin, water and pretzels later, I am feeling much better. Because of all this and because it's Father's Day, the Missus and the Llama-ettes are giving me the day off to recover. Something tells me this isn't the last I'm going to hear about the incident, however.

Jane Austen Trash-Talk, Part I

Ha! Kathleen is already dissing my girl Emma Woodhouse, coming over all big and bad with her "paragon of virtue" Elizabeth Bennett. Ooooh, the poor widdle baby - trapped in a life of misery with a hectoring mother, a retiring father, a pack of silly sisters and impending financial ruin, to say nothing of having to deal with being taken down by some rich.....snob! So noble, so patient, so virtuous. Mmmmm-hmmm! Girl, you sound like class but you don't got game!

[Gasp. I can't keep up this dialect for too long at a time.]

Kathy, my friend, you are going dow-yun! D'yah hear? Dow-yun!

Oh, What The Hell

It's late Friday afternoon and seems awfully slow around here today. A pity, really, because I put up what I thought were some pretty good posts earlier. Well. Since no one is really paying attention anyway, I'm going to indulge in another one of those Friday Five-like question sets. This one has a particularly macabre air to it, although the events seem wildly uneven in terms of importance. I suppose the relative impact of each event is reflected in how much I remember about where I was:

1. Where were you when you heard that Ronald Reagan died?

The Butcher's Wife, who was reading the morning paper, told me as I came into the kitchen on the way to heading out the door for work.

2. Where were you on September 11, 2001?

Right where I am now, in my office. I had got in a bit late that morning and was just settling in when one of the secs came by and told me about the first tower being hit. By the time I got to the tee-vee, the second one had been hit. We were all watching CNN when reports about the Pentagon started coming in. Not long after, they came round and sent us all home. As I got out on the street, I could smell the smoke coming across the Mall from the Pentagon.

3. Where were you when you heard that Princess Diana died?

Standing at the end of my driveway in Reston, VA grabbing the morning paper. I was surprised, to be sure, and I remember blurting out "Good God" as I read about it, but I wasn't moved by it or anything. I never liked Diana - the woman was certifiable and did a great deal to hasten the end of the Monarchy.

4. Do you remember where you were when you heard Kurt Cobain had died?

Nope.

5. Take one for The Gipper: What’s your favorite flavor of jelly bean?

Thanks, no. No sweet-tooth at all here.

6. Where were you when Magic Johnson announced he was retiring from the NBA due to AIDS?

I dunno.

7. Where were you when Reagan was shot?

I was in Latin class with Mr. Hicks at Churchill High School, San Antonio, Texas. When news broke, the office flipped on the intercom system and broadcast the radio reports to the entire school.

8. Where were you when the Challenger exploded?

It was my junior year in college. I was walking towards the student center when I heard some people talking about it.

9. Where were you when the 0J verdict was announced?

Beats me.

Lifted from Michele.

Paul Johnson, R.I.P.

Prayers go out to Johnson's family. I really don't have anything else to say at the moment.

These murders are going to keep on happening. Eventually they are either going to harden us to the need to go in and do some serious housecleaning or else they are going to act as a kind of Somalia By A Thousand Cuts and make us run.

Any bets on which one the elites of the Left and the Press want to happen?

Attention Jane Austen Fans! Are You Reeeeady to Ruuuuuumble?

Well, we certainly hope so! Because this is to announce the very first (so far as we know)

JANE AUSTEN CAGE MATCH!

Here's the deal. Following on John Hawkins' recent survey of favorite fictional characters, yours truly was called out by Kathleen the Cake Eater for my remark that I preferred Emma Woodhouse to Elizabeth Bennett. Well, my momma didn't raise no wus and I'm not backing down. We've been back and forth on it for the past couple of days and have decided there's only one way to settle things: In The CAGE.

KATHLEEN THE CAKE EATER vs. ROBERT THE LLAMA BUTCHER

Here are the rules. Kathy and I will explain our preferences. 500 words max. Text only. No outside sources. One rebuttal apiece. And No. Holds. Barred. Essays and rebuttals will be posted on both our sites and it will be up to you to decide which one of us sends the other to their House of Pain.

We will most likely have our initial arguments up by a week from Monday. In the meantime, stand by for more details, a lot of pre-fight trash talk and some choice artwork by Steve-O the Pshopolator. Also, if you have readers or linkers who want in on the action, please give them the heads up as well. They won't want to miss out on this Literary Death Match.

(Need to bone up and don't have a hard copy lying around? Kathy notes that both novels are available online over at Project Gutenberg.)

BE THERE! BE THERE! BE THERE!

Meme Alert!

Sheila directs us over to Blind Cave Fish where is currently going on a discussion of hated words.

I have hundreds. But two especially make me twitch:

1. I really can't stand it when people say "carbs". It's carbohydrates, dammit!

2. I also start twitching over the shortening of "side dishes" to "sides" as in "a complete chicken dinner with two sides". Nrrrrrrr......

Feel free to go on over and add your own. Perhaps we could assemble a Forbidden Vocabulary List.

Gratuitous Marriage Posting

Sometimes these things just drop right into your lap. Donald Sensing has a post up today about The Stepford Wives in which he mulls a bit on what husbands and wives really want from each other. As it happens, the Missus and I are planning on dinner out tomorrow night and then going to see Stepford Wives, she so she can drool over Matthew Broderick, I so I can hoot derision. (From what I've read, this movie may have a future with Liz and Pep.)

The reason we are going out is that tomorrow happens to be our 11th wedding anniversary. (Lest you think low-key celebration is the norm round here, last year for our 10th we spent a long weekend at The Boar's Head in Charlottesville, where we spent our wedding night prior to heading off to Sea Island.)

Would you like to take a quick look at the album? Oh, good!

I can say with all truthfulness that ours was the best wedding I've ever been to, not just for the obvious reason, but because we worked very hard to make sure that it was a combination of solemn religious ceremony and genuine celebration, rather than some kind of choreographed "event" devoid of any meaning and put on strictly for show.

The Butcher's Wife and I were married in the chapel at Sweet Briar College by the then-chaplain of the school, a great pal and the person largely responsible for my wife becoming an Episcopalian. We were also fortunate enough to get the head of the music department to play the organ for the service (courtesy of one of the bridesmaids, who had been a music major and who also was eventually destined to become Mrs. Llama Military Correspondent). The processional was Bach's
St. Anne Prelude. I can't for the life of me remember what the recessional was, except that it was Handel and it was quite lively. No funny vows or goo-goo tinkering were involved - it was a straightforward Episcopal service. As I recall, the chaplain gave a ripping sermon on what radicals the BW and I were for making a permanent commitment to each other in such times of instant gratification and easy abandonment of promises.

After the service, we repaired to the Elston Inn on campus for our reception. Here we really were in luck: One of the chemistry professors of the time also ran a 15-piece big band that toured around Central Virginia and we managed to get them to play for us. Ordinarily, I am a pretty awful dancer. But that afternoon, all of us were jumpin'. (We didn't have any particular "song" that we wanted for our first dance. As I recollect, the band played "Moonlight Serenade".)

Sweet Briar was the obvious place to have our wedding, as we spent a great deal of our courtship on campus and were both heavily involved in the place. There was also an important geographical byproduct: The BW's family came down from Connecticut for the festivities, while mine came up from South Carolina, where they were living at the time. Given the distances, we had very few Friends & Neighbors o' Parents there. Instead, most of the guests were our friends. I don't recall the exact number of attendees, but it wasn't much over 100. I am also grateful and delighted to mention that both Steve-O and the Llama Military Correspondent were part of the Wedding Party itself.

So here we were, in a place that was practically home to us and surrounded by people we loved and who loved us. Small wonder, then, that we were so able to get to the essence of what a wedding celebration is supposed to be about. That's why I enjoyed it so much.

As for the eleven years since then, well, I've been trying to figure out a pithy formula for What Makes A Marriage Work. I don't much hold with the Soul Mates theory of relationships - indeed, in some respects the BW and I make a slightly bizarre combination (although with regard to our general goals in life, we were always very much on the same page). And anyone who thinks a good marriage involves constantly "being in love" is an idiot. We've certainly had our share of both bad and good times, the bad mostly coming early and the good mostly coming later. What I think has held it all together simply is that mutual commitment the chaplain talked about in her sermon - the trust built on the foundation knowledge that a vow is a vow and neither of us would ever bail out. That bond, sometimes starkly described as "We're going to make it work because we have to make it work" gave us a tremendous amount of freedom and flexibility in the early years to sort out all the individual and sometimes very serious issues that arose from time to time (and there were plenty of them, buh-lieve me) and to gradually forge a relationship very much greater and stronger than the sum of its parts.

Well, okay. This is beginning to sound a bit personal and squishy. All I know is that it's worked: With a lot of patience and hard work, the BW and I have built a wonderful life and family. We're comfortable and content with one another and have three daughters to whom we're devoted. We're happier than we've ever been before. We must be doing something right.


YIPS from Steve: Thanks, Robbo--I'm glad you didn't mention the part about your other college friends and I throwing your soon to be betrothed into the lake the night before....I don't want to give folks the impression that I'm a barbarian and all, and I'm sure Willow would hunt me down and kick my butt for it.

I will tell the readers that I had the honor of meeting your intended on your second date, and let's just say she is a strong and proud woman (not to mention brave) for not bolting right then and there, as her date's friends were a couple of jackasses. But she must have seen something, I guess.

The other thing I remember about that weekend was how durn hot it was, and going to see Jurassic Park at the movie theater in LynchVegas with Danno. Danno + Lynchburg.....the space/time continum's rift is only now beginning to mend.

Today's Morning Reading

Go read Lileks - he's covering a lot of ground today.

Go Dick!

Word of warning to the Moonbats and their allies in the Press: "Mr. McGee, don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

Nice work by the NE Republican putting it all together.

Gratuitous Google Posting

I just wanted to point out a couple of interesting Google results:

We are currently #10 for Kurt Russell + bowhunting. I'm sure this will make Steve-O's day.

We are also #2 for Joyner + Llama. I think this means James owes us child support. Daddy!

Random Commuter Thought Etc., Etc.

The PandaMania plague currently infecting the streets of D.C. is both pointless and ugly.

At least there was some vague point to the Elephants and Donkeys exhibit a couple of years back, although that was awfully ugly too.

What these folks ought to do is a LlamaPalooza. It would still be pointless, but it'd sure look sweet.

This list thing is getting out of hand

Now we know what it will be like when the dern anti-viral soaps make it so the antibiotics don't work anymore---this whole "who is your favorite great/bad fictional character?" thing is uncontainable, spreading through the blogosphere like Lenny Kravitz through a Tupperware convention.

But, Dan over at Obscuro-rama adds a new twist, in which he disses the characters, explaining why they made his list. The gem:

Holden Caulfield I'd like to beat you up and take your lunch money. You're a teenager - you're supposed to be alienated, angry and confused. But it doesn't make you special.

Well said. Now if we can get every dipstick English major wanna-be failed writer language arts teacher in the country to STOP assigning "Death of a Salesman" to high school kids, for chrissakes. DOAS makes absolutely no sense until life's kicked you pretty hard in the privates as an adult. Stop, also, with the Scarlet Letter too: no one has liked this book for generations; furthermore, a jackass priest knocking up an unwed mother aint too shocking anymore, alas, unless the "Scarlet Letter" is what they're calling the thing you get in the mail requesting your presence on the Jerry Springer Show, which is where Dimsdale's sorry ass would be dragged in America circa 2004. Break. The. Chain. For. The. Love. Of. Gawd.

Tomato Blogging, part deux

Cat blogging? Grrrrrr! Hate it as much as I hate those dern smiley emoticons (and DON'T try to provoke me again, okay Lynn?)

But here's the latest installment in our own idiosyncratic addition to the genre: the return of tomato blogging!

When we last left our intrepid vegetable garden, things were looking rather spiffy.

Well........

There's nothing--and I mean NOTHING--quite like that first flash of red visible in the distance from the garden:

eating dinner on the back porch tonight I could see this little flash of color amidst the green, beckoning to become salad



We're quite pleased, because it's only the first day of the US Open, and usually the tomatos don't start hitting the table until the end of Wimbledon. Bad years--like last one, when it rained so much and I was teaching an overload in the Spring so the garden didn't get in until very late--we don't get tomatos until nearly the British Open, or even worse the last week of the Tour de France. (I'm not sure when exactly I started measuring time in the summer months by the passage of sporting events, but it probably dates from being a kid following the Red Sox, when I could always time the start of real, true summer by when the Sox began to fade slowly to the Yanks. In that regards, this week is the U-joint if you will of the year---the NBA Finals end and the US Open begins, spring finally giving way to pure summer.)



We took in the first zuccini tonight, but mid-June is about average for us for their arrival. I don't know what it is about the first tomato, though---it has a real quality to it, a sense that, okay, school's out, sure, pool open, check, but now--NOW--summer is finally here, and with it the prospect of that true delight, fresh gazpacho. Our first summer here I remember we had a fabulous gazpacho along with grilled chicken, corn on the cob et all, and almost on cue at the end the ice cream truck came, and my wife and I and our eldest daughter who was then the age of our youngest daughter now sat on the front stoop and ate ice cream sandwiches.



The other big garden thrill is that the three beds I put in last year are really taking off. It was this week last year I rustled the tiller around the yard, turning over a large bed in the front yard, and long beds following the fences on either side of the back yard. The left side bed in the back we filled the lower half with lillies and mid-summer bloomers, with the upper half now being filled with the more roomy vegetables, zukes, squash, and okrah. I don't know what it is about the June lillies, but it makes it my favorite time of year.

ZOOT ALORS!

Yikes!


You are Marla!!


Which Fight Club Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla


But then again, as Pa Grape in Veggie Tales is wont to say, "Aint that the truth!"

It's time to stop namby-pambying around

I've thought for awhile now that the best way to throw a serious monkey-wrench into AQ and all its little lackeys would be to skip the "What would Bugs Bunny do?" stuff that Omniscient Glenn has been promoting and go straight to to "What would Tyler Durden do?" (i.e. the infamous and legendary Brad Pitt character from Fight Club)

And the answer is simple: hack al-Jazeera's signal, and occasionally start slipping in poorly-done subliminal messages that support Israel and make fun of Islam and Allah. Result: tee-vees across the Middle East shot out like so many dead screenless Emerson Electrics stacked like cordwood behind Graceland during Mardi Gras week.

Then, hack a popular pro-AQ website (or even better, invest six months or so into creating a fake AQ supporter fan site that people think are real) and then slowly start releasing the rumor that al-Jazeera is actually run by Mossad and is pumping propaganda into the Middle East. Result: truck bomb takes out al-Jazeera, or as we say two birds, one truck.

Then, start stuff about how cell phones are being sold by Israeli companies in the Middle East that sterilize and shrivel up the naughty bits of Arab men, etc. Result: fanned paranoia in a way that destabilizes networks etc. It's basic Sun-Tsu: exploit the weaknesses of your opponents. They try to exploit our love of life by suicide bombing--it's high time we began to exploit their sexism, racism, tribalism, and fear of technology, let alone the asinine all-encompassing anti-Semitism.

Then, start a rumor that Michael Moore is a pinata filled with signed, original editions of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Result: as they say in tee-vee guide, "Hilarity results...." Ah, to be the guy owning the broom-stick concession on that glorious day!

Of course, you can't take the "WWTDD?" meme too far, as it would inevitably lead to flying a cargo 747 loaded to the gills with baco-bits over Mecca, not bothering to explain that baco-bits actually contain no pork products...

Signs that the Saudis are beginning to take the War on Terrorism Seriously

Who are the masterminds behind Al-Quaida? The Jooooooooooooooooz!

But of course.

Hat tip to Protein Wisdom, who's serving up even more deranged than usual fare today---must be the ass-Hatkins diet.

Seriously, I think this is a step in the right direction for their deluded, effed up society. Seriously. If they didn't think it was worth doing something about, they wouldn't blame it on the Jews. The fact that they ARE is a sign that they want to begin to do something about.

I mean, that's still a sign to me that they are the A-#1 Asshats in the world, but hey, that's just me, Mr. Vegas...

Falsifying the Null Hypothesis

This is tricky, super-secret political scientist (dammit man, I AM a scientist, look at my spiffy white lab coat!) type stuff, but fortunately we've got herr doktor Rusty Shackleford on the case.

Key quote: he's got the Kerry-as-president foreign policy/homeland security mantra---"Oops, my bad!"

That's Gonna Leave A Mark

Allah and Ace O' Spades are all over Andrew Sullivan for secretly shilling for the Kerry Campaign.

Meanwhile, Dr. Horsefeathers is busy figuring out how to score Sullivan's refusal to endorse Bush in his When Will Sullivan Endorse Kerry contest.

I've become increasingly sick of Sullivan's breast-beating over Iraq, particularly his howling about Abu Ghraib. Furthermore, I had begun to believe that his emotions were increasingly clouding his judgment - earlier, I came very close to posting about his gasping declaration that we've lost the Iraqis. It really didn't look like that to me at all from the poll numbers he cited. Fortunately, John Cole beat me to it and probably did a better job of explaining his confusion than I would have.

