Archive Listing
September 4, 2011 - August 28, 2011

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

NOTWITHSTANDING. There's this new movie, The Social Network. I hear it was also a book. One or the other or both names the Phoenix SK Club at Harvard as an actor in the drama.

So now I guess we can expect a new wave of Discovery Channel documentaries about the Phoenix SK Club to add to the sinister revelations about Yale's Skull & Bones.

Has it occurred to anyone that the definition of a secret society is that it succeeds in remaining secret? Skull & Bones isn't a secret. You're all panting and upset about it. The Phoenix Club isn't a secret. Here it is:


Want to know a real secret? The Porcellian Club. Harvard's oldest final club. Founded in 1791. They have their own gate into Harvard Yard. All anybody knows about them -- even among the other Harvard final clubs -- is rumor and speculation. They're an eminence so gray as to be nearly invisible.


Other clubs take in ten to twelve members a year. The Porcellian accepts two or three. One of the few things we know about them is who they didn't take: Teddy Kennedy (The Owl), Jack and Bobby Kennedy (The Spee), Franklin Roosevelt (The Fly), J.P. Morgan (The Delphic -- in fact, he founded it to get in), and the Facebook boys (The Phoenix). uh, a point of explanation. At Harvard, the Porcellian is like Harvard; if you get in, that's where you go.

All of which begins to make Skull & Bones look like pretty small potatoes. First of all, the Bushes and Kerrys obviously didn't get into Harvard, or why would they go to Yale? And even if they had, there's no chance they would have gotten into the, uh, Porcellian.

If you have mystique even in a world of secrets, you must be special. The scuttlebutt at Harvard is that admission to the Porcellian is a free ticket to the rest of your life. If you need connections, the Porcellian will provide. If you need money, the Porcellian will provide. If you need, well, anything, the Porcellian will provide.

Wikipedia has a standard disinformation piece that lists some of the members. Of course, they don't list all the members. No mention of Count Dracula ('96), Darth Vader ('03), or Bonaparte Louis-Napoleon ('88), for example. Or the Archangels Michael ('91), Gabriel ('91), and Lucifer ('91).

I'm just saying. Nobody nowhere knows what goes on in this building.


Shouldn't the MSM start getting to the bottom of the real secret society that runs everything? Or are they just too afeared to do so?

HOWIE. This guy. Sorry. A teaspoon of brains with a tablespoon of TV Q-attractiveness. Do I sound bitter? The missus continues to defend him. "I used to like him," she lamely explains.

Stop it. He's an idiot. Here's his latest, at his new home, the Daily Beast. Oh, Yes. It's fisked throughout.

Bottom line? Howie should have stayed with the Washington Post. Unshackled and unedited as an inquiring mind, he exposes himself as a shallow clown.

P.S. Yup. Looked it up. As we surmised. Howie went to the Columbia School of Journalism. No wonder fisking him is like shooting fish in a barrel. If there's any one thing that particular school doesn't teach, it's journalism.

Monday, October 18, 2010

WHO'S THE THUG? I'm not going to labor this point, but it still has to be made. A couple weeks ago, ESPN made a huge story out of the response Donovan McNabb would receive from Philadelphia Eagles fans, whom they condemned in advance for boorish behavior that didn't subsequently occur. Eagles fans gave McNabb a prolonged standing ovation, just like Flyers fans gave former Flyer Simon Gagne the other night when he made his first return to Philly in an opposing uniform.

Now here's something ESPN won't make a huge story of, or even a story at all. The New York Giants game yesterday was being played at the New Meadowlands Stadium at the same time the Eagles-Falcons game was being played in Philly. About 24 hours before, Rutgers played Army on the same field the Giants were playing on. A Rutgers player was injured making a tackle. He lay motionless on the field for five minutes before being carried away on a stretcher, and it's a national story that he is presently (hopefully only temporarily) paralyzed from the neck down. As he lay on the field, both the Rutgers team and the Army team formed a circle around him, every player on one knee with head bowed. Most of the fans at the Giants game probably didn't know this, but it hardly matters. What does matter is that the Giants Jumbotron played some portion of the clip above (the hit and its immediate aftermath) almost immediately after it happened. DeSean Jackson lay motionless on the field. What did the Giants fans do? Gasp and fall into murmuring near silence? No. They erupted in loud cheers and applause. Eagle superstar down. Joy reigns supreme.

But Eagles fans once threw snowballs at Santa Claus. In fact, they do it every time ESPN runs yet another story about the thuggishness of Philadelphia Eagles fans. They can rerun that footage a thousand times, and it won't make up for what the self-anointed 'superior' New Yorkers did yesterday afternoon.

btw, Eagles fans applauded both players as they were helped off the field, including the one who initiated the hit, because he had been injured too, and who knew how seriously? Multiple NFL pundits have said it was one of the deadliest, scariest collisions they'd ever seen. DeSean Jackson has a 'serious' concussion and there's no certain date for his return. I've yet to hear news about Donte Robinson, the injured Falcon, but we wish him a full recovery as well. The fanatical haters of Philly SportsTalk Radio have been busy all morning affirming their belief that Robinson's hit was not a deliberate intent to injure but an inevitable by-product of a fiercely contested NFL game.

