why dave bergman is neat

here's mark steyn's latest (link via memeorandum) :

Justifications for backing Kerry fall flat

October 31, 2004

BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Reading the media "endorsements" of John Kerry is like having lunch with a woman who wants to tell you about her great new boyfriend. She spends seven-eighths of the time bitching about the old boyfriend -- cocky, hot-headed, insensitive, never wants to listen, never gonna change -- and in the remaining few minutes tries to come up with the new guy's good points:

"Mr. Kerry himself is not a compelling candidate. But this year he offers a --"

Yes?

"-- a respite, a pause for reappraisal."

That's The Economist, pining for a quiet night in.

"What the Republicans tar as waffling strikes us as --"

Hmm. What is le mot juste?

"-- flexibility."

That's my Sun-Times colleagues, looking for a man they -- or, at any rate, Jacques Chirac and Kofi Annan -- can mold.

"According to the Almanac of American Politics, Kerry is 'more respectful of economic free markets' and more inclined to an expansionist foreign policy than --"

Than Ronald Reagan?

"-- than other liberal Democrats."

Oh, well. That's the Des Moines Register, arguing that he doesn't seem like a wimp and a loser if you put him in a room full of even bigger wimps and losers.

"We have misgivings about Kerry's ability to connect with ordinary people. We were frustrated by his long-winded explanations --"

But?

"His zigs and zags reflect his digestion of new information and his arrival at new insights." Honestly, sighs the Virginian Pilot, he only comes over like a snooty windbag because he's so much smarter than us.

"Mr. Kerry's description of the war as a 'diversion' does not inspire confidence in his determination to see it through. But Mr. Kerry has repeatedly pledged not to cut and run from Iraq --"

You're right, says the Washington Post, he has a commitment problem, but we'll work that out after the wedding.

Meanwhile, Andrew Sullivan in the New Republic sounds like some blousy torch singer sitting atop the piano in a Jazz Age cabaret doing one of those laundry-list songs ruefully adumbrating her lover's faults: "His record is undistinguished, and where it stands out, mainly regrettable. He intuitively believes that if a problem exists, it is the government's job to fix it. He has far too much faith in international institutions, like the corrupt and feckless U.N., in the tasks of global management. He got the Cold War wrong. He got the first Gulf War wrong --"

If he were Jane Monheit on her excellent new CD, he'd conclude:

"I love him because he's --

I don't know --

Because he's just my Bill."

But, in this case, the point seems to be:

"I love him because he's --

I don't know --

Because he's just not Bush."

Sullivan's big idea is that the best way to force the Democrats to get serious about the war is to put them in charge of it. That's a helluva leap of faith -- and, in John Kerry's case, it's at odds with a 30-year track record of not being serious on the Cold War, Grenada, Central America, the first Gulf War, etc. As Dr. Laura would advise, you should never marry a man in hopes of reforming him.

In that respect, the Qaqaagate story is fascinating. What happened and when in Saddam's al-Qaqaa facility is somewhat murky. Had the shameless gang at "60 Minutes" had their way, the missing explosives story would have aired 36 hours before the polls opened, with no time for anybody to put the alternative to the Bush incompetence scenario -- i.e., that the stuff was moved to Syria before the war began. But never mind that. And never mind that the source for this story is a discredited U.N. official, Mohammed el-Baradei, on whose watch the IAEA not only missed entirely Libya's WMD program but has proved remarkably accommodating of Iran's.

Forget all that. The main problem with this story is that it makes no sense in terms of the Democrats' own narrative. For a year and a half, they've told us there were no WMD, Saddam wasn't a threat, and "BUSH LIED!!!!!!!!!" about it all. I happen to disagree with that, but there's no doubt that simply by hammering it home all day and night the Dems had some effect. Now they're saying whoa, let's back up, yes, as it happens, these non-existent weapons that Bush lied about the non-threatening Saddam having he did, in fact, have -- and that fool Bush let the non-existent weapons get away.