And now it seems that Sullivan, in fact, threw in the towel on his support of Bush some time ago. If this is the case, his constant recent criticism looks less and less like the high-minded concern of a principled warblogger or, to be less charitable, a self-indulgent hissy fit, and more and more like simple partisan hackery, albeit of the covert variety.

Let's be clear - Sullivan is perfectly entitled to say whatever he wants. But if he expects his readers to respect his opinions, he'd better be honest about why he says such things. Only then can readers properly make up their minds about how much weight to attach to his words. The blogsphere isn't going to let him get away with anything less. (Isn't it odd? This is exactly what I was talking about this morning with respect to Hugh Hewitt's piece on guerilla political blogging. Hmmmmm.....)

Oh, No - More Movies AND Lists!

John Hawkins, over at Right Wing News, fresh off his survey of bloggers' favorite fictional characters, has posted a list of his 25 all time favorite comedy movies.

I agree with a good many of these choices. But, John. Spaceballs? Ghostbusters 2? Are you kidding me?

Not to miss a meme when I see it, I've thrown together a survey of some of my own favorite comedy movies. This is by no means complete and I'd hate to have to rank them. (It would be useless to try and compare a movie from the 30's with one from the 90's.) But with those caveats in mind, here goes:

30's, 40's, 50's and 60's

Duck Soup (1933) - I think this is the best of the Marx Brothers movies in terms of consistency of storyline and snappy dialogue. Also, if memory serves Harpo doesn't get a harp solo in this one, thereby saving me having to hit the fast-forward button.

A Night At The Opera (1938) - Another Marx Brothers favorite. As the New Yorker said, "Doing to Il Trovatore what ought to be done to Il Trovatore."

Holiday (1938) - This is one of my very favorite Kate Hepburn movies. The cast also includes Cary Grant, Jean Dixon, Edward Everett-Horton and Lew Ayres and it is perfectly obvious how much fun they have working together - especially in a wonderful little scene involving a private dinner party in an upstairs children's playroom that features "Camptown Races" in close harmony and Kate and Cary doing a tumbling act. I have a battered old videotape of this pirated off the tee-vee nearly 25 years ago - I only hope it shows up on DVD some time soon.

Adam's Rib (1949) - My favorite of the Kate & Spence flicks. It only breaks down right at the end when Kate has to ask Spence what is meant by the expression "vive la difference". Amanda Bonner would know perfectly well what that means.

The Ladykillers (1955)- As I've said many times before, Alec Guinness ought to be ashamed of himself. Note also that both Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom were in this movie (you'll see these names again). In fact, I'd recommend any of the Ealing Studio films with Guinness, including Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Lavender Hill Mob and The Man in the White Suit.

The Prince and the Showgirl (1957)- Until it gets very sappy at the end, this if a very funny story set on the even of WWI featuring Laurence Olivier as the Regent of Carpathia, a mythic Balkan state, and Marilyn Monroe as a ditzy American dancer working in London. Many of the Carpathian royal expressions have made it into our family vocabulary ("So amusink how you vil laugh" for example), and there is a simply hilarious point at which in defiance of the Prince's contempt for the American government, Monroe raises a glass and whispers "God bless President Taft". (Olivier also relates some hilarious stories about having to work with Monroe on this movie in his autobiography. Yes, she was as stupid, paranoid and vain as she seemed.)

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (1966) - I love this in large part because Sondheim was so faithful to the Roman comedies of Terence and Plautus from which he lifted his plots and characters and in part because I think the cast, headed up by Zero Mostel, did such a good job. And hats off to old Buster Keaton for being such a trooper.

70's

Young Frankenstein (1974)- Easily the best of Mel Brooks' movies. (Blazing Saddles just can't hold up all the way through and History of the World is a dog.) Cloris Leachman and Madeline Kahn were shamelessly superb. And wasn't Terri Garr a piece of work in those days? Vould you like a roll in zee hay?

The Return of the Pink Panther (1975)- This is the first movie I really remember going to see at a theatre and really laughing over. Peter Sellers and Herbert Lom are terrific. And the running gag between Clouseau and Cato had me in stitches.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)- This is still my favorite Python movie.

The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976)- It's been a while since I last saw this, but it used to be my favorite PP movie. Herbert Lom's facial twitchings were a thing of beauty.

Animal House (1978)- But of course.

The Life of Brian (1979)- No comment, but then you've probably got it memorized anyway.

80's

Airplane! (1980)- This was the first movie I saw that literally made me fall out of my seat laughing. I saw it again not too long ago and it holds up remarkably well. These days, my favorite thing about it is watching Lloyd Bridges and Robert Stack try to out-tough-guy each other.

Caddyshack (1980)- The meteoric rise of Bill Murray. Expressions such as "So I got that going for me" and "It's in the hole" are now firmly entrenched in the Nation's vocabulary.

The Blues Brothers (1980)- Another one I saw again recently. Not only funny, but easily one of the best movie soundtracks ever. Plus, Carrie Fisher looked awfully good holding an M-16 on one hip...

Stripes (1981)- Where would we be without the wisdom of Sgt. Hulka?

Porky's (1982)- God help me, I think this is a very funny movie. Yes it's juvenile, but it's well written and good natured. And I still go to pieces over the scene where Ms. Balbricker is trying to get permission to, um, I.D., the boys while everyone else in the office tries very hard not to laugh (and fails).

Ghostbusters (1984)- "When someone asks you if you're a god, you say YES!"

Beverly Hills Cop (1984)- I think this is Eddie Murphy's best movie.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)- I'd put this in the running for the quintessential 80's comedy.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (1988)- Under all the silliness, a surprisingly sweet little movie. Too bad the sequel was so awful.

The Naked Gun (1988)- It's eerily satisfying to see O.J. being subjected to so much abuse in this movie, but let's not forget the cameo by another famous sports star - Reggie Jackson. "I...must...kill...the Queen..."

90's

Wayne's World 1&2 (1992)- At first I viewed this as evil competition for Bill & Ted, but now I see that they can live together in harmony. "This man needs crullers and coffee STAT!"

So I Married An Axe Murderer (1993)- Mike Meyers at the beginning of his indulgence in all things Scottish. His portrayal of his own dad is probably the funniest part of the flick. "Hid! Move!"

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)- This morning I'm quoting Evelyn Waugh and here I am now plugging South Park. Sheesh. But the fact of the matter is that these guys are extremely funny and intelligent. I still think "Blame Canada" should have picked up that Best Song Oscar.

So there you have it.

More Llama Movie Time

I watched an interesting movie last night called Attack!, a 1956 flick about a WWII army unit that gets into a world of hurt owing to the incompetence of its Lieutenant played by Eddie Albert. Eventually, Albert goes from incompetent to insane and ultimately is fragged by his own men. As is right and proper with all WWII movies, Lee Marvin is in it as well.

But the star of the movie is Jack Palance. Not only does he get to have his arm run over by a German tank, he deserves a special Oscar in the category of "Best Sustained Rigor Mortis Death Grin." Eyes rolled way back, mouth wide open, neck straining - how he held this position so long is one of those mysteries of fine acting.

Palance seems to have been all over the place in his long career. A lot of folks will remember him as Curly from City Slickers. (Favorite exchange: Billy Crystal - What's the matter Curly, haven't killed anyone today? Palance - Day ain't over yet.) But of course, any boy who was 14 in 1979 will remember him as Kaleel in the Buck Rodgers episode entitled Planet of the Slave Girls. Not that we cared that much about him, you understand. But so long as the screen was filled with scantily clad galactic babes - hey, he was welcome to chew all the scenery he wanted. (A lesson to all actors, young and old. Be careful about the projects you do. They will come back to haunt you later.)

By the way - Don't let John tell you otherwise - Wilma Deering rocks!

Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

Our pal INDC Bill has some musings on senior skydiving and relates his own experience with this criminally insane sport as well.

Call me what you like. I hate flying enough as it is. There is no power in Heaven or on Earth that could make me jump out of a perfectly good airplane for the sheer hell of it. Just reading Bill's piece made my palms sweat. (And what the hell do you mean with such throw-away expressions as "only about 30 skydivers die a year"? Only? I had no idea it was that high.

George Bush Sr., is nuts. The 101 year old dude is nuts. And Bill, you're nuts too.

Peace Through Strength

Take a look at these photos of the U.S.S Ronald Reagan and tell me you don't feel a whole lotta pride.

Brought to you courtesy of the Midwest Pundits, who in turn are brought to you courtesy of Jen.

Clinton Commits Freudian Slip - Also Compares Self To The Commies! "We're All Victims Here!"

Just indulging in a little Drudge-like headlining. But still, check out this article on some of Bubba's recent remarks in conjunction with his memoir-flogging media blitz.

On the Lewinsky Coverup Impeachment:

"The whole battle was a badge of honor. I don't see it as a stain, because it was illegitimate."

Stain? Interesting choice of words. I'm glad he didn't use the term "bad taste".

On Meany Republicans:

"When the Berlin wall fell, the perpetual right in America, which always needs an enemy, didn't have an enemy any more, so I had to serve as the next best thing," Clinton said.

Another interesting choice. Let me see if I have this straight: Ronald Reagan conservatives took on the worst totalitarian empire the world has ever seen, one responsible for literally hundreds of millions of deaths and unquantifiable misery, sacrificing God only knows how much in terms of (pardon the cliche) blood, sweat and tears, dragging along a bunch of obstinate, whiney and sometimes outright hostile allies at home and abroad, and eventually crushing this Evil - all because we needed an enemy? And after it was defeated - Bubba was the next one in line?

Think about the implications behind Clinton's pop-psychology: If Conservative actions are based on nothing more than an internal need to kick someone or something in the ass, then whoever's ass is being kicked is simply a victim. Communists, fascists, Bubba, whoever. Doesn't matter if they're good, bad or indifferent, they're just victims. Gorbachov, Castro, Saddam - just minding their own business when they were suddenly cold-cocked by testosterone-crazed Conservative whack jobs looking for a fight. And let's not even get into the egomaniacal implications of comparing oneself, even if one is the President, with a seventy-year old global-scale system of tyranny.

Unbelievable.

But supremely self-serving. When Bubba can slap on his Support Group name tag and say, "Hi, my name is Bill and I'm a victim too," in his mind he's absolved of all self-responsibility as well. Never mind that he had the moral maturity of a poorly-raised thirteen year old and dragged his family, the White House and the country into the mud as a result. Never mind that he abused power, tampered with witnesses and evidence and lied under oath in order to try and sweep his peccadilloes under the rug once he got caught. (And don't forget, it was for these acts that he was impeached, not doinking Monica.) None of this matters because he was simply one more target of those Conservative berserkers hell-bent on collecting another head to sacrifice to their blood-lust. In fact, by this light, his obstinate refusal to knuckle under makes him a hero. God give me strength!

We were fortunate enough to enjoy a period of false peace in the 90's. And however much we've paid for it since then, we were able to put up with Clinton's adolescent romp through the national scene. But times have changed. The world isn't really all that different, but we've been brutally reawakened to its realities and are now in a life-or-death fight to do something about them. Clinton's huffing and puffing, couple with his Georgie-Porgie whining about how everyone picks on him seem even more shallow and Narcissistic now than they did back then.

What a detestable little man.

Speaking of perverts

I've heard of historical fiction, but how do you characterize THIS work of genius? Historico-punk-kung fu-porn fiction?

Starring, of course, Millard Fillmore and the Knights Tempar.

Success!

The faux-traffic is starting to roll in from my attempt earlier in the week to spike our search engine searches by including long strings of humorously unrelated by silly words.

However, the results are even stranger than I thought.

Sure, we've gotten a visitor who had searched for "Hillary + Duff + breasts" and the only thing I can say is: "Ha Ha, you perv!"

But......to the person who came looking for "Drudge + cupcake + porn" I'd like to say, "Dude, you need to get some SERIOUS help, and I mean RIGHT NOW!"

Another View of Joyce

Enoch Soames, Esq. relates an interview in which one of my great literary heroes, Evelyn Waugh, not only slices right through Joyce, but also takes out Gertrude Stein on the back-cut.

Again, having not read Joyce myself, I've nothing honest to say. I also know that Waugh was a bit crackers himself. (Just as an aside, The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold , a semi-autobiographical account of a madness attack, is a truly horrifying book.) However, his was the kind of, er, crackeriness that appeals strongly to my Inner Curmudgeon.

Oh Dear, Now We Have To Kill Him....

Hugh Hewitt is musing about the possibilities of political dirty tricks in the blogsphere. As much as I like the idea of Kos being a Karl Rove double agent, I just don't know about this. It strikes me that there are so many voices, so many sets of eyes and ears watching and listening, that fraud on the scale described by Hugh would be awfully hard to pull off. Think about the recent episode with She Who Is Still Inexplicably On Our Blogroll and the Washingtonienne, for example. A much smaller incident, but one quickly jumped on and exploded by a host of neighborhood watch vigilantes.

As for using the 'sphere to combat international terrorists and hostile regimes.....

What A Dirt Bag

Check out Kevin's report on the story of this clown. And no, he doesn't win any points back for changing his tune later on.

Dude, it's a freakin' baseball. Get a clue!

Wodehouse, Did You Say?

Professor Bainbridge is reviewing Bertie & Jeeves novels. In particular, his hand falls upon Ring for Jeeves, which I have under its American title The Return of Jeeves. The Good Prof hits the important points pretty nicely, so I won't bother to repeat them. The only thing that I wonder about is the fact that in my copy it's Towcester, not Rowcester. I wonder whether this is simply a typo or whether the name was changed for the U.S. printing.

Among the Bertie & Jeeves novels, my two favorite happen to be Right Ho, Jeeves and The Code of the Woosters. I'll just say here that these are examples of light fiction at its absolute finest. If they don't make you smile, well, you might have a problem. Perhaps if you're good, I'll write extended reviews of them some time. Perhaps if you're very good, I won't.

Viagra-Bait

I've never noticed it before and perhaps I'm way late to the fair, but Lileks is channeling ancient cheesecake mags. Go on over and check it out. Slinky girls and Nazis. Lots of Nazis. Weird. Has the water at Jasperwood been checked for lead content lately?

Actually, some of the ads are kinda cool. Personally, I'm all over the He-Man Voice ad. Just what I need so ME CAN TALK MANLY!

Punk rock lyrics to explain the news of the day

"News" service Reuters reports that Moqutada al-Sadr is throwing in the towel in Iraq.

Moqtada al-Sadr: All Apologies, from Nirvana

What else should I be
All apologies
What else should I say
Everyone is gay
What else could I write
I don't have the right
What else should I be
All apologies

In the sun
In the sun I feed as one
In the sun
In the sun
I'm married
buried
I wish I was like you
Easily amused
Find my nest of salt
Everything is my fault
I'll take all the blame
Aqur scafoam shame
Sunburn with freezeburn
Choking on the ashes of her enemy
All in all we all are
......

Oh well, whatever, nevermind

Dubya: Best One Yet from Black Flag

You say you don't like the things I've done. You say you don't like what I've become. When you look into the mirror, tell me what you see. When you see yourself then you'll see me. This will be the best one yet. This will be the best one yet. This will be the best one yet. This will be the best one yet. You're walking around with your eyes wide open And you're walking around with your mind shut tight When you look into the mirror, tell me what you see When you see yourself then you'll see me This will be the best one yet. This will be the best one yet. This will be the best one yet. This will be the best one yet. I don't need you to tell me what to be I don't need you to tell me what I see Take a look around, take a look around, take a look around When you come on home tell me what you've seen This will be the best one yet. This will be the best one yet. This will be the best one yet. This will be the best one yet. You say you don't like the things I've done. You say you don't like what I've become. When you look into the mirror, tell me what you see. When you see yourself then you'll see me. This will be the best one yet. This will be the best one yet. This will be the best one yet. This will be the best one yet.

John Kerry (before somebody explained to him that Muqutada al-Sadr is in fact a man): She's Gone, from Hall & Oates

Everybody's high on consolation
Everybody's trying to tell me what is right for me, yeah
My daddy tried to bore me with a sermon
But it's plain to see that they can't comfort me

Sorry Charlie for the imposition
I think I've got it, I got the strength to carry on, yeah
I need a drink and a quick decision
Now it's up to me, ooh what will be?

Chorus:
She's Gone She's Gone
Oh why? Oh why?
I better learn how to face it
She's Gone She's Gone
Oh why? Oh why?
I'd pay the devil to replace her
She's Gone She's Gone
Oh why? Oh why?
What went wrong?

Get up in the morning, look in the mirror
One less toothbrush hanging in the stand
My face ain't looking any younger
Now I can see love's taken a toll on me

Chorus

Think I'll spend eternity in the city
Let the carbon and monoxide choke my thoughts away
And pretty bodies help dissolve the memories
But they can never be what she once was to me

Chorus

Okay, okay, I cheated: Hall & Oates? Well, it's a cheapshot, but how could I resist?

Goddayam

This will give Mom heart failure. From an article in today's WaPo on Al Qaeda's 9/11 planning:

In addition to the targets that were hit on Sept. 11, Mohammed initially proposed crashing hijacked planes into the CIA and FBI headquarters, unidentified nuclear power plants and the tallest buildings in California and Washington state," the report says.

