Once we had the MAMAS AND THE PAPAS,
the MOTHERS OF INVENTION,
PAPA JOHN CREECH....

Welcome to the FOUNDING FATHERS
music video!

hat-tip to American Thinker

Enjoy.



Nota Bene: my prolonged blogging absences are due to my up-to-the eyeballs involvement in THIS (click pic):


It's the University of Toronto 2010 presentation of the complete Chester Cycle Mystery Plays, May 22-24. So we've got a few weeks. So it's not yet time to

PANIC!

"Embolden our enemies. Undermine our allies. Diminish our country."

Reagan Administration Dep.Asst.Sec-Def Frank Gaffney calls it: this is the Obama Doctrine.

The "embolden and "undermine" elements, one could argue, are not deliberate on Obama's part, but there is no question that the "diminish" element is precisely what he thinks the United States of America needs and deserves, and he has been out to make it happen from the moment he threw his kaffiya into the ring. Gaffney does a compact analysis of the global implications of the Obama "reset" strategy with Russia, and if you're not shuddering by the end of it, you're not paying attention.

Ronald Reagan was some people's idea of "a dangerous man" (as a friend of mine from California once characterized him early in his presidency). But, as we now know, we were never safer.

Gaffney nails it. With our new "danger man", we haven't been this unsafe since the Cuban missile crisis. Mr. Obama wants us to think he's a J. Pierpont Finch, but sorry, this time I'm with the Suits: we gotta stop that man.




[Actually, now that I think of it, J. Pierpont Finch was a flattering, calculating, disingenuous climber who went from the mailroom to the executive suite by halfway through Act One. An apt comparison after all.]

JOKE:

A NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICIAL GOES INTO A BAR AND ASKS,

"HEY! HOW MUCH COVERAGE DO YOU THINK THIS WOULD GET IF MY PRESIDENT WAS A REPUBLICAN?"

A truly disturbing moment from the unfortunately-named General Jim Jones. I'm with the Marine who writes in the comments, "General you need to honor the Marine Corps by resigning immediately."

P.S., General: Your President is a joke too -- more and more every day. Remember 2004? -- when he told the Democratic convention

Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America.

But today, this post-partisan post-racial President lays his race-cards on the table in a pathetic plea for votes this coming Remember-November.

What a towering figure in American history:



This is a man so small, he's a perfect fit for the fine print at the bottom of the page.

NOT DEAD, JUST BUSY AND AWOL, part deux

OREGON, MY OREGON

I still remember the State Song, learned at age 7, though I haven't been there in about 35 years.

First verse:

Land of the Empire Builders, land of the Golden West
Conquered and held by free men, fairest and the best
Onward and upward ever, forward and on and on
Hail to thee, land of heroes, my Oregon.

Fairest, best, golden, free, heroes. Nice work.

My personal favorite from Sarah Palin's recent trip to Eugene, home of the University of Oregon:

Heh.

And who could forget that earlier Golden Oregon moment, at a Portland anti-war[Bush] rally.

I call it "The Peace Movement."

REMEMBER -- MAY 20 is "EVERYBODY DRAW MOHAMMAD DAY"

A tribute to the Fatwa of Death proclaimed upon the lives of South Park cartoonists Parker and Stone. I've got a few ideas.......

This whole phenomenon of inter-religious bigotry and hatred has brought me to tears.

No, wait. It's the F#$@-ing pollen.




I wish all the trees would just eschew the Public Display of Affection.



Eschew.


Gesundheit.

SOMETIMES YOU JUST HAVE TO STAND BACK,
AND LET EVENTS UNFOLD.

[posting date approximate -- small Blogger meltdown]

As my old Dad used to say....

WHAT COMES AFTER 75?

'76!
THAT'S THE SPIRIT!





HILARIOUS

While vast swathes of the left have proved themselves blindly vicious when protesting en masse,





















or when confronting their opponents in little clumps, occasionally beating the living snot out of them, the spirit of the new American Tea-Party retains the sense of humor you KNEW was going to save the day ever since November 2000 when they came up with

When the desperate left showed its hand by publicly recruiting tea-party crashers, the patriots were ready and came out swinging -- that is to say, came out prepared to merely point out the obvious, and let the hilarity ensue.

They did exactly the right thing, and, as is clear once again from the one-off home-made signs [not the Soros-funded mass-produced slick graphics]

nobody had to orchestrate their response and feed them their lines. Gotta love these people.

He who laughs last, laughs best.

He who laughs in the face of anger and duplicity, takes the high ground.




Oh, I forgot -- people on the left have been known to do their own home-made signs too:

NOT DEAD -- JUST BUSY AND AWOL

The Anchoress will speak for me, with observations on the sight of Saul Obamsky, Destroyer of Economies, poking his digit at Canadian PM Stephen Harper, the one leader in the Western world whose government has boringly shepherded their country through the world's recent fiscal crises with a remarkably steady hand, as we watch the Canadian dollar creeping up to par, and our Maple Leafy investments looking more promising than the their near neighbours.

You tell him how to do it, Mr. President.


The Anchoress speaks to this crisis too, and I have my say at comment #5.

TWO RUMORS:

President Obama's speech to the troops in Afghanistan:

GREAT ~ EFFECTIVE ~ COMMANDER-IN-CHIEFLY

[or was it....]

AWFUL

Instapundit told me that the speech was being praised at National Review Online, which was, er, at odds with what I had heard. So I watched the five-minute video version (limp) and then went in deeper search for the full twenty-minute monty, and made my assessment to the delightful but misinformed Kathryn Jean Lopez. Here's my letter:

Let me preface my remarks by saying that I am a double military mom, with one in the Marines (veteran of two Iraq tours) and one in the Navy (NFO training on F-18's); and my sister has one in the Navy, currently deployed on Individual Augmentation in Khost, Afghanistan. I first caught a ten-second cut of the President's speech to the troops and found it lacklustre, but my sister had seen the whole thing and gave me her take on it: AWFUL. So I looked for the video: there's the 5-minutes of edited highlights, again lacklustre, but also a distorted fraction of the full 20-minute performance.

