Archive Listing
August 27, 2011 - August 20, 2011

Friday, October 15, 2010

WORDS. A pause here to pay tribute to the courageous endurance of the Chilean miners and their triumph over the darkness that could have swallowed them.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

PICKING UP THE PIECES. I don't pretend to know what is going on with CountryPunk. All that alternate universe stuff. I think it has something to do with deerhounds. To most of us, they seem a few cards shy of a full deck. So, apparently, the missing cards are located in another universe. Enough said. I'm sure he'll work it out and return to something like sanity. SOON.

In the meantime, we have real mid-terms to think about. Here's the best ad any campaign has yet run.


Don't know if it will save Christine O'Donnell. (She should have worn her Palin glasses and something other than black in her 'I'm not a witch' ad, but maybe the Lord will provide.)

But it's a template for everyone else. Like Nike says, DO IT. Tattoo the Dems with their confiscatory tax and fiscal policies. And never ever relent. They're the issue. Not some normal human being who has the courage to run without having spent a lifetime faking the perfect life for the benefit of campaign cameras.

There's also this from Bruce Josten at the Chamber of Commerce. Another Mercersburg boy.


When I knew him, he was a big swimming jock. Now he's a smooth operator on the political scene. Hope for us all, I guess. Including Christine O'Donnell.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

WICK-WICK-WICK. First. my apologies for not having posted since Saturday. I've made it a practice to post on the weekends like clockwork since I never have any time on weekdays, but Sunday I couldn't bring myself to the task. Am I the only one who's sick of LFL football, the cheap, violent hits, the unruly crowds, the rotten officiating, the saturation coverage by WSPN? And I guess this weekend was the final straw. I don't watch the Lingerie Football League to see constant reminders of prostate cancer -- blue chinguards, blue shoes, blue panties. Yeah, I know prostate cancer kills more people than any other form of cancer, but that's not why I tune in to sports programs. Is it so wrong to just want to see football? Why does every sporting event, bake sale, and public gathering have to confront me with the image of a cancerous prostate?  Tired of big round football player breasts too. Sorry. Just a bugaboo of mine. I get distracted.

Which means I've got some catching up to do. I've been remiss about the mid-term elections. Yeah, I know it looks like President Mikulski is going to pick up even more seats in November. And, with the new laws about blog commentary, I couldn't say otherwise even if I thought otherwise. She's such a great president.


And her vice-president is great also. Even if she does put her foot in her mouth from time to time. That's what makes America America, right? It could be worse... Think Biden. Of course that couldn't happen. Not since he got castrated at Guantanomo.


All I'll venture to propose is that there are other candidates on the various tickets. If they want to arrest me for that, so be it. I've said nothing about sugar, transfats, alcohol, tobacco, the explosive eroticism of abortions, or anything sexual about the sex that hates any mention of sex unless it's about Lady GaGa. Whom I adore. Appropriately from afar.


Are we clear? Are we cool? Sure we are. I've never answered a single spam ad for Viagra or Extenz. And I promise I haven't looked up from the ground since I posted the Lady GaGa picture.. I fervently believe all noodles should be like cooked macaroni.

So PLEASE vote come November... please...?

All this before I've brought you up to date on my Hispanic Manhound MacBeth.


Everyone knows I'm Scottish, right? I'm not making any point with that, you know? I just like plaid. And so does MacBeth. He only looks frustrated. In actuality he's completely comfortable with the way of things these days, including his recent operation, and he voted for the Mikulski-Boxer ticket three times. See?

I'm sure there was something else I wanted to say. Even if I can't think of it right now. That's why you all come here so faithfully. Because I always have something to say about the world and such. Why I just made the list of Top Ten Tolerable Male Blogs in the latest National Review survey. Who says it doesn't pay to be a conservative? You know. The way we all understand it now.

Try this:

You have no idea how the world is constituted. You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you there was a world where Americans are still clinging perilously to freedom, not as a lost and tragic memory, but as something they still might retain. The temptation of the giant nurturing tit is seducing them as it has drowned us, but some of them are fighting against it. On weekdays, at least.

I know that was all out of line. My apologies to President Mikulski and Vice-President Boxer. But I think you'll find that I haven't actually broken any of the laws regarding hate speech, or any of the regulations issuing from the Blogging Responsibility Act as I understand it, or any other laws governing fit speech by bloggers. I walk the line. And my attorneys are on line.

Which is why you're all still here. And why MacBeth is still smiling.

P.S. Full disclosure. MacBeth truly loves football.


No accounting for dogs, is there? Why people have spent so much money for so many years. You'd think they'd get tired. But what do I know?

