Ouch! That Hurts!!

Technorati Tags: BBC America,Television

Dear Faithful Reader(s), not only has the dollar dropped against the British pound and the Euro, but the esteem awarded to the American public has suffered a most grievous wound at the hands of BBC America.

Where once we could watch MI-5, Life on Mars, the various Robson Greene dramas, and other quality programs featured on such anthologies as Mystery Monday, now what we get is the Brit TV equivalent of Jerry Springer and Fox Noise panels.

How's this for a line up?  "Britain's Worst Teeth," "467 pound Teenager," "My Big Breasts and Me," "Teen Transsexual," and "How Clean Is Your House?"

Have we sunk so low in the esteem of the world that we're reduced to accepting anything they throw at us?

Alas.  One can only surmise it's true.

Spread the word:  MI-5 will be on at an off hour in early July.  FLOOD BBC America with letters.  One might even buy a Ped Egg. 

Um.

No.  Not even for MI-5.

I'd rather watch PAX.

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Alas, the saddest day of this year...

Today, at 4:59 p.m. PDT, Dear Faithful Reader(s), the summer solstice occurs.  The available amount of sunlight begins its yearly retreat.  Each day a touch gloomier than the day before. 

Tristesse.

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Brachy Chronicles 10--Light in the loafers6.12.08

Technorati Tags: Brachytherapy,Prostate Cancer

Well, Dear Gentle Reader(s), here's a bit of TMI for you regarding the after effects of radiation seed implants. 

1) The abdominal muscles go unexercised for a few weeks, and that results in a slight beer gut.  Of course, it could be a brownie gut or an ice cream gut.  Who knows.

2) One person described the sensation experienced when sitting as "sitting on a golf ball."  It's somewhat true.  It's also somewhat true that the "ball" decreases in size.  I'm experiencing a good-sized marble right now.

3)  A side effect, which one hopes will fade, is the inordinate amount of methane gas produced during the digestive process.  It gives a totally new meaning to "light in the loafers."  That is, an additional, meaning.  Alas.

4)  After some 4 months, the sensation of heat has abided.  One is still "cookin'", but the flame is quite lower.

5)  One is able, still, to impart too much information.

Agape

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When Words Lose Meaning

Technorati Tags: Andrew Sullivan,Senator Clinton,2008 Campaign,Language

Dear Gentle Reader(s), one of the insufficiently discussed issues of the primary run-ups to the 2008 election is the loss of meaning for some words.

Dear, sweet Andrew Sullivan, for instance, has somehow managed to expand the meaning of sociopath from "a person suffering from psychopathic personality, whose behavior is aggressively antisocial," (Webster's New World College Dictionary, 3rd ed., Macmillan) to include Senator Clinton and her campaign staff because of his personal distaste for her.

It's absurd for Sullivan to throw words around without regard to their application. What a disappointment.

In another few years Sullivan will become a person who has lived for more than half a century. He ought to begin to think of how his work and the words he used in his work will be regarded at that time.

Sullivan is too old to be so immature.

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Heroes--Past, Present, and...? Really?!?

Technorati Tags: Senator McCain,War Hero,President of the U.S.

 

Dear Gentle Reader(s), recently there was, over at Trust, but Verify, a small step wondering about the definition of "war hero."  No one over at that modest effort has ventured an opinion, so let us see if someone here would care to offer an opinion.

The question arises from the oft-repeated phrase of "military" experience as being a qualification for the office of president of the United States.  So, one is forced to ask, in the face of three potential nominees, only one of whom has any military experience, if that experience is absolutely necessary, and, if so, why?  What does it add which is so essential?

A brief history:  President Clinton had no military experience.  President George W. Bush did.  He served in the Texas National Air Guard during the Vietnam war.  He most famously "disappeared" for several months, after flying sorties over the Gulf of Mexico.