Seeing how my office is directly across 10th Street from FBI HQ, I'm rather glad this particular part of the plan was scrapped.

Alex P. Keaton Moment Update

Just because it was in my head following yesterday's post about Duran Duran's new album, I dug out my copy of Decade to crank while I hit the treadmill last night. (I usually listen to Thomas Dolby's Golden Age of Wireless. Don't ask. I just do.)

All I can say is that the timing of "Girls on Film," "Reflex" and "View to a Kill" was perfect for my routine and that I went farther and faster than normal.

Who knew that coo-el 80's music could be good for you?

Well, THAT'S creepy

The Crack Young Staff at The Hatemongers Quarterly rant about the exact same experience, on the same day, as mamby-pamby whiny no-spiny liberal blibberal syndicated columnist Ellen Goodman.

Which leaves three options:

1. Ellen's meds aren't working anymore, and her extra personality "Bippy" has broken lose and started blogging on its own;
B. The Crack Young Staff had a Doris Kearns Goodwin moment and figured hey, how many people in America read both HMQ AND Ellen Goodman? Let's plagiarize this puppy!
III. The long-feared cosmic convergence of crank is underway due to some space/time continuum gravity distortions anticipated by Einstein that occurred with David Brock shifting from lunatic right wing hack to deranged left wing hack, leading to the frightening conclusion that we are all being sucked down into a crank commentator black hole in which nothing can escape, save Michael Moore's halitosis....

Well Now I Don't Feel So Bad For Being An Uninformed Cretin....

Joe Carter over at the Evangelical Outpost has his own take on Bloomsday and Joyce's Ulysses. His conclusion? Ulysses, it seems, is the highbrow literary equivalent of an Adam Sandler movie.

His take on rabid Joyce fans? [T]he literary equivalent of Trekkies.

Heh. Read the whole thing, as they say. The No Hot Beverages Rule is now in effect. And for hardcore Joyce fans, we're also invoking the No Sharp Instruments Rule.

The Proper Response

A question for all of you Llama fans out there. When someone says, "No way!" is the correct reply:

a) Yes way! (as per Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure), or

b) Way! (as per Wayne's World).

I'm a "Yes way" man myself, but I'm curious to see what others think.

I'm Sold

Hey, if Leonardo DiCaprio is giving props to Pig-Man Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, then you know it must be legit!

(Special tinfoil hat bonus conspiracy points go to Spike Lee for hinting that the MPAA is trying to manipulate the election by giving the film an "R" rating. How did Spike get hold of the memo? I keep telling the VRWC that we need to start numbering our documents!)

King Arthur

Last evening I found myself watching the tale end of a silly little miniseries on Sci-Fi called Merlin. It had a pretty interesting cast: Sam Neill, Helena Bonham Carter, Martin Short, Isabella Rossellini and Sir John Gielgud (of all people). I suppose they needed the money. As I say, aside from some exploration of the clash between the "old ways" as represented by Queen Mab and the "new ways" as championed by Arthur and Merlin, the whole production was, well, silly in that special way that only tee-vee miniseries can achieve.

But what pricked my interest (and awoke my fears) were some plugs for a new Jerry Bruckheimer movie, King Arthur that purports to tell the "real" story. (Alas, a quick check on Google suggests it's going to do nothing of the sort. Among other things, apparently, Guinevere has been given what I call the Xena Treatment.)

As it happens, I have always been fascinated with the historical Arthur, as separated out from all the myths and legends about Excalibur, the Round Table and the Grail, and minus all the sap about Guinevere and Lancelot. Of course, very little is actually known, but most modern scholars now are willing to concede that there was indeed a real person who grew into the legendary Arthur we now know.

To get an understanding, a little historical background is in order. The Romans conquered Britain in 43 A.D. under the Emperor Claudius. During the 400 years or so of their occupation, they built what would now be called a physical and social infrastructure. Most of the physical works were in the form of military installations -walls and forts - designed to protect Britain from seaborne pirate raids and to hold off the Picts coming down out of Scotland, but the Romans also constructed roads, municipal centers, baths and some impressive villas. On the social side, the Romans imposed their brand of civil administration based on a written code of law - something foreign to the Britons beforehand. As was fairly typical of Roman Imperial occupation, the local peasants put up with it while the higher strata of British society became Romanized.

In the late Fourth and early Fifth Centuries, Rome herself was in decline under the brunt of civil decay and foreign invasion. During this period, in order to economize her resources, Rome gradually pulled military units out of Britain. Finally, in 410 A.D. Britannia received the odd honor of being the only Roman Imperial Province ever to be voluntarily released, being sent a message from the Emperor that basically said "You're on your own. Good luck, guys."

After the Romans pulled out, the native aristocracy tried very hard to maintain the civil and military institutions that the Romans had established. However, they were short of both manpower and administrative skill, and gradually the raids from Saxon and Viking pirates and the incursions from the North got worse. The Romano-Britons defended themselves pretty valiantly, but during this time, many of them began falling back to the west.

Finally, in about 450 A.D., the fat really hit the fire, as Saxons began showing up from the Continent not to raid, but to settle. Gradually their settlements along the eastern and southern coasts - in what is now East Anglia and Kent - grew in size and in the mid 470's they began aggressively pushing west. It's also a guess that Arthur was born about the middle of this century, to a family of Romanized noble Britons.

Arthur's rise to prominence seems to have occurred in the later part of the 400's, during which time he routed the Saxons in a series of twelve battles, the most prominent being the Battle of Mount Badon (apparently fought some time in the mid-490's). No one knows for sure where this occurred (some think it was near Bath), but one thing is clear: The Saxon advance westward was stopped in its tracks and the Saxons were forced to retreat back to their settlements in the East. As a result, the Britons enjoyed relative peace for a period of about sixty years or so. In the end, they were unable to capitalize on this owing to internal strife and apathy and the Saxons were later able to drive west again, taking most of the island aside from the West Country and Wales.

Now there is a good deal of controversy about whether Arthur was in fact the King during the time of the Saxon withdrawal or whether he was just a field commander. I don't know. But what I do know is this: Arthur was a great leader among the band of Romano-Briton resistance fighters determined to preserve some semblance of civilization in the face of barbarian invasion. While the task was ultimately hopeless, he was able to stem the flow at least for a while. To me that fight, that attempt to protect the last vestiges of what once was in the face of the oncoming night of the Dark Ages, is far more noble, heroic and yes, romantic, dammit, than any of the myths that have since sprung up.

YIPS from Steve: Typical Anglo propoganda! Arthur was an ethnic cleanser, the Slobodan of his day. The blood of the Saxons is on your hands! Long live the Saxons! THPFFFT!

YIPS BACK from Robbo: Okay, I admit that I am a Celt. But I also admire Harold's attempt to fight off William the Conqueror, so let's hear no more of these allegations of anti-Saxon bias!

Bloomsday at 100

I'll just come out and admit point blank that I've never read James Joyce, so it seems at best pointless and at worst fraudulent for me to get involved in the big Bloomsday celebration.

So in the spirit of picking an elf for running over snow, may I recommend that anyone interested in this subject head on over to
Sheila's Place? I don't think you'll be disappointed.

More Llama Blogrolling

I wanted to point out some more brand new additions to the Llama roll. Again, whether our invitees consider this an honor or an abomination is completely up to them.

First, how can we not add Michelle Malkin? We'll just have to be careful not to confuse her with one "l" Michele, another one of our favorites.

Next, welcome aboard Rae of A Likely Story. I noted that she has a nice site this morning.

Third, I don't know how I overlooked this before, but welcome aboard Classical Values. I've been reading Eric's site for a long time and, indeed, he was one of the first to blogroll us. (Somehow, I got so used to getting over to CV via Stephen Green's blogroll that I forgot to add it to ours.) Eric writes about classical civ and modern mores and usually has a great collection of online quizzes on Fridays. Plus, he's just updated his site design, throwing in a little Maxfield Parrish for the hell of it.

Aaaaand, with both one of the trickier web addresses and one of the trickier names to spell correctly, I give you Mixolydian Mode, billed by Don its proprietor as the "world's noisiest weblog".

As always, if you don't already know these folks, take some time to go on over and say hello. I think you'll be glad you did.

Yip! Yip! Yip!

I Am Zagklâsh the Maimer!

Check out the handy-dandy Middle Earth Name Generator. Full rundown on yours truly:

According to the Red Book of Westmarch,
In Middle-earth, Robert The Llama Butcher was a
Groveling Spirit

Elven Name Possibilities for Robert The Llama Butcher
The root name suitable for feminine and masculine is:
Gorothtindome
Another masculine version is:
Gorothtindomeion
More feminine versions are:
Gorothtindomeiel
Gorothtindomeien
Gorothtindomewen

Hobbit lad name for Robert The Llama Butcher
Holman Hill from Greenfields
Hobbit lass name for Robert The Llama Butcher
Pansy Hill from Greenfields

Dwarven Name for Robert The Llama Butcher
Parin Graveskin
This name is for both genders.

Orkish Name for Robert The Llama Butcher
Zagklâsh the Maimer
This name is for both genders.

** NEW ** Adûnaic name for Robert The Llama Butcher ** NEW **
Ayaddabasâda

Now, I've read Tolkien's books backward and forward and frankly, I've no idea what a "Groveling Spirit" is. That sounds to me like something someone slipped in from their old Dungeons & Dragons game. But the thing is still pretty amusing. (And I may use my nom d'orc to go cruising chat sites!)

HT to Mixolydian Don.

Yow!

I know I'm coming late to the fair on this one, but I just visited Michelle Malkin's blog for the first time. God help anyone determined to make a fool of himself in front of her!

Today Michelle pulls a Lorena Bobbitt on Paul Krugman. Sssshhhwoppp!!

Meanwhile, Donald Luskin, whose specialty is hounding Krugman, has much praise for Michelle. If I were Donald, I'd watch my back. Not only is Michelle fully qualified to lead the Krugman Truth Squad herself, she's a whoooooole lot easier on the eyes, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

I'm Having An Alex P. Keaton Moment

Duran Duran to release a new album.

The Bubba Gambit

Check out University of Colorado President Elizabeth Hoffman's attempts to perform verbal gymnastics with a highly suspect "term of endearment".

Special Llama Bonus Do-It-Yourself Joke: Insert your own favorite derogatory slang term into the following sentence:

"It depends on what the definition of '________' is."

Now This Is A Shame

Lynn passes on the news that Iona Brown has died at age 63.

When I was a teenager, the vast majority of my baroque and classical collection featured Brown, Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin's in the Field. And it was a standard joke around our house that every second recording played on the local classical station was by them. (As I recall, the deejay once referred to the "inevitable" Neville Marriner in announcing a piece.)

I largely lost interest in Brown, Marriner and the typically rather safe performance style of the Academy's recorded works when the period instrument movement exploded onto the scene in the mid 80's. (I'd take Tafelmusik over the Academy any day, for example.) But I still like to think of Brown as helping me get my feet wet musically. She'll be missed.

More Counter-Revolutionary Ranting

As long as I am feeling good n' cranky anyway, may I just take a moment of your valuable time to damn and blast all video-cameras, cam-corders and other similar hand-held recording devices?

It is a curious phenomenon of the modern age to see a person slowly wandering around the sights of Your Nation's Capital with one of these gadgets jammed in his or her eye. My personal theory about this is that people have been so conditioned by excessive television viewing that they simply can't grasp anything they see or hear without the tee-vee set as a frame of reference. To them, television is real life. Hence the need to film. And don't give me that tired song and dance about "preserving memories" either. If you're that busy recording everything around you, you aren't actually creating any memories to preserve. Why not just cut to the chase and buy a video tour of the place? It would be a lot cheaper and I'm sure you'd get a better product than anything you could create yourself.

And since my anniversary is this week, what price the "videographer" that has become a standard feature at weddings? This is one of the most loathsome modern customs that I know. First, call me old-fashioned (you may as well, I'm sure you're already calling me a lot of other things), but a wedding is a religious ceremony. It's supposed to be a solemn, dignified and - dare I say it - holy event. How much decorum can there be when the service is marred by the sight and sound of a videographer skittering around to get the "right" shot? What price the sanctity of the vows when given to the gentle accompaniment of the camera's whhhrrrrrrrrrrr? (This, by the way, holds true for still wedding photography as well. We had a very aggressive photographer at ours. Before the ceremony, I pulled her aside and threatened physical abuse if I caught sight of her in the church during the service.)

As for the reception, well, it's one thing to have the wedding party line up for some formal shots and to allow a photographer to wander around the reception taking impromptu snaps. It's something very different when the whole damn thing has to be choreographed so as to look good on the "wedding tape". Once again, this is an example of real life being twisted around in order to fit the context of television.

Oh, and on a purely aesthetic plane, I have never seen a wedding video that was anything other than pathetic. Contrary to the apparent belief, real life isn't television and typically does not look very good on the screen. Wouldn't it be so much nicer for everyone involved if people concentrated on living the moment and then kept good memories of that moment right up here (tapping head) and in here (tapping heart) instead of relying on videotape and DVD's?

Finally, I've heard dark rumors that some people now go so far as to film births. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I have a running fear of going to someone's house for dinner and suddenly being made to watch one of these. What do you say? Boy, you sure are dilated in that shot!

I mean, what do you say?

Give in to the dark side

Dan over at Obscurorama is quavering with the unknown desire to rent the Patrick Swayze epic Road House.

My advice to you: do it! Give in to the dark side of your cinematic soul! Indulge in one of the worst truly bad films of all time!

I have a feeling how our readers are going to sound off on this...

Fresh off jury duty FreakinJen weighs in with the Question of the Week (TM):

Dementors or Ringwraiths?

Personally, I'm a "Less Filling" guy myself...

The Counter-Revolution Begins!

From a memo that was just sent round my firm:

As many of our clients and potential clients are following the national trend of moving back to more business dress attire, we thought it important to revisit the Firm’s Business Casual Dress Policy. While we have decided to defer returning to a full business dress policy, we are upgrading the Business Casual Dress Policy to create a more professional appearance for the Firm.

I have always loathed the whole concept of "business casual" clothing. When our office first adopted this policy back in the go-go late 90's, I resisted, maintaining my habit of wearing suits, ties and dress shirts (and being mocked for it, I might add). To me, aside from the whole marketing scam of creating an entire new must-have wardrobe, biz-casual is simply another manifestation of Boomer "Whatever Turns You On" Narcissism. This is a law firm, fer chrissakes, not a Dead concert, ya bunch of long-haired hippie freaks!

Now it seems the Terror is beginning to run its course and that some semblance of order, tradition and decorum is beginning to be reasserted. Heh. As they say, payback's a bitch.

This Is The Same L.A. Times That Had Gray Davis Cruising To Victory....

Even Drudge is now picking up on the hopelessly bogus skew of the recent L.A. Times poll that has Kerry beating Bush by 7 points. (And BTW, what does it say about the evolution of the 'sphere that I can write "even Matt Drudge" with a perfectly straight face?)

Meanwhile, Glen puts up some predicto-links as well.

Watching the various polls and figures flying around, my general impressions are as follow:

- There are not very many people at this point who really want to vote for John Kerry. Rather, the bulk of his support is made up of folks who want to vote against Bush. That's fine and dandy for turning out a certain core constituency, but it doesn't get you very far in courting moderates and independents.

- Kerry seems to do best in the polls when he is nowhere to be seen. Recently, he has had the sense to lay low and let the press hammer on Bush, and this has kept him (Kerry) competitive. However, he can't win by hiding in the shadows. Sooner or later, he has to come out and stand alone in the spotlight. And on the flip side of this, despite the high-visibility whuppin the press has been giving Dubya, he's still hanging right in there.

- By all accounts, Kerry is an extremely unpleasant person - haughty, aloof, detached from his audience. On the other hand, most people believe George Dubya is a good guy - sunny, engaged and genuinely interested in the folks with whom he's speaking.

- Kerry doesn't actually have a platform, other than that he is not Bush. On the other hand, despite individual setbacks and objections, Bush has a solid record on which to run - the economy is taking off, things are progressing slowly but steadily in Iraq and we're aggressively pursuing Al Qaeda all over the world. These are the things that will matter. (Sorry, Sully, gay marriage isn't going to be that high up on the list this year.) Again, all of this is going to come into sharp focus in the summer and fall, starting with the conventions.

- Despite all the speculation, neither candidate's choice of VP is going to matter a single damn one way or the other. On the other hand, Teresa Heinz is a walking time-bomb.

In the Instapundit post linked above, Tim Cavanaugh compares the current flurry of excitement over Kerry with that of Dukakis in '88. To me, it seems slightly different: the desperate attempt of the Hard Left to find somebody, anybody, to take down Bush and coming up with a comatose party elder reminds me of the Republican nomination of poor Bob Dole in '96 to go after Clinton.

Putting my llama neck out a bit, barring any sudden upheaval I really don't think it's going to be that close. Not a landslide, but not really close. Of course, my opinion is worth exactly what you're paying for it, so......

UPDATE: Of course, none of this means Repubs can sit back and take a powder. As
Mark Noonan points out, there's a power of work to be done.

