REAL CONVERSATION, PT. II:
"NotByronDorgan: and after seeing my family this weekend, I know I'm genetically predisposed to be a 'fun' drunk
NotByronDorgan: oh, it's shockingly true
NotByronDorgan: When they reopened the bar after dinner Saturday, my Uncle Frank stood up
NotByronDorgan: yelled "the bar's open again!"
NotByronDorgan: and all the Troesters got up and headed over there"
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
16.5.02
15.5.02
CONGRATULATIONS, DEMOCRATS!!!
The 2002 election has just been handed to you on a silver platter. Try not to screw this one up.
The 2002 election has just been handed to you on a silver platter. Try not to screw this one up.
Holland is doing it's best to be interesting, and Pim Fortuyn's Party will hopefully be "in" the new government. Always good to shake things up, no?
14.5.02
JUST A QUESTION: to those of you who have taken my quiz, who unanimously thought I would disagree with the statement "I thought James Carville made some good points:" have you heard the man speak? He's nothing if not hilarious. He also wrote one of the best books after the little 1994 setback, entitled We're Right, They're Wrong. But, fair enough, I probably haven't made my contempt for Edward Said clear.
SIGN OF THE APOCALYPSE: I never liked Bill Maher very much, especially his poorly thought-out late September comments, but he's certainly better than Jimmy-freakin'-Kimmel. Oy!
LINK: Something for Dara to chew on, as well as all of those who would like to see the Democratic Party not screw things up for the next few election cycles, their best efforts notwithstanding.
LINK: More joy over the latest Wilco album, this time by Slate. If you haven't bought it yet, you should, if only for "Heavy Metal Drummer," which will certainly be entering the pantheon of the greatest summer songs ever.
13.5.02
Michael Novak (a Catholic I actually like) gets it right on NRO:
"It is wrong, inhuman, and unacceptable:
(1) to use the living human flesh of men and women as human bombs, who walk with apparent innocence among other human beings in the normal activities of human life, in order to blast them apart;
(2) to keep the poor and the needy in the misery of refugee camps, at the heart of the richest region on this planet, and to hold them there as political pawns and weapons; and
(3) to pour out on war and terror precious energies and talents that ought to be going into the building of an admirable civic and political order, and a vibrant commercial economy, able to energize a talented people with opportunity and expanding prosperity."
"It is wrong, inhuman, and unacceptable:
(1) to use the living human flesh of men and women as human bombs, who walk with apparent innocence among other human beings in the normal activities of human life, in order to blast them apart;
(2) to keep the poor and the needy in the misery of refugee camps, at the heart of the richest region on this planet, and to hold them there as political pawns and weapons; and
(3) to pour out on war and terror precious energies and talents that ought to be going into the building of an admirable civic and political order, and a vibrant commercial economy, able to energize a talented people with opportunity and expanding prosperity."
QUOTE:
"About a decade ago, one of the Smithsonian museums here in Washington had an exhibit on the history of human civilization, or something along those lines. I didn't see it, but a friend of mine went and his description always stuck with me. One of the displays was a comparative timeline of different cultures. At, say, 1250 you'd see what the British, the Japanese, the Chinese, or the Arabs had come up with. The sight that really struck home for my friend was a beautiful Renaissance Italian clock, with movable gears and a stunning hand-painted face with a sun and moon alternating for AM and PM. The clock came from the 15th or 16th century, I think. But that's not really important. On the same timeline for African culture there was a wood mask with eye- and mouth-holes cut out in some "novel" way. The little explanatory card on the wall tried to make it sound, somehow, as though the handcrafted clock and the mask were similarly impressive accomplishments. To which my friend responded, roughly, 'Are you high?'"
-Jonah Goldberg
"About a decade ago, one of the Smithsonian museums here in Washington had an exhibit on the history of human civilization, or something along those lines. I didn't see it, but a friend of mine went and his description always stuck with me. One of the displays was a comparative timeline of different cultures. At, say, 1250 you'd see what the British, the Japanese, the Chinese, or the Arabs had come up with. The sight that really struck home for my friend was a beautiful Renaissance Italian clock, with movable gears and a stunning hand-painted face with a sun and moon alternating for AM and PM. The clock came from the 15th or 16th century, I think. But that's not really important. On the same timeline for African culture there was a wood mask with eye- and mouth-holes cut out in some "novel" way. The little explanatory card on the wall tried to make it sound, somehow, as though the handcrafted clock and the mask were similarly impressive accomplishments. To which my friend responded, roughly, 'Are you high?'"