My version of this story -- they were smuggled out to Syria pre-invasion -- fits the Bush view of the war. But Kerry's version of this story undermines the Kerry view of the war -- or, at any rate, the most recent Kerry view of the war. That's the best clue as to the resolve he'd show as President: He has no internal conviction of his own, and so his campaign has run on incoherent reflex oppositionism, as, indeed, his Senate career has -- if America had followed the positions advocated by John Kerry, there would have been no Reagan arms build-up, and the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact would have lingered on, and their clients in Grenada would have destabilized the rest of the Caribbean, and Latin America would not have been democratized, and Saddam Hussein would still be in power and still controlling Kuwait. Kerry's lovebirds at the Washington Post et al. are dreaming of a transformation in their unlovely swain that would be at odds not just with his last three decades but with his last three weeks.

It's only a day or so now till the chad-dangling round of Campaign 2004 begins but, when the lawsuits are over and the bloodletting begins, serious Democrats need to confront the intellectual emptiness of their party, which Kerry's campaign embodies all too well. The Dems got a full tank from FDR, a top-up in the Civil Rights era, and they've been running on fumes for 30 years. Their last star, Bill Clinton, has no legacy because, deft as he was, his Democratic Party had no purpose other than as a vehicle for promoting his own indispensability. When he left, the Democrats became a party running on personality with no personalities to run. Hence, the Kerry candidacy. Despite the best efforts of American editorialists, there's no there there.

i'm getting tired of all of these self-important endorsements for president, so i'm going to cut to the chase and endorse...

MYSELF.

implicit in most people's comments is the belief that he or she could do a better job than either of the candidates, but, since he or she has to pick one...you know the drill.

well, i'll make it explicit--i can do a better job as president than ANYONE.* nah nah nah nah nah.

so vote for me. i like low taxes and i'll eliminate most of the federal government.

*please note that that is a JOKE. i harbor no delusions about the presidency being like any old job that any old hack can handle. some people do, and they're voting for a guy named JOHN KERRY.

update on disenfranchisement of the military (from the corner):

DON'T COUNT EVERY VOTE [Jonathan H. Adler]
Chris Lilik notes an important story on Battlegrounders. Pennsylvania Republicans believe Governor Ed Rendell is trying to suppress Republican votes and disenfranchise servicemen overseas. During the primaries, Governor Rendell called for extending the deadline for overseas absentee ballots by three weeks because not every county mailed its ballots on time. Due to litigation over Nader ballot-access, at least two counties failed to mail their ballots on time for the general election. Yet Governor Rendell now opposes extending the deadline. Is it any wonder that Republicans believe Rendell, the former head of the DNC, is trying to disenfranchise military voters?

this is so slimey (and, unfortunately, predictable) that it needs no editorial comment.

but a brief one anyway: maybe this is what desparation drives you to...this, and the 380 tons of non-story that the new york times and the kerry campaign (oh, and don't forget--CBS was implicated, too) can't seem to get over. i guess the moral of that particular story (and the mindset of much of the left) is, when the things you're shouting aren't true and people might be starting to catch on, just shout louder.

free speech is no longer permitted on public property in philadelphia. i find this very disturbing, and what i also find it quite disturbing that i didn't see this carried by a single major news organization. it happened two weeks ago, and i just found out about it today. this would be ridiculous if it weren't so serious.

(link via free republic.)

in light of a conversation i was recently involved in over the a-rod incident in the ALCS (which forced the importation of the riot squad from desolation row, presently coming through my stereo), here are a few quotes about baseball rules from this site.

"I try not to break the rules, but merely to test their elasticity." - Owner Bill Veeck, Jr.

"Players like rules. If they didn't have any rules, they wouldn't have anything to break." - Coach Lee Walls

and from two of detroit's own:

"The base paths belonged to me, the runner. The rules gave me the right. I always went into a bag full speed, feet first. I had sharp spikes on my shoes. If the baseman stood where he had no business to be and got hurt, that was his fault." - Ty Cobb

"The only thing I believe is this: A player does not have to like a manager and he does not have to respect a manager. All he has to do is obey the rules." - Hall of Fame Manager Sparky Anderson

in honor of our thucydides colloquium earlier today, i shall post a flashback from march 29, 2004, from this very blog:

speaking of gil prose, he said a couple of memorable things today. in discussing our assignment for next week, he said, 'those of you who have not read Thucydides will find it jarringly unpleasant'. indeed. but the fun has not even begun yet. later in class, when musing upon conditional sentences, a student tried to point out that he thought a certain construction might be a future-less-vivid condition. gil did not quite hear him, and after a moment he returned to himself from the whimsy of greek grammar. he apologized and said, 'i was kind of still grooving on future-more-vivid'. you might not have know that you can 'groove' on greek conditionals, but you can. it's a lot like listening to otis redding. finally, my roman satire professor made passing reference to a 'gratuitous flock of eunuchs' in a letter of jerome. i am certain that i do not need to explain why this is funny. again, think about it. and again, if that doesn't work, continue to smack yourself, this time with your roommate's dirty underwear.

guess what? with a flurry of statistical analysis, someone has found that john kerry is not smarter than pres. bush, and that, if anything, pres. bush is smarter.

