Dip your fevered mind and wearied limbs into the healing waters.
If you enjoyed your pilgrimage to the well, hit the collection plate!
Book on the Non-Forbidden Index
And Furthermore....
...and yet more.
Music of the Spheres
More Music, Different Sphere
BUY SOMETHING !!
Monday, November 16, 2009
FOOTNOTE to last couple of posts:
In case y'all forgot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has proudly admitted to being the beheadsman of Daniel Pearl a couple of wars back.
Interestingly, Pearl's family has some objections to the judicial farce just announced by the Attorney General. Ya think?
'My name is Daniel Pearl... I'm a Jewish American.'
Case closed, apparently.
Lest we forget.
Yes, Your Majesty, no, Your Majesty Tell us how low to go, Your Majesty Make some more decrees, Your Majesty Give us a kick if it please Your Majesty Give us a kick if you would, Your Majesty --
Oh, that was GOOD,
YOUR
MAJESTY
President Ob[sequious]ama has followed up his non-stop verbal grovelpaloozas and periodic physical kow-tows with the latest instalment, Japanese model. Guess he was trying to make up to Emperor Akihito for all that humiliation suffered by his father Hirohito when he signed off on Japan's surrender to Douglas McArthur. Oh wait -- that never happened... Never mind.
Responding to Mr. Obama's reflexive desire to be the consummate internationalist, the College Republicans of University of Connecticut do a quickie historical review of how the leadership of the rest of the family of nations manages to keep its dignity in the face of the towering authority of the lil' emperor.
What we have here, ladies and germs, is a child, dancing in the world of make-believe -- if he could, he would wear an exotic costume and pretend to be anything other than what he is, in a perpetual Halloween fantasy.
Or, in a more substantial tradition, we have elected him to be the Boy Bishop, the Lord of Misrule, who in medieval times was a peasant child raised to artificial authority and permitted to remake the rules, as a festive game. It was a release valve within a highly structured society, and everybody had a good time. But the much-maligned medievals were smarter than us -- the Boy Bishop had sway for only a day or, at most, the Christmas season; and he misruled nothing more than a household or, at best, a diocese. And he knew the rules of the game. He did not try to enshrine heresy, or legalize felonious acts. He was a temporary Robin Hood who indulged his neighbours in a brief spell of treats and loosened tongues, tempered by some genuine religious duties to lead the people in prayer.
The medievals (and some of the 'Renaissanciers', at least in Spain) had another good idea about those in high office: the need for a court jesterwith full,unparalleled license to take them down a peg and remind them of their fallibility. Mr. Obama, not surprisingly, has appointed no Jester Czar to provide periodic jolts of human reality into The One's crystal palace of hubris. Too bad -- he'd be a busier fool than King Lear's. Poor Yorrick, etc.
There's at least one possible explanation as to why the President keeps abasing himself before foreign rulers: it's his veiled way of mooning his fellow Americans.
I broke into the blogosphere in 2003, via a letter to andrew sullivan (made me a minor celebrity in my family for a week) Call it my bio: My grandfather came to the US from Greece around 1905, alone, age 10, sailing into New York Harbor and entering at Ellis Island, like the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather. Before settling down he spent a couple of his teen-age years "hobo-ing" around the country. He insisted to me that a hobo is not a bum. He looks for honest work to earn his food and a place to sleep - he is NOT looking for a hand-out... When you (Sullivan) used the word "hobo" to describe Saddam Hussein in his spider hole, I thought "Saddam should be so lucky as to be a hobo--he could wish for so much dignity." My grandfather finished third grade, and spent his life as a railroad mechanic. He raised four sons, three of them old enough for WWII. The four earned two M.A.'s and two Ph.D.'s, and produced 15 accomplished grandchildren. Among the many great-grandchildren are two Naval officers and a Marine Corps Captain...the legacy of a hobo. Saddam, master of the palaces and father of the lion-cubs, is just a bum.
re substantial tradition, we have elected him to be the Boy Bishop, the Lord of Misrule, who in medieval times was a peasant child raised to artificial authority and permitted to remake the rules, as a festive game. It was a release valve within a highly structured society, and everybody had a good time. But the much-maligned medievals were smarter than us -- the Boy Bishop had sway for only a day or, at most, the Christmas season; and he misruled nothing more than a household or, at best, a diocese. And he knew the rules of the game. He did not try to enshrine heresy, or legalize felonious acts. He was a temporary Robin Hood who indulged his neighbours in a brief spell of treats and loosened tongues, tempered by some genuine religious duties to lead the people in prayer. 
n) had another good idea about those in high office: the need for a court jester with full, unparalleled license to take them down a peg and remind them of their fallibility. Mr. Obama, not surprisingly, has appointed no Jester Czar to provide periodic jolts of human reality into The One's crystal palace of hubris. Too bad -- he'd be a busier fool than King Lear's. Poor Yorrick, etc.
