How much is a stamp nowadays?

i know I could google it and find out, but I'm too lazy.

I hate to write letters so I hardly ever do. Actually, I hate to write cursive and never have been good at it. I'm not even sure I learned how to do it. When cursive came up in school my father gave me an old typewriter from his office so I taught myself keyboarding instead. I went to a progressive school, and no one noticed.

I must have taken written tests as a child, so I did learn cursive, but my handwriting was awful and has become worse with disuse.

So: stamps. When did they stop putting the price on them? Whenever I buy stamps I buy a book of them so I won't have to buy them again soon. So now I have Ella Fitzgerald and liberty bells. Neither says "U S Postage --cents." I think liberty bell was 41 cents last time I looked, and Ella was less.

So when I absolutely have to write a letter or send a birthday card, I just put two Ellas on the envelope and send it on its way. They haven't doubled the price recently, have they?

So the Post Office--sorry, Postal Service--is making money on me. I think I spent $20 last year and sent three letters.

Old clam found

Unfortunately, it's dead.

Get your own blog and get out of mine

I've been moderating comments, and boy am I glad! I've been visited by a nutcase who is fascinated by Rudy Giuliani: I'm talking everything Rudy, all the time. Rudy in a dress, Rudy and 9/11, Rudy and the Jewish problem--wait a minute, maybe not that one!

My advice: if you want to comment on my blog, stick to the topic. Or else just shower me with undiscriminating praise, that will do the trick. You know: "Love your blog, etc."

I am informed that this is still a free country, at least as of 9:24 on a Saturday evening. Not only that, there are free blogs out there for the taking. Start your own!

Dumbledore is gay?

This is a question that is stirring up the large nothing-to-think-about-American community. It is not very interesting to me. Why?

Dumbledore. Does. Not. Exist. So he can be anything you want him to be. A gay American? Fine. Likewise, a gay Brit. Unlike a historical character like Julius Caesar, he does not, and has never, existed. So, if I prefer to picture him as a Middle East Studies Professor at Columbia University, I am free to do so.

Got that? Dumbledore, fictional. Julius Caesar, historical.

If, after writing seven bricklike books, JK Rowling has not adequately conveyed the essence of one of her main characters, she is pretty inept.

I believe that what is revealed about a character during the course of a work by the author's artistry is what is important. It does not enhance my enjoyment to learn a lot of humble background stuff. A few bold strokes are what is needed, and more just cheapens the work.

Each reader brings his own interpretation of a character to the book. That's how fiction works. We are free to think what we want, or nothing at all, about the characters.

A new type of tv news star

She has straight, really blonde hair, which she shakes around like a pony trying to get rid of a fly; she has a law degree, speaks with a simper and dresses and makes up like a hooker. It helps if she spells her name "cute." Megyn instead of Megan, Kelli instead of Kelly.

Fox News generally features them in pairs, like salt and pepper shakers: one is conservative, one is liberal, and they take turns in uttering banalities from, respectively, the right and the left. They interrupt each other and the newscaster and both talk at the same time, so no one can understand a word either of them is saying.

Somewhere in the Fox News Studio dressing rooms, there is a vat of really shiny lip gloss. Light actually bounces off these women's lips. Just to keep you confused, there is an occasional dark or short haired one.



By a triumph of will, even the lovely Harris Faulkner is transformed into an honorary blonde bimbo. Her lips actually twinkle.

I have been told that hospitals love to turf people out...

Not so. True, the surgeon says he sees no reason I should stay. The cleaner has stripped my bed. I found my clothes and put them on. Packed my toothbrush. Looked through the 8 New Yorkers someone kindly gave me and threw out 7. My ride is present.

Still, a strange languor seems to have come over the staff at this juncture. No one will say what we are waiting for, but we wait. Finally a nurse comes into the room and says she hasn't made reservations for a rehab in Delaware. I say, forget it, write the prescription and I'll find the rehab. After a shortish delay which she spent scratching her butt, she appears with a generic prescription, for outpatient rehab. No, I say, I am supposed to have home care. Well, she wouldn't know how to do that. The mean hospital gremlins don't want anyone to leave New Jersey, so they have deprived this poor soul of Internet access. Al Gore, where are you now that I need you to access your Internet?

She implies that she will have to work a long, long time--a lo-o-o-ng l-o-n-g time, for her to arrange this. So we grab the presciption and escape. At least I didn't have to fill out a survey telling them how much I enjoyed my stay.

Ladies and gentlemen, I did not enjoy my stay. First there was the pain pill mess. One of the nurses mentioned that I could ask for pain medication soon. How soon? In 15 minutes I could ask for it. Why don't you just bring it every 4 hours? No, the patient has to ask. But if you ask before 4 hours have elapsed, you receive bubkes. Never mind--this is how we do this here.

Then there's my roomie and the eternal party she appeared to be giving. A varied cast of 10-12 people were sitting standing, draped over the furniture or the bed at all times. They brought in potato chips, candy, cookies, popcorn and flowers and sat eating them (Not the flowers.). They stuck their legs, arms, canes, coats and other belongings all over the place, generally right under my bad leg, while I was trying to learn how to use the walker. It was good practice for me in learning how to overcome obstacles. It builds character.

I finally demanded another room, so they moved me into one which was empty. Why wasn't I put into the empty room in the first place? Then she and I could both have had private rooms, and her guests would have had room to spread out? I'm sure sharing their space with me was trying for them. But no-one cared about their comfort. Callous of them.

In my new room, I listened to the silence for a while, then read 7 New Yorkers. I'm here to tell you that the New Yorker ain't what it used to be. The wit is just a tad too heavy-handed.

I'm back now and catching up with all my bloggers as well as my e-mail. No Nigerian left behind! If I hurry, I can get a really good buy on a penis extender, as well as a partial scholarship for the Professional Cashiers' School. And Macy's. They're having a one-day sale.

I go to the hospital

I escape from same.

So I'm back. Get used to it.

How about an amnesty?

For those of us who don't want to hear any more about Anna Nicole Smith? Have mercy, Fox News. Just 24 Smithless hours would be glorious.

BTW--she's still dead. Even deader, if that is possible.

Al Gore, meddler

wins the Nobel "peace" prize. So called because it has nothing to do with peace, but might irritate George W Bush, and that would be fun for the committee.

I don't see why we should respect the views of a bunch of lefty Norwegians, who are wrong 75 percent of the time. Yassir Arafat, anyone? Ho Chi Min? The Kellogg Briand pact? Oops, make that 90 percent of the time.

If anything, Gore's proselytizing is an excuse to be distracted from more important things threatening our civilization, like the possibility of being blown up by Muslim extremists. Granted, it serves as a substitute for religion, provides a fantastic way to seize control of governments economic and energy policies, and unites the world as only a global commitment to ideology really can, but its not as though we are dealing with Catholic theology, or some sort of belief in a world community here. We're talking about a group of people who enjoy telling others what to do while cheating at their own guidelines, and a committee that is spending the hard-earned gross domestic product of a majority of world nations discussing plans to impose environmental sanctions on First World nations who do not comply with their every whim while ignoring the majority contributors to 'Greenhouse Gas Emissions,' Third World pre-industrialized nations.