I know you don't want to hear about it, but somebody had to point it out.

Sorry if I'm being a bore. Don't get disgusted. I have it on good authority InstaPunk has something to say today about the mid-term elections. I expect he won't even mention Philadelphia.

THE RIGHT PERSPECTIVE. Although polls try to suggest there is, there's no grand perspective that conveys what's going on in politics, the media, and the electorate at large.

All we have are fragments. all of them sharp and deadly in an overall environment that is hostile to the point of murder. I've got a handful of fragments to reference, but here's my context: an underground world documented by the National Geographic Channel.


We're talking thickets of killing blades in every direction. Covered in one of the most riveting Nat Geo documentaries I've ever seen: Into the Lost Crystal Caves. For once, the story is as much about the courage of the explorers as it is about the importance of their objective:


It takes genuine bravery to enter such dangerous territory. (I urge one and all to explore the host of photos, videos, and other content associated with the documentary. It's eye-opening and mind-blowing. Pedantic, pedestrian-seeming geologists really do care enough about minerals to put their lives on the line for them. What we can only call passion. The Chilean miners aren't the only courageous ones of the underground. And the song I linked earlier isn't only for them.)

Metaphor established. We're seeing something unprecedented this year. An incursion by private citizens into a realm that is reflexively hostile and generally fatal to all but the purest Narcissists. I've resisted commenting on particulars of late because it all gets so ugly and mean and irrelevant to the larger issues as it rolls like a tumbril toward the Guillotine of personal assassination we call the democratic process.

But it is time to take note of the environment private citizen politicians are daring to enter -- the Cave of Swords -- and to acknowledge the bravery of the unlikely victors and even of those who are likely to be done in via ridicule and life-destroying slander en route.

Something I should save for the end but can't. (I try to sequence things in logical builds, but I also obey my intuition...) I'm referring to the appalling interview Chris Wallace conducted with Carly Fiorina on Fox News Sunday yesterday. I've heard the man describe his interviewing technique on multiple occasions, particularly in response to the question, "What do you do when a politician won't answer the question?" He replied that his practice is to follow up one, maybe two times, just enough to establish that the question isn't being answered, then move on. On Sunday, though, with Fiorina, he followed up not one, not two, not four, but six times on the same absolutely phony question: How was she going to make up for the 4 trillion dollar federal revenue shortfall created by her proposed tax cuts?

The mild-mannered, baby-faced Fox star seemed to be channelling his raving leftist father. He kept repeating, almost viciously at times, "4 trillion dollars" as if the figure had some absolute value. For anyone who knows anything about economics, it doesn't. It's just an annoyingly brainless exercise in the kind of static analysis that makes a joke of all liberal economics. Raise tax rates, revenues increase. Reduce tax rates, revenues decline. The analysis is static because it fails to recognize that changing tax rates alters behavior in the economy. Everything doesn't stand still in perpetuity the way the CBO is required to pretend it does. Which is why tax revenues increased when JFK cut taxes, when Reagan cut taxes, and when GWB cut taxes. And why tax revenues declined when FDR (and Hoover before him) increased taxes on the rich people who might otherwise have reinvested in the private economy.

I concede I was almost equally pissed at Fiorina for not raising the static analysis argument, but conservative politicians across the board seem unwilling to risk confounding the comprehension of voters on such a seemingly counter-intuitive point. She probably, private citizen that she is, has too many professional advisers at this point to remember that voters do possess common sense. And she's walking a tightrope with the wiftiest voters in the country, the airheads of California. Which is another reason why Chris Wallace's blatantly hostile interview raised my eyebrows. He knows she's running against the stupidest, most unqualified senator in the nation, in the weirdest electorate there is. Ask your gotcha question twice. But why six times?

What's his beef with Fiorina? (Aha! Why I began rather than ended with this.) He resents her as an amateur. Politics is for professionals. He'd rather spar pointlessly with a corrupt pro like Barney Frank than deal with an intruder like the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard. She doesn't belong. Regardless of his own probably centrist-right-leaning political views. Her very appearance in the arena compels him to demonstrate the difference between an amateur clubfighter and a professional prizefighter. "I must break you."


This is the thing beyond ideology that animates the anti-Tea Party bias of the mass media and professional politicians and pundits in both parties. Professionals -- people who have made a lifelong living at some discipline, regardless of their actual competence -- don't like being challenged let alone taken down by amateurs. They dislike it so much it causes them to behave like amateurs themselves.

