Give the Top Shelf Stuff- From the Bottom Shelf

The greatest sting operation name of all time-Operation Swill.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/22/operation-swill_n_3322009.html   Now I rarely order liquor at Fridays.  I mean its for beer right?  Nonetheless, this will kill its brand for awhile.  And all I can think of is the hairy prisoner in The Wizard of Id.  http://www.amazon.com/Theres-Fly-Swill-The-Wizard/dp/0449127400

Strings Attached

Apparently this has been out there for a while, but I only just heard it after seeing this piece in the Onion's AV Club, which I recommend highly both for its writing on music, film and TV, as well as for its lively comment threads featuring a pitch-perfect Cookie Monster and the wonderfully-named Ayatollah Colm Meaney.

Without further ado, "Psycho Killer" with a touch of Bernard Herrman:

It's a World of Laughter, a World of OH MY GOD TURN IT DOWN OR BETTER YET OFF

This morning I was "inspired" by the cacophony emanating from our family room to pen this, using my finely honed skill at haiku:

Shouting child actors
With laugh track; please make it stop
The Disney Channel

I posted it to Facebook and a spirited discussion ensued, highlighted by this contribution from a nurse in the North Country:



For those of you without elementary school-aged children, you can simulate the experience by playing this over and over and over and over. And over.

The (hitherto unnoticed) Riker Maneuver

I watched a fair amount of Star Trek: The Next Generation and I have to admit I am firmly in the "never-noticed" camp regarding the way in which Riker sits down. Yet there it is, sitting in front of us the whole time:



The comment thread in the linked article is both entertaining and informative; apparently the original uniforms were, shall we say, not man-friendly, resulting in the act of taking a seat becoming a roll of the dice. Shall we say.

H/t Christian Ready's FB page.

Cold War

I was alerted to the Gloversville Ice Cream Truck War by a Facebook friend who had the effrontery to suggest that the chilling events were taking place in my home town. As I observed at the time, such behavior would have drawn the notice and sharp yet delicious reaction of the Peppermint Days Committee. In the 24 hours since, it is now all over the Internet, even though no kittens or babies are involved.

Having been through Gloversville, albeit 20-odd years* ago, I would not have thought the place capable of supporting multiple multiple-truck ice cream vendors, but perhaps they have finally recovered from the collapse of the glove industry. Plus, it being May in central New York, I imagine that the "Sno Cone Joe" agents were slowed in their pursuit of "Mr. Ding-a-ling"** by piles of slush. Our village ice cream guy, Carl (snappy focus-grouped motto: "Here Comes Carl!" At least he didn't put that on the back of the truck) didn't start making the rounds until June at the earliest, if memory serves, which frankly it probably does not.

Hey, everybody, it's music time!





*I assure you they were odd
**Really? /sethmyers

Maggie Had A Life Worth A Song

I saw Dave's post to the awful Elvis Costello.  He has never done a brave thing in his life.  He was a coward when he wrote that song and is a coward now.  Here is his current cowardice and descent in to moral relativism for the Leftist cause dejure.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/may/18/elvis-costello-cancels-israel-concerts

Unlike the Baroness.  She was part of the triumvirate of great leaders of the West that brought the Soviets down when we were young.  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323309604578431222047527336.html  She has been fading a while now, as did Reagan and, in the public eye, John Paul the Great.  I was far away from home when she died and was buried and felt very old.  There is not a woman (or a Briton) of her generation who can match her in accomplishment or historical impact.  That she was a conservative sticks in the craw of all the genderists of the Left.  It is good that it is so.

For years we heard about how bad the Caudillos of Argentina were but when her decision to keep the Falklands free put paid to them for good the Left just hated her more.  Its simply unbelievable.

For years the Left bemoaned Britain's class structure but when she put middle class people in high places and revivified the British middle class she was hated for it.

Peggy Noonan's article was right.  She never lost an election and was forced out in a putsch by the quaking grey men of the conservative party.  Nobody supported her but the people. 

In Memoriam: Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS

JJV will be along shortly with his special brand of hagiography, no doubt, but in the meantime:

Are You Ready For Some Baseball!!!!!

Opening Day!!!!  It is hard to believe that the day has come and gone.  October 2012 feels just like yesterday...I don't think six months have ever gone by so quickly.

There were no April Fools' Day jokes at Nationals Park yesterday.  It felt so good to be back at the Ballpark with 45,000+ other hooky playing fans.  We lucked out with a warm day, (mostly) sunny skies and a win.  1 down, 161 to go. 

Blah, blah, blah, it would have been nice to have more hits and a few more runs.  But you only need to win by one and we won by two, thanks to Bryce Harper and his two dingers hit back to back out of the park.  Our 2-0 victory would also not have been possible without Stephen Strasbug's 7 speedy shut-out innings...he was on fire.