May I point out that the United States Senate, in more enlightened times, refused to sign the Kyoto Treaty, 98-0. Gore was a senator at the time. It would kill our economy and do about as much good as a blood transfusion would do a corpse.

I hope no alcohol was served at this party

We don't want to get the terrorists mad at us.

In the “moderate” Islamic state of Indonesia, the monsters who perpetrated the Bali nightclub bombings were treated to a Ramadan cookout at the home of the head of Indonesia’s “anti-terror” unit: Bali bombers feast at cop barbie.

I hope the Australians take note of this and go otherwhere for their vacations.

Send Michael Moore to this hospital

as a patient.

On Wednesday, the report from the Healthcare Commission into the C.diff outbreak in Kent found a catalogue of failings. The hospitals had filthy wards and vulnerable elderly patients were told to soil their beds because nurses were too busy to help them.

Targets and financial problems within the health service led to staff shortages and overcrowded wards which contributed to the spread of the infection, the report found.

Between April 2004 and September 2006, 1,176 patients contracted C.diff at the three hospitals and 345 died. Some patients with curable conditions died after contracting the bug.

The commission found the bug definitely or probably caused the deaths of 90 of them and was likely to have contribu ted to the deaths of another 255. In only 14 cases was it felt the bug had not been a factor in the death.

If he survives, he may change his mind about socialized medicine.

A tale of two cities

In the first city, people with no business having guns have them anyway:

CLEVELAND - A 14-year-old suspended student opened fire in his downtown high school Wednesday, wounding four people as terrified schoolmates hid in closets and bathrooms and huddled under laboratory desks. He then killed himself.

In the second, restaurant owners are given tickets for using trans fats:

October 11, 2007 -- Margarine was the main culprit for the cluster of Big Apple eateries that were the first to be hit with fines for violating the city's new ban on trans fats, The Post has learned.

Twenty restaurants were issued trans-fat violations between Oct. 1 and Oct. 5, the first period of time when the city Health Department began fining restaurants.

I'm beginning to believe there really are two Americas: One where lawlessness reigns, guns and narcotics are everywhere, and life is brutal, nasty and short; and the other, where innocent people trying to make a living are hampered by idiotic laws, and possession of margarine is a capital offense.

I don't want to live in either one.

I fear I am too late

to celebrate the Annual Do Something Quite Rude with a Friend or Close Colleague Day.

Damn! A day late and a dollar short, as usual. I will mark my calendar so that I won't overlook the occasion next year.

For it was the massive worldwide success of Worldwide Admire Your Own Genitals Day that led to the governments of the world - at their last International all-expenses paid shindig summit – to get together to create another international holiday.

Portrait of Bubbe

 

I have this photograph hanging over my desk. It's a rare shot of Bubbe, my grandmother. She didn't hold with having her picture taken; not because she was vain, but because she had no use for this kind of narishkeit. In her view, a woman her age should look neat, clean, and unadorned. Lipstick, permanents, hairdye, high heeled shoes--all out of the question. She did wear a corset though. With strings that were pulled.

Today I noticed that she was probably younger when this picture was taken than I am now. Look at her hands. They are quite smooth, and this was a woman who had done plenty of work with her hands. Her hands are just like my hands, only hers are nicer. And I do use lipstick, etc.

How times have changed!

The Department of really, really bad gifts

 

This replica of Lucy and Ethel in cowgirl outfits can be yours for only $50 (plus shipping).

Haveil haveilim #135 is up

And your humble correspondent is there.

Thanks, and a happy and healthy new year.

The family creed

(recycled)
My coastal relatives believe they are atheists, but that's not really true. Leftism is actually the family religion, along with getting good grades in school and getting into the right college. They are smart people, truly. And nice. So how can they parrot "Bush lied"? Typical exchange:

Beloved relative I: Capitalism is inherently corrupt.

BR II: (Pained look) But what is there that's better?

BR I: Communism!

BR II: But--I mean, look at Russia...it didn't work for them, surely?

BR I: It's never been tried.

BR II: ? (Silence, look of disbelief)

This sort of thing is what I had to contend with, when the discussion turned to politics. In the hopes that other topics would be explored, I walked as through a minefield.

Some tenets of the creed:
Drug companies are greedy and bad. Big corporations are greedy and bad. Anyone with more money than me is greedy and bad, and probably stole the money anyway.

The un-health-insured are many, all of them sick with potentially fatal diseases, and are being turned away daily from the life-saving treatment they need by hard-hearted capitalists, mainly George Bush. Many of them are little children, by the way.

More money is needed for public transportation, whether anyone wants it or not.

The environment is in imminent danger. We might wake up tomorrow to find we have been globally warmed to death. Or frozen by nuclear winter. Bad either way.

If the environment doesn't get us, the pollutants currently being poured into the rivers out of sheer spite by evil manufacturers will poison us all.

The Christian right has taken over the country. Our civil rights have been trampled. Anyone who speaks his mind will probably disappear into a secret prison, never to be heard from again.

Bush should be impeached, censured, or at least sent to his room until he learns to behave.

The Iraqis were happier under good old Saddam Hussein.

Our family go-to guy

(recycled)

Every family has one. In our case, it is my cousin Bernie. Need a lawyer? Call Bernie. Ditto help with your income tax. But his one irreplaceable function is as the family death and funeral person.

When someone dies, for instance my mother, Bernie takes over. He talks to the rabbi, the funeral director, picks out the casket, decides on the pallbearers, and calls everybody who needs to be called. I was very grateful to him and so was my brother, for sparing us these necessary but unpleasant tasks.

When his sister's husband was killed, she immediately called Bernie, and he was on the next plane. He then called the funeral director, the rabbi, etc. I believe he even identified the body, a gruesome task since the man was hit by a car.

Bernie has become a really great judge of casket quality and price by now. He's good on the phone, too. Except, by now, a phone call from him is bad news. When you answer the phone and it is Bernie, your heart sinks to your boots.

The last good news phone call I got from him was when his last daughter was born, and she's a mother herself by now.

But what really gets me going is this: who's going to do all this stuff when Bernie dies? And who will be the next go-to guy?

Odd couples

(recycled)

There are two kinds of people: people who like to be prompt, who would show up for their own hanging ten minutes early in case there is some last minute paperwork; and the other sort.

I myself am a promptie, as you can guess. My son-in-law is a promptie, too. My daughter, his wife, not. This leads to some interesting exchanges.

My mother was definitely of the non-prompt sort. My Uncle Moe, her brother, was compulsive about being, not on time, but early.

So Moe would tell my mother to be ready by say, 7:30. He would arrive at 7:15, to find she had just gotten into the bathtub. The more he fumed, the slower she got, as she stopped getting dressed to discuss the subject with him. Then she would have to: leave a note for the cleaning lady; find her glasses; find her other glasses; find her purse; and call my brother to tell him she was leaving now. Then she got into the car, but discovered she had mislaid her keys and rushed back into the house.

This sort of thing only went on for about 50 years. Neither one adjusted or compromised. He was early, she was late, until she died

Are Republicans the stupid party?

Possibly. An interesting post on how to talk to a toddler elicited the following comment:

I certainly wouldn't recommend for President Bush to speak toddlerese to the Left, since they would just assume this was his natural mode of speech. Media both in America and allied nations faithfully portray Bush as severely retarded, a man who cannot watch TV and eat pretzels at the same time, much less understand the speeches he reads.

