Truth be told, I completely forgot about the primaries last evening. Instead, I was immersed in Edward Gibbon's description of what W.S. Gilbert termed "all the crimes of Heliogabulus".*** (I am determined - determined I say! - to finally get all the way through Decline and Fall.
So I don't really have much to say on what a Mitt! win means or even how I especially feel about it.
As it happens, this is the first election to which the eldest Llama-ette has paid any real attention at all and she's started asking me pretty regularly about who I want to win. I've had to tell her honestly that nobody in the GOP field really excites me, and that as far as I'm concerned, I can only hope that the one who is strongest on national security and fighting the GWOT wins. Even then, I will undoubtedly be forced to hold my nose about some other aspects of his policy, but hey - priorities, right?
*** Spot the quote. It shouldn't be hard.
UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal picks up on this same theme this morning. (The lack of a GOP front-runner, I mean, not the determination to read Gibbon.) I toss this in just as a bit of gratuitous link-whoring and also to remind those of you who have not yet checked out the new format and expanded (free!) content on the WSJ's website to get on over and have a look.
1
the resemblance of Carl's body hair to my own is uncanny....
Posted by: Keith S. at January 15, 2008 09:00 PM (TgHFp)
2
The Cowboy/Giants game reminded me of a horse race I saw at Fairgrounds, Thanksgiving weekend 2004. Totally fixed. That first score by the Giants- I could have made the tackle and I'm an amateur; so why couldn't the professional make it?
There were other plays I could cite. A month after that race at Fairgrounds I watched the Miami Dolphins beat the Super Bowl champs, the New England Patriots, and I had an epiphany. Any
sport that can be bet, can and will be fixed. Fixing a football game is a rather simple thing; almost a simple as fixing a horse race. I have sympathy for those earnest dupes with integrity. Guys such as T.O. and Romo.
3
The Cowboy/Giants game reminded me of a horse race I saw at Fairgrounds, Thanksgiving weekend 2004. Totally fixed. That first score by the Giants- I could have made the tackle and I'm an amateur; so why couldn't the professional make it?
There were other plays I could cite. A month after that race at Fairgrounds I watched the Miami Dolphins beat the Super Bowl champs, the New England Patriots, and I had an epiphany. Any
sport that can be bet, can and will be fixed. Fixing a football game is a rather simple thing; almost a simple as fixing a horse race. I have sympathy for those earnest men with integrity. Men such as T.O. and Romo and others. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it was fixed (the Cowboys/Giants game, nor the Patriots/Dolphins game; the horse race was fixed), just that the game reminded me of a fixed horse race I once saw.
It's the Belief-O-Matic. My results (to which I actually replied "Well, duh!"):
1. Roman Catholic (100%)
2. Eastern Orthodox (100%)
3. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (96%)
4. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (83%)
5. Jehovah's Witness (79%)
6. Orthodox Judaism (71%)
7. Seventh Day Adventist (69%)
8. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (65%)
9. Orthodox Quaker (64%)
10. Islam (62%)
11. Bah' Faith (60%)
12. Sikhism (54%)
13. Hinduism (52%)
14. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (47%)
15. Jainism (39%)
16. Liberal Quakers (39%)
17. Mahayana Buddhism (33%)
18. Theravada Buddhism (32%)
19. Reform Judaism (30%)
20. Unitarian Universalism (26%)
21. New Thought (25%)
22. Scientology (20%)
23. Nontheist (18%)
24. Neo-Pagan (16%)
25. Taoism (11%)
26. New Age (9%)
27. Secular Humanism (7%)
Speaking of such things, I was mulling again the other day over what saint or saints I'd like to tag as my personal patrons. Is it possible to go now with St. To-Be-Named-Later and to wait around for the eventual Patron Saint of Anglican Converts? That would somehow feel very fitting.
1
Well, St. Jason appears to be the closest fit, but too many soap-opera characters are named Jason, so that just won't do. You'd better stick with St. Monica; her prayers and intercession certainly helped land a big fish. Augustine was a mere dissolute, mind you, but that's not far removed from Protestant (KIDDING!).
Posted by: Monica at January 15, 2008 08:20 PM (juAkV)
2
Given the circumstances, it's a close shave, but I'd vote for St. Thomas Moore.