Warm up the firing squad

Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, commander of the 800th MP unit overseeing prisons in Iraq, issues her defense together with a little America-bashing in the BBC.

Her defense? It seems to be "The Bitch Set Me Up!"

The confessions of Dr. Rusty Shackleford

My Pet Jawa has a long missive that intertwines Chomsky, Cartman, Star Wars, libertarian pot-heads, and poli sci geek angst, all in a desparate plea for help: Rusty is afraid he's become a blog-addict.

Sadly, there are no references to the Olsen Twins, so no help is forthcoming from these quarters.

BTW, wouldn't "The Confessions of Dr. Rusty Shackleford" be a great title for a soft-core porn movie or what? Kind of a "Ron Jeremy in a mortarboard" sort of thing....

Don't forget

Tommorow is the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday.

The two days that came before

Sheila writes about September 9th and 10th.

If you need to know what year, get the hell off my website.

I can't remember the 10th---unexceptional in every way. I believe I watched the Giants on MNF, but I'm not sure if I actually did or whether I just remember afterwards that that was what was on MNF. The thing I remember distinctly about the 9th was standing in my very good friend Barry's backyard, pitching whiffle ball during his daughter's birthday party. You know, the way whiffle ball is meant to be pitched: one hand holding a beer, the other, with the finger stuck through one of the slots, so you can do some Gaylord Perry type curve balls. Our mutual friend Jonathan, who is an Episcopalian priest as well as a good guy, was batting, and we were talking about the SF Giants, Barry Bonds, and bad novels. And, he was wearing a madras shirt. That's all I can remember that's authentic, that wasn't added later in an attempt to remember life Before.

Last fall, I came across in one of my notebooks my teaching notes and outline from Intro to Political Science from monday morning, the 10th. We were talking about Pericles and the Funeral Oration, of all things. For the life of me, though, I can't remember the moment authentically.

Getting back in the swing of things

Our old pal Willow remarks that she hasn't felt much in the whomping mood as of late: however, she does manage to hit some fungoes using the head of a local obnoxious leftist dee-jay.

CRACK!


Remember, Willow: swing through the hit, and watch it sail over the fence. And do stretch properly before and after: we don't want you pulling a hammie and being on the DL when we need you later this summer for the pennant race....

And in response to your other post about PhDs: I teach at a small college, and by far the PhDs (myself included) are the stupidest employees when it comes to common sense...

Let's Get Ready To RUUUUUUUUUMBLE!

Kathleen over at the Cake Eater Chronicles is calling me out over my recent comment that I preferred Emma Woodhouse to Elizabeth Bennett. In comments to her post, I suggested a kind of Jane Austen Cage Match. At least one other party seems to approve.

Whadday'all think? And no snarky remarks about mud or jello, please. Georgian country fashion wouldn't look too flattering covered with such things.

Kathleen: Let's get it on! All I ask is a bit o' time to reread so I can become one with my Inner Knightly.

The Legacy Redux

John Coumarianos over at Innocents Abroad is all over the attempts to spin Reagan's legacy in a truly bizarre direction: Ronald Reagan the beneficent liberal multilateralist.

I don't check in at Innocents Abroad as much as I should: it's funny how your reading habits change when you go from being a blog reader to a blog writer. There are some sites that I don't visit as much anymore, mainly because I don't want to accidentally plagiarize them. Anyhoo, Innocents Abroad is a great blog, and I'm not saying that just because I've a sneaking suspicion that John and I were in graduate school together at UVA for a couple of years in the early 90s.

Moral of the Story is:

don't ever mess with Steven den Beste. Don't try to spoof him, hack him, or sell him life insurance. He's the Lucca Bracci of the blogosphere (which I guess would make Glenn Vito, and INDCent Bill Fredo...) Or, in the memorable line from Ocean's Eleven by Ruben (Elliot Gould) "You never mess with Terry Benedict..Watch out--he'll kill you. And THEN he'll go to work on you!"

Is NZ Bear Old King Log or the Stork King in the TTLB Ecosphere?

I begin to wonder. And I also begin to see the wisdom in Shakespeare's caution against vaulting ambition. As soon as we opened our yaps yesterday about moving up in the Ecosphere food chain, we immediately lost 12 unique links, bumping us back to #806 as of this posting. Still pretty good, but go figure. Coincidence? Maybe.

One nice result of our carryings on, however, is that we've been blogrolled by Rae over at A Likely Story. Thanks muchly!

I had run across Rae a while back by accident but forgot how I got there so could not find her again. Rae likes to write about, as she puts it, "language, literature and life" in a fresh and feisty manner. She also wins many points for dealing with four daughters, as opposed to my three, and apparently loving every minute of it.

If you haven't met before, go on over and say hello.

Yip! Yip! Yip!

Yoiks and Awaaaaay!

Okay, kids, it's Quiz Time. So says Michele, who has assembled a long list of questions, both obscure and obvious, about cartoon knowledge. (Those of you younger than about, say, 30 may as well forget it because most of these references are to pre-1975 shows. If you are younger than 30 and can answer these questions, turn off Cartoon Network, get out of your Mom's basement and go get a job!)

I was horribly handicapped in trying to take this quiz myself because I always detested The Flintstones, The Jetsons and Yogi Bear. However, I was all over the Johnny Quest bits. (Personal trivia: the very first nightmare I remember having as a little boy involved that episode of Quest where they find the living pterodactyl that had been terrorizing some jungle village. Remember? It eventually died when it sank into a pool of boiling lava. I can still recall its scream.) Also, any self-respecting Llama knows all about Moose und Sqvirrel and their friends.

Go to it and have fun!

Well, THIS is going to get interesting

Fresh on the heels of yesterdays non-decision decision in Newdow, Kevin over at Wizbang has further updates on the ongoing campaign with the ultimate goal to challenge the name of city of Los Angeles as a violation of the establishment clause.

Geez.

This reminds me of the huge fight back in the early 1980s when the Navy was going to name one of the Los Angeles class fast attack boats the "USS Corpus Christi." The Berrigan Brothers and the Martin Sheen types went absolutely nuts: well, sure, name a nuclear submarine whose job it is to hunt Soviet boomers and sink them "The USS Body of Christ"!!! I remember driving by Electric Boat in Groton where the Corpus Christi was being built and you had scores of various brands and flavors of anti-nuclear activists chaining themselves to the gates, spilling blood etc. Ultimately, the Navy came up with the compromise of "The USS City of Corpus Christi (SSN 705)" which didn't please the activists but got the US Catholic Bishops off their backs. It was an interesting time being in a pretty old-school orthodox Catholic family and parish in a very pro-Navy, pro-nuclear area.

In light of Newdow, and the ACLU/LA litigation, check out this website, the unofficial site for the USS City of Corpus Christi (Motto: For God and Country).

Here's their crest:



I officially object to the outrageous religious symbolism that clearly violates the establishment clause.

I am, of course, talking about the crossed tridents, clearly symbolizing our government's establishment of the cult of Poseidon as the official state religion.

YIPS from Robbo: I haven't had much to say about this case because, as P.J. O'Rourke said of the flag burning brou-ha-ha back in the late 80's, it simply pins a "kick me" sign on the back of the Majesty of the Law. However, INDC Bill challenges the lawyer in me to say a few words. Well, I'm no real expert, and I really haven't paid that much attention, but from what I understand of Establishment Clause precedent, the issue is exposure vs. coersion. The mere presence of the words "under God" in a government-sponsored text does not, Constitutionally speaking, cause all exposed to it to wither under the hellflame of State Religion like slugs sprinkled with salt. And no one is required to recite the Pledge. The little darlin's can just stand there with their yaps shut (a rare treat). Without the coersion, I don't see the case, and IMHO, the Pledge ought to be allowed to pursue its existence as a vaguely Deist ceremonial rite.

Unfortunately, by booting this kook on technical grounds, the Supremes have only temporarily made the issue go away. As noted by Steve-O, someone else is sure to be back very soon, thereby turning the Court into yet another media circus. The Court can and should tell this class of plaintiffs that they are a pack of loons and should go back to handing out Madeline Murray O'Hare lapel pins in malls. But they have to do so based on substantive arguments.

Well, that's pretty cool!

Rocket Jones reports the discovery of a new whale species in eastern Virginia, no less.


Now all we have to do is get Michael Moore to visit Richmond, harpoon him, and bury him under a couple of tons of shale.....

What the.....?

Our new campaign to generate random, meaningless, yet high volume google search traffic is bearing interesting results. I figured starting the campaign with such tasty bits as "Osama Goat Porn" and "Ted Olsen Twins Legal" would attract a wide variety of, well, interesting visitors.

Instead, our first truly random search visitor was looking for "bar exam quick tips six weeks."

Oooooooo-kay.

How about this classic advice from John Blutarski in Animal House:

"My advice to you is to begin to drink heavily."

"You better listen to him--he's been in college for six years!"

NOTE: I'm not sure if I got the quote right: please correct me if I'm wrong, if only to help out future google searching desparate bar exam students!

Deep thoughts for the mid-morning hot beverage

Lynn over at Reflections in d Minor (who shared with us her traffic secrets that she gets a lot of hits on the random juxtaposition of Charlotte Church and boobies) weighs in with her Random Thoughts.

Sample:

I have an idea for a new reality show: Confine a dozen vegans in a house Big Brother style with absolutely no vegetables - nothing to eat but meat. I'd call it Survive the Beef.

If the sign says "No shirt No shoes No service," does that mean that pants are optional?

Obviously, a woman after our own heart! Which, of course, should make one very afraid....

Scroll down for her suggestion of a reality tee-vee show starring Paris and Nicole that could only be described as "Anorexic Roulette," and remember, the screen sneeze-guard no hot beverage sipping while reading rule is in effect.

Random Commuter Thoughts Probably Of Interest Only To Me

At the Butcher's house, we have an ongoing debate about the aesthetics of vanity license plates. The Missus, who very rarely takes an absolutist line on anything, believes all such plates are tacky and ridiculous. I, on the other hand, believe that there is nothing wrong with, for example, putting one's initials on them, or perhaps a nickname. (Just to show that this is not empty talk on my part, my own plates, which have my law school's university emblem on them, also have my initials and class year. I think they look pretty dern good. The Missus has withheld any formal comment.)

But I do agree that it is very easy to take such things too far and that the slope down into the pit of lameness is very slippery indeed. Case in point from this morning - To the driver of a certain yellow Saab with Virginia vanity plates: Was "YLW SAAB" really the best you were able to come up with when ordering them? You, my friend, are a doofus.

I expect all three of our regular readers* have their own examples to relate.** Ladies and Gentlemen, the comment section is open....

*Excluding any living in New York City, of course. I have a working theory that Manhattanites have a kind of genetic blind-spot regarding all things automotive, since they themselves drive so infrequently.

** Of course, if certain smartasses list my plates, there's gonna be trouble.....

We're no. 684! Woo-hoo! In your face, Jennings!

One more inbound unique link (and you are a true geek and blog addict if you know what the heck I'm talking about) and we pull ahead of ABC News' "The Note" blog.


Our new motto soon:

More Americans get their slanted blog nooz and snark from the Llamas than from any source whose initials are "ABC"


So what we need is traffic:

Osama goat porn Brittney Survivor sheep Olsen Twins Ted Olsen legal one-legged midgets Margaret Thatcher crabs Reagan God Gay Marriage Newdow weirdo jackass Constitution surfer free Paris Marriott Hilton download Clinton on desk in car portrait bomb da bomb crib crumb Abu Grahib dumb Lakers suck hockey puck moose goose loose morals morsels torsos

and

shamalama ding-dong

That should google us up reaaaaaaal good.

Attention Dorks!

Got shut out after that first date? Here's a way to recoup some of your loss.

I think the reason the girl didn't go on a second date with this guy is pretty self-evident.

HT to Reen.

Uh Oh

I hope this isn't some kind of Sign. I like the new Iraqi Sovereignty clock we've installed over on the right. However, the damn thing seems to be running backwards.

Is something bad going to happen when it runs down? I've got this horrid image of Jeff Goldblum saying, "Time's up."

When Worlds Collide

Oh, no....No, no, no. I can't link to this.....It's just.....No, really....I mean, the line has to be drawn somewhere......

Oh, what the hell. Gandalf, meet Tim the Enchanter. That's all I have to say. Want more? Go see for yourselves.

HT to Jen. (P.S. - Jen, feel free to "yip" as much as you like!)

Some things just make me smile

Gerhard, meet the hammer; Hammer, this is Gerhard.

WHACK!

...and don't let the ballot box door hit you in the ass on the way out!

Better watch out...

Michele Catalano is in her wrathful deity mode again.

Last time, she was handing down the smitings on the purveyors of pre-teen slut culture; today, it's on those too stupid to admit the obvious about Iraq (gee, the terrorists want us to lose!).

Best advice: lie flat on the ground, in your basement if need be. Paint the lintels of your door with the blood of a llama. No eye contact. If you've been a good blogger with a clean heart, you're probably in the clear.

But there's no help for you if you've been dancing around the grease-golden statue of Michael Moore....

YIPS from Robbo - While you're over there, be sure to check out the response to Michele's request for greatest cartoon lines. No Hot Beverages, Please!

Linkety Stuff

The past couple of days have seen a big bounce in our TTLB Ecosystem standing - we are now right near the top of the marauding marsupial section. Scrolling through the list of linkers, I see a number of sitenames that are new to me.

Needless to say, we are always very flattered and grateful when someone picks us up, whether it be linking to a particular story or else adding us to their blogroll. I try to acknowledge these events individually because I'm a great believer in reciprocal courtesy in the 'sphere.

I am sometimes hampered in my efforts to be polite, however, and I may let things slip by that I really wanted to flag. First, there is the fact that I'm actually being paid to do a real job. Typically, I don't have time for more than a cursory glance to see who is new 'round here. Second, my firm's Internet-filtering software blocks most other sites' blogrolls, so often times I can't tell if you've pasted us into yours or whether you're just picking us up via the Blogs for Bush link or some other generator. With a number of sites, TTLB says we are linked but I just can't find the link.

Anyway, the point I wanted to make was that if you have picked us up and we didn't acknowledge it, it's not because we don't appreciate it. We really do. And if you ever feel the urge to drop a comment in the Mail Sack giving us the heads-up about your linking activities, well, we wouldn't consider that being too forward.

Thanks again!

Yip! Yip! Yip!

UPDATE: Case in point - Don at Mixolydian Mode, who left a comment to another post here. (Figure this out - I've tried to access his site via TTLB before but have been blocked by our Internet filter. But I got right through via Haloscan.) Now that I've been there, I see he is kind enough to both blogroll and link us. Thanks muchly indeed!

Stump the Chumps

On April 11th, I made the following predictions:

My other prediction: in the Newdow Pledge of Allegiance case at the Supreme Court, the Court will vote 6:2 to smackdown the Ninth Circuit and uphold the Pledge as is. The decision will be on the merits and not on standing, and Justice Stephen Breyer will either write the opinion for the majority or a major concurring opinion. Ginsberg and Stevens will be the dissenters.

And, oh yeah, Antonin Scalia will step down from the Supreme Court to cash in on the speaker circuit.

Now, I bit the weenie so to speak on my main prediction that day, that Phil Mickelson would choke in the last round at Augusta. Now the jury's still out on prediction number 3 (and I'm sticking by it), but number 2 is in:

The Supreme Court ruled today that a California atheist did not have the legal standing to challenge the constitutionality of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, dismissing on procedural grounds a lower court's ruling in his favor but sidestepping the broader question of whether the pledge itself is constitutional.

The ruling effectively preserved the phrase "one nation under God" that is recited daily as part of the pledge by millions of schoolchildren across the country.

But by basing the decision on a procedural issue, the Supreme Court left open the prospect that a challenge to the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance could come up again.

In a ruling that, coincidentally, was issued on Flag Day -- and on the 50th anniversary of the addition by Congress of the words "under God" to the pledge -- the justices voted 8-0 to overturn a ruling two years ago by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the pledge was unconstitutional in public schools because it violated the separation of church and state. Justice Antonin Scalia did not participate in the case.

Five of the justices voted against the 9th Circuit's ruling on the grounds that Michael Newdow, the California atheist who filed suit to ban the pledge from his daughter's school, did not have the legal standing to speak for the girl because he did not have sufficient custody to qualify as her legal representative. The girl, who is in elementary school, was not named in the case.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and two other justices -- Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas -- agreed that the lower court's ruling should be overturned, but not on the standing issue. Instead, they argued that the words "under God" in the pledge do not violate the Constitution.

"When hard questions of domestic relations are sure to affect the outcome, the prudent course is for the federal court to stay its hand rather than reach out to resolve a weighty question of federal constitutional law," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the majority.

Newdow, a emergency-room doctor and law graduate who acted as his own attorney, is involved a custody battle with his daughter's mother, Sandra Banning, a born-again Christian who has custody of the girl on school days. Banning, who has never been married to Newdow, has told the court that she has no objection to her daughter's reciting the pledge.

Newdow rejected the ruling that he lacked legal standing to speak for his daughter.

"She spends 10 days a month with me," he said, according to the Associated Press. "The suggestion that I don't have sufficient custody is just incredible. This is such a blow for parental rights."