-Jonah Goldberg
12.5.02
Potential answers (though none of which would be mine):
"We're not on a first-name basis yet"
"I never really thought to ask it"
"It's not as if it's my dog, you know"
"Schooner" (obviously you don't watch enough Sex and the City)
"The Portable Kierkegaard"
"Little Richard" (A joke! A joke!)
"We're not on a first-name basis yet"
"I never really thought to ask it"
"It's not as if it's my dog, you know"
"Schooner" (obviously you don't watch enough Sex and the City)
"The Portable Kierkegaard"
"Little Richard" (A joke! A joke!)
QUOTE:
From the Prospect review:
"The most amusing collection of revelations here shows Johnson's lack of modesty and his exhibitionist traits. Johnson, Caro reports, would routinely urinate in front of secretaries, force staff members to meet with him in the bathroom while he defecated, and sometimes proudly showed off his penis -- which he nicknamed "Jumbo" -- to embarrassed Senate colleagues."
From the Prospect review:
"The most amusing collection of revelations here shows Johnson's lack of modesty and his exhibitionist traits. Johnson, Caro reports, would routinely urinate in front of secretaries, force staff members to meet with him in the bathroom while he defecated, and sometimes proudly showed off his penis -- which he nicknamed "Jumbo" -- to embarrassed Senate colleagues."
Something that's not self-servingly neocon from The Weekly Standard? What's the world coming to?
As a side note, am I the only one who misses the time when liberals could say this sort of thing? Probably.
As a side note, am I the only one who misses the time when liberals could say this sort of thing? Probably.
LINK: Good review on The American Prospect about Robert Caro's new book on Lyndon Johnson.. The must read (i.e., the hilarious) part of the review is, of course, about LBJ's penis. Consider yourself warned.
HITCH, AT IT AGAIN:
The always quotable, always genius Christopher Hitchens in The Nation:
"Etiquette requires that I mention a very rude description of myself, concentrating on the grossly physical, which includes the assertion that I am unwashed as well as unkempt. Those who know me will confirm that while I may not be tidy, I am so clean you could eat your dinner off me. Perhaps I did not want to put Mr. Brock to the labor of proving this. At any rate, I am relieved to find I am not his type."
The always quotable, always genius Christopher Hitchens in The Nation:
"Etiquette requires that I mention a very rude description of myself, concentrating on the grossly physical, which includes the assertion that I am unwashed as well as unkempt. Those who know me will confirm that while I may not be tidy, I am so clean you could eat your dinner off me. Perhaps I did not want to put Mr. Brock to the labor of proving this. At any rate, I am relieved to find I am not his type."
QUOTE: from the priceless review of a Peggy Guggenheim biog in The New Yorker this week, about Jackson Pollock:
"Greenberg later recalled that it was a twenty-foot-long mural that Guggenheim had commissioned from Pollock for the foyer of her East Side town house that really hit him hard. Guggenheim described it as "a continuous band of abstract figures in a rhythmic dance," and recounted how it had been painted in a single night of poured-out inspiration, after Pollock had sat numbly in front of the enormous canvas for weeks. When it was finally completed, the miraculous creation turned out to be too long for the foyer wall, and while Pollock went upstairs to get lost in Guggenheim's liquor supply, the ever-helpful [Marcel] Duchamp calmly proposed cutting eight inches off one end: with this kind of painting, he remarked, it really made no difference."
"Greenberg later recalled that it was a twenty-foot-long mural that Guggenheim had commissioned from Pollock for the foyer of her East Side town house that really hit him hard. Guggenheim described it as "a continuous band of abstract figures in a rhythmic dance," and recounted how it had been painted in a single night of poured-out inspiration, after Pollock had sat numbly in front of the enormous canvas for weeks. When it was finally completed, the miraculous creation turned out to be too long for the foyer wall, and while Pollock went upstairs to get lost in Guggenheim's liquor supply, the ever-helpful [Marcel] Duchamp calmly proposed cutting eight inches off one end: with this kind of painting, he remarked, it really made no difference."
9.5.02
8.5.02
QUOTE:
"Tradition builds up around healthy institutions. Sometimes it calcifies and makes them like hardened arteries, unable to keep up with the fast pace of modern life. But, just as often, tradition keeps institutions going. It keeps rules necessary for civilization alive long past the lifespan of the individual rule-makers who crafted them. "Tradition," wrote Chesterton, paraphrasing Burke, "is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.""