My plan for the day was to participate in "the three Bs"...Botox (yeah, I get it), Brunch (who doesn't like a good Bloody Mary?) and Baseball (even the Communists play).  To some this may seem a bit odd, but for me, it was a perfect day off. 

I'm going on the record to say that I don't like our 5th Racing President.  Taft is not tubby enough.  If it were up to me, he'd be round and miss all races because he's at the concession stands or out in the neighborhood frequenting the new bars/restaurants that will open this Spring/Summer. 

At the 7th Inning Stretch, Aha's "Take On Me" was played.  I'm on the fence, only because it is a ridiculously difficult song to sing.  Strange how it became our battle anthem last year... it did however match the goofiness of Michael Morse who had it as his walk-up song.  Should the song have been traded with him?  Who knows.  It is fun to hear how badly/wonderfully the song is sung especially since most people don't know the lyrics.

My next home game is April 10th...I'll be in my regular seats looking out for odd people and happenings to report on.

Welcome back Wilson Ramos!!! 

Go Nats!

Whose Your Daddy?

Now there are scams, and then their are scams. http://gma.yahoo.com/polo-tycoon-cannot-adopt-girlfriend-052030314--abc-news-topstories.html 

What is the world coming to when a polo tycoon can not adopt his hot blond girl friend?  The one percent gets no breaks in Obama's America.  But wait!  Has the Massachusetts Supreme Court weighed in?  I mean marriage between a man and a women is invidiously discriminatory there.  If marriage is not for procreation and to attach men to the children they sire, whose to say adoption should exclude romance? 

The best part of the story is that he got drunk, killed someone and entered this whole scam to avoid judgment.  That she wears a cross on the stand is the also killer.  "He makes me feel like a child, so warm and protected.  Who doubts our love?"  OK I made that up.

And, I know Dave will add, some lawyer helped in all this.    Which goes to prove the punch line of a very famous joke is true.  "There are some things the rats won't do."

And a final thought....have you ever read a story about a polo player that did not involve illicit sex, and creepy displays of wealth?  It looks like a fun game and Churchill played but oh the company you keep!

Free Puxatawney Phil!

Now, I'm as tough on crime as the next guy, in fact looking at the masthead, tougher.  Nonetheless, it seems that a political prosecution is going on in Ohio in order benefit a denizen of that State over one from Pennsylvania.  http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2013/03/22/prosecutor-chucks-book-at-groundhog-for-bad-prediction/

It is cold in Virginia.  But we do not rely on rodents for how long winter will last.  We use the fuzzyness of wooly bear catipillars like God intended.

The Big Bankers walk free and Puxatawney Phil faces the law?  There is no justice. 

Free Puxatawney Phil!

Dixie and Vikings

It appears I can now blog again.  Dave is pressing what I will call the Massachusetts version of History.  In this version the New England states never tried to secede or put forth State's Rights arguments about why it should.  There were no Kentucky Resolutions drafted by the founders of the Democratic Party.  There were no arguments over tariffs that aided the North and impoverished the South.  There were no Southern soldiers who fought because the Yankees were "down here."  There were no Northern slavers.  The states of New Jersey as well as other Northern states did not vote to disenfranchise blacks.  Also Alexander Stevens was the Vice President.   Dave would be the last guy to dis his God and hero Barack Obama because Joe Biden stated Delaware was a Confederate State and Barack was the first black candidate who was articulate and clean.

In point of fact, the Civil War was about the extension and eventually the existence of slavery in the Republic.  It is nonsense to argue without it there would have been a Civil War.  It is also nonsense to argue that there was not some ambiguity on the subject of slavery and secession in the Founding Documents.

Now I am a Jaffa man through and through. http://www.claremont.org/scholars/id.3/scholar.asp
I loathe secession and the entire "I will take my ball and go home" mentality of the South in the Civil War or the current Democrats after the election of the Second Bush. 

But those who thought republicanism was compatible with slavery had a better historical, traditional and intellectual position than those who think Republicanism requires abortion on demand.  Also what was the Republican position in its founding documents?  Oh yea they set their faces against the "twin barbarisms" of polygamy and slavery."  The Democrats are all for marital innovations even today.

I think that those who deny Slavery was root and branch of the Civil War are deluded.  I also think that those who think the South was particularly wrong about everything are imparting the views of the present on the past.    Northern abolitionists wanted to secede in the 50's to not be associated with the Slave Power.  John Brown is a big hero to liberals but he was a lawless terrorist.  If he did not exist the South might not have seceded.  Upstate New York--where Dave comes from--lauded him.  A guy who only succeeded in killing black men!

So why am I what Dave would call a Southern Partisan?  I do not laud Jeff Davis or the secessionists.  But I think this Republic has and will again require the die hard Cavalier panache of the South in extremis.  That is, I have never understood why people admired Jefferson Davis but I fully understand why the admire Robert E. Lee.

