Insert a Trite Metaphor About a Corral

Posted on June 11, 2004 in Roundup

Leisure is what gives the scribe the opportunity to acquire wisdom; the man with few business affairs grows wise.

Ecclesiasticus 38:25

Ronald Reagan’s death and legacy topped the blog discussions this week. Among those who commented were Mileah, Jack, Randy, Theodore, Jeanne, Andrew, Jeremy, Stephen, Kimber, Victoria, Bill, Andrea, LQ, Michael, Daniel. This obituary from the Orange County Weekly might interest some.

I stated my personal point of view on Sunday, but I wish to add this proviso: my regrets should not be taken as an endorsement of the ruinous policies of that administration.

Politics

• Jack analyzes the recent Pentagon memo defending the military’s behavior in Iraq and concludes that he is ashamed to be a lawyer:

  The key argument in the memo stems from the fact that in order to implement our obligations under international conventions against torture, Congress passed a law making it criminal to engage in torture overseas. The memo then sets out to prove that this law does not bind the President. Why? Because all statutes should be construed to avoid constitutional difficulties.

• Allison observed an interesting phenomenon:

  The Pentagon is hastily moving US troops stationed in Europe and Asia either to Iraq or to nearby areas like Italy. They are moving two divisions from Germany, one from South Korea and others from different areas. Also, main headquarters is being shifted from England to Italy. Now couple this information with the extension of tours of duty of all American military units now on active service, Kerrey’s “backdoor draft” and we have an interesting situation. If Bush wants to withdraw from Iraq within a month, why all of these troop movements?

• Katherine caught Ashcroft not living up to his promise to enforce the law.
  
• MacDiva promotes the candidacy of Barack Obama.
  
• Bill was grimly amused by Ashcroft’s attempts to explain why what we are doing in Iraq was different from what the Nazis did.
  
• Robert refuses to let the Valerie Plame affair be forgotten:

  It will be interesting to see who takes the fall. Somebody leaked the name, after all. The CIA heads are toppling like dominoes, but Bush and cronies are still there. The ones who knew Plame’s identity are among them. Which of them is capable of leaking a key state secret? Judging by their scruples, I can’t think of one who wouldn’t, if it furthered their agenda.

• Mike was angry to discover that South Africa is the rape capital of the world.

Culture

• Zephoria promised to speak until the death of gender inequality.
  
• Maria reflects on writing:

  It’s not that writing gets more difficult with age; it’s hope that holds up the bearer of tales and makes the return journey so difficult. It’s when hope turns from discovery, to habit, and finally to chore that writing becomes hard.

• Jeanne d’Arc remembered Ray Charles:

  The genius of Ray Charles, as just about everyone recognizes, lies in the way he fused things that before him seemed irreconcilable. Black and white. Sacred and profane. He took the blues to church, brought together jazz, r&b and gospel, and created soul. But that didn’t just make great music. It opened the possibility of a whole new way of taking in the world.

• M. Luminous defends street music:

  Apparently, not everyone likes that kind of music, but the red-kilted bagpiper who plays on Cornmarket Street makes a decent amount of money anyway. I usually make a contribution when I see him, because his music puts a little bounce in my step while I’m going around, running errands.

• Caterina reflected on the achievements of Bruno Fassbinder:

  Fassbinder was, by all accounts, a frightening, sadistic and out of control man. He slept with everyone, men and women, did massive amounts of drugs, prowled leather bars, pimped Ugo Kier, threw screaming fits in public, beat women until they ended up hospitalized, brutalized the actors in his films and finally died freebasing cocaine. But he made incredible movies.

• Irene pondered why arranged marriages last longer than love matches:

  I think arranged marriages may last longer coz the partners have fewer expectations compared to those in a “love match”. When we marry for love, we also expect to be happy. When our partner doesn’t make us happy, we feel cheated. Whereas in an arranged marriage, both start from scratch and so both are aware of the need to give and take. It’s not about me anymore.

Religion

• Natalie continues her Interview with God.
  
• doug bewailed the change in expectations for pastors:

  Pastor’s are no longer expected to help the church discern and combat evil (unless it’s the evil in “other people”). That’s very messy; not at all affirming or entertaining. But, as Matthew says, Woe to us if we hide it or cover it up or smooth it over or pretend it is not there! It will out! It will out indeed, for if it will not be recognized in one way it will be in another. And will out it does, in committee meetings, attacks on pastors, arguments over worship styles, who’s getting what they want, as they want it, when they want it.