Posted by: Steve the LLamabutcher at January 15, 2008 09:38 PM (4/H9X)
3
My anglophile confirmation saint was Edward the Confessor. I'd certainly take a look at the English saints. The Venerable Bede, Becket, More, etc. Newman won't be canonized in time, though it is coming. St. George, although he was a Roman, also fought with the English during the Crusades if you believe the lore.
I'd look at some others -- Sts. Jerome, Ambrose, St. Martin, Benedict, Augustine, Francis of Assisi, St. Dominic, Bernard of Clairvaux, Aquinas, Bonaventure, Ignatius Loyola, John of the Cross, Borromeo, Vincent de Paul, Alphonse Liguori, Padre Pio -- there's plenty to choose from.
There's also the apostles and the saints of the early church -- John the Baptist, John the Evangelist, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. James (a personal favorite), any of the Twelve, St. Luke, St. Stephen -- all of them are worth taking a look at. Church fathers are good, too -- Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, etc.
Also some of the Eastern saints are worth considering -- John Chrysostom, John Damascene, Ignatius of Antioch, Gregory Nazanzian, St. Cyril, St. Methodius, etc.
Also the archangels -- St. Michael, Raphael, Gabriel.
I'd go through the Catholic encyclopedia and find one you're comfortable with.
I pray to about a dozen in my personal litany. Some I have no great personal connection to, but just a sense that they are listening and are willing to pray for me. St. Martin de Porres and St. Elizabeth of Hungary have become favorite intercessors of mine.
When in doubt, a martyr, a Franciscan, or a Dominican always work.
Posted by: The Abbot at January 15, 2008 11:55 PM (QBuXz)
My computer is going through one of its periodic fits whereby I cannot get into the Butcher's Shop without the whole thing freezing up. The result is that I can't get at the blogroll or sitemeter, nor can I reply to comments.
As for the blogroll, I can of course just surf off somebody else's (I usually go to our Maximum Leader at Naked Villainy for this). Sitemeter isn't all that interesting anyway, as it's usually clogged with google searches for "Juliette Huddy's toes" and "Jefferts-Shori bong-hit blessings " and the like.
But as for comments, I feel kind of bad. To me, maybe the most rewarding part of this blogging business is the steady stream advice, abuse and observations that you guys send our way, and when I have the time (and the technology), I like to banter back when I can. So I'm sorry if it seems as if I'm ignoring your remarks. I'm really not.
Which brings me to three responses I've tried and failed to post in the past 24 hours. Since I can't put them in the comments sections, I'm just going to slap them up here:
Dear Jordana:
Pass the secret along? If I ever stumble across that particular cure, I'm going to patent it, retire on the profits and buy myself a new home like, say, France.
********
Dear Babs:
Actually, the Great Wolf Lodge is not anything near as awful as Chuck E. Fargin' Cheese, a place in which I refuse point-blank ever to set foot. In fact, the waterslides are rayther fun. However, being there aaaaaall day gets to be a burden after a while.
Fortunately, there is a snack bar which serves, among other things, adult beverages. About 4:00 or so Saturday afternoon, I ambled over to it and ordered a Margarita Smoothie. "You know they're alcoholic?" said the counter guy. My response was, "They damned well better be."
*******
My Dear Mrs. P:
Yes, but I've only been to Providence the once. It was back in my dissolute undergrad day and I went to visit to an old high school flame at Brown. What with one thing and another, we never quite got round to discussing the local op-ed talent.
Yes, yesterday I dared to come out and say that I simply don't find Black Adder all that funny. But by way of reasserting my credentials and avoiding being chucked from the Pan-American & All Empire Anglophilia Club, I may mention that last evening I popped in my Netflix copy of Yes, Minister and had quite a good time. I'd forgotten both how clever this series is and the fact that Nigel Hawthorne was in it.
Speaking of which, I've also got one of the Ian Carmichael/Peter Wimseys in the queue (Clouds of Witness, in fact). I must say that I've always felt the later dramatizations starring Edward Petherbridge were closer to what Sayers had in mind, but I do enjoy old Ian's horsing about as well.
Ah, nothing quite like Brit tee vee in the 70's and 80's.