Neither of the two leading Democratic nominee-seekers served.  Senator McCain served, but his most prominent military experience was that of a prisoner of war.  What about being a prisoner of war, aside from the emotional content which one remembers virtually all Americans felt at the time, is a requisite for the Commander-in-Chief?  As a colleague of mine at the Palm Springs "Condom Club," another story at another time, commented:  "That shows he wasn't very effective.  He got shot down."

What, then, is a war hero?  I'm thinking the grunt who followed orders.  I'm thinking the G.I. who followed orders and charged the beach on Normandy, who won the Congressional Medal of Honor, who peeled spuds to feed the troops.

What think'st thou, Dear Gentle Reader(s)? 

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Paying Paul by Pissing Off Peter

(Oh, Dear Gentle Reader(s), I feel I must apologize for the heading.  I apologize, but I really like it--alliteration is the joy of the poet, and the listener.)

Technorati Tags: Red Light Cameras,Rolling Stop,City Revenues,Tax Measures,The Los Angeles Times

 

The topic is the use of Red Light Cameras. 

The Los Angeles Times today has an interesting story about the use of red light cameras in L.A. County.  It's an interesting reading experience, all the more because it validates what many have believed--those cameras are more of an ATM for quick cash than they are for safety.

California drivers have long enjoyed the oxymoronic "rolling stop."  Mostly used for the right-on-red turn, it consists of reducing speed, keeping one's foot on the brake pedal, looking for pedestrians and other cars, seeing no potential collision, removing the foot from the brake pedal, and transferring said foot to the gas pedal and driving merrily along to the corner store for a bag of potato chips.

The red light camera is bringing this joy to a slow demise.  Here's a quote, "The city of Los Angeles issued more than 30,000 photo tickets last year at 32 camera-equipped intersections. About eight in 10 involved right turns..."  Here's the kicker:  in Los Angeles, the fine is "only" $159 for a right turn violation caught on camera.  (Only because the left-turn or straight through violation is considerably more--$381.)

Here comes the pissed off  irritated part:  The next time the city council of an L.A. county municipality using red light cameras, and the right on red option, puts a tax measure designed to support the police on a ballot, how likely is it that those 8 of ten are going to be thinking, "I've already contributed my share; I'm voting NO."

It is good to made drivers more aware of the dangers associated with lax driving habits.  It would be more efficacious, in the long run, if there were an educational program with less of an annoying factor to do the teaching.

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Words! Words! Words!*

Technorati Tags: David Brooks,Barak Obama,G.H.W. Bush,Bush Administration,Diplomacy,Foreign Policy

 

How's this, Dear Gentle Reader(s), for a headline:  "Obama Admires Bush"?

Well, since it appears in the only-slightly-less-esteemed New York Times, it immediately strikes one as implausible.  Ergo, one hies to the page and discovers that good ol' David Brooks has snookered us once again, albeit rather pleasantly.

The article is a discussion of the teapot tempest swirling around President G. W. Bush's recent speech to the Knesset of Israel in which he spoke of "appeasement" in such a manner as to suggest he was interjecting criticism of Senator Obama into a speech on foreign soil. 

Mr. Brooks relates parts of a conversation he recently had with the Senator, and in it Obama, much to Brooks' approval spoke words of admiration for the policies of President George H. W. Bush during the Desert Storm period in 1991.

The column speaks well of the Senator's understanding, as Brooks sees it, of the use of diplomacy as a tool, along with the military, to be used in the effectuation of foreign policy.

Would the current Administration had as much understanding.

 

*Intro to "Show Me" from My Fair Lady.

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Sacrifice

Technorati Tags: President George W Bush,Iraqi/Afghanistan war,Language,Sacrifice

 

Language, Dear Gentle Reader(s) is fungible, but it oughtn't be. Take, for instance, the word sacrifice. 