He vowed to continue his fight. "The pledge is still unconstitutional," he said. "What is being done to parents is unconstitutional."

If the 9th Circuit's decision had been upheld, it effectively would have deleted the reference to God from the pledge as recited by millions of schoolchildren nationwide. The 9th Circuit's ruling had applied to nearly 10 million schoolchildren in California and eight other western states.

The words "under God" were added to the pledge by Congress on June 14, 1954, during the Cold War as a way to distinguish the United States from atheistic communism.

The 9th Circuit ruling sparked a furor when it was issued, drawing intense criticism from religious conservatives and opposition from the Bush administration.

The Bush administration's solicitor general, Theodore Olson, has argued that the pledge with those words did not constitute state-sponsored prayer, which is banned from public schools under a Supreme Court decision, or any sort of prohibited religious ritual. Instead, Olson has said, the reference acknowledges America's religious heritage in a ceremonial and historical sense and does not substantially differ from the motto, "In God We Trust," on U.S. currency.

Okay, I was wrong, but in the right direction: eight of the Justices (Scalia had to recuse himself for failure to keep the judicial trap flapped up) found common grounds that Michael Newdow is a jackass, and that they don't want Don Quixote pro se arguments raining down like sliced drives on the driving range retrieval cart. I had thought that Stevens and Ginsberg wouldn't have given in on this. As an added extra bonus, they get to overturn the 9th Circuit: they collectively have about as much respect for the decisions of the Ninth Circuit that the Atkins Organization has for Michael Moore. By letting Stevens write for the Court, that sends that clear message---kind of like the old double head smack Moe would visit upon Larry and Curly at the same time.

Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck indeed.

However....once again Anthony Kennedy strikes again as the great Hamlet of the Court. You really can't predict what he's going to do. My sense here is that middle group---Kennedy, Souter, and Breyer---wasn't ready to declare the Under God part unconstitutional: if so, then it would have been a 5:3 upholding of Newdow. However, they weren't ready to go with Rehnquist on this one either.

Is this issue over? Alas, no. But the question is, can anyone get standing in such a case?

This Is Outstanding

Shoot the Tele-Tubbies! How sweet is that?

Courtesy of Dean.

Aw Jeez

Word is out that Britney Spears is getting into the perfume business. Apparently, her new fragrance will be called "Curious".

Curious about what? Seems we know way more than necessary already.

HT to Lawren.

Truly Invisible Films

As I was thinking about movie characters for the poll below, I was reminded again of the fact that there are plenty of movies I've never seen. This is, of course, perfectly understandable, given the enormous volume of film available. But what I was thinking of in particular was that class of movie that everybody sees. Here is a sample of what I'm talking about - I have never seen any of the following films:

1. E.T.
2. Jaws
3. Rocky. Any of 'em.
4. Pretty in Pink/Sixteen Candles or anything else involving Molly Ringwald except Breakfast Club.
5. Grease
6. Sleepless in Seattle
7. The Silence of the Lambs
8. The Lion King
9. Shindler's List
10.Any horror flick other than The Shining or Poltergeist. (I tried to watch The Exorcist once and it scared the absolute hell out of me. I just don't have the stomach for that kind of thing.)
11. Field of Dreams
12. Pulp Fiction
13. Space 2001 (Tried to. Fell asleep.)
14. Thelma & Louis
15. Titanic

Call me pop-culture illiterate, I suppose.

YIPS from Steve: As INDCent Bill would say, in his native tongue, "Mon dieu!"

This is it: going on twenty years of friendship, I've been able to put aside all the Tory-longing for Monarchy, but dissing the movies of John Hughes???? NEVER!

Of all these movies, the only one I haven't seen, believe it or not, is Pulp Fiction, mainly because Quentin Taratino annoys the hell out of me and is a one-trick pony. Field of Dreams, like Bull Durham, are great, great movies, but over time have developed a patina to them that grosses me out (take for instance Sunday night's broadcast on ABC: I cried, like I always do, when Ray Kinsella starts having a catch with his Dad's ghost on the field, as the camera begins to pan away. And James Earl Jones' interpretation of the JD Salinger character is brilliant. But every time Amy Madigan or Tim Busfeld came on the screen, I had a toxic "30something" cramp and had to flip over to wrestling until it went away. The absolute worst, however, were the commerical breaks, where you had fat, balding, goatee with no mustache wearing Kevin Costner being interviewed by Johnny Bench. Not, mind you, Costner interviewing Bench on what it was like to be the second greatest catcher of all time [behind Carlton Fisk, of course], but Bench interviewing Costner. It was all mild-mannered Johnny could do but to just break out in laughter at the Taoist/Actor's Studio crap being spewed out of Costner's pie hole.)

I think, Henry Higgins-like, we need to begin the formal reeducation of Robbo. Friends and colleagues, I need your help to prepare a proper viewing list so as to bring our dear fellow llama up to date.

My suggestions would include:

1. The complete filmography of Robert Urich. You may skip the Dan Tanna years if you pay extra attention to the first season of SWAT and of course the entire corpus of Spencer for Hire.
B. Pretty in Pink. Everything that you need to understand about what was unholy with the 1980s is contained within that little toxic time capsule.

and long time readers know what's next:

III. A good Clockwork Orange style viewing of Escape from New York. I'm talking eyeball retractors, the dental chair, the really big screen, everything except for the weird orange jumpsuits. (I mean, I'm not inhuman!)

Once you've become one with Snake Plissken, you'll never be lonely again....

Bloggers In The World of Fiction

John Hawkins recently did a poll of mostly conservative bloggers, asking them who their favorite fictional characters are. (The medium was unimportant - books, movies, television, whatever.) His results are posted here.

Interesting collection of opinion. I'm not quite sure how I feel about the fact that several of the top twenty results were comic book figures. (My first reaction was "sigh".) A few other observations:

- I'm rather surprised that Jane Austen's Elizabeth Bennett made the list. I have a sneaking suspicion this is because many folks who have read Pride and Prejudice haven't read anything else she wrote. IMHO, Emma Woodhouse is a far more entertaining and better drawn character.

- I would have been interested to see if Sam Gamgee made the list before the LOTR movies came out. In the books, he's far more of a bumpkin.

- Only two of my choices, James T. Kirk and The Man With No Name, made it into the top twenty. What's wrong with you people?

- Dr. Who is on the list. Given the scarf reference, John obviously was thinking of Tom Baker's portrayal. But of course, there were many other manifestations of the Doctor. I'd be interested to see if anyone was actually thinking of, say, John Pertwee. Or Peter Davidson? (Despite the snarky suspicions of a certain DC blogger who may or may not really be French, neither of us LB's voted for the Doctor.)

- Lazarus Long is the only character in the top 20 that I have never heard of before.

Since I'm sure that you are all consumed with curiosity, here are the lists submitted by Steve-O and myself. I confess that mine was slightly last minute and off the top of my head. I'm sure that given twenty different requests, I would produce twenty different lists.

Steve:

1. Thomas Sullivan Magnum
2. Indiana Jones
3. Paul Neuman's character in "Cool Hand Luke"
4. Steve McQueen's character in "The Great Escape"
5. Jack Aubrey
6. Stephen Maturin (NOT the movie version)
7. William of Baskerville (Name of the Rose)
8. Snake Pliskin, as played by Kurt Russell
9. Mr. Darcy, from Pride and Prejudice

and

10. "William Jefferson Clinton" a character created
by the NYT et all as some sort of noble figure to
cover up the actions and behaviors of Billy Blythe,
42nd President of the United States.

UPDATE from Steve: If I hadn't been huffing glue while doing the list, I would of course have added the characters of James Tiberius Kirk, Screwtape, Aslan the Lion, and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlin, as presented in The Killer Angels.

Here are mine:

1. King Arthur (Geoffrey of Monmouth and Thomas Mallory - not from the musical Camelot or the movie Excalibur)
2. Guy Crouchback from Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honor trilogy
3. Captain John "Lucky Jack" Aubrey (O'Brian novels only - not Russell Crowe)
4. Lord Peter Wimsey (from the Dorothy Sayers detective novels)
5. Horace Rumpole (from John Mortimer's Rumpole of the Bailey series)
6. Major Sinclair Yeates, Flurry Knox and Slipper from The Irish R.M. by E.O Somerville and Martin Ross
7. Captain James Tiberius Kirk
8. Don Alfonzo from Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte
9. Bill S. Preston, Esq., and Ted "Theodore" Logan
10. Basil Fawlty from Fawlty Towers
11. Clint Eastwood's "Man With No Name" character from the Sergio Leone spagetti westerns, in particular The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
12. John Wayne's character "John Henry" from The Undefeated - "Windage and elevation, Mrs. Standidge. Windage and elevation."
13. Khaaaaaaaan!!!!!!
14. Bertie Wooster, Lord Emsworth, Uncle Fred, Soup Slattery, Oily Carlisle and The Efficient Baxter from the novels of P.G. Wodehouse
15. Igor (That's pronounced "Eye-gore")
16. Peter O'Toole's Henry II from The Lion In Winter
17. Kate Hepburn's Amanda from Adam's Rib
18. Jane Austen's Emma Woodhouse
19. Aslan
20. The Wicked Witch of the West (I thought Margaret Hamilton in green makeup was kinda sexy in a twisted way. Certainly a hell of a lot better than Billi Burke.)
21. Diane Chambers from Cheers
22. Sideshow Bob

(Remember, the question was favorite characters, not most admired characters. Which of these I actually seek to emulate is, of course, anybody's guess.)

So now that John's poll is done, how about we turn this into a meme? What are your favorites?

UPDATE from Steve: I liked the list John came up with, but I have a distinct feeling Magnum, P.I. was gipped out of his proper place in the top 5. I smell the nefarious Gallic hand of Frank J. in all this....

FURTHER UPDATE: Well, at least part of the mystery may have been solved - turns out Dr. Who seems to have been voted for by the Flea.

Bullish on Bush

Did the saturation coverage of the Reagan mourning week hurt Dubya's reelection prospects?

Conventional wisdom on the tee-vee seems to be congealing in a "yes" what with the fraudulent LA Times poll showing Kerry's big lead.

However, how did this coverage influence what people willing to wage serious money think about what will happen (as compared to what they want to happen)?

For the answer, we turn to the political futures market at Tradesports.com.

Here's the chart showing the trading price for the GW BUSH REELECTED futures contract for the last week:




Here's the lifetime trading chart:



BONUS "WHERE HAVE I SEEN THIS BEFORE?" COVERAGE


The contract on the Lakers winning the NBA Championship.


The contract on Dean-o winning the Democratic Nomination.

What, did Al Gore endorse the Lakers and I missed it?

Some lyrical advice for the Kerry Campaign

Well, it looks like fantasy-time is over for the Kerryoids: John McCain has told Big John to take a hike re being Tom Hagen to his Mikey Corleone.

Kausfiles, of course, tries but fails nobly in slathering the schadenfraude around like fresh marmalade on day old biscuits.

Because we employ desparate, under-employed political scientists with PhDs and no job prospects as lowly, underpaid serf/interns, we are able to bring you the readers this new feature: Kerry Campaign Setback Moments, set to the Tunes of early 80s punk songs.

So here it is, the ballad of Kerry and McCain, set to the music of the Violent Femmes:

John Kerry: Prove my love

Just last night
I was reminded of
just how bad
it had gotten and
just how sick
I had become
but it could change
with this relationship
de-de range
we've all been thru some shit
and if were a thing
I think this things begun
tell me now
what do I have to do
to prove my love to you
special favors come in 31 flavors
were out of mints
pass the life savers
I'm droppin hints
candy for candy-coated tongue
you'd be so good
so very good for me
what do you think
tell me honestly
I'm wait wait wait
w-wait wait
waiting for you to come
tell me now
what do I have to do
to prove my love to you
I'd do anything
I'd do it all
I'd do it all for you
I'd climb a mountain
i'd cross the ocean
I'd do it it all
to prove my love to you

John McCain: Kiss off

i need someone
a person to talk to
someone who'd care to love
could it be you
could it be yo-ou
the situation gets rough,
and i start to panick
its not enough
its just a habit
and, kid, you're sick
darling this is it
well you can all just kiss off into to the air
behind my back
i can see that stare
they'll hurt me bad but i won't mind
they'll hurt me bad they do it all the time
yea yea
yea they do it all the time
yea yea
they do it all the time
yea yea
they do it all the time
do it all the time
they do it all the time
do it all the time
they do it all the time
do it all the time

I hope you know that this will go down on your permenent record
oh yea
well don't get so distressed
did i happen to meantion that i'm impressed

i take one one one cause you left me and
two two two for my family and
three three three for my heartache and
four four four for my headaches and
five five five for my lonely and
six six six for my sorrow and
seven seven n-no tomorrow and
eight eight i forget what eight was for and
nine nine nine for a lost god
ten ten ten ten for everything everything everything

well you can all just kiss off into to the air
behind my back
i can see that stare
they'll hurt me bad but i won't mind
they'll hurt me bad they do it all the time
yea yea
yea they do it all the time
yea yea
yea they do it all the time
do it all the time
do it all the time
do it all the time
do it all the time
do it all the time
time time time time
timetimetimetimetimetimetimetime
do it all the time

Mickey Kaus, enters stage left, smiling: Gone daddy gone

Beautfil girl,
love the dress
high school smiles,
oh yes
Beautfil girl,
love the dress
where she is now I can only guess
Cause it's gone daddy gone,
the love is gone
Yeah it's gone daddy gone,
the love is gone
Yes gone daddy gone,
the love has gone
Yes gone daddy gone,
the love has gone away
When I see you,
eyes will turn blue
When I see you,
thousand eyes,
turning blue
Cause it's gone daddy gone,
the love is gone
It's gone daddy gone,
the love is gone
Yeah it's gone daddy gone,
the love is gone
Yes gone daddy gone,
the love has gone away
Tell by the way that you switch your walk
I can see by the way that you, baby talk
I can know by the way that you treat your man
I could you love you babys a crime
Cause it's gone daddy gone,
the love is gone
Yes it's gone daddy gone,
the love is gone
Gone daddy gone,
the love is gone
Yes gone daddy gone,
the love is gone
Beautiful girl,
love the dress
Fifteen smiles,
oh yes
Beautiful girl,
love the dress
Where she is now I can only guess
Cause it's gone daddy gone,
the love is gone
Yes gone daddy gone,
the love is gone
Said its gone daddy gone,
the love is gone
Yes gone daddy gone,
the love has gone away
gone away, way way way
gone away
gone away

John Kerry, on knees: Please Do Not Go

Tell ya man
I'm stuck on this lovely girl
Of course to me know she mean all the world
But then
She like another guy
I fall down dead
She never see the tears i cry

So please please please
Do not go
Please please please
Do not go
Please please please
Do not go

How long can the days go on
When my love is so strong
And i know i cannot tell a lie
I want to se him go bye
Goodbye bye goodbye bye bye bye bye bye bye
Now I wonder, I wonder what she would say
If i told her, If i told her i felt this way
You know it might make her turn
Might make her turn, might make her turn
Either way
So all I can do is patiently pray pray
pray pray pray

So please please please
Do not go
Please please please
Do not go
Please please please
Do not go

How long can the days go on
When my love is so strong
And i know i cannot tell a lie
I wanna see him go bye
Goodbye bye goodbye bye bye bye bye bye bye

I'll tell you man I'm stuck
I'm stuck, I'm stuck on this lovely girl
And y'know i'd travel, I could travel over the whole world
And you know what she does
She turn around and like another guy
I fall down dead
She never see the tears i cry

Please please please
Do not go
Please please please
Do not go
Please please please
Do not go
Please please please
Do not go
Please please please
You hurt me
Please please please
You hurt me so
Please please please
I've got something to show

Al Gore enters, down center aisle, with Sad Clown makeup and dressed like a hobo: Confessions

People worry
what are they worrin about today
seems like there's a good reason
to worry worry worry
I'd sit around listening to you story
if I wasn't in such a
hurry hurry hurry
and I'm so lonely
I just don't think I can take it anymore
and I'm so lonely
I just don't know what to do
and I'm so lonely
feel like I'm gonna crawl away and die
and I'm so lonely
feel like i'm gonna
hack hack hack hack it apart
seems like theres a good reason to be
lonely lonely lonely
I gotta get someone or something
to make me feel less
lonely lonely lonely
I know I could do it
I know if I wasn't so
lonely lonely lonely
have we got an army
we'll teach you how to act like to act like a man
have we got an army
man I mean to tell you we can fight
have we got an army
and were gonna do it tonight
do do do it tonight
yeah they're gonna
pay pay pay pay it tonight
do do do it tonight
people worry
what are they worrin about today
people worry
na you see I've learned my lessons
and I don't even want to here about your confessions

curtain

Can you hear me now? Excellent...

Now we know why that annoying jackass signal tester in those annoying and hateful cell-phone commericals is smiling, but Australia and Ireland are combining wits to wipe that smirk off his face.

Headline: "Filter puts phone porn fears to rest"

Public policy makers have crafted a plan to limit the ability of porn to be sent to digital phones. Taking a cue from Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's old maxim about pornography, that he couldn't define it, but "knew it when he saw it," the software "will look at skin tones and the relative position of people in photographs to determine whether an image is inappropriate."