-Jonah Goldberg, on NRO
"Tradition builds up around healthy institutions. Sometimes it calcifies and makes them like hardened arteries, unable to keep up with the fast pace of modern life. But, just as often, tradition keeps institutions going. It keeps rules necessary for civilization alive long past the lifespan of the individual rule-makers who crafted them. "Tradition," wrote Chesterton, paraphrasing Burke, "is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.""
-Jonah Goldberg, on NRO
REAL-LIFE CONVERSATIONS:
This is mostly for Hucul's benefit, but some of the rest of you might find it amusing:
Chris: "Rick Carlisle was named Coach of the Year"
Nick: "Yeah, I know"
Chris: "You know?"
Nick: "I saw it last night on ESPN... on SportsCenter"
Chris: "But it wasn't final last night..."
Nick: "Well, that's still where I saw it"
Chris: "SportsCenter... who watches SportsCenter anyway?"
Nick: "Um... guys?"
This is mostly for Hucul's benefit, but some of the rest of you might find it amusing:
Chris: "Rick Carlisle was named Coach of the Year"
Nick: "Yeah, I know"
Chris: "You know?"
Nick: "I saw it last night on ESPN... on SportsCenter"
Chris: "But it wasn't final last night..."
Nick: "Well, that's still where I saw it"
Chris: "SportsCenter... who watches SportsCenter anyway?"
Nick: "Um... guys?"
STUPID?:
"Numbers, though, tell only part of the story. The un-leveling of the playing field begins with childhood and remains pervasive throughout a lifetime. Historically, academic standards have been created by intelligent people and, therefore, reflect a cultural bias against stupidity. How else account for the absence of a single profanity on the Scholastic Aptitude Test? Whereas intelligent people are squeamish about such language, a Stupid Person realizes that a good curse can function as noun, verb, adjective, or even adverb in any given sentence; we utilize obscenities the way our neighbors use punctuation. We clarify, delimit, and reinforce our thoughts with reference to the five or six expressions which, tellingly, this very website will not even print. By whose decision, I ask, is our grammar marginalized?"
-Mark Goldblatt, on NRO
"Numbers, though, tell only part of the story. The un-leveling of the playing field begins with childhood and remains pervasive throughout a lifetime. Historically, academic standards have been created by intelligent people and, therefore, reflect a cultural bias against stupidity. How else account for the absence of a single profanity on the Scholastic Aptitude Test? Whereas intelligent people are squeamish about such language, a Stupid Person realizes that a good curse can function as noun, verb, adjective, or even adverb in any given sentence; we utilize obscenities the way our neighbors use punctuation. We clarify, delimit, and reinforce our thoughts with reference to the five or six expressions which, tellingly, this very website will not even print. By whose decision, I ask, is our grammar marginalized?"
-Mark Goldblatt, on NRO
2.5.02
GRR: I go on a rampage, as you will see:
"I always thought the really key scene in On the Road is the one where Dean gets confronted by all the wives and girlfriends of his friends. He flails around wildly, refuses to accept responsibility for anything, even himself, and ends up looking quite pitiful. He's the ideal of perpetual, idiotic solipsism, narcissism and the juvenile life writ large; he is, in short, a failure as a fully functional human being."
"I always thought the really key scene in On the Road is the one where Dean gets confronted by all the wives and girlfriends of his friends. He flails around wildly, refuses to accept responsibility for anything, even himself, and ends up looking quite pitiful. He's the ideal of perpetual, idiotic solipsism, narcissism and the juvenile life writ large; he is, in short, a failure as a fully functional human being."
1.5.02
LINK: Another fine piece on the fractured left, featuring the always quotable Christopher Hitchens. Cheers!
THE FROGS ARE AT IT AGAIN:
One of the more popular slogans nowadays:
"Nique ta mère les juifs!"
But, fortunately, Jonah Goldberg has a ready made response for those of us who are a little less anti-Semitic:
"Nique ta mère les européens!"
Such a potty-mouth on that one!
One of the more popular slogans nowadays:
"Nique ta mère les juifs!"
But, fortunately, Jonah Goldberg has a ready made response for those of us who are a little less anti-Semitic:
"Nique ta mère les européens!"
Such a potty-mouth on that one!
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