The sacrifice of the Mass; the sacrifice of the Cross; the sacrifice of a mother and father in raising a child; the sacrifice of a serviceman or woman in blood, limb, or life in the Iraqi war.  These are examples of sacrifice which stir the blood.  On the other hand--

We have the media announcement that George W. Bush, President of the United States, has given up/sacrificed his golf game because of the Iraqi war.  He doesn't want a mother who has sacrificed a son for her country to see "the Commander-in-Chief" playing golf.

Language.  If you're not careful with it, Dear Gentle Reader(s), it can come back and bite you on the ass.  Or at least solidify the negative impression people might have of you.

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When is a draft not a draft?

 

Technorati Tags: Iraqi/Afghanistan war,Selective Service System,Shared Sacrifice,Stop-Loss Program

Long have we argued, Dear Gentle Reader(s), for a revival of the Selective Service System.  As a matter of fact, we feel it should be universal. 

Current political leaders claim the "draft" is not necessary.  Some even go so far as to say that the current armed forces are better for not being a mixture of "Regular Army" and "U.S."  (Army service identification numbers began with RA--volunteers--or US--draftees--ours was RA--a draft dodger!)

The Los Angeles Times reports today that the Pentagon's program of "stop loss," that is, those volunteers whose enlistment is about to end are prevented from leaving the active duty military and are liable to be re-deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, reached a high of 12,235 in March of this year.  From the beginning of theIraqi/Afghanistan military operations until the end of 2007, a total of 58,300 were issued a stop loss order.

That pretty much sounds like a involuntary draft.

If we are in this struggle, we should all be in this struggle.

A universal draft is the only fair manner in which to provide troops for the effort.

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Automatic Honorific Epithets

Over at Trust, But Verify, Dear Gentle Reader(s), one might find modest efforts at saving such words as Reverend and phrases such as War Hero for those rare instances where they are, indeed, applicable.

Not to let Logorrhea go unnoticed, there is one more which might be mentioned: holiness.

The last such person to occupy the papal throne at the Vatican, in one's humble opinion, was John XXIII. All those introductions which included "His holiness, X.." since the mid-60's were more wishful thinking than fact.

Technorati Tags: Honorifics,Popes

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As a matter of simple logic,

Dear Gentle Reader(s), doesn't it make sense to identify humanity as, essentially, agnostic? 

We don't know.

Many of us believe, but that's not the same as knowing.

The phrase, "In my heart I know" is actually meaningless.  It is a virtual admission a topic unknowable.  All this brouhaha about atheist, agnostic, and believer is just so much smoke.

One might hope, but one cannot, as this stage of the development of the human mind, know.

Agape.

Technorati Tags: Atheist,Agnostic,Believer,Religion,Language,Logic

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Um...

Dear Gentle Reader(s), does anyone really buy the kinoki foot pads? 

How does the company keep on advertising?  Who pays for the ads?

Foot pads?  Cleansers?

Sheesh!

 

Technorati Tags: Kinoki,Television Ads

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An April Shower? (Pun intended)

Dear Gentle Reader(s), time for a giggle provided in part by the highly esteemed Andrew Sullivan.  Under the title "Peeing On A Bug" Sullivan offers this: 

One memorable example of the power of choice architecture comes from the men's rooms at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam. There the authorities have etched the image of a black housefly into each urinal. It seems that men usually do not pay much attention to where they aim, which can create a bit of a mess, but if they see a target, their attention and accuracy improve. Spillage at the airport decreased by 80%!

Now, if they could only figure out how to make the ersatz fly move around a wee bit, that spillage would decrease even further!

 

Technorati Tags: Andrew Sullivan,Architecture,Urinals

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Massive Misjudgment Echo?

Dear Gentle Reader(s), our favorite conservative, Andrew Sullivan, has penned a brief on his view of the problems facing America today.  You can catch the drift of it here.

As loyal reader(s) of these maunderings, you are well aware of this writer's unhappiness with Sullivan's treatment of Senator and President Clinton.  He freely, virtually with glee, uses many forms of hate in his writings of the Clintons.  One might, and often has, protested the word does not belong in a civil, public discussion of political ideas, but so far, to no avail.