No word on whether the software will be named "Creepy Marvin, the weird IT dude in the basement."

The future is now

Somebody alert Dave Barry and Glenn Reynolds: it looks like the Australians are way ahead of us in the epic race to produce the first fully functioning toilet that relies on nano-tech and microbes rather than water. If you can believe the story, the toilets will also be edible.

This can only have been inspired by their collective national self-loathing arising from their toilets flushing in the wrong direction from that of the Mother Prison I mean Country.

Summer re-runs

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

Qatar's Al-Jazeera television aired video footage on Sunday of what it said was the murder of US national Robert Jacob in the Saudi capital by suspected Al-Qaeda killers.

The body of a Western-dressed man is seen hitting the ground as several gunshots ring out.

The feet and legs of two men in civilian dress are also shown, apparently the assassins.

The scene is in the covered yard of a residential building where a four-wheel drive vehicle is parked in a garage space.

The footage was attributed to an Al-Qaeda terror cell, which claimed responsibility for the killing.

The video described the victim as "American Jew Robert Jacob, who worked for the spy group Vinnell".

Mr Jacob, 44, who worked for the US Vinnell Corp, which helps train the Saudi National Guard, was shot dead at his home in Riyadh on June 8. He was reportedly shot nine times in the head.

A US national was killed in a drive-by shooting and another American believed to have been kidnapped in the Saudi capital on Saturday amid a bloody campaign by Al-Qaeda to drive Western "infidels" out of the kingdom.

Imagine that: AQ killing an American because he's: 1. a defenseless civilian; 2. an American; and 3. a Jew.

And they do this because of

A. Their twisted, evil worldview which has launched a global campaign of terror designed to convert us all to the religion of peace, or kill us in the process;

or

II. their misguided but understandable frustration with current American policy; with a change of regime at home, and a more effective foreign aid problem, they would happily move in next door to a happily married transgendered couple of the Atheist persuasion.

Now, it being the summer re-runs, they aren't going to do as well with this because 1. it's a shooting, not a beheading and, B. it's in Saudi Arabia, which seems to point to the fact that they are switching strategies based on the failure of the resistance in Iraq, and are focusing instead on bringing down the regime in Riyadh.

Twenty five years after being exported abroad, the Saudi Civil War has come home.

Oh. My. Gawd.

Ed at Monkeywatch sends us news of what surely is the latest sign of the apocalypse:

The Llama Cookbook.

Not recipes from the grills of Steve and Robbo, mind you: it's a collection of menu plans from six Peruvian chefs on how to prepare Llama steaks.

Key quote from the story:

"Among the red meats, alpaca has higher levels of protein, very low fat and no cholesterol," he said. Despite its benefits, the meat hasn't been appreciated by city dwellers, he said.

"Alpaca meat has traditionally been associated with the country's poorest sector...meat for Indians, peasants," Carrillo said. The idea of the book is to knock down that stereotype.

By Alpaca, they mean llama.

So, six months from now, when you are at that chi-chi party with your chardonay-swillin', Dockers-wearin', Volvo-drivin', brie-tasting suburban friends, you can honestly say you've known for a long time about how zesty Llama tasty bits are, if prepared by the Butchers, of course!

The Last Word on Ronald Reagan, for now

Ladies and gentlemen, Will Collier.

List-mania

Sheila has her list of her favorite books of history, biography, and historical fiction.

Come on, join in: all the cool kids are doing it.

Wishing George H. Bush died in his parachute jump

Ladies and gentlemen, the patriots at the Democratic Underground.

A new caricature arises

A laugh-a-minute editorial in the Jordan Times (by a jackass American professor no less), about how Dubya is beholden to Big Oil, Fundamentalist Christians, and...wait for it.. you knew it was coming.....the Jews!

But of course!

Be careful of what you wish for, buddy; Or, crafty is as crafty does

Now as far as monarchs go, King Abdullah of Jordan aint too bad. I give him the benefit of the doubt basically because of the respect I had for King Hussein.

But there's an interesting article in the Jordan Times which makes me wonder as to what exactly he's up to.

Here's the full text:

His Majesty King Abdullah has called for a regional programme modelled after the Marshall Plan, which is credited with saving postwar Europe from economic and political disarray.

Addressing the Chicago Economic Club and the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, King Abdullah said he had approached US leaders about such a project before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The King added that the attacks and subsequent problems they triggered overseas make it all the more pertinent.

“The plan is needed now more than ever, to give people hope and offer them an alternative to hate and division,” the Monarch told 500 people at a hotel in downtown Chicago.

“I'm talking about a Marshall Plan, as it were, for the recovery of the Middle East.”

The four-year Marshall Plan cost $13 billion and helped rebuild Germany as well as 14 other war-damaged European nations after World War II.

King Abdullah said bringing stability to Iraq is crucial to any Middle East revival, but that it is secondary to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Terrorists, he argued, were using the Palestinian issue to woo recruits.

“If we solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem, 90 per cent of the battle is over,” he said.

King Abdullah was in the United States to attend the G-8 economic summit in Georgia. Earlier Friday, he attended President Ronald Reagan's funeral in Washington, DC.

Asked on US-Saudi relations, the King said ties between the leaders of both countries are good, warm and genuine, adding that there is no alternative for standing by Saudi Arabia in its fight against terrorism.

First, there's the problem of resources: we are supposed to give money to, um, Saudi Arabia? I can understand Jordan is feeling the pinch, what with no oil revenues and a majority Palestinian population and all.

But does he really know his history? Does he realize that democracy and an open society is part of the deal? We didn't rebuild Germany (or for that matter Japan) without fundamentally changing its political culture: we learned that problem with the French, and it's come back to bite us in the arse.

Or, is that exactly what he's after? Is this a means by which to let the camel's nose under the tent, so to speak?

Well, that sucks

We skipped church this morning because the van's warning light is on but it's appointment is not until tomorrow. Rather than loading up all the car seats into the Volvo I made the call for a day of rest and quiet, and extra sleep for the kids.

So I figured a little light blogging to raise my mood a bit: some OJ jokes, some snide snark-ery to lighten things.

Then I come across THIS post by Kathleen over at Cake Eater Chronicles about all the nastiness in the Sudan.

Now I've been following Sudan for the past year or so, and in particular I've been having a little weekly contest as to when the pastor at our church will ever mention it. He's gotten very political in the past year in the traditional "America is the source of evil in the world" National Council of Churches sort of way. Very often now I'll just get up and leave as the sermon is starting.

But no Sudan, of course: no mention of human slavery practiced there. No mention of the genocide by the majority Muslim population against the minority Christians and animists. No mention of the UN looking the other way.

No mention that the fucking UN put Sudan---SUDAN!!!!!!---on the fucking UN Human Rights Commission!

No mention because "It's not America's fault, so it's not happening."

But I have a feeling the humanitarian disaster is about to metastasisize into "Our" problem: expect the story line to be in about a month how we "let" this happen because we were distracted by our immoral war for oil and empire in the Middle East.

It is "Our" problem because these are human beings dying, and we are human beings.

But, to today's Left, it's not really a disaster unless it can be shown to be caused by America's sins, whether through commission (our "Immoral" invasion of Iraq) or through omission (our failure to do anything in the Sudan).

SMOKIN!

Summer has ensconsed itself in the Blue Ridge, which means only one thing: our old pal Chai-rista has turned Hot Chai Journal into the all-bbq, all the time blog network.

So pop on over for some mouth-watering goodness, and the never ending debate between propane and wood.

(Fortunately, Chai-rista knows the heathen barbarian that I am, what with my Sears Craftsman brand propane grill out back. Sigh. I'm a loser.)

Someone needs to stop Dick Wolfe before he spins off again

For the "For the love of Gawd, No!" file:

our very own entertainment reporter Lawren Mills reports that Wolfe is close to signing the deal with Candice Bergen to star in Law & Order spinoff "L&O: Trial By Jury."

No!

Now, I love Law & Order: Classic. I might very well have seen every episode, and actually miss not only Chris Noth's Mike Logan but ADA Ben Stone as well. I think Law & Order: Criminal Intent is the best thing on tee-vee: Vincent Onofrio's Bobby Goren is one of the great detectives in fiction of all time.

However.....

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit I just cannot stomach. It's not the overacting, or the fact that since much of the cast has appeared on OZ I can't bear to watch them elsewhere without cringing. It's just too much.

Law & Order: Trial By Jury? Together with Law & Order: Crime and Punishment this creates five nights of Law & Order for NBC. What do they need to fill out the week?

Here's my idea:

"In New York City's War Against Criminally Bad Food, the PEOPLE are Protected by Two Equally Important Yet Mutually Exclusive Groups: The Restaurant Inspectors who examine the kitchens, and the Reviewers who write about them. These are their stories."

That's right, Law & Order: Restaurant Inspectors.

I've also tried to come up with an angle for Law & Order: Mayberry RFD.

What are your ideas for the worst possible L&O spinoff? Bonus points for casting suggestions.

Here's a new slogan: Two for America!

The only good thing to come out of the 1970s is....

Robert Prather over at Insults Unpunished has some interesting thoughts on the economic lessons learned by the Fed in the 1970s and their impact today. But he makes his premise be that the only good thing that came out of the 1970s was the Pittsburg Steelers.

So here's the question: what (if anything) good came out of that wasteland of a decade? I mean, other than the movie career of one Orenthal James Simpson?

An Epic Battle of the Ages

Forget Kursk: the greatest tank battle of all time is being waged by the crack young staff at what all the "in" kids refer to as HMQ.

And it's truly frightening, folks: Ralph Nader versus Sammy Davis, Jr.

EXTRA BONUS LINKAGE! Scroll down for the crack young staff's very own warning signs to determine when their blog has jumped the shark.

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

INDC Bill talks about some great ways to get exposure.

Fortunately, it makes no mention of a raincoat and a park bench.

So what IS Kevin Costner doing these days now that his movies suck and he's bald?

Rocket Jones has the goods on a new plan to build cities at Sea.

And here I thought WaterWorld was a bad investment as a MOVIE.....

For the love of Gawd, NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

The Geek Empire reports a true nightmare: John Kerry appointed Claudia Kennedy as one of his military advisors.

Claudia Kennedy, you ask?

Let's just say she makes Brigadier General Janis Karpinski seem like Alexander the Great, Stonewall Jackson, and Eisenhower rolled into one. She makes Robert MacNamara look like George Washington, for chrissakes!

New Kerry campaign motto: Timeouts for Dictators! And, who are we to say who is or is not a dictator?

Sorry Liz: I know Pep is going to go ape over this one. But hey, I've got a duty to the readers, you know?

UPDATE: The link is corrected, with thanks to the omniscience of Monkeywatch for pointing out the error. And, by the way, Rowland must go.

Google-bombing in the name of looooove

Extra snarky Llama Yips to John at Texas Best Grok for google bombing his way into the record books for this, er, interesting category....

Go forth marked by the sign of faith...

Eloise at Spitbull relates a true horror story from the frontlines of life with the toddler set.

Sneezeguard/no beverages while reading rule is in effect for this one, folks.

BONUS LINKAGE! Wait, don't click now: scroll down a bit to get this week's entree to the Spitbull's "Incorrect Children's Story Title" feature.

Truly Bad Film Reviews

This past week we cancelled our daily subscription to the WaPo here at the Butcher's House - we found that none of us really read it, getting our news as we do from other sources. However, at home Friday morning with my ritual cup of coffee, I felt the urge to read something, anything, as I inhaled the java. To this end, my eye fell on the most recent copy of the Sun-Gazette, a weekly fishwrapper serving McLean, Vienna, Oakton and Great Falls, Va. The Gazette is one of those local rags that no power on earth can prevent from appearing in the mailbox once a week. (As a matter of fact, I believe most people don't really mind. The paper consists mostly of local property listings and checking up on how much swag the neighbors are trying to get for their houses is a varsity sport in these parts.)

Anyway, the article I chose to enjoy with my cup o' joe was penned by one Renny Martin. Ms. Martin owns a local landscaping company and usually contributes a piece on Helpful Gardening Hints. This week, however, for reasons that remain obscure to me, she decided to wade into the brave new field of movie review. Now I'm sure Ms. Martin is a very nice lady. But having read this screed, I'm equally sure that she is an idiot. (I am also pretty certain the Sun-Gazette's budget does not extend to employing a copy editor.) Aside from a writing style that would cause any self-respecting Freshman Comp teacher to slash his wrists in despair, Ms. Martin displays an astonishingly muddled grasp of life's realities. Seldom have I seen so much half-baked, self-righteous drivel crammed into so few words. Allow me, then, to quote the piece verbatim and in full. Allow me also to insert some commentary along the way.

But first, let me tell you about Troy, Shrek 2, and The Day After Tomorrow. When Mr. Arch Campbell [local TV film critic and "personality"] reviews movies he is many times way off...most of the time. The Day After Tomorrow...it's to educate the public. [In the same sense that the North Vietnamese "educated" their Southern compatriots after taking over.] The film deals with 'global warming' --folks its here (global warming), and growing annually. [Well, if you believe TDAT. But I didn't know global warming was a thing that kept growing - sounds like a cross between the national debt and a tumor.] Last week Pennsylvania got 'soft ball size' hail --anyone concerned? [You're right, dear. Pennsylvania can't get hail storms more than thirty or forty times every summer - one like this obviously is "smoking gun" evidence that something is very, very wrong.] Those of us for the past twenty years who have studied and interviewed scientists on the subject of global warming -- know that the reality of it has not hit home for most folks. [Well la di da! Actually, those of us who have cut through the agitprop to see the real scientific data understand that, in fact, no "reality" has yet been established.] See the film. Go home and dump your SUV's that are gas hogs: which are contributing to the global warming through their exhaust. [Wouldn't it be neat to go and see a movie and then model your life after it? Think, oh I dunno, Striptease. Or Rambo. Or Police Academy, for that matter. The possibilities are endless. I also love the gratuitous dig at SUV gas mileage. Actually, if the government really wanted to cut back on exhaust emissions, it would simply ban all cars more than 10 or 15 years old, since these produce the vast majority of such emissions. New SUV's really aren't that much less clean than any other car.] I bought from Fairfax Honda a Honda Civic Hybrid for our staff to use...it gets 51 miles to a gallon. [Tell me that you still don't need a serious dumptruck or flatbed to deliver a lot of your landscaping materials.] The film is in an "exaggerated form'; but artistically done with great effects. It will get your attention. [The same can be said of Independence Day - should I get the family out of DC and check in to the Area 51 Best Western Suites?] The world is full of frightening weather events...let's stop contributing to "global warming". Due to it, I predict more rain and hail storms this summer. [Rain and hail in the summer - what a gutsy call. I'll make another one - the sun's gonna rise in the East tomorrow. Remember, you read it here first.] If you must keep your heavy-tanker SUV - buy a Honda Civic Hybrid to run around in..use the hog only when needed. [Gratuitous SUV Trips are not among the activities enjoyed by the Butcher's Family. The days of cruising round the Beltway for hours just for fun are long gone.]

I also bought a medium sized SUV, the Honda Pilot: it works for me. The Honda hybrid is a better car than the Toyota hybrid. [For someone concerned about the environment, you sure seem to buy a hell of a lot of cars.] Let's get with it folks - our earth as we know it is changing. [I don't know how to break it to you, dear, but the earth has been changing ever since those first little bits of iron ore started coalescing all those billions of years ago. At no point in history did Mother Nature stick a fork in her work and say, "Yup, it's done."]

Take the family to see Shrek 2 - our family loved the storyline and laughed a lot. If you like cats like Moi does...you'll love this animated movie. I think Troy really got a bad rap...so here goes: Troy is better than the Lord of the Rings, at least you understand what they are fighting about; the battle scenes are exciting and well defined...Brad Pitt did an "outstanding job" as Achilles. It will beget many Oscar nominees...also: Shrek 2 and The Day After Tomorrow." Moi. [Ah, ha, ha, haaaa! Where does one start with all this? As much as I dislike Peter Jackson's work, I never would accuse him of failing to explain what everyone's fighting about. Uh, Renny? It's called Good and Evil. The adorable little guys, the hunky studs in shiny armor and the kindly old man with the white beard are what we call the Good Guys. Everything with fangs, big black cloaks, lustful green eyes, sinister laughs and hisses, as well as anything otherwise associated with a giant, black, fire-rimmed eye, can be considered the Bad Guys. As for Pitt, I'm sure Homer is nodding somewhere even now, but I'm equally sure he's gonna get robbed by the Academy.]

There you have it, Ladies and Gentlemen. I hope you have as much fun reading this as I did writing it. My advice to Ms. Martin? Don't quit your day job.

Moi.

What a month for the Reaper

Reagan, Ray Charles, and William Manchester.

Maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't be selling Don Knotts any insurance any time soon....


I'll miss Manchester: American Caesar was one of my favorite books growing up. I remember bringing it to school for "free reading" period in junior high school, 7th or 8th grade, 1979-ish. Let's just say I didn't begin dating (successfully) until much later....