Thanks to Hotair for the following exemplary "fragments":

Harry Reid thinks he can get away with a flat-out lie because his opponent is a housewife. Never mind that the lie is easily exposed and readily available all across the Internet.

Meghan McCain (and her liberal colleagues on TV) sees no irony in slamming Christine O'Donnell because she hasn't accomplished anything and feels somehow "entitled." (See Mary Katherine Hamm's perfect tweet...)

Maureen Dowd thinks female Tea Party types invented the politics of mean. Dana Perino begs to differ.

Channelling Bill Bradley lecturing Clarence Thomas on what it means to be black, Charlie Crist lectures Marco Rubio on what it means to be Hispanic.


Rand Paul's opponent, Jack Conway, decided to attack Paul's Christian religious faith and family values, because all's fair in love, etc, and politics.

Except, it backfired. (See video above.)

Which brings us full circle. The founders didn't really mean for politics to be the province of professionals. What, after all, were the aristocrats of the British Empire and the courtiers of the European thrones? They didn't want Talleyrands. They wanted Washingtons, Jeffersons, and, yes, even low-born Franklins, who took time away from their real passions -- home, architecture, music, science, business, etc -- to participate in sustaining the republic.

For an absolute certainty, they never meant to create the government of the United States as an environment so hostile that mere contact with the intent to participate or influence it would call down the scathing fury of the elites like antibodies against disease.

This country does not belong to Maureen Dowd, Chris Wallace, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Jerry Brown (son of Pat Brown), and all the political whores (sorry Gretchen Carlson, Tom Brokaw, and all the neo-prigs of the left and right -- 'whore' is a word everybody knows and uses and you are its media definition, or does the rightwing cast of Fox & Friends have something exculpatory to share with the rest of us about their unbridled on-air enthusiasm for lefty 20th Century Fox movies like Avatar and Oliver Stone's Wall Street 2). The country does not belong to the media stars or the professional politicians. It belongs to us.

I was always uncomfortable with senate collegiality: "my good friend from Montana, my very good friend from West Virginia, with whom I disagree at times...) Yecch. It led to the moral contradiction of political debates in which candidates levelled the most horrific charges against one another, only to conclude with the honorable handshake at the end. But honor is not accomplished by a handshake. It can be betrayed by one, however. The handshake conveys acceptance of what has transpired previously.

If you're a narcissistic sociopath like most professional politicians, it may be acceptable to nod and smile at the vicious personal attacks of your opponent in the aspiration for high office. But that carries politics itself into the realm of the crystal caves. Not a place for ordinary, decent human beings. Only the Schumers, McCains (and progeny), Cuomos, Clintons, Kennedys, Pelosis, Wallaces, Dowds, and the legion of unscrupulous nouveau courtiers (Kerrys and Reids) can breathe that air.

Everyone else is gasping, at a loss. But for the few. I doff my hat to Rand Paul. You're right. Don't shake hands with a cobra. I bow low before Sarah Palin. You can spit in the eye of a spitting cobra, but you have the sense to wear glasses while doing so.

Sorry this has taken so long. My point is infinitesimal (not really). No matter how much you're tempted to join in the laughter at the Christine O'Donnells and Sharon Angles, give them credit for their almost unbelievable courage. Carly Fiorina is almost certainly twice as shrewd and competent as Chris Wallace. He's a talker and a critic. She's a doer and a maker. If he can make her look bad out of spite, snobbery, irrational hostility, and ruthless exploitation of his media platform advantage, what chance have the Angles, O'Donnells, and Palins?

Oh. That's right. A good chance. Sarah Palin isn't afraid of them. God, how terrifying that must be... to them.

Now. When will smart conservatives start recognizing that Sarah Palin has the most important credential of all? Bravery. We've asked for volunteers to invade the crystal caves of Washington politics. Would you? Would I? No. But there they are, advancing into the heat and peril of an environment that is unanimously determined to kill them. Could we at least vote for them, flawed and human and inexperienced as they may be? I think so.

P.S. I forgot the "delusional" part. Democrats are now beginning to pretend that they'll have a 2012 presidential electoral advantage if the Congress goes Republican. Why? Because Clinton got reelected after the bloodbath of 1994. Cool strategy eh? Except for one slight fatal contradiction. Dems today think a Republican congress would allow Obama to paint Republicans as obstructionist, the reason for no improvement in things like the economy. Problem is, that's not how Clinton got reelected. He took credit for Republican accomplishments like welfare reform, the balanced budget, and other improvements legislated by that Republican Congress. What will Obama do with a Republican Congress that seeks to overturn his policies on taxation, healthcare, and business regulation? Veto, veto, veto. Who will be the obstructionist then? In the fourth year of recession, he will suffer a repudiation worse even than Carter's.

Repudiation? I meant Refudiation. What happens when an entrenched authority encounters an, uh, snafu:


Only Sarah has hair. You heard it here first.

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.

Back to Archive Index