In this particular piece, Sullivan is trying to account for his "own massive misjudgment over Iraq and near-disbelief at what has happened to limited government conservatism in the past decade."  That is to his credit. 

What is not to his credit is that the possibility never seems to occur to Sullivan that his perception of the Clintons is another "massive misjudgment." 

Think on't, Andrew.  Disagreeing with a political posture is one thing; hating is quite another.

Don't let, Mr. Sullivan, another massive misjudgment come back to nip at your posterior.  Take the high road.

Technorati Tags: Andrew Sullivan,Senator Clinton,Politics

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11 Days and Counting

Well, Dear Gentle Reader(s), it's been 11 days since landing at Gatwick Airport, south of London.  There've been many miles, kilometers, recorded on these old feet.  There've been paintings galore, statues galore, street scenes galore, a near miss with an Olympic protest (as usual, just missed out--so many times), churches a-plenty, a basilica or two, unusual architecture, all sorts of human beings, good food (in Paris), mediocre food (in London), the smallest hotel room in all of Christendom, astonishing excess viewed at the Louvre, and snow, and sleet, and the common cold knows no geographical bounds.

An astonishing accumulation, considering who accumulated it.  (And drinking buddy Marlin (Bud) made it all possible.) 

Three more days to go.

Wish me, DGR(s), good luck.

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Well, It Had To Happen, One Supposes

On a Tube, returning to the hotel last Friday night, in a somewhat crowded car, a nice young lady look up, one supposes; saw a rather pitiful sight, one supposes; stood and offered me her seat.  Astonishment, momentarily, ensued!

One supposes one has arrived at a particular moment on the continuum of one's life when a young person, after a long day, feels the need to offer aid to said young person's elders, even an elder who is a total stranger. 

Chivalry is not dead, nor is it entailed to the male sex.

Sunday morning in London.  It's been snowing for two hours.  It's April 6.  It's been snowing for two hours.  Of all the weather possibilities one anticipated for London weather when the sonne is in the ram, snow weren't included.

Technorati Tags: Aging,Manners,London

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Off to Merrie Ol'

Tuesday morning, Dear Gentle Reader(s), is the date.  There might not be any postings for the next couple of weeks.

Be happy.  Be aware.

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5th Anniversary

Hie thee, Dear Gentle Reader(s), over to this column by Diana West over at the Townhall muckroom. She's my newest BFF (not really, she truly doesn't know I exist) of conservative pundits. She's the voice of reason and clear vision of the right. She's what Andrew Sullivan should be if he could only get a grip.

Diana West
Andrew Sullivan
Iraqi War

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The Geraldine and Andrew Show

OK, Dear Gentle Reader(s), here are a couple of quotes for you.

This is what Geraldine Ferraro said to The Daily Breeze of Torrance, California, a few days ago: "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," she continued. "And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

Here is a quote from Andrew Sullivan's blog on the brouhaha which has arisen over the comment: My deeper point is that Obama's virtues as a politician - his ability to unite, his capacity for reason, his solid judgment and even temperament - have nothing to do with race at all...Of course, Obama's race is a salient issue. We're human.

Isn't it possible, DGR(s), that Mrs. Ferraro was speaking of the saliency of Senator Obama's race? It certainly doesn't necessarily follow that she's claiming race is Obama's only strong point. What race does for him is to offer an extra fillip to his other quite strong, and quite equally salient, points.

Sullivan, and those who choose to interpret Mrs. Ferraro negatively, do disservice to Obama's unique talents and the enhancement his mixed-race background give to those talents. That background was interesting enough to afford the senator some extra time to learn to hone his presentation into the effective campaign persona he has become.
Geraldine Ferraro
Andrew Sullivan
Barak Obama

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Piffle

Governor Spitzer should not resign.

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