Gratuitous Domestic Political Blogging (TM)

Well, I just checked in to see if anything was up and found that Steve-O has launched the opening cannonade in his War against the Franks. Since the balloon has gone up, so to speak, and our small store of quiet dignity put back on ice, I'll relate this amusing little scene:

I was chatting with my six year old at lunch about Reagan's funeral and the conversation led to presidents in general and then the upcoming election in particular.

She: And George W. is president now.

Me: That's right. And this fall we'll have an election to decide whether he should be president some more.

She: And John Kerry wants to be president?

Me: Right.

She: He's not a president now?

Me: No, he's a senator.

[Short pause as she mulled this over.]

She (with some heat): Well why can't he just be grateful and do the job he's got now?

Given the coverage of we've been getting of Kerry's non-existent voting record from folks like the New England Republican and VikingPundit, I think this is an excellent question.

Exposing all the Franco-evil that IS the Frank J./IMAO.US Empire

For some time now the Investigative Division of Llamabutcher Industries has been risking their lives bringing you, the blogging public, the TRUTH about Frank J. and his evil imao.us empire.

It all began as a lark--a simple pshopping of Frank being spurned by his monkey lover for David Hasselhoff. Little did we realize the horror we were getting into.

Then Frank J. fixed the Hawk-Babe T-shirt contest: I mean, hello? Willow didn't win? So we did some digging and it turns out Frank J., he of engineer/ninja/monkey love/instapundit bater was, well, French. And not just your run of the mill chardonnay swilling, brie eating, Peugot driving, America-hating francophone sell out: oh, if it were only that!

We set Llamabutcher Industries' fearless intern Skippy on the trail, and he quickly discovered Frank J.'s secret love of Charles de Gaulle; as well as Frank J.'s learning of the dangerous truth that Jacques Chirac, President of France and Dark Lord of the Sith, is in fact his father. Skippy eluded the bodyguards to snap pics of Frank J. stylin' with his posse on his way with Rosie O'Donnell to a weekend retreat at Kofi Anan's secret Hamptons resort. Skippy then uncovered irrefutable evidence that not only was Frank J. responsible for the horror that was "Dean for America," but that he was also behind the break up of Van Halen. The picture doesn't lie, my friends, and there it was: Frank, Sammy, and Dean hanging out, shooting pool in Vegas. The only thing eluding us was photographic proof that Frank J. was somehow responsible for Godfather 3.

His apologists tried to explain, adopting a Peter Jennings-like tone, that the world already knew that Frank was French: But we hadn't realized how deep the true conspiracy went, and the length to which they would go to perpetuate the cover-up.

So when Llamabutcher Intern Skippy's head turned up in a Sam's Club-sized can of Franco-American Spaghetti-O's, I did the first thing that came to my mind: flee the jurisdiction, and head to France.

Now the trip was comforting: six days of having French waiters kiss your American ass, saying how mooch they love the Americans, and why don't the Americans come anymore, and just because we think Bush is the lapdog of the Joos' who really run America..... (BTW, I've never been exposed to so much vicious, virulent anti-semitism as I was in France. It was sickening.) You get the picture.

But on my second to last day, I was minding my own business, walking along the Quai de Voltaire on the left bank, right across from the Louvre, when I came to this magnificent looking building:


It's beautiful, centered on a pedestrian bridge across the inSeine, and so, being the international man of culture that I am, I decided to have a closer look.

Now I know what Marlowe felt as he finally got to the head of the river to discover the degraded Kurtz at the very center of the Heart of Darkness. For there, smack dab in the middle of the capitol of all that is French in the world, I saw this:



The center of all the Gaullic smell in le monde: the Institute de Frank J.

Like a character in a Hitchcock movie, I tried to run, and turned to my left, only to see this:




[Hum the music from The Birds here]

I ran
I ran so far away
couldn't get away.

Okay, wrong birds, but you get my drift.

So I did run away, as fast as I could, and hid myself in the Louvre. Sobbing, hiding behind crowds of Indian tourists (because as a sign of the seismic shifts going on in the global economy, the velcro-ed together packs of Japanese tourists have been replaced by packs of Indian tourists), I collapsed to the floor. As I came to, light was streaming down from the skylight onto this masterpiece by David,



of Emperor Glenn the Omniscient.

That's when I realized everything was going to be all fine.

Truth and Justice would prevail.

Llama Stand-Down

I won't have much to say until later on, and frankly, I probably won't have that much more comment about Reagan's funeral. Being snippy seems somehow out of place today and there are plenty of folks out there who can express the more serious thoughts and feelings far better than I can.

In the meantime, life goes on it its own random, chaotic way. I am at home today. Perhaps during Victorian times, children could be expected to wear heavily-starched clothing and sit still and quiet all day as their parents meditated or mourned, but that's really not the way it works around here. My six year old has some notion of Reagan and knows that we are supposed to be "sad" for him today, but it isn't sinking in half so much as the prospect of trying out her new scooter later on. The other two are, of course, oblivious. What time I was able to grab to pay my own mental respects came as I lay in bed this morning, just before the floodtide of demands for snuggles.

Somehow, I like to think the Gipper would understand.

YIPS from Steve:

I'm sure Robbo won't mind if I add to this sentiment the words of one of our heroes, Margaret Thatcher:

We have lost a great president, a great American, and a great man. And I have lost a dear friend.

In his lifetime Ronald Reagan was such a cheerful and invigorating presence that it was easy to forget what daunting historic tasks he set himself. He sought to mend America's wounded spirit, to restore the strength of the free world, and to free the slaves of communism. These were causes hard to accomplish and heavy with risk.

Yet they were pursued with almost a lightness of spirit. For Ronald Reagan also embodied another great cause - what Arnold Bennett once called `the great cause of cheering us all up'. His politics had a freshness and optimism that won converts from every class and every nation - and ultimately from the very heart of the evil empire.

Yet his humour often had a purpose beyond humour. In the terrible hours after the attempt on his life, his easy jokes gave reassurance to an anxious world. They were evidence that in the aftermath of terror and in the midst of hysteria, one great heart at least remained sane and jocular. They were truly grace under pressure.

And perhaps they signified grace of a deeper kind. Ronnie himself certainly believed that he had been given back his life for a purpose. As he told a priest after his recovery `Whatever time I've got left now belongs to the Big Fella Upstairs'.

And surely it is hard to deny that Ronald Reagan's life was providential, when we look at what he achieved in the eight years that followed.

Others prophesied the decline of the West; he inspired America and its allies with renewed faith in their mission of freedom.

Others saw only limits to growth; he transformed a stagnant economy into an engine of opportunity.

Others hoped, at best, for an uneasy cohabitation with the Soviet Union; he won the Cold War - not only without firing a shot, but also by inviting enemies out of their fortress and turning them into friends.

I cannot imagine how any diplomat, or any dramatist, could improve on his words to Mikhail Gorbachev at the Geneva summit: `Let me tell you why it is we distrust you.' Those words are candid and tough and they cannot have been easy to hear. But they are also a clear invitation to a new beginning and a new relationship that would be rooted in trust.

We live today in the world that Ronald Reagan began to reshape with those words. It is a very different world with different challenges and new dangers. All in all, however, it is one of greater freedom and prosperity, one more hopeful than the world he inherited on becoming president.

As Prime Minister, I worked closely with Ronald Reagan for eight of the most important years of all our lives. We talked regularly both before and after his presidency. And I have had time and cause to reflect on what made him a great president.

Ronald Reagan knew his own mind. He had firm principles - and, I believe, right ones. He expounded them clearly, he acted upon them decisively.

When the world threw problems at the White House, he was not baffled, or disorientated, or overwhelmed. He knew almost instinctively what to do.

When his aides were preparing option papers for his decision, they were able to cut out entire rafts of proposals that they knew `the Old Man' would never wear.

When his allies came under Soviet or domestic pressure, they could look confidently to Washington for firm leadership.

And when his enemies tested American resolve, they soon discovered that his resolve was firm and unyielding.

Yet his ideas, though clear, were never simplistic. He saw the many sides of truth.

Yes, he warned that the Soviet Union had an insatiable drive for military power and territorial expansion; but he also sensed it was being eaten away by systemic failures impossible to reform.

Yes, he did not shrink from denouncing Moscow's `evil empire'. But he realised that a man of goodwill might nonetheless emerge from within its dark corridors.

So the President resisted Soviet expansion and pressed down on Soviet weakness at every point until the day came when communism began to collapse beneath the combined weight of these pressures and its own failures. And when a man of goodwill did emerge from the ruins, President Reagan stepped forward to shake his hand and to offer sincere cooperation.

Nothing was more typical of Ronald Reagan than that large-hearted magnanimity - and nothing was more American.

Therein lies perhaps the final explanation of his achievements. Ronald Reagan carried the American people with him in his great endeavours because there was perfect sympathy between them. He and they loved America and what it stands for - freedom and opportunity for ordinary people.

As an actor in Hollywood's golden age, he helped to make the American dream live for millions all over the globe. His own life was a fulfilment of that dream. He never succumbed to the embarrassment some people feel about an honest expression of love of country.

He was able to say `God Bless America' with equal fervour in public and in private. And so he was able to call confidently upon his fellow-countrymen to make sacrifices for America - and to make sacrifices for those who looked to America for hope and rescue.

With the lever of American patriotism, he lifted up the world. And so today the world - in Prague, in Budapest, in Warsaw, in Sofia, in Bucharest, in Kiev and in Moscow itself - the world mourns the passing of the Great Liberator and echoes his prayer "God Bless America".

Ronald Reagan's life was rich not only in public achievement, but also in private happiness. Indeed, his public achievements were rooted in his private happiness. The great turning point of his life was his meeting and marriage with Nancy.

On that we have the plain testimony of a loving and grateful husband: `Nancy came along and saved my soul'. We share her grief today. But we also share her pride - and the grief and pride of Ronnie's children.

For the final years of his life, Ronnie's mind was clouded by illness. That cloud has now lifted. He is himself again - more himself than at any time on this earth. For we may be sure that the Big Fella Upstairs never forgets those who remember Him. And as the last journey of this faithful pilgrim took him beyond the sunset, and as heaven's morning broke, I like to think - in the words of Bunyan - that `all the trumpets sounded on the other side'.

We here still move in twilight. But we have one beacon to guide us that Ronald Reagan never had. We have his example. Let us give thanks today for a life that achieved so much for all of God's children.

Ronald Reagan recognized as the Great Liberator.

The owl of Minerva truly does only fly at dusk....

PS--did Thatcher really refer to God as "the Big Fella"?????

The Picture to conclude the chapter on the Cold War



The former president of the Soviet Union and head of the Soviet Communist Party paying respects to Ronald Reagan lying in state under the dome of the United States Capitol.

I saw this on CSPAN last night and it gave me goosebumps.

This is history, folks, for real. And don't buy into the whole "ohhhhh we all knew the Soviet Union was going to collapse" line coming out of the left. Two books worth perusing to seal this point: One is The Soviet Economy Towards the Year 2000, which was published in 1983 and is still available at Amazon. As part of my Politics, Philosophy, and Economics major at Trotsky Tech I had to take "The Economics of Planned Societies" ie Soviet Economics. I got a C- for writing a term paper on how the Yugoslavian economy couldn't but crash, and that there was nothing really holding it together except for the Hobbesian terror of Marshall Tito. I saved the paper: the professor's comments were devastatingly snide and bitchy. It was the fall of 1987, you see, and of course the American economy was the one that was going to collapse---I mean, the stock market crash was just the beginning of the new Great Depression, right?

Riiiiiiight.

The other book to get your hands on is the original 1986 edition of Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, particularly his last chapters on the near future facing the USA (decline and decay), USSR (muddling through OK), Japan (emerging world hegemon), and the EEC. Let's just say he kind of goes 0-4.

But then again, he has tenure at Yale and I teach at a women's college in Virginia, so I must be wrong.

But Kennedy's book--the original edition, mind you--is a great window into the assessment of Reagan and the future of the US being written at the end of his term, and let's just say it's not exactly in line with the spin being put forward at the moment.

And the other funny thing, of course, is Iran-Contra. No one seems to want to talk that much about it, what with our surreptitiously trying to help Iran in its war against Saddam. Since that would undercut the "ignore all the Soviet equipment and French technology, AMERIKA the hateful empire of doom (TM) created Saddam!!!" So of course evidence to the contrary must be ignored....

Anyhoo, since we are the Llamabutchers after all, we can't have an entirely serious discussion about anything, so we present you with the following picture of Mikhail Gorbachev presenting the coveted crystal crack pipe to Whitney Houston for "Lifetime Skank" at the Former Commie Image Awards ceremony last week:

We're Not Worthy!

No less an entity than Hugh Hewitt links us today. Wow! What can we say? (Hugh picks up on the Iraqi missile engines in Jordan scrap heaps story below. Sorry, no direct linking to Hugh's commentary available right now.)

Of course, we should say that if you don't read Hugh's blog every day, well, you don't got game.

Yip! Yip!

UPDATE: Cor chase me Aunt Fannie up a tree! Our good friend the New England Republican reports that Hugh even mentioned us briefly on his radio show. Really, this is amazing. (Shut up! I'm not used to this kind of exposure! Let me wallow a bit!)

Gratuitous Late Night Tee-Vee Blogging

Finally saw the (edited) tee-vee version of Mulhollen Falls tonight. I won't say anything one way or the other about the plot or the acting. What caught me was the style. I loved the fact that Nick Nolte perpetually had a cig stuck in his mouth and a hat stuck on his head. I loved the fact that he could toss a butt on the floor of a government building with impunity. I also loved the fact that his boss had a bottle of Scotch stashed in his desk. I further loved the fact that everyone wore coats and ties. In short, I loved the feel of the movie and the times it sought to recreate. Seems to me that people were more alive in those days, or at least had a better sense of, I dunno, the importance of external expression of life.

I have to confess that I am fascinated by the show COPS. No, really. There is something horrifyingly interesting about the baser levels of society that are revealed by the show - the petty criminals, the God-awful domestic situations, the Mos Eisley-like scum and villainy - that is really eye-opening. Also, I am even more taken by the Good Guys who seek to keep all this under control - their rote recitation of procedures in a given situation, their obvious dedication to a thankless task. These guys really deserve any support they can get. Also, I think anyone who believes midnight basketball leagues are the answer to crime should be made to watch this stuff. They might learn a thing or two about the weaker, darker side of human nature.

I also have to confess that, given how much I like The Simpsons, I've never been that big a fan of Futurama. However, this evening I saw their send-up of The Wizard of Oz. Gonna have to clean some stains off the carpet from blowing my beverage in the morning. Hi-larious.

Rainstorms! Run For Your Lives!

I think my favorite weather site, which really does have the best radar coverage I know of, is getting a touch of what might be called "Weather Channel Syndrome," the primary symptom of which is a tendency to get a little hysterical at the first sign of bad weather. Check out the current forecast:

Now
Although numerous thunderstorms will pass north of the district... the threat for scattered showers and thunderstorms will continue across the district southward through the late afternoon hours. Thunderstorms this evening will be capable of torrential downpours...wind gusts of at least 35 mph...and lightning strikes. Please remember...if you can hear thunder...you are close enough to be struck by lightning. Go to a safe shelter such as a sturdy building or a hard top car. Do not take shelter under trees or in a convertible.

See? Think the Big One's gonna miss you, Beltway Boy? Think again!

Of course, if that fool Bush had only signed the Kyoto Treaty, we wouldn't have to worry about this.....

New Llama Menu Items

Just wanted to let you know that we've added some new folks to the ol' Llama Blogroll, only one of whom begged us in the most unseemly manner to do so. (You know who you are.)

Check out the Avoca-Pundit. Meaty conservative analysis from Upstate New York. (Avoca is a little town near Rochester, where I was born. The A-P now resides in Binghamton, where my father grew up. Small world.)

Meanwhile, Jen Speaks from the D.C. area. (Another example of the small world.) Jen mostly writes about things going on around her and is a nice afternoon stop when you get tired of hard-core political blogging.

On the other hand, Dr. Rusty Shackleford is apparently transmitting My Pet Jawa from somewhere beyond the Dune Sea on Tatooine. (Are you in any way related to Obi-Wan Shackleford? If so, come and get your 'droid - he won't shut up about his "mission".)

Finally, be sure and check out our latest shot of flaming cough syrup, the Cranky Neocon. Sneeze-guard not included.

We know perfectly well there's no such thing as a "Llama-lanche". It would be nice, tho, if you dropped by and said howdy to these folks, if you don't already visit them regularly.

Yip! Yip! Yip!

Dog Bites Man

Sydney Blumenthal is a jackass. That is all.

A Minor Llama Ripple In the Blogging Ecosphere*

As some of you know, I got in the habit early on of labeling all of my posts about home and family matters "Gratuitous Domestic Blogging (TM)," the idea being to alert you that I was going to indulge in a subject that might be of far more interest to me than to you and that you should feel free just skip over the post if that was the case. Later, I found this label to be handy for other subject matters as well.

Anyway, I noticed in the past couple of days one or two other bloggers making use of this device. And I have to say that this simply makes me smile. I don't look at this in terms of "spreading a meme" or some other promotional publicity. Rather, it strikes me as a good natured little grace note, a kind of electronic wink among bloggers who like each other's work. And that gives me an absurd amount of simple pleasure, far out of proportion to the gesture. I suppose it's simply a reflection of my gratitude to the little band of folks who regularly visit the Butcher's Shop. Thanks a lot, you guys.