• Jody gave Mark Shea his Obstinate Award “for his tireless efforts at Missing the Point in most every discussion regarding religion he gets into.”
  
• Red told off a Bible thumper.
  
• Kynn caught car-thief and liar Darrell Issa calling the war in Iraq a “crusade against Islam”.

Personal

• Randy and Mercia celebrated their anniversary!
  
• Jenny was in a place where she could observe Tuesday’s Transit of Venus:

  The biggest hit, though, especially with the school-aged kids, was the “Sunspotter” brought by one of the astronomy grad students. The simple device had several mirrors and a lens that projected an image of the sun onto a piece of paper, where it was safe for viewing by a number of people at once.

• Lee announced her opposition to cilantro.
  
• Brian wrote about living in the same place for two years:

  Back when we were going through the process of selling our old house and buying this one, I wrote that I thought of myself as a “homeless” person because I’ve moved so many times and lived in so many places that no place felt like home to me. Two years down the line, I honestly have to say that I don’t feel any differently.

• Crazy Tracy talked about afflictions worse than cicadas:

  I’ve lived in the Ku Klux Klan Kapital of the world, Okeechobee, Florida. I’ve worked in Washington, DC, the murder capital of the United States. Neither comes close to the racism and violence in Cincinnati. The hospital where I am currently working is by far the scariest, most unsafe and most violent hospital I know of. We have more incidents of violence per month than we did per year at both those previous hospitals COMBINED. Combined.

• Deb remembered a victim of Reaganomics:

  As the world descended into the leftist’s nightmare that was the 1980s, Kristi, who had been expelled from the SWP, ostensibly for keeping her bourgeois job as advertising copy-writer, but possibly also for being a closeted Christian, descended into alcoholism and asthma. She was definitely weird, but so ultimately lovable that I began to love her like a sister. It was easy to think of her as like family, because she was screwed up in a similar way to some of my more distant relatives. She never really weaned or potty-trained her boy, and he was sleeping in the bed with her right up to the day she died.

• Frances became a citizen of Sweden:

  Surrounded by hundreds of people from all over the world, we were welcomed by various low-level politicoes and serenaded by fellow immigrants, mostly in English. Then we sang the national anthem and they fed us salmon and gave us sparkling wine, and I got a certificate with my name misspelled.

• Jill proclaimed:

  I am not nice, I have never been nice, I do not aspire to nice, and I’ll kill your kitten if you call me nice.

• Kate went fishing:

  Usually we are skunked, badly, not catching any fish till we remember how to fish, every season it’s the same routine, but yesterday — I caught almost all the fish, maybe 20 or more, most were juveniles and were promptly escorted back to the pool, but there were several nice big fat silver salmon (which are cousins to the rainbow trout and also called “land-locked salmon”) and three regular speckled rainbow trout that were worth going on the stringer.

• Manda is home.
  
• Pam weathered a thunderstorm.
  
• Treesong caught fire.
  
• Ellen (and Jenny) lost her grandmother.
  
• Chari and the Princess spent an eventless Gay Day at Disney World.
  
• Grey Bird’s roommate now calls her “Boo-boo”.
  
• Nancy posted a 1984 account of a trip to Murree.

Photos

• Elikit: Venus passing in front of the sun
  
• Mary Lou: As she will never be again.
  
• John showed off his new camera and his lover’s butt.
  
• Bill: Pictures from an expedition.

Poetry

• Gregory: Incident at Sunset Arms
  
• Coup de Vent: Canalside
  
• Susan: Harvest Haiku

Missing Bloggers

• Evano
  
• Tamara
  
• Raven
  
• Mayamaya
  
• Tammy
  
• Yule*

* Received Hate Mail.

Recent Reading

Buying books through these links does put a little money in my pocket. Thank you!
• The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
  
• The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule by Michael Shermer

• Wheelock’s Latin, 6e and Workbook for Wheelock’s Latin, 3rd Edition, Revised

Petitions & Appeals

• Bridge the Gap
  
• Expose Halliburton
  
• Stop the Climate Crisis
  
• Don’t Let Congress Empower Religious Hatred
  
• Support your Veterans

Web Links

• California Reptiles & Amphibians
  
• Recent Deaths
  
• Poet’s Almanac
  
• The Bob Lazar Corner
  
• Tiger Cam

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

to rust unburnished, not to shine in use!

– Alfred Lord Tennyson