The fact that it was 20 minutes says a lot -- that's about 12 minutes too long for cheering up the troops, and they responded as could be expected, with prolonged, deafening silence through most of it. But 20 minutes did give the President ample time to say the word "I" fifty-one times, plus variations of "me" and "my". It also allowed for seemingly endless and, in that context, weirdly extraneous references to all the civilians and politicians and members of every army not in the room, hard at work on the only aspect of the campaign that Mr. Obama appears to relate to, "international relations". Because, believe me, he does NOT relate to the troops.

It's hard to decide what was worse: was it the repeated (albeit more subtle than usual) slaps at Bush's "war of choice" in Iraq, through characterizations of this war that Mr. Obama has now chosen to adopt as his own being one with a "clear mission and the right strategy...and the equipment you need"; where America's institutions will not fail its military and we won't be "meddling in other people's business" [yeah, that happens a lot]? Or was it all the references to the "suffering...on your second or your third or your fourth tour of duty"? -- all the while oblivious to the fact that some of those in the room on their fourth tour of duty spent their earlier ones in that pointless, meddling war of choice in Iraq -- sucks to be you, guys.

No, I think the worst part was his litany of images borrowed from Tokyo Rose. I really want my kid to be sitting in a hall on the other side of the world, surrounded by evil men with bombs, listening to his president drone on about PTSD, traumatic brain injury, fighting to stand or walk again, flag-draped coffins, headstones, and a deceased comrade whose parents just received the (incorrectly named) "Medal of Honor" -- to say nothing of how much I miss my wife and children. Ooh-rah!

Robbed of his teleprompter, the President was forced to head-bob towards his text on the podium, which he did with reasonable success, but increasingly, as the minutes wore on, without heart and sometimes without sense -- his delivery broke up in strange places, and words written for emphasis got lost (though the "Tahleebahn" and "Pahkeestahn" got their customary careful enunciation). By minute 18 he looked bored.

Maybe you just have to be a military parent, mindful of how carefully you speak to your kid just before deployment, or when he or she gets to a war zone phone, or how carefully you write emails, letters, and Facebook shout-outs, always on full mental alert to sound confident and encouraging without being a Pollyanna, editing your accounts of spending time with his family back home, wondering just how many videos of his little boy at the beach or his birthday party to put on that flashdrive you're sending to Iraq, or how much to talk about that kid he graduated with whose helicopter crashed in Afghanistan and whose name is now on the college monument and his football number retired.

There has been much long-distance psychoanalysis of Mr. Obama, even by licensed professionals who have never met him, and I don't approve of that. But from my seat in the amateur section, having waved goodbye to my kid a couple of times now before his imminent deployment to Anbar, I feel more than qualified to declare that President Obama has a breathtaking empathy deficit. Additional criticisms are easy to make, based on his clear record of personal alienation from the American project, and continuing adolescent romance with the failed Socialist (hell, let's call it Communist) project. He is, as Rush has wisely put it, the least experienced and least qualified person in any room he walks into these days. That accounts for some of it. But the rank obtuseness of his speech to the troops last week is one for the books.

Looking ridiculous in his flight costume, more Club Monaco "blouson" than Bomber Command, he could not have drawn a more stark contrast between himself and that bungling Chimpy McBushHitler who had the troops shouting the roof off in Baghdad a few years ago, speaking briefly and from the heart, and giving so much heart where it was needed.

Sorry, K-Lo -- Mr. Obama looked like something, but Commander-in-Chief it was not.

Down the memory hole:

GOD BLESS THE PRO-LIFE DEMOCRATS WHO STOOD FIRM

The Stupak-pack flip made the difference --
without him and two allies,
THEY DIDN'T HAVE THE VOTES.

BART STUPAK, HEAD FOR THE SHOWERS, START WORKING ON YOUR GOLF GAME, FIND A FRIED EGG TO BE YOUR FRIEND, 'CUZ YOU ARE TOAST

Start going through the couch for loose change, America, to fund the Congressional campaign of Dan Benishek to unseat Stupak in Michigan's 1st District in November.

He Facebooks here. No donation link yet (who knew?) but he's got an address, and the checks are flying into the mail.

However, I gotta admit I'm feeling pretty good about the American people and their unwillingness to buckle under the withering contempt of their elected representatives. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, this whole ugly process has been recorded for history, and more of the folks in flyover country are better informed than they have been in generations. The fat lady ain't sung yet. And the tight-faced lady better enjoy her triumph while she can, because the pitchforks are being honed.

No Democrat with two functioning brain cells can believe that their party will not get spanked for what they have done, in the face of the clear opposition of a substantial majority of the American people. Their willingness to commit seppuku on this issue demonstrates that the party is largely constituted of hardened leftist ideologues, and served by a leadership so secure in its incumbency that it doesn't give a flying fig-newton what happens to their fellows who have to face real elections back home.

I believe they are true believers in what they have just done -- that they are so deeply and willfully ignorant of basic economics, they think all their tricks and gimmicks might actually work. [They've been sneaky about them, especially with the CBO, because to be honest is to invite the scrutiny and interference of the fools back in the constiuency -- so tiresome.] They genuinely do not see that the United States has now taken the first step down the road to being a vassal of the Chinese Communist government. What they believe instead, and desire with all their hearts, is that this massive overhaul will be paid for by "the rich", individually and corporately, thereby eliminating the existence of the rich and of the corporate entity -- a consummation devoutly to be wished. [Also, of course, a recipe for becoming a vassal of the Chinese government.]