(link via the corner.)

ok, i'm convinced that the kerry-edwards campaign has been indulging in a little too much of the NAACP's crack cocaine and that john and john have fully converted to disciples of science. i have now heard them both talk about 'believing in' science, i've heard john edwards guarantee faith healings, and tonight i heard john kerry talking about the 'true promise' of stem cell research. 'true promise'? huh? are they that dense, or that deceptive (i would go with yes on both counts)? i mean, it's been awhile since i read the book of the prophet WebMD, but...

also, i'm still annoyed at their voter suppression and disenfranchisement techniques. they're wasting everyone's time in a number of states trying to keep ralph nader off the ballot through litigation, and now it's questionable whether many of the soldiers fighting abroad on our behalf will be able to vote in the election, because they might not get the ballots in time, because the ballots haven't even been printed yet in some states, because they're wasting everyone's time in a number of...you get the idea. this is coming from the same people who talk a lot about 'every vote counting'. but they 1) don't want people to have more choices on the ballot than they deem fit and 2) don't want military folks, who overwhelmingly support the president, to be able to vote. i guess all their talk about the 'right to choose' is only so much empty rhetoric and hot air, and that the only 'right to choose' that they support is that of killing another human being, not of electing one president.

i mentioned dylan's chronicles, vol.1 the other day, written over the course of 3 years on a manual typewriter. my dad used to use a typewriter a lot. come to think of it, most people used to use typewriters a lot, BEFORE COMPUTERS WERE INVENTED. i think that for vol.2 he should look into wax tablets or maybe papyrus. anyway, here is the book description from amazon.com:

"I'd come from a long ways off and had started a long ways down. But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else."
So writes Bob Dylan in Chronicles, Volume I, his remarkable, book exploring critical junctures in his life and career. Through Dylan's eyes and open mind, we see Greenwich Village, circa 1961, when he first arrives in Manhattan. Dylan's New York is a magical city of possibilities - smokey, nightlong parties; literary awakenings; transient loves and unbreakable friendships. Elegiac observations are punctuated by jabs of memories, penetrating and tough. With the book's side trips to New Orleans, Woodstock, Minnesota and points west, Chronicles: Volume One is an intimate and intensely personal recollection of extraordinary times.

By turns revealing, poetical, passionate and witty, Chronicles: Volume One is a mesmerizing window on Bob Dylan's thoughts and influences. Dylan's voice is distinctively American: generous of spirit, engaged, fanciful and rhythmic. Utilizing his unparalleled gifts of storytelling and the exquisite expressiveness that are the hallmarks of his music, Bob Dylan turns Chronicles, Volume I into a poignant reflection on life, and the people and places that helped shape the man and the art.

i found the following question, addressed by a fellow michiganian to bishop john shelby spong, a little odd, to say the least:

The Rev. Dr. Kathleen from Michigan writes:
"Overcoming the widespread Christian belief that "Jesus died for my sins" seems an insurmountable challenge! Preachers, liturgical rites, hymns and religious education curricula continue to reinforce "atonement theology/theories." Would you do a series on "atonement theology/theories" &ndash [sic; i don't know what this means--ed.]; their origins, rationale, continued justification, etc.? Personally and pastorally, "atonement" thinking creates a mire of destructive results and I, for one, would well appreciate your cogent analysis of how we might best approach this."

hmmm. yes, it sure is difficult to try to carry on Christianity while disregarding the crux (pun intended) of the Christian faith. i fail to understand why anyone would sound miffed that '[p]reachers, liturgical rites, hymns and religious education curricula' would teach the doctrine of the atonement. instead of trying to '[o]vercome' this 'widespread Christian belief' in the context of Christianity, it seems more sensible to find a new religion, or perhaps to create one's own, which is exactly what the rev. dr. kathleen seems to me to wish to do. the truth would be much better served if we altered dr. kathleen's final sentence to read, 'Personally and pastorally, "atonement" thinking remedies a mire of destructive results caused by the Fall and I, for one, would well appreciate cogent analysis and exposition of how we might best approach this doctrine.'

bill, i know you're reading this and i expect a response forthwith.

dave, i hope you're reading this and will thus call me perhaps around 11:30 p.m. EST tomorrow.

fraud. i wonder if they pay for the ads with crack cocaine?