Lincoln, Grant, Sherman and the rest of the pantheon had more respect for the South and its Myrmidons than do the present South haters.  I think you have to be pretty high on your horse to be more anti-Confederate than those three.  The Army of Northern Virginia will live forever in Song and Story.  You can call it all the names you want.  Jackson's foot Cavalry and Forest and Morgan's real cavalry will be studied for a thousand years.  In the Hills and Hollers of the south arose men who would fight for their country---and it was the country of part of the Old Republic--'til all strength failed.  In an compromising  Age a Die Hard stands bright.  It ought to be tougher than it is to more anti-Southern than Sherman! 

Lincoln overcame the squishy, moral relativist Democrats of the North to enforce the Second Founding and the New Birth of Freedom.  That view of history was undermined by Southern Partisans and liberals who hated the freedom of capital in the North with no Southern opposition.  One of the more uncomfortable problems for you liberals is that the Southern Narrative of the post-War period was pimped by your heroes.  Bernie Bailyn, Gramsci, William Appelby Williams and the rest of the revisionist who attacked the "robber barons" and lauded the agricultural virtues of the Old South.  JCF and I had to hear all this crap in AP History in Greenwich, Ct!  Not because of some nostalgia for moonlight and magnolias but because hating Lincoln's America was part and parcel of a lot of the Progressivism of the first half of the 20th Century.

The Democratic tendency against the Republic continues even in its present incarnation.  Which is the Party of rewarding people on the basis of race?  The Democrats--as they were in 1800-1965.  Which is the Party of soft money to help people who owe debts.  The Democrats.  Which is the Party of declaring certain human life unprotectible by the law because of the rights of the privileged?  The Democrats.  Which is the Party of soft money and against the Eastern Bankers?  The Democrats.  But in a reversal which is the Party of protective tariffs?  The Democrats.

Also, just because a certain liberal lady blogger will go into conniptions I link to this--a Jewish Confederate Veteran's tale.  http://sonsofconfederateveterans.blogspot.com/2010/04/jewish-confederates-remembered.html

Finally, every state has its "history."  As we know from certain connections those in Minnesota and Wisconsin are taught the Vikings were good guys and peaceful seafarers and traders.  Those in Massachusetts are taught the Red Sox don't suck.  And those in New Jersey...learn the history of New York and Philadelphia.






   

Oh What a Giveaway

In preparing a comment on Tuesday's post on state history curricula and the Civil War, I made reference to what is known generally as the Cornerstone Speech, delivered 152 years ago today by Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens. Why is it called the Cornerstone Speech? Take a gander at the full text and note, after a laundry list of various constitutional improvements, this (emphasis mine throughout):

But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.

Apologies to the TLDR crowd, but ellipses within text draw the "aha gotcha he's taking it out of context!" crowd like Cheetos to their mom's basement.

To his credit, Stephens later clarified his remarks to correct the record and de-emphasize slavery. Just kidding he only dug himself a deeper hole dear God what an awful person.

Having The Talk

I knew the day would come when I would have to have The Talk with Fiona. No, not about boys; that will happen soon enough.

As a resident of Virginia, even Northern Virginia, even Union-occupied Arlington (our dog park is right next to the remnants of Fort Ethan Allen) I knew that there would need to be a discussion of the way the Civil War is taught in our otherwise exceptional school system. I was tipped off to this when reviewing her teacher's summary of the Civil War study section. There they were: those innocuous, even noble words "states' rights," included in a commonwealth-provided list of several causes for the Civil War.

Let's cut to the chase: "States' rights" is bullshit. Those who yammer loudest about "states' rights" are the first to run to the federal government to impose their will on the country, then (Fugitive Slave Act etc.) as now (marriage definition amendments etc.).

The sole cause of the Civil War was slavery. Full stop. All other causes cited are subordinate thereto.

Fiona told me that she had answered "slavery" to a quiz question asking for the cause of the war, and got it back with the teacher's notation "and states' rights." Fiona's teacher is great and we are thrilled she is in her class, but I explained to Fiona that her teacher has to teach in the manner prescribed by the Commonwealth of Virginia. I also praised Fiona for giving the correct answer, but advised her to provide the looked-for answer while understanding that the truth may be somewhat at odds with that. (Hell, any adult can do that, right? Piece of cake. Hoo boy.)

Think I am over-reacting to something safely in our past? Think again.

Potpourri - Now with 50% More Smeagol!

I used to be concerned that no one, not even myself, was blogging here but as long as fine readers like Powaquattsi keep sending me these Silmaril-quality gems I'm fine with that:



I think my favorite part, aside from the sketchbook, is the inability of the performers to keep it together during an ostensibly dramatic section, although Gollum, 500-year-old pro that he is, recovers.