Oh, and it will also be paid for by the decimation of the American military, thereby eliminating America's role in policing the world's fascist maniacs -- added bonus.

The President is just now shoveling the self-congratulatory sh#t so fast [about how this vote is a victory for the little people whose voice has been heard] I just have to duck. Why is he still campaigning???? Stop! Stop! STOP!!!!!!

"This is what change looks like," he just said. Remember that, folks. It's the first genuine truth he has uttered this evening.

[Michael Ramirez again -- an oldie (last July) but a goodie.]

Update on the updated update: STUPAK CAVES
LET ONE HUNDRED FLOWERS BLOOM

Update on the update: Stupak still a no?

In times of fear and crisis, change your FIRST THINGS blog consultation from GATEWAY PUNDIT to

THE ANCHORESS

She has a way of distilling not just what's important among the issues, but what's the most important thing to be quietly praying for between clenched teeth. Pay heed, and your teeth might loosen up.

[While you're at it, pray for Bart Stupak and all the pro-life Democrats -- they need the courage of conviction right about now, since they are undergoing the modern-day political equivalent of La Peine forte et dure at the hands of Speakress of the Chambre d'horreurs Madame Tussaud.]


UPDATE: apparently the pile-on strategy still works (as it did so often in centuries past). "Pro-life" Democrat Bart Stupak has caved. He needs prayers now more than ever, I guess.

Meanwhile, Pelosi stands out side the Chamber, with an ENORMOUS gavel -- she's so obtuse that she doesn't see the symbolism invested in a giant instrument with which to hammer the peasants into submission. Will get that picture up as soon as it's available.


First hat-tip item: the work of military chaplains in Afghanistan, from the Sacramento Bee. A post to truly inspire.



Next hat-tip, a surprisingly informative 90-second version of how the American House of Reprehensibles came to be voting on health care today [talk about your "servile work on the Sabbath!]:



Heh.

Sob.

Thanks again, and a tip of the chapeau to the Anchoress, aptly-named Island of Calm in a Turbulent Sea as Lily-Agnes used to say.

TOO BUSY TO BLOG,

BUT SOMETIMES THERE'S NO POINT

Not when there's a guy who can say it better, faster.

Michael Ramirez strikes again. And again. And again.

And my personal favorite.........

You gotta laugh or you'll cry.

And you gotta hand it to Ramirez, for his handling of matters so absurd that they are almost beyond satire.

Memo to Hollywood: not sure that Hope actually floats.

TOO BUSY TO BLOG
GIANT PILE OF BLOGGERY IN THE IN-BASKET

Meanwhile.... the Oscars go to....

THE HURT LOCKER

I've been very confused since last Sunday.
Let me see if I have this right.


Dateline: Hollywood

Republican President: War = BAD.

Democrat President: War = GOOD.

Matt Damon's latest film =
biggest miscalculation of his so far stellar career, destined to be a GI-NORMOUS FLOPPOLA, like all the rest of the "We support our troops, but not their mission because they are homicidal animals, idiots, dupes, rapists, knuckle-dragging troglodytes" movies of the past several years.

War = SO EASY A CAVEMAN COULD DO IT.

Timing is everything, little Mattie. For eight years Hollywood and its leftist mentors were convinced that only one man was fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan [all personnel other than the President were just a faceless mass of non-persons] and they therefore wanted total defeat for him. Now Private Bush has come home and mustered out, and maybe those folks in camouflage aren't so confoundedly evil after all.

So now, under the New Regime of Barack Obama, war president, we keep our screaming, obscenity-laced pacifism to ourselves, don't we Tinsel Town? Yet, despite the resounding abject failure of every anti-American, military-loathing film cranked out since "Mission Accomplished", little Mattie follows the siren song of Zinn-inspired Amerikka hatred, and stakes his present stature on the biggest bugger-the-U.S. movie of all time, The Green Zone. Good move, junior. Take one for the Hollywood team.

Update: Now class, let's review:

Passion of the Christ -- opening weekend $84 million (2004 dollars) from 3000 theatres -- budget $30 million

Avatar -- opening weekend $77 million (2010 dollars) from 3500 theatres

Green Zone -- opening weekend $14.5 million from 3000 theatres -- budget $100 million

John Hinderaker at PowerLine tackles the musical question, "Does Hollywood make you stupid?" and provides a powerful sheaf of evidence for a big ol' "YES" by quoting the increasingly strident and incoherent Tom Hanks, on the subject of his new docu-drama on the War in the Pacific, a subject about which he clearly knows absolutely nothing.


ON COMPETING CHANNELS TONIGHT:

(1) Eastern Promises, dark movie about the Russian mob slithering around the dark underbelly of present-day London, directed by Canadian ghoul David Cronenberg, and featuring one of his favourite cinematic motifs, naked Viggo, as well as what Daily Mail critic Christopher Tookey calls "a kind of character virtually unknown in the Cronenberg canon: a good person."


(2) The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, funny old movie from the Cold War days (1966) about a Russian submarine accidentally grounded near Cape Cod, directed by Canadian Norman Jewison, who has a sense of humour, and got hilarious work out of Carl Reiner and Alan Arkin.

Unforgettable quote: "Eemehrrrgency, eemehrrrgency!!! Everyboddy to get from street!!"

Heh.

BEST. OLYMPIC. HOCKEY. EVER.

Thank you, Team U.S.A. , for not making it easy.


And now, as the flame is extinguished, Canada's greatest living dust bunny, Neil Young, looking like a porky gaucho, sings Long May You Run, which has about four lines relevant to the events of the evening, and the rest of them a bunch of stuck-in-the-sixties blather, but, hey, it's better than that ungrammatical Believe anthem, eh?