(link via memeorandum.)

the inconsistency of american leftists is quite bothersome. as andrew pointed out to me yesterday, it is a little odd that they whine about social justice and voter disenfranchisement, and at the same time fight tooth and nail to keep ralph nader off of the ballot in key states. talk about voter disenfranchisement--nothing like trying to take away a person's right to vote for the candidate of his choice to promote 'fair' voting. the position of these yahoos and would-be social planners seems to be: 'sure, we want you to have freedoms (which the bush administration of course does NOT!!!)--provided that they're the freedoms we deem you fit to have.' how condescending.

way to go, party of justice and equal rights.

the world becomes stranger every day. it seems that my friend andrew has fallen prey to the seductive enchantments of mistress pumpkin-spice coffee. this is the point at which dialogue breaks down. in truth--how does one communicate the horror, the very unutterability of this unnatural concoction? i'd had a great deal of confidence in human language up to this point, but speaking to pumpkin-spice converts is like speaking to a space alien. they really do not understand what i am saying; for that matter, i do not understand them either.

alas! until this bane of caffeinated enjoyment is eradicated from the earth, we shall continue to pass as ships in the night.

apparently the NAACP now pays people in crack cocaine to register voters. sweet, guys. keep up the good work.

(via memeorandum.)

jacques derrida, father of deconstruction, died recently. here is an article by roger kimball about his legacy.

which candidate do all the foreign leaders think you should vote for again? (link via memeorandum.com.)

i realized today that if the theory of evolution is correct, men will at some point cease to grow body hair due to our no longer being primarily outdoor creatures. this is perhaps heartening to those of us such as yours truly, who has been attempting unsuccessfully to grow a beard for approximately 10 years. wait--maybe i'm just more highly evolved than everyone else!

i know, i know--i'm actually not. but that's just what i tell myself when i stare down at the bladeless safety razor that i used to rub shaving cream off of my face.

on another note, i forgot to mention that i read a review of bob dylan's new book chronicles, vol.1 last weekend. it sounds really interesting. so everyone please send me a copy, autographed if possible.

the other day i heard part of a replay of an interview with billy bob thornton on NPR. in case you're unaware, the dude as some phobias. for instance, he has a fear of antique furniture, which inhibits his ability to eat when he is in its presence. this fear does not apply to antique ASIAN furniture, but it certainly applies to anything french, english, scottish, etc.

speaking of billy bob, there's something i forgot to mention about 'friday night lights'. a lot of the music is done by a band from midland, TX, called explosions in the sky. really pretty instrumental stuff. it may seem a bit anachronistic, given that the movie is set in 1988, but i thought it worked really well.

and speaking of sports, NBA preseason games have started, which is totally sweet. i was just watching the pistons get trounced by the miami heat, which was not totally sweet. especially since it followed hard upon the heels of the buckeyes getting trounced by iowa, and is occurring contemporaneously with the red sox getting trounced by the yankees.

and still speaking of sports, i was reminded recently of a peculiarity of being in michigan: here it is possible for a person to like the philadelphia eagles (with the possible exception of t. owens) with no emotional investment whatsoever. this is not true in the greater philadelphia area, where a man's for and 'gin are neither one dispassionate. it is odd to hear someone refer to the eagles simply as a good football team (which they are). but i assure you--it happens.

what on earth is wrong with the Associated Press?

in a story on terrorist attacks on Christian churches in iraq, we read the following:

No group claimed responsibility for the attacks, which were condemned by the Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni clerical group believed to have ties to some insurgents.

"Islam doesn't support the ongoing terrorism," Sheik Abdul Sattar Abdul-Jabbar of the association said.