Posted by: The Abbot at January 15, 2008 10:08 AM (b1/bF)
2
In watching Black Adder not too long ago myself, I came to the conclusion that only the Georgian ones were funny. The other periods of history did nothing for me and it may have been Hugh Laurie as George IV that made the Georgian ones, not Rowan Atkinson.
Posted by: Jordana at January 15, 2008 10:40 AM (QeLuW)
3
I strongly recommend "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin".
Posted by: Mike at January 15, 2008 11:02 AM (cqZXM)
The pace of this evening's installment of The Sarah Connor Chronicles was glacial and this series is going on my personal "no-fly" list. I ditch a program whenever it produces dialogue which is no better than than lines I could write myself.
. . . the four remaining teams were in Japan when they received instructions to fly to Taipei, Taiwan.
Nate said to his partner Jen, "I don't know anything about Taiwan except that I like Thai food and I have some Thai friends."
Can you hear me snickering?
Jen spent the rest of the race being unbearably bitchy and snarky about another team and whining that Nate was being mean to her on her biiiiirthdaaaaaaay!
Then, in one of the most satisfying turns of event, ever on Amazing Race, they came in last and were asked to leave the race.
That leaves three teams I like competing for the million dollars next Sunday night. Can't. Wait!
1
You still watching that trash reality tv? tsk, tsk.
Oh, yeah, and I don't.
Great though that the three teams next Sunday are all your faves! You're in a win-win-win with this one aren't you!
A tall glass of Thai iced tea for ya, sweetie.
Posted by: keysunset at January 14, 2008 03:48 PM (et6My)
2
I'm with you, Chai-Rista, though I was bummed when the Goths were eliminated. they were actually nice people.
Posted by: Boy Named Sous at January 14, 2008 04:19 PM (IjiHk)
3
It is stunning 1) because the teams left are all likeable and 2) I think it is a first that my favorite team (Nick and Don this time) has not been ousted by the irritant team who then go on to win it.
Posted by: Taleena at January 14, 2008 05:24 PM (ZdruO)
4
It's was sort of unfair that that leg was in Taiwan. Ronald and Christine breezed through it beause they spoke Chinese. I absolutely despised Nate and Jen. Don't these people in romantic relationships realize, it's not about the race? After the inevitable break-up who would ever want to date one either of them?
Posted by: oclarki at January 14, 2008 06:05 PM (otsZj)
5
I was bummed when the Goths got booted too. They were sweet kids.
Posted by: Chai-rista at January 15, 2008 09:39 AM (ERCKE)
6
I kind of liked the Goths, too. Somewhat dimwitted but well-intentioned, and good to everyone around them. I kept thinking they'd get weird reactions from people when they left America, but everyone took them in stride, which amazed me. I thought for sure they'd get roasted and eaten at some point in the journey.
I'm actually rooting for the hippies (TK and Rachel) this time, because they take everything in stride. The oldsters are a little too annoying for me. At least this year, the producers have figured out that you need to pair an oldster with a youngster; that two oldsters together is simply a recipe for either early elimination or tragedy.
Posted by: The Abbot at January 15, 2008 10:23 AM (b1/bF)
7
Somewhat dimwitted but well-intentioned, and good to everyone around them. Agreed, the same things I liked about them. And incredibly good to each other -- the antithesis of Nate and Jen.
Posted by: Boy Named Sous at January 15, 2008 02:34 PM (IjiHk)
Last evening at dinner, the eldest Llama-ette and I got into a convoluted discussion that started with bananas and somehow wound up - after many twists and turns - with the Iranian problem and the presidential elections. At one point, the gel said, "You know what I like about these conversations, Dad? They just go all over the place!"
Read this via one of the blogs at the "Daily Diary of the American Dream." Boys and gels: law firms are affected by the economy just like any other business and firms will lay off lawyers like GM will lay off assembly line workers. Blaming "greedy partners" for down-sizing is pointless because law firms cannot defy the laws of financial physics any more than dot-com businesses. I was a bankruptcy specialist at my first firm in the 1993 and was on the street by 1996 when insolvency practice cooled off. Moral of the story--lawyers like everyone else need to have more than one skill set to keep their options open.
Yips! from Robbo: Amen, Brutha. I still occassionally stop to put flowers on the grave of my telecom practice. Back in the boom-boom 90's, they couldn't hand out the corner offices fast enough. By the end, I recall the gallows humor prevalent at the FCBA seminars. R.I.P.