OMG, it's the dancing Mounties! The less said about the "I am Canadian" segment the better. It was all going so well until now..... Actually, I kind of like the giant beavers and flying moose, with their happy lumberjacks and voyageurs. But where's the beer?

Anyway, he shoots, he scores.

Over the past two weeks, Canadians have experienced what may be their first wave of raw patriotism since Trudeaupian post-war deconstruction sucked away the nation's heart and soul. And that is not a bad thing.

And how unexpected that it was all summed up in a rehabilitation of the long-abandoned politically incorrect anthem The Maple Leaf Forever (new words, but it's a start).

BACK HOME AGAIN

Sing-along La Mancha car karaoke proceeding splendidly: while bellowing away in the voice of Aldonza (I do them all, you know), I got slightly light-headed and ran a red light. Fortunately it was long after dark and the streets were coated in today's three inches of slushy white Global Warming, so nobody was around to see me or catch me (or be harmed by my negligence).



FAIR IS FOUL, AND FOUL IS FAIR

Speaking of the fairy-tale world of Climate Change, Instapundit alerts us to this little item by Claudia Rosett among the Pajama people, regarding the UN eco-pimps who will be jetting to the tropics by the hundreds, to get hammered hammer out carbon footprint remedies, or some such bunkum. To the folks who put the "hip" in "hypocrite", Glenn Reynolds says

I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ANY MORE ABOUT MY CARBON FOOTPRINT when U.N. “climate change” commissars are meeting on Bali — again.

[Rosett]“Yet again, we are asked to believe the UN deserves special exemptions from its own preachings. Its conferees are jetting to Bali for the greater good of all the little folk, whose job is merely to pay the bills for such pleasures, and live with any resulting rationing and regulation. According to the Jakarta Post, some 1,500 people from 192 countries are expected to attend this shindig — where UNEP claims that envoys of some 140 governments will be present.”

Somebody tell these people about Skype.

It continues to be just so weird that the whole universe of fat-cats and bigwigs appears wedded to the delusion that nobody's paying attention.

Hello-o-o.


COMMON SENSE FROM SOMEONE NAMED "MARX"
AT THE VILLAGE VOICE !

Even the cradle of the Beats has learned to recognize overbearing nanny (literally) statism when it rears its ugly little mob-capped head. Enjoy the response to latest research-based excretions from the American Academy of Pediatrics, who have so much time on their hands they can't think of anything more useful to do than to advocate the complete re-design of the all-American tube-steak, which has been deemed a choking hazard due to its elongated shape.

Rebecca Marx has this radical piece of advice:

"It's hard to think of how one would redesign a hot dog to be choke-proof, aside from selling it pre-chewed, but here's a novel idea: Perhaps parents could take it upon themselves to cut them up into small, bite-sized pieces before serving them to their kids. But why settle for common sense and personal responsibility when you can get a government agency or two to pick up the slack instead?"

Put a fork in that idea -- it's done.

LOOSE ENDS,
AS WE LEAVE SANDY-EGGO

a) I guess I got my answer as to whether Yevgeni Plushenko's "I'm-too-sexy-for-my-shirt" aura was real or just part of the performance: he's been spewing sour grapes about his second-place finish, as if the execution of a quadruple jump is the sine qua non of a first-place finish. Bollocks, borscht-boy.

You didn't have the "it" that night (and certainly not for the short program either-- blech). Evan Lysacek had the "it": that indefinable quality that courses through your veins and tells you it is your night.

Brian Boitano had it the night he be beat Brian Orser in '88 (sigh)-- Canadians wanted it not to be so, but when you watched Boitano skate you knew what a winner looked like.

Go suck a lemon, Goldilocks -- don't want to hear from you.


b) I was entirely right in my prediction that I'd walk into the local Borders and find my copy of the original Broadway cast recording of Man of La Mancha.

[Barnes & Noble had a "new Broadway cast" version featuring a bunch of people I never heard of. Uh, I think not.]

At last.


c) While surfing around the bio's of long-ago Bard buddies, I neglected to note that Powers Boothe is also one of those rare Hollywood birds with a 40th wedding anniversary and a coupla kids to his credit.

Kudos, Dudos.

I'm just feelin' the warmth.




d) Farewell to So-Cal, where it's been sunny and clear and frighteningly comfortable. Astonishing views all round us, and this just down the road:


I could get to enjoy this -- even for extended periods. But not all year, every year. No changing seasons is bad for the soul.

Sign at the lovely ravine inside the neighbourhood compound, where my grandson rode his trike today: "BEWARE -- FIRE HAZARD, POISON OAK, RATTLE SNAKES."

...and that's just the state government...

Rim shot.

IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD

My rumbly tumbly seems to have righted itself in time for us to have fun in the sun [my pasty-white-from-Canada self actually got some colour!] on the good ship Hornblower Adventure, off to sea whales and other beasts.

One whale, to be precise, but quite the performer-- kept our attention for half-an-hour or so. Dolphins, on the other hand, numbered in the hundreds, visible -- meaning there could have been a thousand taking turns coming up for air.

Great miracles of nature, all witnessed with patience and wonder by the wide blue eyes of our little 3-year-old companion, whom it is our pleasure to spoil.


RANDOM BITS OF NADA

Best Headline of the Month:
People Magazine, February 10

Celine Dion:
MY PRIVATE HEARTBREAK

PRIVATE?

Celine puts her feet up in the tabloid stirrups again to give us all a stolen glimpse of her inner torment and her medical charts, with the blow by blow history of her quest for fertility.

Next time you're in Vegas, drop in on the show and give her that standing Ovum. She'll return the favour by giving you a free ear-piercing.