I can remember the days when Eisenhower was president. The press generally considered him stupid because he was not a polished speaker. So did the Democrats. Everyone who was anyone knew he was stupid. He barely had enough brains to pick up a golf club. Adlai Stevenson (remember him? I didn't think so) a C student if there ever was one, was considered an intellectual. We mourned when Ike defeated him handily.

The only people who didn't consider Ike stupid were the voters; somehow the stupid had enough low cunning to manipulate the general public.

It took me years to emerge from the fog of lefty superiority and ask the simple question: How did Eisenhower manage to win the war in Europe if he was so dumb?

The latest Carnival of the Insanities

Hot from the press.

Thanks for the link.

Bunch of old farts get together to grouse

because the people doing the work today aren't doing it their way.

W

hen about two dozen veterans got together yesterday for the first time since the 1940s, many of the proud men lamented the chasm between the way they conducted interrogations during the war and the harsh measures used today in questioning terrorism suspects.

Back then, they and their commanders wrestled with the morality of bugging prisoners’ cells with listening devices. They felt bad about censoring letters. They took prisoners out for steak dinners to soften them up. They played games with them. “We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture,” said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess.

It's tough to watch these young whippersnappers, isn't it? Things were obviously better in the good old days.

Note to interrogators:
Learn to play chess! and all your problems will be solved.

Justice triumphant

A good wrap-up of the now infamous Duke lacrosse case.

Our system of due process worked in this case.

The trouble with Hadassah

Hadassah is a (mostly) women's Zionist organization to which I belong. I even give them money. They built and continue to support a wonderful hospital in Israel where care is given to everyone, regardless of ethnicity.

Remember I said Zionist? As in Israel?

Then why is Hadassah advocating for "women's reproductive rights?" Aren't there other organizations devoted to that cause?

In the past few years, Hadassah has joined a number of amicus briefs concerning many important topics, including reproductive rights, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and government aid to religious schools.

The organization also publishes a very nice periodical for its members, concentrating very broadly on topics of interest to Zionists and Jews. One feature is called "The Jewish Traveler," and focuses on places of interest all over the world where Jews have lived. That, in case you're wondering, is just about everywhere. The article goes into the history of the Jewish community--in the latest issue it is Saravajo--the synagogues, libraries, community centers, museums, etc. which the local Jewish community built and patronized.

In almost every instance, there is a sentence in the article which says, and I'm paraphrasing: "There used to be a vital Jewish community of 20,000, but Hitler killed most of them and there are only 35 left." This sentence applies to almost every tourist destination, with exceptions for countries of the former British Commonwealth and Latin America. In Arab countries, they were driven out by Arabs, not Nazis, but you get the idea. The figures are different, but the gist is the same. Used to be Jews here, all gone now. The synagogues, etc, they built are wonderful museums, well worth visiting. If the remaining Jews want to celebrate a Jewish occasion, it takes place in someone's living room. A rabbi can be summoned from another country by request, if needed.

Does a people whom the world is determined to exterminate need to champion the cause of abortion? Is this what Hadassah was designed to do? Does this bring glory to the membership? Why don't we stick to Hadassah Hospital?

Important Notice received, contents noted

The Important Notice I got in the mail today--with first class postage--looked very Official and said this:

Our records indicated that you have not returned the enclosed Form and therefore, you have not been approved for coverage under this program. Please complete and return the enclosed Form to apply for valuable term life insurance.

I received this from a bank I do business with, not from some scammer in Nigeria. I guess Wachovia is hard up for business if they have to resort to these tactics.

So--I have failed to complete a form applying for life insurance which would pay off my mortgage loan to this bank in the event I die. In other words, they are giving me an opportunity to pay a premium to them so that they won't be left holding the bag.

I have decided to pass up this wonderful opportunity.

I'm going to save the Republican Congressional Committee $11

The committee is deeply interested in my opinions. Now, there are occasions when I take leave of my senses and fill out a survey. In fact, just yesterday I filled out one sent by the Philadelphia Orchestra and gave them my opinion of undead composers. I only like music by composers who are certifiably dead. If they are not dead, and happen to be present when the orchestra plays one of their boring and pretentious works, they might notice me departing through a fire door. That would be rude of me.

But I digress. It is the National Republican Congressional Committee that is at issue here. They wanted my opinion--my valuable opinion, in their estimation--on such topics as the war on terror, taxes, and social security.

I was about to fill out the survey when I found out from the small print that they wanted a donation. Now I don't donate to political campaigns; I like to give my money to organizations where I assume it will do some good for someone, like the Salvation Army. Anyway, I've learned from bitter experience that for me to give money to a candidate makes him a sure loser. I dare not risk it. If I gave them money, the next Senate would contain 99 Democrats and Joe Lieberman.

The NRCC has an answer to that one: they request that I send them $11 to defray the cost of processing my painstakingly filled-out survey.

So I saved them $11 and threw it in the trash. It was the least I could do for the party.

In love with death

I was listening to a CD of the Clancy Brothers in the car. To you who are too young to know who they were, the were Irish folk singers back in the day, and are very well worth listening to now.


G] O see the fleet-foot host of men, who [C] march with faces [G] drawn,
From farmstead and from [C] fishers' [G] cot, along the [C] banks of [D] Ban;
[G] They come with vengeance [C] in their [G] eyes. Too late! [C] Too late are
[D] they,
[G] For young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the [C] bridge of Toome
[G] today.

Oh Ireland, Mother Ireland, you love them still the best
The fearless brave who fighting fall upon your hapless breast,
But never a one of all your dead more bravely fell in fray,
Than he who marches to his fate on the bridge of Toome today.

Up the narrow street he stepped, so smiling, proud and young.
About the hemp-rope on his neck, the golden ringlets clung;
There's ne'er a tear in his blue eyes, fearless and brave are
they,
As young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome
today.

When last this narrow street he trod, his shining pike in hand
Behind him marched, in grim array, an earnest stalwart band.
To Antrim town! To Antrim town, he led them to the fray,
But young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

The grey coat and its sash of green were brave and stainless then,
A banner flashed beneath the sun over the marching men;
The coat hath many a rent this noon, the sash is torn away,
And Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

Oh, how his pike flashed in the sun! Then found a foeman's heart,
Through furious fight, and heavy odds he bore a true man's part
And many a red-coat bit the dust before his keen pike-play,
But Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

There's never a one of all your dead more bravely died in fray
Than he who marches to his fate in Toomebridge town today;
True to the last! True to the last, he treads the upwards way,
And young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

I especially like the line about his golden ringlets curling around the noose round his neck. It's a great song, but it glorifies death. Conor Cruise O'Brien pointed out, somewhere in his voluminous writings, that the Irish love funeral processions, sometimes appearing to prefer death to life. He was referring to the madness in Ulster specifically, but also to the rebellion of 1916. But as in Ireland, so it is with Palestinian suicide bombers. O'Brien spoke out against this romanticizing of death.