*UPDATE: As a certain suspicious-minded la-di-da big time blogger notes in the comments, I may be taking more credit than is due - I know Kathleen and the Emperor have both started reading us recently and I figured it was no accident the term came up on their blogs. If I overstepped, I apologize. (See what happens when you try to be nice? Get yer bloody head chopped off. Sigh. But I'm used to it. As Carol Burnett used to say in her bag-lady character, "I've been hurt a lot.")

Gratuitous Haircut Post

Yes, you read that right. One of the joys (or curses, depending upon your point of view) of having both a scatter-shot mind and a blog is that I find myself writing about whatever wanders into my crosshairs. Sometimes I touch on political stuff, sometimes cultural, sometimes domestic. In short, as regular readers know, this is a veritable free-fire zone when it comes to subject matter.

I bring this up because my attention was grabbed by Rocket Jones' haircut musings and I felt the urge to relate two anecdotes of my own.

When I was in law school, I used to get my hair cut by an older guy named Wendell. (Our Military Correspondent will correct me if my memory of his name is incorrect.) Wendell spent part of his week giving cuts to the Keydets up at VMI, and part of it in a little hole-in-the-wall shop, complete with traditional barber pole, on South Jefferson Street in beautiful downtown Lexington, VA. A standard cut from Wendell cost about four bucks.

To me, Wendell was the living embodiment of the Reasonable Man Standard, a (now) archaic theory limiting liability for negligence that basically says if a plaintiff sticks a fork in a toaster, chugs paint thinner, smokes like a chimney, eats Mickey-D's four times a day, plays Russian Roulette with an automatic weapon or tries to juggle a cup of scalding-hot coffee in his lap while driving, he pretty much should expect to get what's coming to him. Time and again, as we discussed the events of the day, Wendell would issue judgments that were calm, rational and firmly grounded in common sense. Indeed, when taking tort exams (up to and including the Bar Exam) and confronted with a fact pattern concerning plaintiff responsibility in a negligence case, I would find myself asking, "What would Wendell do?"

My, how times have changed. After years of being hectored by the Missus for the barbershop buzzcuts that I got (and I admit now that they looked pretty geeky), I finally started going to a foo-foo salon. My current "stylist" is a girl I'll call Fifi in order to protect the innocent. Fifi is an amazing piece of work. She has an inexplicable diamond stud high up on one cheek that looks more like a booger that got away than anything else. Every time I go in (about every six weeks or so), she has changed the color and style of her hair, sometimes violently so. Our conversation usually centers on the latest appalling medical crisis to strike her puppy. In short, Fifi is the complete antithesis of Wendell the Reasonable Man. Indeed, she is such a ditz, it's a continuing marvel to me she hasn't drowned in the shower yet.

I will say, tho, that I like where I get my hair cut now. For one thing, Fifi does a very good job and I need all the help I can get. For another, the place is staffed by some fabulous babes. Only downside? Forty bucks a pop (for the haircut, I mean).

UPDATE: Yips! to our Llama Military Correspondent - I had a feeling I didn't have Wendell's name quite right. Fortunately, the LMC was in Metro-Lex four years longer than I was....

The Real Lord Emsworth*

Tim Worstall keeps tossing Tory Treats in my direction and I keep snapping them up with wild abandon. Here, he passes along an obit on the passing of the 7th Earl of Romney.

Mmmmm....eccentric peers....Mmmmmmmm......

*Except that Clarence hated having to attend the Lords, of course.

With Highest Marks In Comparative Anatomy And Impromptu Speaking, Probably...

German scientists have stumbled across The Factor, as we used to call it on my college rowing team (although we spoke of it in the context of enhanced racing performance, not test taking). Wasn't there an episode of Seinfeld about this once?

Of course it's easy to see why this is so. At least for us guys, when you're a college kid on the beach, as it were, sex is pretty much all you can think about. Once you're afloat, to extend the metaphor, a great deal of brain capacity gets opened up for other purposes, like remembering your name.

Ah, Youth! As I get older, I find increasingly funny a line I heard from a stand-up comic years ago: "Look, I'm 35. I love my wife but I want to know what's on cable."

HT to Lawren.

In The Name Of The Parent, The Offspring And That Whole Groovy Karma Thing....

Jane Galt picks up on the latest abomination created in the name of modernizing worship.

I have only three words in response. King. James. Version.

That is all.

HT to Pejman who, being the way cool guy that he is, agrees with me.

Oh, That Media Bias...

Any particular reason why this isn't getting more attention?

CNN? Nope. Drudge? Nada. MSNBC? Fuggedaboudit. WaPo? Nyet.

On the other hand, Fox News has got it. As does what the Llama Military Correspondent refers to as the Good Times. And of course, The Command Post is on the case.

UPDATE: Tim Worstall has a few things to say about stuff you find in a scrapyard.

FURTHER UPDATE: Welcome Hugh Hewitt readers! Now that you're here, feel free to browse. We Llamas like to think we have a little something for everybody....

I am Llama, the scourge of the cat-bloggers! Hear me Yip!

I hate cat-bloggers. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it.

Yes, even more so than smiley emoticons.

My answer?

Tomato blogging:



Here's the garden for this summer, at least the main one as we've moved the zuccinis, squash, carrots, okra, and melons to other places for room. We've got ten different tomato varieties, plus peppers, eggplants, and beans going.



Six of them have tomatos on the vine--the goal is to have fresh ones on the table for July 4.

Extra manly-man bonus Llama pics:



here's the shelf project I just finished yesterday for the garage. Mmmmmmmmm.....Llamas + power tools /(splinter injuries) = fun and organizational improvement.

Sometimes, It's Just Too Easy

Insert your own knee-pad joke here.

This Should Sober Up Steve-O

I overheard the following in a recent installment of the daily moonbat conference that takes place near my office door:

"I wouldn't wish what happened to Barbara Olson on anybody, BUT...."

The rest of the sentence made perfectly clear that our speaker thought the overall outcome wasn't such a bad thing.

Two things struck me.

First, it's one thing to cheer the death of a truly wicked person. Hitler, for instance. Or Stalin. Or Saddam's spawn. Or Castro, for that matter. But to cheer the death of a fellow American just because they happen to have different political views from you is pretty pathetic, particularly where that person is the victim of cold-blooded murder.

Second, if you are going to entertain such thoughts, at least have the balls to come out and say so plainly. I don't know the rhetorical term for this kind of thing, but surely it is right at the top of the Slimy Weasel's Guide to Political Discourse.

The Llamabutchers discover the advantages to blogging drunk...

Stuff like THIS doesn't make you quite as livid as if you were sober....

If Jim Moran were a Republican, his anti-Semitic, racist rantings and truly bizarre behavior would be the stuff of nightly national news.

But since he's a Democrat.....hey, it's not like he was in the Klan, or killed someone, so what's the big deal.....?

They're putting the "MONG" in "Hatemonger"

Read, weap, blow grape juice through your nose onto your computer screen, laugh so hard the dog comes over and starts doing "doggie c.p.r." on your leg: it's the Crack Young Staff of the Hatemonger's Quarterly, and they're taking on the National Women's Studies Association.

Now, I love HMQ, not just because they are sick, twisted, demented little bastards, but also because surely they must personally know my asshat colleagues in our humanities departments, because the Crack Young Staff has these pencil-necked boneheaded MLA types right in the crosshairs. So go over and toss them some love, and give them something to savor as they head off to their summer internships in swanky Akron Ohio.

Everybody loves a scavenger hunt

The Crankyneocon has a scavenger hunt up, which is a much more wholesome variation on the drinking game I'm playing tonight: you have to do a shot every time the tee-vee shows a Dem rolling their eyes during the service.

Bonus round: you have to chug whenever they show Maxine Waters.

Needless to say, it's 8:08 p.m. EDT and I'm already loaded.

Note to Cranky: dude, to make your scavenger hunt complete, you need "10.) Bring back a Friendly's Waitress."

No scavenger hunt is complete without orders to come back with a Friendly's Waitress....

Yikes!

This shit aint funny.

Gratuitous Domestic Post (TM)

My two year old is quite fascinated with the cicadas still flying about here. She calls them "kay-doos" and loves to point them out as they whiz by.

Her word for "look" is, at the moment, "uk". So when she sees one, she points and says, "Uk! Kay-doo! Uk!"

Sounds like she's speaking Klingon, to me.

I Suggest Ya Put On A Tie!*

As I high-tailed it out of D.C. this afternoon around 2-ish, folks were already starting to find spots along Constitution Avenue. I don't know all the ins and outs of the Reagan ceremonies, but I gather this is part of the route in from Andrews AFB to the Rotunda.

What I got thinking about as I watched these folks and the other Tourons (as we call them) was this:

I know it's hot as hell with damn all humidity around here at the moment, but this is the Nation's Capital, fer crying out loud. It never ceases to amaze me how people come here to view some of the most august monuments, shrines and museums in the country decked out in baseball caps, t-shirts, violently-colored polyester shorts and those goddam fanny-packs the wearing of which, when I become Emperor, will be a shoot-on-sight offense. If you come to see the sights, how about just a little decorum? If you have to wear shorts, at least wear nice khaki bermudas. Wear a shirt with a collar and no commercial endorsements. Ladies - this isn't the place for your navel piercing or your back tattoo. And Gents, when you go inside - take off the hat!

Sigh. I think I rail in vain. And the funeral is serving as a focal point to jangle my already-agitated nerves on the subject. Judging from what I've already seen of the public viewing in California, the same thing is going to hold true here on Friday. Lots of folks (although certainly not all) are going to show up to see Reagan's body dressed in clothes which, to them, seem equally appropriate to the beach, the bedroom, the church and the workplace. (I wouldn't dream of going near the Rotunda - or of attending any other such solemn occasion, for that matter - in anything other than a suit and a reserved tie.) The rationale here will be, as it always is elsewhere these days, Comfort.

Well, phooey on that. Time and place, people, time and place. Is that really too much to ask? Is it so radical to suggest that sometimes there is something more important in choosing one's clothing than one's own personal comfort? Like respect for an occasion, or a place, or a ceremony? That's all I'm saying.

*Bonus points, as always, for naming the quote.

Why is this man smiling? Alas, now we know....

What follows is not, er, a family post (maybe a "in the family way" type of post I guess).

Anyhoo, here is, reproduced verbatim, the Commissar:

other day i was wearing relatively well-fitting shorts and one of the men at the gym does the "can i ask you a question, hope you don't get offended by it, but is that real?" (he's asking about my cock)

one-at 50, if i got offended still everytime someone asked that, i'd be a suicide by now. I would be blatantly miserable and bitter, instead of quietly so. two- 'course it is real. Who'd be stupid enough to have an extension this size? three- No.. really... you don't want it this size. Within six months you'd be screaming to be a freakin tweezer-dick again. You have any idea how many urinals I've inadvertently smashed?This is not a "body-image" problem i have. It's a plain old problem. No quotes. clothes have never fit me right. Shopping is like smashing my head against a wall- pointless, because there never will be anything that fits me well or doesn't make me look like a Chippendales dancer. Pants? Oh great... i can look like a jerk if they fit my groin, or ... well.. if they fit the rest of my legs, it won't fit my groin at all. I can win a three--legged race, all by myself!

You know it costs less to have an extension than a late-in-life, exaggerated circumcision? How's that, i wonder? Oh i've already looked into it... it costs around three times as much, if not more. Last year when i had my tests, i sort of sotto-voce told my surgeon to whack off as much as possible. He thought i was kidding. I was not. When I make love to my wife, my body is still a foot away from her!

Will an underwear company ever make underwear that is actually the size the label says? Haynes sucks! Probably not. And i have been measured and measured and remeasured, so i know what size i am. I know that the jock i bought last week was NOT what it said it was, and so was the one previous, and so on.

And i tire of white, black and beige for colors. I'd like something Speedo looking. Something interesting.

And now, you see, i am working out. I keep hoping, every month, that i will lose even a quarter of an inch from my member. No such luck. But i keep losing it around my waist, which just makes me look even BIGGER. You better believe i'm fucking unhappy with my body. My only recourse is to work every ounce of fat off the rest of my body so it starts cannibalizing what will be left ... my penis.

I have a sticker on the case for my Johnson. It says, "Are these your eyeballs? I found them in my lap". So don't ask me why i dye my hair colors like blue and pink and red and purple. You're looking at my head, right? (The one atop my shoulders, I mean.) That's all i ask.

Update: Want a picture? Fuggeddaboutit. NSFW. For the record, my cock, at its erectest point (pun? probably) is 15 inches. That's only ten inches smaller than my waist.

Now, why can Nth Pril get away with this rant? Of course, she does have a picture. :) uh-oh ... Have I just lowered the level of discourse again? I'll apologize right now and get it over with!

Clenched fist salute: Dean Esmay

Which would of course explain why INDC Bill has always had great, er, admiration for the Commissar's, um, witty thrusts in his posting...

Vive Le Roi!

Today, we are all Bourbonists. (Of course, round here that's nothing new.)


YIPS from Steve: Speak for yourself, monarchy boy.

I have, and always will be, a republican when it comes to matters monarchical. I don't like royalty, and I sure as hell don't like when the tee-vee types are always talking about "American Royalty." Puh-leaze.

Lexington & Concord to Yorktown, bay-bee.

But now that you mention it......

I saw that bit on the tee-vee news last night--the burial of the pickled heart of Louis XVII in Paris. Talk about bizarre-o world.

It got me thinking about a profound realization I had the second to last day I was in France as to why I am a conservative: Conservatism, as a whole, is an ideology that has produced far fewer mass graves than that of the ideologies that flow from Rousseau and then Marx.

I had this realization standing at the gate of the Cimitiere de Picpus, in a somewhat gritty lower middle class section of eastern Paris. The Picpus Cemetery is about as far away from tourist France you can get while still standing in metropolitan Paris.

We went to Picpus on a pilgrimage to the grave of Lafayette. (Of course, my trusty little digital camera is a battery-slut and so of course died as soon as we got there--aaagh!) General John Pershing visited the grave upon arriving in Paris in 1917, and, the story went, the flag that flies over the grave was the only American flag to fly during the recent unpleasantness with the Nazis.

Suuuuuure, I thought.

First thing that was odd about the place was that there was no sign out front, except for a small one about the size of the cover of an opened paperback novel announcing the presence of the cemetery inside. You had to bang on the large wooden gate. Inside is a convent (still functional, I was told), with a small Spanish looking convent church behind a cobblestone courtyard. Crossing the courtyard, going behind the church, was a small iron gate, which you wouldn't have found if you hadn't been looking precisely for it. This led to the most beautiful garden I have ever been in---about 200 yards long and 20 yards wide, with a long row of very mature trees shading the eastern side's walkway. There wasn't a panoply of flowers, rather the beauty came from the simplicity and the quiet, unexpected space. Walking all the way to the back of this garden led to another iron gate, and inside was the Picpus cemetery.

I live in Charlottesville, Virginia, and my wife used to work at Monticello, so I've spent a lot of time up on the mountain, and have sat and looked at Jefferson's graveyard many times. It's beautiful in its simplicity, with Jefferson's grave at the far end and two centuries of the (official) family's graves spread out within an enclosure roughly seventy five yards by 20 yards at most.

The Picpus Cemetery is the evil equal yet opposite graveyard, the Bearded Spock Universe's answer to Jefferson's Monticello graveyard. Because, what they hadn't told us, was that the back of Picpus Cemetery has two long trenches, in which are buried the corpses of 1109 men and 197 women.

Sans heads, of course.

Picpus holds the mass grave for the Thermidor of the French Revolution. It doesn't hold everyone who was guillotined, but it has almost everyone executed in the terrible summer of 1794 at least. It has the highest single quantity of Saints of the Roman Catholic Church outside of the Roman Coliseum perhaps, holding the bodies of thirteen Carmelite Nuns executed for failing to renounce their faith.

The story goes that Madame Lafayette and some others began following the carts bearing the bodies. The burials took place at night, in secret, to prevent it from becoming a place of reverence. The Revolutionaries, betraying the type of logic that would become all to common over the next 150 years, chose to use the garden of a convent in an obscure area in eastern Paris as the site of the graves. Madame Lafayette, who had relatives who had been executed, worked with some others to secretly buy the land after the Terror passed, and were protected in doing so during Napoleon's time as the Empress Josephine was a subscriber, as she had had relatives executed as well. Over time, relatives of those who were murdered for the Revolution chose to be buried in the graveyard. The section where the mass graves are is in the back, viewed through two closed iron gates, with the rest of the small graveyard taken over by two centuries worth of family tombs.

The Lafayette's are right in the far corner, guarding if you will the gateway into the graves of the Terror. Lafayette's tomb is surrounded by the worn brass and copper markers from American groups who have been making the pilgrimage for over a century: VFW, American Legion, National Guard and service academies are well represented. The flag is there and I think the story is true: the flagpole is no larger than one you'd see in a congressman's office, and is lower than the surrounding wall. You can't see it from the outside.

Which is the point of t