This is not a remedy for infertility, Celine, or even an old wives' tonic for any ailment that I know of, but here's my two-cents' worth of advice, Madame: put a sock in it.


VANCOUVER OLYMPICS
Dept. of Poofters-on-Ice

Worst kept secret of the games?
Newsflash!! For the short program, Plushenko's going with basic black and a string of sparklies, plus dainty black gloves. Pass it on.

So one after another, male skaters hit the ice sporting some variation of the very same (including the inexplicable pinky-poo tassle on Johnny Whatsit). By contrast, this Italian hillbilly was a huge relief.

Day 2: we're not even into the final group, and I've seen one matador with gloves -- at least his bolero area was red. It was a beautiful costume, actually -- on Kozuka of Japan, if I'm not mistaken.

I know, I know -- they all skate the same routines throughout the Olympic prep competitions, and wear the same costumes. But somebody, somewhere along the line, started the glove thing, and everybody followed. My money's on Yevgeny.

And here they are at last!
Plushenko: full black suit with a rhinestone tie and weskit -- and gloves.
Johnny: black and dove grey, with sparklies, and gloves (white).
The lanky Evan Lysacek: all black with sparkly snaky thing, but sporting his own hands.

As I write this, I'm watching the final round on time delay, so in fact I already know that Lysacek did the deed. I couldn't be happier for him, because a) he seems like a very natural person, not a pretty boy but a thing of grace and beauty to watch, due in large part to his great height. Yeah, so is Plushenko, if you like that sort of imperious flash. I found his short program irritating (unattractive choreography, unsuited to the music), and his I'm-too-sexy-for-my-shirt persona equally so.

But b) mostly I want to see Plushenko nudged aside because he puts me too much in mind of his Russian predecessor who in 1998 combined his fluffy hair with his fluffy shirt to ROB Canada's Elvis Stojko of the gold, even though he was wearing some ice on his ass. Elvis was all man, in leather and studs -- the Russian (Kulik) all Romeo shirt and angst. Seduced the judges, but not me.

Plushenko's probably a perfectly nice fella. I am unmoved.

Evan Lysacek says, "Enough of all that jazz." Dump the black, and paint it red, white, and blue. First time in 22 years!

Mm-mm-mm.


As a footnote to this: I'm happy and all that when an American wins a medal, but the truth is that after 38 years in Canada, one of the few loyalties I have developed for Maple Syrup Country is a genuine desire to see Canada on the podium, especially in hockey and skating, but most other sports too. And on the whole, I would rather watch Canadian coverage of the Olympics than American any day of the week -- the "personal story" disease has sneaked in over recent years, I'm sorry to say, but the coverage otherwise remains a very respectable show, with more objective and informed analysis of just about everything, and a decided lack of schmalz.

On to hockey victory, eh?

WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU,
MONTEZUMA?

Nothing, as far as I know. But he's still been getting his revenge on me for three days now. At first I thought it might just be 12 hours of airline abuse combined with a more than 40-degree (F'heit) temperature change and a pitcher of margaritas. But I've come to the conclusions that it really is some nasty virus that put the hex on me the minute I landed in San Diego .

However, still having lots of fun with Grandson, which will include a whale-watching excursion tomorrow a.m., so must dash. Will detail my encounter with Air Canada later. Who knows, maybe after we return home there will be yet another ugly episode to relate!

Meanwhile, San Diego is warm and clear-skied and lush from a long, lone rain some weeks back. It's February, Toronto, and we were lolling on the beach in a hot sun and a cool breeze -- where the spousal unit was heard to utter one of his more memorable Canadian queries: "Are all these tattoos I keep seeing on everybody permanent?" Yes, dear -- even the two-year-olds.

Wow. I even had to shave my legs before the scheduled spring harvest in May. Don't think I could ever get used to this lifestyle.....

AS HUCK WAILED TO HIS CONSCIENCE,
"EASE UP ON ME, WILL YA!"

It's all La Mancha, all the time

Having veered into my mad little memory excursion, as described in the previous post, I had well and truly answered my "What ever happened to....?" question about Paul Myrvold to my complete satisfaction. (And had enjoyed the spin-off excursions into "Whatever happened to Bob Lowry and Tim Monich?", the other two Hargadine St. musketeers (with Ron Lagomarsino) in a memorable Shakespearean troika during that long ago pre-professional summer, one we shared with a talented unknown college-boy named Powers Boothe (the e-e-e-v-i-l-l-l one -- a man, if ever there was one, born to wear a black hat.)

Heady days, my friends.

Okay, so I'm minding my own business strolling down memory lane. A critique here, an interview there, and I'm quite prepared to accept that, having played him six (seven? nine?) times since he was a callow youth, Paul Myrvold simply is the Knight of the Woeful Countenance, the ur-Quixote, scourge of windmills everywhere (even Cape Cod?), and I wish him well of it.

So can I have my brain-pan back now? Can I reclaim my own cranium, wherein songs I haven't really thought about for 30 years are now ricocheting all over the place, every waking minute of my day? Can I hang up my Golden Helmet? Can I stop only thinking of HIM?

I didn't realize how well I knew these songs, though I've always posited that the number of show-tunes burnt into my gray matter accounts for the chronic shortage of memory cells to tell me why I made a trip upstairs and marched into my office to fetch......what?

Now the songs are re-emerging in torrents, albeit with gaps, slamming into bulkheads and boulders when some line or verse escapes me and I start singing around in circles.