Three U.S. troops - two soldiers and one Marine - were killed Friday when a car bomb exploded near Qaim, an insurgent hotspot along the Syrian border, the U.S. command said. An Iraqi interpreter was also killed.

notice the differences in vocabulary. the Muslim cleric is more honest with his labels than the AP--the AP insists on using the word 'insurgents', even though the Sheik is perfect willing to call a spade a spade.

the AP is apparently so dense (or malicious) that they still refer to the murderers as 'rebels' in the explicit context of religious violence:

U.S. commanders have warned of a possible increase in rebel attacks during Ramadan, when insurgent activity surged last year. Ramadan, the month of fasting and prayer, is marked by greater religious fervor, and some extremists believe they win a special place in paradise if they die fighting non-Muslims during the holy month.

In hopes of preventing rebel attacks, U.S. troops have stepped up military operations in Sunni areas north and west of the capital. The operations included two days of air and ground attacks Thursday and Friday against the main rebel bastion Fallujah.

in fact, these dishonest 'reporters' are only willing to use the word if it is first placed in inverted commas, to allow for a little ironic distance (as i just did with the word 'reporters'):

Talks broke down Thursday because of what the clerics said was the government's "impossible condition" - handing over Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other "terrorists." The clerics said al-Zarqawi was not in the city, a claim that U.S. and Iraqi authorities dispute.

pathetic.

and disgusting.

'Corner Table'

You tell me you are going to marry him.
You knew almost at once he was the one.
Your hands rested on the quilted tablecloth.
"Such clever hands," I used to say.
I gave them names I never spoke aloud.

You tell me how you met and where you'll live.
It's easier to watch your lips than listen.
Your eyes flash in the candlelight like knives.
The waiters drift by with their phantom meals.
Tonight the dead are dining with the dead.

You twist the wineglass slowly in your hand,
And I speak of other things. What matters most
Most often can't be said. Better to trust
The forms that hold our grief. We understand
This last mute touch that lingers is farewell.

--Dana Gioia

i have to admit that this is not my favorite poem of mr. gioia's, but it's starting to grow on me. on first reading, i didn't care much for the end-stopping of every line in the first two stanzas, making the sense-units exactly parallel to the line units. but on second reading, i notice that this practice enhances the contrast with the final stanza, as the sense-units break across lines, perhaps marking the difficulty of communicating the unsayable. perhaps, too, it complicates one's trust in 'the forms that hold our grief'--the form is straightforward and easy to trust, as it were, for the first two-thirds of the poem, but this is not equally true in the final stanza.

I just received the new print edition of National Review (10/25/04), and, from my initial perusal, there are a couple of things in it worth noting. First, there is a review of the book ‘Understanding Anti-Americanism: Its Origins at Home and Abroad’, ed. by Paul Hollander (pub. by Ivan R. Dee) by Victor Davis Hanson. Hanson (and apparently the contributors to the book) do away early on with the facile notion that hatred of America is new and primarily driven by George W. Bush’s foreign policy. The phenomenon has been around for a long time abroad (the recent outbursts are attributed especially, and not surprisingly, to the effects of Islamic fundamentalism), and its corollary of self-loathing has been present in the U.S. for decades as well. For example, I have recently come across it in some of Sherwood Anderson’s letters from over 70 years ago. Hanson points out that many lament American decadence while ripping off wholesale the very things they deride, placing would-be scorners in a precariously self-contradictory position.

Often, of course, the problems with America, and what we can perhaps call 'Americanism', stem from irrelevancy and lack of anything better to do on the part of the scoffers. Thus, Hanson can quote Jean-Francois Revel thus: ‘If you remove anti-Americanism, nothing remains in French political thought today, either on the left or on the right.’ He continues:

Anthony Daniels pursues this line in a more detailed analysis of the French, reminding us that we need not seek either deep explanations for or concrete examples of their true grievance. It is simpler than all that: A once-glorious culture has been saved by one deemed crass, and now finds its values steamrolled worldwide by its erstwhile liberator. And because America is both relatively self-absorbed and forgiving, the French simply go on hating America without repercussions, explaining why, for example, their complicity in the Rwandan holocaust draws no rebuke while America is blamed both for allowing and for removing Milosevic.