While on my travels last week, I wasn't able to mark here the fact that last Thursday was the middle Llama-ette's eighth birthday.
As it happened, that was the day I came back to Dee Cee from Houston. I had originally been scheduled to get in after the gels' bedtime, which meant that I was going to miss giving a timely birthday wish. However, as luck would have it, I was able to get on an earlier flight. Score one point for Robbo.
Not only that, as I was ambling through Houston Intercontinental, I spied a NASA outlet. And sitting at the front of the store was a collection of teddy bears dressed in astronaut suits. The gel has a passion for teddies (I believe she actually owns in excess of 60, but she refuses to count them), so grabbing an Astronaut Bear for her was the work of an instant for me. When I whipped A.B. out of my bag when I got home, the gel was enchanted. Score another point for Robbo.
Yep, a goood day.
Yip! Yip! Yip!
I can't let the day go by without mentioning that it happens to be the youngest Llama-ette's sixth birthday.
Regular readers will know that I have spent a great many pixels here describing what a swash-buckling brigand the gel can be. And the LMC has had endless fun predicting the body-piercings, biker boyfriends and sky-diving lessons that we can expect to have thrust upon us earlier in her teen years than later.
Well, the good news is that the future is not looking nearly so dire as all that anymore. In recent weeks, the gel has undergone a noticeable behavioral change and is beginning to answer her helm. I'm not sure I can exactly pinpoint specifics, but it is abundantly clear that she has finally made up her mind to start trying.
This is good.
Of course, she still has the table manners of an orangutan, but I begin to feel there's hope even for this.
Happy Birthday! Yip! Yip! Yip!
1
Happy Birthday to her! And if you ever figure out a remedy for orangutan-like table manners, please do pass on the secret.
Posted by: Jordana at January 14, 2008 01:26 PM (QeLuW)
2
Heh, 'tis just the calm before the storm, designed to lull you into a false sense of security. Just be sure to keep up on the news of all the latest brain scanning machines out there so as to interrogate the potential boyfriends beforehand.
Posted by: rbj at January 14, 2008 01:36 PM (UgG6+)
3
Yay! Happy birthday to the swash-buckling Llamaette
Posted by: beth at January 14, 2008 01:49 PM (Cgdu0)
4
"the gel has undergone a noticeable behavioral change and is beginning to answer her helm"
You just crack me up! Enjoy these years, they go so quickly.
BTW, I checked out the site of the Wolf Trap place you all went to for childhood fun and merryment. Sounds like a 6 Tylenol weekend... Not my kind of place and I wouldn't even care if the adult beverages were free!
I recall booking a 6 year old party at Chuck E Cheese. The man on the other end asked how many adults would be attending and then suggested they all take 2 Tylenol a half hour before arriving at the party. I kid you not!
Posted by: Babs at January 14, 2008 02:04 PM (iZZlp)
Last evening I was unwinding by watching a little Black Adder when the thought suddenly crystalized in my mind: I really don't much like Rowan Atkinson. Sure, he has some funny moments, but one has to go through an awful lot of, well, tedious muggings between them.
Am I going to be drummed out of the Pan-America & All-Empire Anglophilia Club for this?
Don't ever say that I'm not constantly on the lookout for new rats to serve up on sticks to our loyal llama readers.
Whilst on my travels last week, my hand fell across a copy of the San Antonio Express nooz-paper. Idly flipping through the opinion columns, I came across this one about the Jamie Lynn Spears pregnancy story by somebody named Froma Harrop, of whom I'd never heard before but who seems to be a syndicated columnist of some sort. (The link is to another paper's website - I couldn't find the column on line at the Express.)
Harrop starts out ranting about the fact that the 16 year old "nice" sister-o-Britney star of some show for young girls suddenly turned up pregnant and broadens out into a general critique of what might be called the Spears' family business model, which is - to put it tamely - pretty damned sordid. In particular, Harrop goes after the Spears sisters' mother for, as she puts it, "serving up her young daughters" for public consumption.