This all came to a head yesterday, when I dove into the vinyl archives, where I SWEAR I had the album in the Broadway Musical section that spans a good eight inches of shelf space. Nada. Nothing for it but to head out and do an emergency music store run. Off to the nearest HMV -- I'm S.O.L. Then Sunrise Records -- not today, dear. Then Best Buy -- bupkus. The closest thing I turned up was the film soundtrack with Sophia Loren and Peter O'Toole (NOT doing the singing, I'm guessin'). Uh, I think not.

Sometimes the suburbs completely suck.

All plans for a rousing session of car Karaoke, and a window-shaking kitchen concert, all foiled, foiled! My only comfort is that tomorrow I depart for a week in San Diego, and shall no doubt be able to walk into the nearest Borders and find exactly what I need.

I need this album. 'Cause, man!, inside my head it's all La Mancha, all the time.

Curse you Paul Myrvold! And not just for lookin' good.

THIS 'N THAT,
'N RANDOM STUFF FROM ALL OVER

It's 1:20 p.m. and I'm still in my jammies and have all kinds of things to do (must buy new dishwasher), but I've been going off on some pretty entertaining tangents in the last couple of days to distract myself, and might as well report on them. But first:


PRIORITY ONE: BULLETIN FROM THE 'STANS

Nephew LT. E-BOY, USN, "friended" me this morning, so he can report in on the Facebook from Afghanistan, from whence he checked in today to say that he had arrived at Baghram Air Base, en route to his destination in [REDACTED] province to spend the better part of a year in re-construction work. ["re-"? Was there that much in Afghanistan that was ever "constructed"?]

Once upon a time it was "Hell no, we won't go!" But it's a new world out there in the younger generation. Lt. E-Boy spent 4 years at what may be the most tough and competitive college in the country, the U.S. Naval Academy, and then spent three months at a time cruising beneath the waves of the vast Pacific in a nuclear submarine. But he traded in the waves for the peaks and windswept valleys of Afghanistan, as a volunteer willing to go where sailors never go, and place himself in the kind of danger that's a little more immediate than a missile's distance from ship to target.

These kids today!

That's what they do. Where did we find them?


WEEKEND IN FLORIDA

Unlike the typical snowbirds from the north, we headed to the Gulf Coast to be part of the winging of #3 son, who is now a fully qualified Naval Aviator/Navigator (Naval Flight Officer). Early on the day, under the watchful eye of St. Brendan the Navigator, we had a small contingent of the Wingees in the chapel for a blessing of their wings -- a simple but very moving rite, crowned by singing four verses of the Navy Hymn. Awesome.

In a very fine ceremony at the National Naval Air Museum (cool) about a dozen students -- Navy and Air Force, with German, Italian, and Saudi classmates -- had family or superiors place their hard-earned wings on their uniforms.

It was my turn to wing a kid (the spousal unit had winged the elder one), and I did my job: carefully place wings one quarter inch above "thanks-for-showin'-up" ribbon; press two pointy prongs through uniform coat; punch Wingee in the chest until pointy prongs leave small red marks on skin (if possible -- as it turned out there was too much jacket for skin contact).


Since Flyboy was only the second in line (preceded by a Saudi, who had no one to belt him), the crowd seemed unprepared to see a gray-haired woman pound her son in the chest, so it elicited a small chorus of "oohs". Over in the reception line, Flyboy's C.O., a square-jawed Marine with a chest full of fruit salad, told me I done good.

By nightfall it was raining like fury, and I was eating shrimp and crab and fried green tomatoes. Finest kind.


ON THE THIRD DAY OF CHRISTMAS
I'M JAMMIN' WITH THE PROS

We got invited to a Third Day of Christmas Party (on December 28, for those of you in Rio Linda, although technically that's probably the Fourth Day). The invitation said to "Bring your instruments." I had a suspicion what that might mean, but I had the brass to do as directed, thinking I might join in with some pretty amazing people.

And they were there. Our hosts have a huge farm house in the Peterborough area, with what can only be called a "great room", in the style of a castle, except that it's all timber. And our hosts are also old school friends of Canada's finest Irish family band, called by just their surname "Leahy"-- eleven kids, who form up in various combinations to tour and record, playing fiddles and step dancing (simultaneously, which is no mean feat), and generally tearing up the place. The best fiddler in the Leahy family is married to the other best fiddler in Canada, Natalie McMaster, and she came along to the party too.

So there I was, having the nerve to bump away on my bodhran with the best of the best. I kept up fine with the jigs, but the reels were just too fast for me, so I tom-tommed as best I could. They are such very nice folks, all the Leahys, and were as welcoming and friendly to me as could be. Great way to keep the season up past the 25th, which is as it should be.

Christmas was spent with as much of the fam as we could muster: two out of My Three Sons at home, one with new wife and even newer unborn oven-bun in tow. I guess at some point I'll get used to people passing around their ultra-sound pictures -- it's just a little, er, intimate when you think about how you're checking out somebody's uterine studio, eh? But we do love the anticipation as grand-baby #2 thrives and prepares to make an entrance in May.

Hope he/she doesn't work too hard to upstage the other scheduled production, my Play of the Resurrection for the upcoming Chester Cycle. Another year, another medieval "Wagons, HO-O-O!"


BACK TO THE RANDOM

Spent last night and this morning revising my little sheaf of half-a-dozen poems, wondering if anyone else will ever read them. Not a total waste of time. Memo to self: Must take initiative to see where people go to publish poetry, and seek recognition and admiration from someone other than self.

Spent yesterday afternoon reading about the Bauhaus, the better to dump on the whole vision when doing architecture lectures. (BWA-HA-HA, open minds be damned!) And you know, the more you read, the more you realize that there is no better criticism to be made of the movement than to listen to those who admire it. I found a much-linked 3-part video series about Walter Gropius and the theory behind his HQ built in Dessau, Germany. It contains all the clues as to why this style is not good for humanity (or at least for the individual within humanity), nor was it ever intended to be. Fascinating stuff.