I once read the memoirs of Frank O'Connor, an Irish writer (also well worth looking up and reading) who took part in the 1916 war and was briefly jailed. It happened that he was in prison when one of the rebels was hanged, and he referred to this song and said the hanging did not resemble the song. The young man was not smiling and proud. He was terrified and wept as he was dragged to his place of execution. Perhaps at the last, he did not feel romantic to be giving up his young life.

I'm not a pacifist.



Those buried here died for a worthy cause. They died in the Normandy invasion, June 1944, liberating France from the Nazis. It is very sad to think of their young lives being cut short, but they died honorably.

Daughter with hair

 

This was an elementary school class photo, maybe 6th grade. I just want to show what thick, wavy hair the people in my father's family have. We all have lots of hair, but this one has the most of all.

Dear Columbia University

Thanks, but no thanks.

The following letter is translated, first from Italian into Polish, and then into English, so it's a little rough around the edges. However, it gets the job done.

The former president [of Italy] writes to " old-fashioned racialists"

Rome,Italy - september

In protest against the invitation of the president of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia University, former Italian president Francesco Cossiga gave back the title of the doctor Honoris Causa of this University. Senator Cossiga wrote that he was indignant organizing the lecture of the Iranian leader by the chancellor of UC , [whom] he called "a threatening neonazi and a Islamic terrorist".

The former Italian president reminded in the sharp letter to the rector of the University Columbia that Ahmadinejad expressed the thirst of the destruction of Israel.

"Regardfully for six millions of murdered Jews whose you - old-fashioned racialists, and today also advocates of Islamic terrorists - I, a Catholic, return the title granted to me of Honoris Cause and I burn the toga which you gave to me" - declared Cossiga.

His letter finished with words: "without respect -- Francesco Cossiga".

Were you ugly and unpopular in high school?

Is that what made you become a librarian?

[Librarians tended to be the unpopular kids growing up and as adults the job becomes their 24/7 identity, hence the offense at any slight and the need to tell the whole blinking world that they are a LIBRARIAN. Yeah, whatever............."

 

Is this reader correct? Are all those self-promotional library bloggers compensating for being unpopular geeks as children? Is it sort of like all those novels and movies that seem to have spindly unpopular writers as romantic leads?

In a word, no. I was an ugly little toad, two years younger than my fellow high schoolers, and this rather isolated me. My parents were getting a divorce so I probably had an air of neglect, like an unmade bed. Long smooth hair was the fashion, and I had an unruly curly mop. And I was lousy at sports, being extremely near-sighted. Gym class was agony. People were always throwing balls at me and I never saw them coming.

But I always knew there was a world beyond high school. I always thought it pitiful that some kids thought these were the best years of their lives--who wants to feel that their eighteenth year was the pinnacle of their existence, and it's all downhill from there?

Mother finally got a grip during my senior year and took me to an optometrist, who fitted me for corrective lenses.

Did I want to be a librarian? Hell, no! I wanted to be an actress, writer, artist, singer, or any combination of the above. My plans included hanging around European capitals acting jaded and sophisticated.

College provided the opportunity to try all the above things (sadly, not the European capitals), so I loved it to pieces. I also loved being away from home. Sixteen and grown up at last!

Fast forward ten years. I am now somebody's mom, two somebodies in fact. When the children went to school all day, I needed a job. No one would hire me. I did get the local newspaper to print an article of mine about how to run a garage sale, but that was about it. So I sought further education. I did not actually dread the idea of working in a library, so I went to a library school that the State of New York had conveniently placed about a mile up the road. The die was cast.

Socialism at work

According to the Telegraph:

The degree to which new immigrants [in Britain] rely on benefits and council housing has been revealed by a survey that looks at how much foreigners contribute to the economy.

The league tables have been compiled by the Left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research on behalf of Dispatches, to be shown on Channel 4 tonight. The figures come from the census and the quarterly Labour Force Survey.

Somalians rely heavily on benefits, according to the statistics - 80 per cent live in social housing and 39 per cent claim income support.

Nearly half of newly-arrived Turks - 49 per cent - rely on social housing, 52 per cent do not work and 21 per cent claim income support. However, 35 per cent are self-employed.

Excuse me, is there something I'm not getting here? Britons welcome people to their country, half of whom don't work and who are--I don't know a better way to put it--on the public tit?

I guess they're worried that the Somalis will get jobs as taxi drivers and refuse to transport blind people with dogs?

Then there's all the carry-on about the Palestinians--the EU is refusing to give them money, Israel won't give them money or electricity, and it's a humanitarian crisis. Why can't they get jobs, pay taxes, and support themselves? Who gives us money? No-one. Yet the United States has managed to stagger along for 213 years on the earnings of its own people. Even with the burden of Congress on our shoulders.

I'm really curious. When did it become okay to subsist on other people's money for generations, and to yell like a wounded steer when the others don't want to pay?
Does the world owe everyone a living?

Well, I'm a little old geezerette, and if anyone deserves to be supported by other folks, it's me. Forward checks or credit card payments to my Paypal account.

I eagerly await your response.

Mystery woman

 

My cousin claims that this is our grandmother (father's mother) as a young woman, but I doubt it. If she was, she did a lot of living in the next ten years, which is when the photographic record picks her up, in a cardigan and wrinkles. She may not even be a relative.

Let this be a lesson to you--always label your photographs.

I have no idea what this product is...

Do you take it internally or rub it on your stomach? I haven't a clue.

Whatever the answer is, I'll take a case to start.

Lots of people are wasting their time

Including big corporations.

Many people with more money than sense gladly waste $295 a month buying real estate that doesn't exist. What an opportunity for those of us who have bridges connecting strategic parts of New York City for sale!

You invent an avatar, a synthetic you that's younger, taller, thinner and better looking than you are and allow this non-existent creature to live a fantasy life. You buy it clothes. You send it on trips. You teach it to ski. To speak Urdu. The possibilities are endless. And pointless.

Corporate America has stampeded into Second Life. Companies--ranging from the NBA and Sun Microsystems to Nissan and Reuters--have set up their own elaborate islands. Coldwell Banker, for instance, has an in-world headquarters where they rent virtual houses. Some companies have been more imaginative in their approach.[]

IBM has a massive, in-world corporate headquarters which spreads over multiple islands. Fortune reported in January that 3,000 IBM employees had created avatars (including CEO Sam Palmisano) and that 300 of them were "routinely conducting company business" inside Second Life.

I hope corporations are not wasting their money and their employees' time, which we, the stockholders, are paying for, living lives that don't exist. At least the Brooklyn Bridge, even if I don't own it, does exist. You can drive a car over it, for instance. Try getting into your car and driving over a non-existent or virtual bridge. I will give $1,000 to anyone who actually does it. I will donate another $1,000 to anyone who manages to get his avatar to perform his job--let's say as a flagger for a construction company--while he himself stays home watching tv in his underwear and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

The Weekly Standard actually has a long article on this kind of tosh, the 21st century equivalent of a pet rock. I can't believe they would waste valuable space which they could dedicate to, I don't know, interviewing Fred Thompson.

I keep thinking of my bubbe, who would have called this narishkeit (stupidity). Or mishugas (craziness). Bubbe knew that real life was hard enough for a person; you don't need an imitation one.

Paydirt

Interesting stuff about the New School and the Clintons.

I'm reading Michael Barone's new book

it's called the Glorious Revolution.