The second item of special interest (to me, anyway) is a poem by my favorite contemporary poet, Dana Gioia, and I will try to post it later on.

there's nothing like a midwestern sunset in autumn to nearly break a boy's heart.

here is my vote for the dumbest thing that came out of john kerry's mouth during the debate tonight (though i'm happy to entertain other suggestions): 'It's against the law in the United States to hire people illegally.' thanks, john--my, you ARE a former prosecutor, aren't you?

this follows hot on the heels of john edwards' remarkably silly and manipulative statemtents yesterday that the wheelchair-bound would rise up and walk if john kerry is elected president. i didn't know that mr. kerry advertised himself as one to perform faith-healings.

by the way, for what it's worth (from jonah goldberg on
the corner, quoting the bush campaign):

"John Kerry’s statement that he passed 56 bills during his 20 years in the senate is a complete and utter falsehood. Kerry passed five bills and Four resolutions."

gee, senator--it sure is hard when you can't even get your own record right.

i'm scheduled to head to the middle west for a few days tomorrow, so i thought i would post a poem by fellow midwesterner hart crane:

Passage

Where the cedar leaf divides the sky
I heard the sea.
In sapphire arenas of the hills
I was promised an improved infancy.

Sulking, sanctioning the sun,
My memory I left in a ravine,-
Casual louse that tissues the buck-wheat,
Aprons rocks, congregates pears
In moonlit bushels
And wakens alleys with a hidden cough.

Dangerously the summer burned
(I had joined the entrainments of the wind).
The shadows of boulders lengthened my back:
In the bronze gongs of my cheeks
The rain dried without odour.

"It is not long, it is not long;
See where the red and black
Vine-stanchioned valleys-": but the wind
Died speaking through the ages that you know
And bug, chimney-sooted heart of man!
So was I turned about and back, much as your smoke
Compiles a too well-known biography.

The evening was a spear in the ravine
That throve through very oak. And had I walked
The dozen particular decimals of time?
Touching an opening laurel, I found
A thief beneath, my stolen book in hand.

"'Why are you back here-smiling an iron coffin?
" "To argue with the laurel," I replied:
"Am justified in transience, fleeing
Under the constant wonder of your eyes-."

He closed the book. And from the Ptolemies
Sand troughed us in a glittering,, abyss.
A serpent swam a vertex to the sun
-On unpaced beaches leaned its tongue and
drummed.
What fountains did I hear? What icy speeches?
Memory, committed to the page, had broke.

But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded.
(2 Chronicles 15:7, NIV)

another reason why jacques chirac ought to be assigned (and the quicker the better) to his proper place of irrelevancy (link via the corner). of course, as we all know, this isn't the first time this reprehensible sycophant has had a pizza party with dictators. yet, somehow, defying all bounds of common sense, he remains the darling of the elites at home and abroad.

but i'm sure old jacques has got a good business deal brewing.

since your normal media outlets won't help you determine the contents of the duelfer report from the whole in michael moore's head whence incoherent sounds pour forth, i suggest you see dennis' take here. it seems the president is actually more forthcoming about what the report included than so many mindless mouthpieces spewing tired and learned-by-rote one-liners in the kerry camp and MSM. but this is only if you're interested in what the report actually says. 'bush lied' junkies may want to find their fix somewhere else.

in other news, i saw 'friday night lights' tonight, and it rocked my face off. first of all, it was sweet, because it took place in 1988, and dennis will tell you how much the 80s RULED. secondly, because of the aforementioned period-piece nature, the movie included plenty of public enemy. thirdly, tim mcgraw is in it, only i didn't even know it was him until the credits at the end (maybe i've been watching too much teletubbies). he turned in a noteworthy performance in what i thought to be a very moving portrayal of father-son relations. i will not lie: it made me a little choked up.

to boot, there are lots of shirts and things made of denim in the movie with the sleeves cut off. that alone, my friends, is worth the price of admission.

is this what passes for education these days? (link via drudge.)

if so, i think we'd be better off returning to hunting and gathering.

what's really pleasant about this is the fact that it's publicly-funded.

i'm attempting not to think too hard about it because i would rather think about the teletubbies. in fact, when i think of michael moore, that's sort of the image that comes to mind--a dumbed-down teletubbie.

really dumbed-down.

i'm fairly certain that tinky-winky could trounce moore, and apparently the people running this school district, in any sort of intellectual bout or elementary school standardized test.