Pay particular attention, class, to the difference between the principles the masters taught and imposed upon their students, and the principles which governed the way they chose to live themselves, just down the road, in the private homes.





IT'S ONE OF THOSE WEEKS WHERE I THANK AL GORE
FOR INVENTING THE INTERNETS

I keep having these evenings where we're watching something on the tube and I've got the lap-top out doing the background search. For example, the spousal unit is recently enamoured of the series Deadwood -- of course, he watches just for its portrayal of the development of social institutions out of chaos, doncha know -- certainly not for the cusswords and boobies.

But there I am on the Internets, reading about the real Deadwood, South Dakota, and all the real people who are the basis of the television characters. [More on that at a later date -- I can only do so much random in one day.]

So this week, me and the Internets had one of those spasms where a face or name pops into my head that I haven't thought of, literally (as Biden would say) in decades.

When this happens, just on a chance I Google the name, and check out the Facebook thing, and by gumbo, more often than not, there they be in one form or another -- either they've got a business, or have written a letter to the editor, or have directed a string of Broadway shows, Hollywood movies, and TV series.

Not kiddin' about that last part -- considering my decades spent on the fringes of the world of theatre, it's not so unlikely that some old familiar face will have made itself theatrically notorious. My own "career", such as it was, has been predominantly amateur hour -- my closest brush with production on a really high professional level was actually my very first job, snagged when I was but 18, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a place which, while technically an arena for non-professionals ["pre-professional" as it was called], was in fact a nursery for many people who went on to long and prestigious careers -- like directing a string of Broadway shows, Hollywood movies, and TV series. Specifically, that would be Ron Lagomarsino I'm talking about -- curly-headed boy from Santa Clara, an old friend who became Truly Famous.

I have been following Ron's career progress for decades, and we corresponded for years (though that has lapsed). But the person whose face and name popped into my head this week for no discernible reason (also a colleague from that long-ago Shakespeare experience) was one whom I never knew very well, and last laid eyes on 38 years ago. So why am I suddenly seeing Paul Myrvold in the corner of my mind's eye? Dunno.

Out comes the lap-top, on go the Internets.

And there he be -- living in small-town California after a productive stint in the Big Apple, doing local theatre, juggling two jobs, and (wait for it...) STILL MARRIED TO THE SAME WOMAN!!!!!.

He's also done the lead in Man of La Mancha at least six times since he went west [that's had me bellowing out show tunes all morning while I made my toast and got the mail -- "I was spawned in a ditch/by a mother who left me there....."], but as far as I'm concerned his name ought to be on a blazing marquis somewhere just for being a liberal artistic baby-boomer capable of celebrating a 40th wedding anniversary. How many of those have there been since Jimmy Stewart?

I know he's a liberal 'cause he's on the Facebook thing, and gives a shout-out to Obama. [gag] I'll overlook that, though, 'cause he and Sylvia have three kids too! [no secrets being revealed here, folks, it's all on the Internets in the public domain] -- and I have this vague recollection that life did not make the stork business easy for them, so good on 'em. More lights, more red carpets, hand these folks the statuette: they're a family!

Kind of sad that this takes me so by surprise, but you live long enough in the Modern Age, and you learn to take nothing for granted.

By the way, Paul's got a couple years on me, and he is lookin' good. That's so not fair. How does that happen when I've been the one up here in the deep-freeze for 35 years?

All this is of no great moment to anything in my life -- just a snapshot of the interwoven world we live in: the slightly creepy quality of its shrinking privacy, but the compensatory aspect of its capacity for connectedness.

(I can't believe I just wrote that last sentence -- there's a job for me somewhere in government.)


ANOTHER TRIUMPH FOR NATIONAL HEALTHCARE

The Premier of Newfoundland/Labrador, the rich and oily Danny Williams, apparently needs some heart surgery. I could easily imagine that little old St. John's might not have everything he needs for a complicated procedure, but surely it could be accessed in Montreal or Toronto.

But NO-O-O-O -- for some reason Danny, who has no reason to be content with anything but the best, is trotting off to the U.S. of A. to patch up his cod-nourished heart.

This has not escaped notice in the American press: check out the Drudge Report, Instapundit, BeltwayBlips, the Politico, RealClearPolitics, and JustOneMinute:

OK, fun's fun but let's have a "To be fair" moment - Newfoundland & Labrador has a population of roughly half a million, which would not even make it a big-time, NFL-ready city in the US. I would think the premier ought to head to Toronto for top surgery, but he is independently wealthy and prefers US services. No kidding.

Heh. Yiss, b'y.


MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE CHURCH

Was happy to have spurred a special parish brunch collection for victims of the Haiti earthquake, for money that we could count on going straight to the heart of the matter, as it was collected for the use of the Missionaries of the Poor, the Jamaica-based order of brothers with whom I spent the preponderance of four missionary trips to Kingston, back in the day.

Their Haitian outpost (in the north, at Cap Haitien) was not hit by what seems to have been a very localized quake, but they will be dealing with refugees and other needy folks from the epicentre. If you're looking for a target of charitable giving, which you can be absolutely certain will go directly to the victims with barely a particle of overhead, send your dollar$ to the Missionaries of the Poor.

Also in the Haiti-saving business, a splendid little crew of ex-Marines and others who blew in and blew out of Haiti so fast, mission accomplished, that I didn't get time to bring attention to their efforts and advertise their bling. It was a typically Marine-produced surgical strike [and I mean that literally -- hat-tip Joe Biden.....], with a small, well-equipped, fully qualified team of do-ers who shoved aside the bureaucracies and competing interests and got 'er done.