I know nothing about English history between the two Queen Elizabeths, so it was all new to me. But I like to know what the main characters looked like.

Imagine my surprise and dismay when I went searching for illustrations. There weren't any.




The above is Charles II, the Merry Monarch. He had 14 illegitimate children, give or take a few. Does he or doesn't he look like a guy who knows how to woo the ladies? How about those dainty ankles?




His brother, who eventually succeeded him as James II, also no slouch.

When James' first wife died, he sent emissaries to scout for another wife with the right connections. He insisted on a beautiful women, although Charles advised him that you could get used to any face in a week.

Which of these models is more attractive?

The proper attitude toward the US

Katie Couric pisses Us off:

Katie Couric said that using "we" when referring to America makes her uncomfortable. That's stupid and I hate her. I love saying "we" when talking about America because it allows me to say lots of things that I could not say only about myself:

We are the richer and more powerful than all others.
We can destroy any country we feel like.
We landed on the moon, suckas!

America is freaking awesome. We collected the best people from all over the world into one country so we can totally rule at absolutely everything. Scientists have determined that America is by far the most awesome country they have discovered existing in the three spatial and one temporal dimensions. Who would not want to be associated with that? And it's not like rooting for some local football team, because we're all actually a part of it. That rules.
[]

People from other countries should apologize to us for sucking so badly. Sometimes how much their countries suck interferes with our awesomeness, like Mexico. We want them to prostrate before us and say, "Oh glorious Americans, we are sorry for how much our country sucks and how it disturbs your unbelievable awesomeness."

And we can say, "That's okay. We know you're trying hard, and we will not raze your country... for now."

That's the proper order of things. It also reminds me of another pronoun I like to use: "They."

"They" is what I call all the terrorists, evil foreigners, and liberals.

Raising children properly

Uncle Doc, at the time a bachelor, didn't approve of the way my parents were raising me. My hair needed combing, my face was dirty, my toys should be put away, in general I made too much noise. At one point, he examined my head and chastised me for not washing behind my ears. I was five years old, and I still feel embarassed about it. Every time I wash my face I make sure to wash behind my ears.

Uncle Doc informed my parents in no uncertain terms that when he had children, a different regimen would be in place.

Well, he got married when I was six, and in due course had a family of his own, three fiends from hell who came to live at his house. Up and down the stairs they chased each other, screaming. One of them had taken a dictionary belonging to another. Uncle Doc alternately promised new dictionaries for everyone and yelled at them loudly to stop that meshugas. But he could have yelled twice as loud and they wouldn't have paid attention. They considered his protests background noise, like the radio.

Eventually, when his face was bright red with veins popping out of his forehead, they sensed he had started to mean business. He would threaten them with dire punishment, and they would start crying. This called for hugs and chewing gum all around. My aunt would go to bed with a migraine. Even I, a mere observer and a child myself, would have a headache.

But Uncle Doc and the girls seemed, if anything, refreshed by all this activity. A good time seemed to be had by all, except those of us with headaches.

Such was Uncle Doc's reasoned philosophy of raising children.

The girls actually grew up to be (relatively) sane, graduate from college, and stay out of jail. So Uncle Doc's child-rearing methods worked. And my aunt stopped having headaches and took up canasta.

My other blog

I am hosting another blog, featuring my photos of Wilmington.

A new kind of spam

This one does not come from Nigeria.

Dear business or corporate customer of Citizens Bank,

Citizens Bank Customer Service requests you to complete Money Manager GPS Online Form.

This procedure is obligatory for all Money Manager Global Processing Solutions™ (GPS) users.

Please click hyperlink below to access Money Manager GPS Online Form.


http://moneymanagergps-id65043.citizensbank.com/gps/userdir/onlineform.aspx

Please do not respond to this email.

I got a similar one purporting to be from Bank of America not long ago. I don't have an account with them (or with Citizens Bank, for that matter). They e-mailed me back that this is a new kind of swindle.

Another new wrinkle in man's never-ending quest to work harder at swindling people than you would at a real job is the phony bill from a magazine. Sometimes it is a magazine you subscribe to. We got a bill for something called Modern Optimism, sent to Mr Charm. The idea of him and optimism sharing the same universe is laughable to those who know him. Nice try, Publishers Billing Group, but no cigar.

Columbia University--bought and paid for

by Saudi Arabia.

The Saudis got their money's worth, and more.

Columbia University failed to report a list of foreign donors to the New York State Department of Education — including a $250,000 donation from an unidentified Saudi Arabian — more than five months after it was required to do so by law.

Under a state education law, universities must file to the state Education Department all gifts from foreign governments, persons, and legal entities no later than 30 days after the final day of the fiscal year of the institution.Columbia filed to the department on January 16, missing the deadline by 170 days. []


"Universities have a fundamental obligation to reveal foreign funding, especially of foreign area studies,"the editor of the Middle East Quarterly and author of "Ivory Towers on Sand," Martin Kramer, said.

On his Web site, martinkramer.org, Mr. Kramer has accused Columbia of concealing funding of the Edward Said chair of Arab studies, which is occupied by Rashid Khalidi, director of Columbia's Middle East Institute and a harsh critic of Israel. Columbia has refused to disclose a list of donors to the chair.

"We all believe we are entitled to know whether a tobacco company has funded a particular academic research project on the health effects of smoking.For exactly the same reason, we are entitled to know whether Chinese or Saudi sources have funded American academic research on China or Saudi Arabia," he said.

What's a nice Jewish girl

doing in a place like this?

Everyone is greeting Madonna's love for Israel with derision. I disagree. I'll take the love wherever I find it.

“Tell me what I should do, Mr Peres, because I am in love with Israel,” pop star Madonna, who is visiting the Jewish state to attend a conference on Kabbalah, told President Shimon Peres on Saturday evening.

The pop star was seen entering Peres’ Jerusalem residence after the end of the Jewish New Year at sunset Saturday.

A survey of Hollywood lefties won't find any of them harboring good will toward Israel, I'll wager. Stars like Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, George Clooney, Janeane Garofolo--I bet they consider Israel an oppressor. Bad cess to all of them.

I will never attend or even rent one of their films. Too bad, because I liked Bull Durham and Oh Brother Where Art Thou. But the presence of these stars spoil them for me.

Why do workmen get these urges to wander?

A man came to replace the bathroom floor. He tore out the toilet, and removed the bathmat, wastebasket, etc, which he placed in the hall so I can trip over it. Then he made good his escape.

What is this wanderlust which afflicts workpersons such as plumbers, carpenters, etc? Have they all taken the same course: HI 101, Delay and avoidance of work: Methods and best practices, Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:00 p.m., 3 credits.

I speak from experience. I had a bathroom replaced once by a contractor named Ray. Ray and his minions came to my house on a bitterly cold March day and tore out the floor, walls, and ceiling of the bathroom. The cold air streamed in. For three weeks.

Then the electrician was delayed by another job; the plumber needed to shut down the heating system; the medicine cabinet which had been ordered was the wrong size. You would spend all day waiting for one of these bozos and they would turn up just as I was trying to cook dinner. Try doing that with the water shut off.