i guess one perk of getting older is that one can be nostalgic for days when kids at least might have learned how to, say, read or add in school, instead of being propagandized by a bunch of nit-wits who either don't know any better, or, worse, feel so erroneously enlightened as to foist their agitprop automatoning on unsuspecting children who made the mistake of coming to school to learn.

i feel sorry for everyone who contributed financially or otherwise to this travesty of pedagogy and disaster of didacticism. if socrates was a gadfly, these are the mules on whom he needs to perch.

i had almost told myself that i wasn't going to write much about politics anymore, but then i saw this on NRO and thought i'd better post it:

WASHINGTON POST HEADLINE [John Hillen]
about Afghan elections is “Afghan Election Disputed”

So, first elections in 3 millennia of tribal warfare and that’s the headline.

Wonder what the Post headline would have been on July 5, 1776? “City Hall bell cracked in Declaration celebration.” ?

just saw this on the corner and thought it was interesting:

THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT (AND ALL RIGHT) [Roger Clegg]
On September 20, the National Research Center for College and University Admissions released the results of a recent survey it had completed on the attitudes of high school students toward diversity and affirmative action. The survey was quite interesting, but it has gotten little attention in the MSM (and the NRCCUA itself tried to downplay what was most interesting). The bottom line is that high school students are willing to say that diversity is important, but they sure don’t think it justifies racial or ethnic discrimination. Specifically:

***74 percent believe colleges and universities do use race, ethnicity, or religious background as an admission factor (that’s true, certainly for race and ethnicity)

***82 percent say it is not fair to do so (87 percent of whites, 77 percent of Asians, 76 percent of African Americans, and 75 percent of Latinos)

***53 percent said that this lowers admission standards (that’s true, too)

***74 percent say this affects the way minority students feel about themselves (seems likely)

***78 percent say this affects the way nonminority students feel about minority students (absolutely)

***And my favorite: 56 percent “believe adults over-emphasize the importance of racial, ethnic, and religious diversity and related issues.”

The NRCCUA tries to argue that students don’t really understand what affirmative action is or how it is used. On the contrary: They see the naked emperor. For instance, the NRCCUA may be horrified that a plurality defines “affirmative action” as quotas, with African Americans most likely to make this equation, but the kids are all right.

new analysis of fahrenheit 9/11 available here (link via the corner).

who's the stupid candidate again? when asked about his incoherent 'global test' remark during the debate the other night, kerry had the following remark (link via memeorandum):

He added, "They're misleading Americans about what I said. What I said in the sentence preceding that was, 'I will never cede America's security to any institution or any other country.' No one gets a veto over our security. No one.

"And if they were honest enough to give America the full quote, which America heard, they would know that I'm never going to allow America's security to be outsourced. That's the job of the president.

"But I can do a better job of protecting America's security because the test that I was talking about was a test of legitimacy, not just in the globe, but elsewhere."

'not just in the globe, but elsewhere'? are you kidding me? who else is testing legitimacy? space aliens?

and speaking of coffee, i realized that i had forgotten to mention that, at the behest of my friend dennis, i've made the switch to melitta coffee, and it's not just because of its greek name, i assure you. dennis had told me previously that there was nothing better (and you only have to use 2 teaspoons of coffee per cup!), so i decided to take him up on it. and let me tell you--he was not speaking with deceitful tongue.

also, lately i've been putting cream and sugar in my coffee on a fairly regular basis. only barbarians like to drink their coffee uncut, or 'neat', as the anglophiles like to say.

has the whole world gone crazy? it seems that there are some who are in favor of pumpkin-flavored coffee--and the trend appears to be spreading. this morning, i stopped at my favorite coffee-hawking gas establishment, and as i was leaving, i saw a huge sign promoting something called 'pumpkin spice capuccino'. exsqueeze me? what is going on?!?

after being gone for most of the weekend, i came home to find a stack of napkins on top of the toilet.

i guess that means we're out of toilet paper.

ouch.

yeah, so i haven't posted in a few days.

so what?

anyway, i just wanted to tell you that i've heard TWO bob seger songs on the radio in the last couple of days--'her strut' and 'night moves'. i also got to ride around in a convertible.

by the way, in case you're wondering, vanessa kerry's performance last week was underwhelming to say the least and riddled with errors. after watching most of the debate the other night, i can only conclude that it is genetic.