AN UNUSUAL WEEKDAY SCOOP. Another Drudge Report story we don't understand. Why would anyone care that some old goop emailed a photo of his privates to a sports reporter? Why should it be a story at all? He didn't even send his pix to Erin Andrews, the Emmy-Award winning anchor of ratings giant WSPN.


I do think it was inappropriate for President Mikulski to comment on the case. The President of the United States should not be calling for the death penalty for some anonymous pervert. Think about it. If it should come to a trial, how could you even assemble an unbiased jury? Look at the picture. He does seem sorry. The tears are real. Life without parole seems more than sufficient.

But, then, we're edgy. Why we're in the Top Ten. Edgy and "highly intellectual for a male site" as reviewed by InstaQueen.com.

Just saying. Thoughtful. Unlike Private Parts Boy above. (See Brizoni's Tweet...)

Sorry for the unsually long post. Sometimes, even men have a lot to say.

Monday, October 11, 2010

THE BEAUTY OF REAL ATTAINMENT. This morning I had to sit in the waiting room while a necessary surgical procedure was performed on my 8-year-old Toyota MR2. Not life-threatening, thankfully, just new brake pads and rotors up front. But it gave me my once-every-so-often opportunity to catch up with the automotive press -- countless old issues of Motor Trend and Automobile Magazine. The former always used to be derided as a GM shill -- like the NYT has become for Democrats -- while the latter has always had a decidedly more 'elitist' flavor, focusing on the most expensive, high-performance, and classic cars that constitute the drool factor in the automotive world for adolescent boys aged 8 to 80.  I couldn't help noticing that a certain homogenization has occurred.

Motor Trend has acquired more of a global perspective, acknowledging that stricken Detroit really does have to compete with the world's best and faces something of an uphill battle in doing so. Mucho emphasis on technology, green features, clever, motile beans.

Automobile, on the other hand, seems every bit as obsessed as Motor Trend with electric cars, miniature gas-sippers, I-Pod connectivity, and microprocessor-controlled intelligent cars designed to protect the incompetent from their own bad driving skills. What difference remains is at the margins. Automobile retains two decidedly retro preoccupations -- 1) a focus on automotive writing AS writing, and 2) a nostalgia for obsolete autotomotive attributes like speed, performance, and beauty. Almost as an afterthought, (though, one suspects, not really) the magazine has a few pages at the very end of each issue devoted to automobile auctions. That's where I was reminded of the Talbot-Lago above. A specimen in original (i.e., nicked up, never restored condition) recently sold for about $7 million. As part of the explanation of the price, the copy noted that original condition is fetching ever higher prices these days, and there is no intent by the buyers to restore. Rationale? A car can be restored many times; it can be original only once.

Which reminded me of something I haven't stressed of late. The danger of contemporary political and media elites is not that they're elite. It's that their elitism is a function of position and power, not accomplishment.

There's nothing whatever wrong with the existence of elite people, talents, and minds. There isn't even anything wrong with certain kinds of elite privilege. In fact, that's the chief virtue of a capitalist economic system.

The most talented among us create opportunities for everyone. They come up with ideas nobody had before. Why shouldn't they receive economic rewards, acclaim, and extraordinary fame? For example: The Talbot-Lago is, to me, an apogee of automotive artistry, a source of inspiration that may be responsible in part for subsequent generations of Jags (1, 2, 3, 4) Buicks, Cadillacs (1, 2)  Corvettes, (1, 2, 3) and even the Pontiac Solstice. But the Talbot-Lago would never have been possible without Henry Ford, whose Model T transformed the automobile from a toy to a civilization-changing industry that employed millions and catapulted a nation to a brand new standard of living. Ford was an example of the pragmatic elite: he catalyzed an industry that produced money and opportunity. Design achievements like the Talbot-Lago catalyzed dreams that fueled the creativity of people who were capable of taking Ford's vision to a whole new level. Is one more important than the other? No.

If you have the Model T without the Talbot-Lago -- designed and built for and affordable only by rich people -- what do you get? The Russian Lada.


But we've been taught, relentlessly, that the rich are parasites, that they take without giving, that their whims and desires are always at our expense. Like most so-called 'liberal' ideas, this one's hopelessly illiberal, dull-witted, and almost unbelievably antique. Also ironically revealing. Today's liberals hate capitalism because they're not in charge of it. They foment class warfare because their whole view of the relation between economics and creativity is rooted in the kingdoms and colonial crimes of Europe. They see Ferraris and Lamborghinis and think 'theft.' This guy owns a car that costs what could feed hundreds and could liberate them from poverty if only things were more fair. And they're the ones who know what is fair.