Then the little problems: our electricity supply was not all that it might have been. In fact, without major changes, the job couldn't go on at all. The water flooded the other bathroom, but the plumber was in South Jersey. The tile guy thought the tile was going to be awfully boring without some embellishment; and wouldn't we really, really like to have a heater in the ceiling fan?

And plaster dust. No working person in the home can do anything, including paint the walls, without loosing a mountain of plaster dust, which he and his buddies then track through the house. Is there another course, HI 102, Plaster dust: uses and misuses, Monday and Wednesday 1:30 p.m., 2 credits. Course prerequisite: grout through the ages.

Anyway, it got done, and it was only $2,000 over budget. We loved it. The agony forgotten, we had another bathroom replaced. Home improvement is like crack to me; I know it's not good for me, and it's expensive, but I've gotta have it.

You're making me nervous

This blogging thing has its pluses and minuses: One of the minuses is that I worry about the people who no longer comment, no longer even visit. Where are you? Matt, my first commentor?

Have I suddenly become boring, like Paul Krugman, or pointless, like Maureen Dowd? Or pretentious, like Keith Olbermann? Or all of the above? (Don't answer that.)

Where is my favorite librarian, whose pithy posts would make my day? What about the representative of that distinguished organization, the Elders of Zion? Too busy to drop by, eh Neil?

UAW guy, now that your union is out on strike, why don't you spend some leisure time on my blog? And mamacita, what went wrong? And jv, now that you're famous and winning prizes right and left, are you too big a snob to drop by an old friend's blog?

And what of Attila? Too busy raping, pillaging and looting to help out an old friend? What about my favorite lawman?

This linking is time-consuming. You know who you are.

A constructive suggestion

for Ahmadohwhatthehell (I hope he's dead before I learn to spell his name).

An open letter from a New Yorker to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

Dear Mahmoud,

I hear you're coming to the UN General Assembly, and had planned a visit to my 'hood.

But the NYPD, citing security concerns, apparently won't let you near Ground Zero. If I was training and arming the enemy in the war on terror, I'd expect some safety problems around the site of North America's largest ever terrorist massacre, too. Trust me, Mahmoud -- it's for your own good. You should see what some New Yorkers do to far less annoying attention whores than yourself.

Why not try the Holocaust Memorial Museum instead? You could hand out flyers for your next Holocaust denial conference. You know, reach out to the crossover crowd.

Bollinger makes a hero out of himself

Bollinger tells Ahmadwhatshisname off. Wow, what a hero! Now he can have it both ways. And it didn't cost him a thing.

I hope his Saudi handlers are satisfied.

Sunday at Brandywine Park

 

 

 

New evidence--as if you needed it--

of global warming.

From morning coffee.

Jena six case evokes Selma

Oh, how Jesse Jackson longs for the good old days of Selma.

Chanting slogans from the civil rights era and waving signs, protesters from around the nation converged in central Louisiana, where the charges have made this otherwise anonymous town of 3,000 people a high-profile arena in the debate on racial bias in the judicial system.

“That’s not prosecution, that’s persecution,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the founder of the RainbowPUSH Coalition and an organizer of the demonstration, told a crowd in front of the LaSalle Parish Courthouse. “We will not stop marching until justice runs down like waters.”

It all reminds Jesse of the glory days of Selma, when there were people who took the old extortionist seriously, instead of considering him a first-class bore and a has-been. Jesse is in the outrage business, and he is enjoying his manufactured outrage on the streets of this little town. He fancies himself as the second coming of Martin Luther King, Jr, but the truth is he is more like a snake oil salesman. Al Sharpton is right beside him, doing his old, familiar number.

Has it ever occurred to these folk that we don't have to march in the streets for justice, like the persecuted monks in Myanmar? We have institutions that handle these things nowadays. They're called courts of law.

When I was a child I noticed a statue of justice atop a courthouse in Columbus. She was wearing a blindfold. I asked my mother what this meant, and she explained that justice is blind. Justice decides cases on their merits, without regard to extraneous factors such as skin color.

The travesty of justice that occurred in Durham should alert us all against pre-judging cases. Let the legal process take its course.

Al and Jesse? Your act is becoming very, very tired.

Dr Sanity scintillates...

as always.

If it were not for this carnival, I would have about seven readers. However, I'll take what I can get.

Thanks for the link.

I bet you didn't know this

The name Des Moines turns out to be an insult.

Here is, verbatim, the entry for "Des Moines" in the authoritative and academic "Native American Placenames of the United States":


From French Rivière des Moines, which could be interpreted as 'river of the monks' or 'river of the mills.' In fact, however, Moines is here an abbreviation used by the French for Moingouena (Eng. Moingwena), an Algonquian subgroup (Vogel 1983). The Native American term is /mooyiinkweena/, and it was a derogatory name applied to the Moingouenas by the Peorias, another subgroup. Its meaning, as an early French writer said is, 'visage plein d'ordure' -- or in plain English 'shit-face' (Costa 2000:45)

From the comments, an even more dismissive factoid:

Iowa was first the name given to the Indians who lived in that region, but as is often the case, the whites got the name from the next tribe up the line, who had an unflattering word for their neighbors. Not as bad as "shit-faces" in this case, but it meant "sleepy ones.

No wonder the Iowa caucuses make them bonkers. They're probably already seriously annoyed.

Yom Kippur report

Wilmington, DE. Your reporter has gone through another Yom Kippur service, and has a few remarks from the field.

The cantor was superb. Her voice was strong and pure, and her pronunciation--well, I don't know how Hebrew is supposed to be pronounced, but I followed her more or less successfully from the prayer book, something I find difficult when the rabbi is doing the leading. Of course, all I know of Hebrew is what I puzzled out for myself since my grandson's bar mitzvah, and one short course which never reached the end of the alphabet. I did not go to Hebrew school as a child, as I was too busy being trained to be a good little Communist.

I loved the melodies. Every cantor sings different ones, and hers were generally quite showy and theatrical, which I like. Some of the melodies were almost too jolly to be taken as supplications. I almost believe we should be called People of the Song; the music makes the service much pleasanter, and I like to sing, particularly with a whole bunch of other people so no-one has to listen to me. It was something like attending an--admittedly long--oratorio.

The rabbi's sermon was interesting. He started out strongly on the theme of L'dor Va Dor (meaning from generation to generation), a popular theme among Jews. It is continually surprising that we have survived some of the stuff we went through and are still here. What do you suppose became of the other ancient peoples? You never hear a peep out of the Sumerians, for instance. The Persians are still around, but that's about it.

Anyway, the rabbi started with L'Dor Va Dor. But somehow he got sidetracked to social justice and never got back to that topic. He touched upon the theme found in Isaiah, "Is this the fast that I have chosen?" in which God complains that Jews are paying lip service to piety, while kicking sand in the face of their neighbors and other bad stuff. The rabbi thought we should volunteer in day care centers and do our civic duty. He may have a point there.

The Yiskor (remembrance) service was deeply moving, as always, for those of us who have lost dear ones. I especially remember my mother, of course. But I also think of her two brothers, my uncles. And my grandparents, her parents. But most poignant of all, my cousin Sam. He was the youngest of three siblings, and he never got his act together. He was devoted to his parents, and though he had several degrees including a law degree, he was never launched. His mother died when he was in his mid-fifties, too late for him to make a new start. So he lived in a big house, all by himself, with several cats. He became increasingly isolated. He had been friends with my brother, but for some reason, which was never explained, stopped seeing him. He skipped my brother's son's bar mitzvah which was rather shocking when you realize how my family felt about family occasions. He lived alone and died alone.