All fine and dandy. Until I got to the one paragraph in which Harrop opines about what Mrs. Spears ought to have done with regard to Jamie Lynn:
It's now Jamie Lynn's turn at bat. She established her virginal bona fides in "Zoey 101." Then she's turned 16, time for her high dive from chastity into the pits of sexual availability. Mom could have insisted she use birth control. She could have helped Jamie Lynn quietly end the pregnancy. But the business model requires a drawn-out public decline.
Emphasis added. Is this appalling or am I completely out to lunch? I'd have thought that the mother's duty would be to try and prevent the child's "high dive", not to stand by with floaties when she lands in the pit. I gather that "Mom" didn't lift a finger regarding the former (from brief conversations, I understand that among other things, she not only permitted the kid to date a 19 year old guy, she also condoned regular "sleepovers"), and I find Harrop's criticism that she didn't do the latter to be....horrifying.
Interestingly, I mentioned this column to several different people over the weekend, specifically focusing on Harrop's failure to confront the underlying behavioral problem and instead to serve up bone-chilling suggestions for how the consequences of such behavior ought to have been "quietly" disposed of. Each of them said the same thing: that such a suggestion was positively Clintonian.
1
I think that the problem is a deep-seated one in our culture. Sex is an act that is fraught with profound significance, but we want to treat it as something that is no more significant than racquetball. Well, maybe the greatest, bestest game of racquetball evah, but still, something that can be done casually with absolutely no moral consequences.
I think for society to endorse anything other than "this ought only to be done in the context of marriage" opens up a veritable Pandora's box of social ills, be it prostitution, STDs, pornography, divorce, illegitimacy, abortion, etc. Truth is, the act is fraught with all kinds of meaning and significance and possible dreadful things happening. We all wish it wasn't. But it is.
The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that JP II was right.
http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TBIND.HTM
Posted by: The Abbot at January 14, 2008 12:02 PM (QBuXz)
2
You don't know who Froma is? Hello? Hellooooo? You did go to college in Connecticut, crew, law school and for a few weeks more...an Episcopalian? Again...hellooooo?
Froma is Ellen Goodman-lite.
Please don't say you don't know who she is.
Froma is with the Providence Journal Register...total commie-pinko rag...
Posted by: Mrs. Peperium at January 14, 2008 12:22 PM (Tqa2Y)
3
You don't know who Froma is? Hello? Hellooooo? You did go to college in Connecticut, crew, law school and for a few weeks more...an Episcopalian? Again...hellooooo?
Froma is Ellen Goodman-lite.
Please don't say you don't know who she is.
Froma is with the Providence Journal Register...total commie-pinko rag...
One of my old painting masters' family owned it.
Posted by: Mrs. Peperium at January 14, 2008 12:22 PM (Tqa2Y)
4
The Pro-Jo has been owned for several years by Belo Corp of Dallas. Under private ownership it used to be higher quality than it is now. If they went intensely local, they could be very good again. RI government combines the competence of Louisiana and the ethics of New Jersey; there are endless opportunities for investigating scandals and corruption. Froma Harrumph is unlikely to contribute to any such effort, however.
Mrs. P - painting master? - are you by any chance a former RISDroid?
Posted by: chuckR at January 14, 2008 01:20 PM (XLu7l)
5
Did Ms Harrop actually have a point? I realize it isn't always easy to have much to say in a twice weekly column (and I wouldn't want her to despair by reading Lilek's Bleat every day) but that arrangement of words had less substance than a cubic meter of intergalactic space.
Posted by: rbj at January 14, 2008 01:46 PM (UgG6+)
(or something like that) - money quote from the series premiere of The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Ahnold is replaced by Summer Glau who looks better, fights better, and can do the android expressionless look just like Sarah Michelle Geller. Her performance is reminiscent of River Tam laying out the entire clientele of a bar on Persephone or some other Alliance planet in Serenity but without the subliminal triggers.
Posted by: Mike at January 14, 2008 02:50 PM (WGcw3)
3
i'm waiting for part 2 before I make up my mind. I do love Summer Glau as the "good" robot....
Posted by: caltechgirl at January 14, 2008 03:23 PM (BR5e0)
4
Thanks to where I live and my sat company, I will have to wait for the series on DVD. Just as well: I'd have had to get a bunch of channels I don't want - all that MSM crap - and wait 30 days to get FOX. Not worth it.
Posted by: Hucbald at January 14, 2008 05:51 PM (Le9g9)