Which is how we can see the true nature of the new elites. They're a supposedly enlightened version of the old old elites, the English, French, and Italian aristocracies who owned everything and sponsored -- i.e., paid for -- the greatest artistic and architectural achievements of a dozen generations. Liberals and progressives see themselves as the Renaissance Medicis. The sine qua non of all cultural achievement. Their contribution to the advancement of the human race? Power. Money. Innate superiority. Plus, the power to ennoble those who choose to be subservient to them for the promise of knighthood, dukedoms, titles. Hence the servility of the Gates, Spielbergs, and Streisands. Collectively, they're the superior ones who gave Europe its great cathedrals and paid for the contributions of Michelangelo and Voltaire.

But in our case -- the case of the United States -- what powers this delusion? The sense of belonging to the new nobility -- Harvard Law School, a seat in the House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate, or a place at the banquet table in Washington, DC. They're just better. And they're entitled to direct the erection of the new generation's 'green' Chartres. Not because they're more talented but because they're entitled.

The genius (Georges Paulin) who designed the Talbot-Lago above was shot by the Nazis for spying on the Luftwaffe.

Pardon me for believing that his automobile design said more about life and beauty and love and sex and humanity than anything the totalitarian bureaucrats who killed him could ever understand.

He was elite. What I'd call elitism in 'original condition.' Not restored, remanufactured, replicated, or simply updated by some arcane process of association. (Auction Note: An original '71 Hemi Barracuda just went for $450K; a new, 'updated' Hemi Challenger goes for $30K.) We could do with more elites like Paulin. The ones whose vision encompasses personal fulfillment for even a few rather than the need to level the ignorant masses in mediocrity.

When my only remaining choice is a Lada, I promise I'll be on the front lines with a pitchfork.

P.S. What Doc Zero had to say:


Always did think he was a smart bugger.

SERENPINQUITY. I had a question for all of you, but I aimed it wrong. Sorry. I was thinking of the other Internet again. I'll be right back with another question. Soon. I'm old enough now that I do get jangled. Forgive me.

Friday, October 08, 2010

NO LONGER AN ENT. Because everyone is asking so insistently... yes, Raebert is about to graduate from his puppy obedience class. Next Tuesday. He's not the valedictorian. That honor will go to an impossibly cute bulldog named Rambo, but Raebert has done very well in school. His handicaps and advantages cancel each other out. Handicap? As a sighthound, he can't stop watching everything that's going on, even the stuff in the remotest corners of the warehouse-type structure where classes are conducted. He's especially mesmerized by the forty-foot mirror on one side of the training ring. He keeps seeing a gorgeous deerhound whenever he looks. He can't take his eyes off that boy. Neither can I. Despite the distractions, he has proved himself adept at sitting, staying, and doing figure eights. There's also a command called "hurry," which is about heeling faster than average. That's when he leaves all the other students in the dust. Not by being faster. But by being a deerhound. Second gear -- anything faster than a stroll -- invokes that silken, flowing stride even greyhounds don't have. Suddenly, everyone else disappears. Like watching a racehorse warming into race mode. Beautiful.

I'm not a proud papa or anything. Strictly objective. He's close to his full stature now, though not filled out. Sometimes it seems like you can hear him growing it's happening so fast. Lying down, he can't ever get comfortable because the bones and ligaments and tendons are all expanding, getting bigger.

And he's definitely smarter than Psmith. There. I said it. But I still miss the lord of all things. That's the ingratitude of humanity for you. Raebert wouldn't be here at all if we hadn't lost Psmith. So why do I keep thinking, when Raebert wants to curl up next to me, how much fun it would be to have both of them beside me? Two deerhounds? Three? In this direction lies madness.


I promise to resist temptation. Unless some forward thinking political party adopts the intensely more reasonable slogan than anything we've heard to date: "More Deerhounds."

Then I'll be a goner.

P.S. Don't be grumpy. The last time I had a deerhound puppy I stopped posting for several months. This time I'm being comparatively cool. So don't give me any grief. You don't know what it's liike. It's like watching God doing a Michelangelo, adding that one indispensable detail to the Sistine Chapel. Divinity.

MORE DEERHOUNDS: Note the advanced cerebration of the 'round the Mulberry bush' game. Rocket scientists, every one of them.


And the flowy side, when they're not the wind itself:


Okay. I'm stopping now. Because Raebert's beside me, sleeping though not snoring. Deerhounds don't snore. Kewl.

NOTWITHSTANDING.  A woman's college means there can be a men's college. Which makes it possible to have a Harvard Glee Club. With no women in it. Thank God. Enjoy.

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