We went to visit his grave the last time I was in Columbus. You may know that it is a custom among Jews that when one visits a grave, one leaves a stone in remembrance. His grave was a veritable rock pile. Many of the stones had messages, the gist of which was, "from your girl, always." So maybe Sam had someone, after all. I hope so.

Swimming through grass

In London.

 

 

Yom Kippur thoughts

One of the Torah portions read on Rosh Hashonah deals with Hagar, Abraham's bondswoman, and their son, Ishmael.

After the birth of Isaac, Sarah demands that Abraham send the two of them away. So he gives Hagar some food and water and sends them out to the wilderness. They run out of water, and Hagar hides Ishmael behind a bush and goes away so she might not see her son die. It is very affecting to read about this mother's distress.

At the last minute, a well appears and Hagar is able to draw water and give it to the child, and he survives. Legend has it that he is the ancestor of the Arabs.

His descendants have been at our throats ever since then. Did God know what he was doing?

Sometimes I think it would have been easier if Ishmael had just, well, not survived.

It's an uncharitable thought. I guess I should repent for thinking this.

Just a thought for Yom Kippur.

Something new

 

 

This is the labyrinth at the back of the sculpture garden at the Delaware Art Museum. There is no sign leading you to it, but it's easy to find if you know where to look.

It's immense. The top photo shows how it looks from outside, the other is the interior view. It consists of an immense pit, surrounded by a wall faced with large, irregular stones. It puts you in mind of one of the ruins you find in Rome. These pictures don't do it justice, it looks ancient and timeless. And very hushed. You have the illusion of being in some isolated rural spot, miles from anywhere.

There are a couple of rustic seats in the labyrinth, and I sat in one of them and savored the silence for a while.

How I spent my summer vacation

 

Sunset in Maui.

Is Belgium going down the tubes?

And if so, who cares?

Murtha's problem

Geosciblog asks: "Where did John Murtha go wrong?"

Why is he so hellbent on retreat in the face of people that want to kill as many Americans as possible? While in essence agreeing that there will be a bloodbath if we rapidly retreat from Iraq (as he wants), he is playing the artful dodger in denying Congress' responsibility for that bloodbath, according to this Moonbattery post and CNS News. Yeah, it's going to happen, but it won't be our fault. Power vacuums don't happen randomly. Putting on the old Teflon gloves to keep the blood off your hands. And if we haven't served in the military, in his mind, we are not allowed to criticize him or support President Bush's efforts.

That's OK Jack. Those common Iraqis that have been helping us are just "little brown people". It didn't matter to you that there were mass graves filled by Saddam Hussein before 2003 and apparently it won't bother you that there will be mass graves filled by Iran and/or Al Qaida after we retreat.

I can't read Murtha's mind, but I have a few thought on the matter: could it be that Murtha is seeking to divert attention from his corruption and dishonesty by taking the high moral ground and seeking peace--aka surrender.

By espousing liberal causes, you can cleanse yourself of sin. (Don't try this at home. It only works for Democrats.) You take "unpopular" stands, which proves you are a paragon of "virtue" and possess "moral courage." In truth, these high-minded ideas cost the believer nothing but store up virtue in moonbat heaven.

Take Ted Kennedy: He left Rosemary Kopechne to die a horrible death in order to save himself. A payoff here, a bribe there, and he's almost home free. All that remains is to salvage his reputation. He does this by advocating for liberal causes. They would be costly and likely ineffective, but it's not his money, and it proves how compassionate he is. I actually had this conversation:

Me: Ted Kennedy is a sleaze--look what he did to that poor girl.
Liberal friend: Yes, that was wrong, but he's done so much good on social issues.

P.S> This will not work for Larry Craig.

Your tax dollars at work

This happened in Albany, NY, a city in which I have done some time.

Three drug cops go out in a remote area of Albany county to harvest marijuana. Two out of three have guns. None have handcuffs.

No one is suppose to be there but they find a guy in a shack on the property. Since they don’t have handcuffs, they tie him up with his bootlaces.

He breaks free and starts to run, they tackle him, his dog starts biting one of the cops. The cop that doesn’t have a gun takes one of the other cops guns and shoots the dog twice.

The bullets pass through the dog striking the cop that is being bitten.

They call for assistance but because it is remote and no one can find where they are it takes almost an hour for help to arrive.

I bet those cops were Democrats, because they are the only ones who can get jobs with the county or city of Albany.

When we bought a house in Albany, our property taxes tripled. The only way we could get them reduced was by calling our Dem committeeman. He was hard to reach, as he was always attending a funeral, wedding or wake. He finally got them reduced, however. This particular politician came to a bad end, as he embezzled money from some widows' and orphans' trust funds.

Our local ward heeler used to come calling before elections to tell us who to vote for.

The corruption was so bad we were all perversely proud of it. For instance, the dead could vote. Isn't that amazing? You don't often find dead people who are so civic minded.

Caesar Rodney, Delaware signer of the Declaration of Independence

 

It's tough to take a bad picture at Longwood Gardens

 

Art made of Scotch tape

This is one of the things you find when you waste time surfing the web.

How I write

Some people write and re-write their posts, I know. They search for the mot juste and are not content until they find it. I don't do that, and it shows.

When I was writing for publication, I agonized over every word. Not now. I just want to get something out there, so people will keep visiting my blog in hopes of finding something new.

My fellow bloggers, what is your MO? Do you revise and polish your prose, or just let it rip?

I try to make sure the spelling is okay. I am a librarian, after all.

I don't want to hear another word about O J Simpson, dammit!

Let's acknowledge first thing that the man is a thorough-going rotter, a real nogoodnik.

The details don't interest me! I was livid when I turned on Fox News yesterday and instead of mellow Brit and the bunch, reporters were standing around with microphones like something was happening--it was not!

I don't want to hear another word about the man, unless you can report that he has been dipped in honey and deposited in an ant heap. That's the only OJ news I care to hear.

Twentieth century books I really, really liked*

Here's a partial list:

Pictures from an Institution, by Randall Jarrell. A roman de clef which skewers a lot of well-known intellectuals, like Mary McCarthy. Most of them are gone also, but their foibles live on in this irreverent look at academic life.

Lucky Jim, by Kingsley Amis. Also about academic life and its pretensions. The hapless hero gets himself into all sorts of sticky situations, some of which are laugh-out-loud funny.

Anglo-Saxon Attitudes, by Angus Wilson. A dysfunctional family--the wife insists on inviting her husband's mistress to family celebrations--and a scholarly hoax both unravel, with unexpected consequences.

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith. A sunshiny book, full of charm and great affection for Botswana and its citizens. Makes you want to book a trip there.

The Essence of the Thing, by Madeleine St. John. The story of a romantic break-up which devastates the heroine until her friends rescue her. Told largely in dialog, without a wrong or a wasted word.

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald--the ultimate romantic story. A man with an obsession and some rich, idle, bored people collide in the Roaring Twenties.

Morte d'Urban, by J. F. Powers. A story about a worldly but likeable priest in 1950's Minnesota, and how his life's journey plays out. Every line is funny, every character well-observed and three-dimensional, but there are somber overtones.

*This doesn't mean that they were great, only that I enjoyed them.

This is what happens when you read out-of-date magazines

In the March 2007 issue of Health magazine the following article appears:

California isn't waiting around for President Bush to do something about global warming. The state recently sued six U.S. and Japanese automakers, claiming carbon dioxide emissions from their vehicles are making global warming worse. The suit seeks cash compensation. It isn't likely to succeed, but maybe it'll shame car companies into developing eco-friendlier rides.

This is wrong and ignorant on so many levels I scarcely know where to begin. A few questions come immediately to mind, however:

If the suit isn't likely to succeed, why are they wasting the taxpayers' money on this? Or maybe they're not going to pay the lawyers? Or maybe they think blackmailing auto manufacturers gives them the moral high ground? Or maybe the inhabitants of the state of California have been inhaling too many exhaust fumes from buses and other forms of public transportation?

Or all of the above?

An immigration policy to be emulated

Unfortunately, it's the Swiss who have the policy.

Switzerland has Europe's toughest naturalisation laws. Foreigners must live for 12 years in a Swiss community before they can apply, and being born in Switzerland brings no right to citizenship.

Under the current system, foreigners apply through their local town or village.

They appear before a citizenship committee and answer questions about their desire to be Swiss. After that, they must often be approved by the entire voting community, in a secret ballot, or a show of hands. This practice, the report says, is particularly likely to be distorted by racial discrimination.

Hypocrite dies

Anita Roddick, anti-capitalist founder of the Body Shop:

[H]er philippics about the evils of global capitalism, profits and the world trading system sat rather oddly with her status as the leader of a highly profitable multinational corporation with nearly 2,000 outlets in 49 countries.

And what a bore she was.

Are you a good candidate for a thong?

Find out here.

A sweet new year to everyone

What I don't understand is why people say: Happy New Year to all my Jewish friends! Everyone should have a happy new year, not just Jews! Hey, here's a happy new year greeting for everyone, except possibly Osama bin Laden.

My father's will

My father's will is very much on his mind. On one occasion he took my brother and me out to dinner and handed us each a copy. We were to be executors.

A couple of days ago he informed me that I would be sole executor, because my brother, hotshot millionaire lawyer that he is, was too busy. So I read the damn thing.

My father has three children, eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Thirteen heirs, to be exact. Although he has sliced and diced his estate several different ways, essentially it would be a thirteen-way split. Then there's my stepmother, who gets his condo for as long as she lives.

The other thing he has is not much money. Not much divided by 13, subtract the condo, is very not much. So every one of his heirs and assigns would receive the price of a round-trip ticket from Newark NJ to Newark DE. Or maybe a little farther. Possibly they could make it to Maryland and back.

I just know that some day this is going to bite me in the butt. Money stuff always makes people crazy.

News you've never heard

Illegal digging at the Temple Mount.

The Temple Mount is back in the news. Or rather isn’t back in the news. An on-going Wakf illegal excavation on the Temple Mount is being ignored by mainstream media, even though a few months ago, an Israeli fully supervised excavation outside the Temple Mount that caused no destruction created an international uproar.

Saving the planet

by eating garbage.

NEW YORK -- For lunch in her modest apartment, Madeline Nelson tossed a salad made with shaved carrots and lettuce she dug out of a Whole Foods dumpster. She flavored the dressing with miso powder she found in a trash bag on a curb in Chinatown. She baked bread made with yeast plucked from the garbage of a Middle Eastern grocery store.

Nelson is a former corporate executive who can afford to dine at four-star restaurants. But she prefers turning garbage into gourmet meals without spending a cent.

Why does this sanctimonious prattle make me so angry? I guess I was ahead of my time. When I was a small child--6 or 7--a friend and I took some perfectly good sandwiches out of the family garbage can and ate them. Instead of being hailed as a pioneer, I was put to bed early! There was no justice, back in the twentieth century.

And they didn't even make me sick--unlike this article, which has a high eeuw! factor.

Ht to classical values.

"Nothing of any relevance"

The above is a quote from my 15-year-old niece, when I asked her what she was studying in school. It truly was a lame question, typical of inane questions by addled elderly relatives who want to express an interest in a young person but don't know what to say.

That being said, it is amazing how well her answer fits almost every question one is likely to encounter. I often find it springing into my mind.

"What did the committee decide?"
"Nothing of any relevance."
"Anything on the news?"
"Nothing of any relevance."
"What has Congress done lately?" You get the picture.

America attacked

How can anyone forget?

How to get more troops

According to reports I have read, Gen Petraeus believes we just don't have enough troops to keep up the good work in Iraq for very long.

Excuse me, there are 300 million Americans. We can't rustle up enough soldiers?

I believe we have two problems here.

1. Too few troops;

2. Too many illegal--no, make that undocumented (too harsh)--how about unexpected--aliens (aka citizens in training)

Let's put the two together and see what we come up with.

Suppose we station army recruiters at the borders with clipboards to sign up the new visitors. Those who want to serve could come in, the others not.

Teach our officers to say "attack" and "fire" in Spanish. Also, some cusswords.

The truth about immigration

...ideas so controversial they are banned in Canada.

It’s not just illegal immigration that’s out of control. It’s legal immigration across the Western world that’s dysfunctional. It doesn’t have to reach the level of criminality or terrorism to be unbearable.

When I go to McDonalds, I don't want my order to be met with a blank stare, even as I point exasperatingly at the menu board above your head to illustrate my selection.

And when I request "extra caesar dressing" for my salad, I don't want that interpreted as "no dressing at all, but lots of ketchup".

[]

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani recently said in an interview on FOX News’ O’Reilly Factor that he’d insist that every new immigrant be able to speak, read, and write English. In other words, if you don’t know how, then go home, order some Hooked On Phonics tapes, and try again later.

Australia has the right idea. Under their immigration policy, only those who fit with Western cultural ideals are allowed in--because living in cultural ghettos isn’t acceptable. No one in your new country is interested in sampling a microcosmic version of the hellhole you left. Meanwhile, in Canada, while the UK, for example, was the primary supplier of immigrants before 1986, it now doesn’t even rank in the top 10 – lagging behind suppliers like Pakistan, Iran, India and China.



According to a Citizenship and Immigration Canada report, “one in five very recent immigrants is Muslim”. Did we welcome a flood of immigrants from Germany when we were at war with Nazis during WWII? No, we didn’t. How about coming to an acceptable consensus on the meaning of the word “peace” first, and then getting back to us.

To which I can only add, "Amen."

Remember when models used to be gorgeous?

Some samples of ugly, unwearable clothes.






elegance.

Non-Nigerian junk mail

I keep getting this message:

Good day. What are you up to? Email me at xjkqy@OnsetIng.info only. I am good looking girl. Mind me sending some of my pictures to you?
says the report, that I have been release Monday It is clear that

What it all means, knows God. Is this person being released from the loony bin? Or what? The sheer pointlessness of it gets me. Not even asking me to invest in your gold mine? I am insulted!

PS: I don't need any pictures of good looking girl. Or ugly girl. Thank you very much.