I'm sure their success will lead them to other similar missions, so go right on ahead and check them out, send them dough, and buy their shirts (some design elements contributed by my niece). It's all right here, and it's called TEAM RUBICON. Ooh-rah.


CANDLEMAS -- ANCIENT FEAST, TIMELESS MASS


Joined a motley crew of singers to assist in the super-duper Missa Solemnis carried out by our local representative of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (strayed traditionalist lambs now back in the fold). We have but one in Toronto, Fr. Howard Venette, but on these occasions he is ably assisted by seminarians wanting to learn the old ways. Music was decent -- not up to the standards of the Choir Formerly Known As Mine but quite pleasurable to do, some chant, some hymns, some polyphony.

Some memories, some longings.

As usual, the Anchoress covers the feast beautifully.

The Anchoress also says her bit about the coming Super Bowl ad controversy, with the acceptance of a Focus on the Family-funded pro-life ad (in the most literal sense, Joe!) telling the personal story of Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow's narrow escape when his mother chose to bring him to term rather than abort him because her health was in danger.

Big Surprise: the ad has caused all the usual suspects to go apoplectic at the thought of abortion dissent being given air-time before this huge television audience.

Really Big Surprise: pro-choice Washington Post writer Sally Jenkins calls the ad's critics on their obvious intolerance and suppression of genuine choice. Wow. She even refers to the biggest nay-sayers, the NOW gang, as the "National Organization of Fewer and Fewer Women All The Time". Heh. Stunning.

And yet so obvious. Remember Madonna's early hit, Papa Don't Preach? The same forces of "choice" went ape-sh#t that the traitorous Madonna had dared to record a message about the determination of a pregnant teen to keep her baby. Of course, it wasn't really a "message", it was just an anecdote: one story of one girl who "got in trouble" and was telling her father in no uncertain terms that she, one lone girl in one situation, was going to keep her one baby. At no point did the song lyrics drift into advice or admonitions about any other girl in any other set of circumstances -- never did it recommend a particular course of action, or condemn another. It was a story. And the feminists pilloried her for it.

People that criticized the song's message include Ellen Goodman, a national syndicated columnist, who called the video "a commercial for teenage pregnancy".^[42] Feminist lawyer Gloria Allred, the spokeswoman of the National Organization of Women (NOW), angrily called for Madonna to make a public statement or another record supporting the opposite point of view.^[43] Alfred Moran, the executive director of Planned Parenthood of New York City, also criticized the song, fearing that it would undermine efforts to promote birth control among adolescents and that it would encourage teenage pregnancy.
[Wikipedia]

Hey, if Madonna couldn't keep the femininnies happy, what's a poor Jesus-loving beefcake footballer to do? Hope he fares better than those reactionary rockers, Seals and Crofts, who many years ago had the almighty gall to put out a song which involved genuine advocacy of a position on this controversial subject, a song called Unborn Child. Wooooh! Did the cr&p ever hit the feminist fan on that one!

Ah, Choice -- it's a beautiful thing. Long as it's the right one. Otherwise, duck!

Incoming!!!!


POLITICAL NOTES [not possible to avoid them]

It's tradition for the sitting President to appear and speak at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C. Apparently Mr. Obama was urged to skip it this year, but it's nice to know that he still has at least a few political/public service instincts intact, and he did attend.

His speech was notable for what has become his customary tone: whining and scolding and preaching, and singing the chorus from that famous Beatle hit, I, Me, Mine. [He seems to have missed the interview where George Harrison explained that the song was about ego as a problem, not as an ambition. Mr. Obama has an uncomfortable penchant for trying to see how many time he can utter "I, me, and mine" in one speech. This one was no exception, despite the fact that it's supposed to be about faith in God -- well, no wonder he got confused.]

Matters of Ego aside [u-u-u-u-n-n-h.... PUSH!!!!], the President out-did his growing reputation for total cluelessness about the fundamentals of his job, when he repeated an account of heroic American service in Haiti, as carried out by our military. I'm sure he thought this would be a good opportunity to, FOR ONCE, say something complimentary about America and its service members. However, since this is something which does not come naturally to him and he must be fed such material by his handy teleprompter, once again POTUS stepped in it -- revealing not only his ignorance but his supreme overconfidence in spite of that ignorance, and his failure to do his homework about things dear to America's heart.

Mr. Obama told of an American (Haitian descent) Naval officer administering help to an earthquake victim. He identified, or rather mis-identified, one "Christian" Brossard as a "translator" -- in fact, Hospitalman Petty Officer Christopher Brossard is a Navy Corpsman, that trusted and valued adjunct to all Marine companies, as well as other branches, charged with giving emergency medical treatment in the heat of battle before casualties are evac-ed to safety, as well as providing medic services within military hospitals. For Hospitalman Brossard, translating was just a happy accident of his Haitian roots, something he could employ while doing what he came to do.

Mr. Obama's ill-mannered stumble on Brossard's name was inexcusable in this setting, and whoever prepared his remarks should face consequences (which, of course, will never happen). But more telling was the mistake which was Mr. Obama's own, showing the kind of carelessness towards his duties as Commander-in-Chief for which he is now justly famous.

If he had anything but a tin ear for his military responsibilities, Mr. Obama would know that Hospitalman Brossard's highly respected MOS (that's Military Operation Specialty, Mr. President) is that of Navy Corpsman. That's pronounced "COR-MAN", Mr. President, not "CORPSE-MAN", as you said it, TWICE, in your Prayer Breakfast speech.

I know it wasn't part of Saul Alinsky's vocabulary, and it doesn't come up much when you're kibbitzing with Rahm Emmanuel. But, Jaysus, even Jeremiah Wright would know what a corpsman was, and how to pronounce it! How could you get outta Harvard and not recognize the word "corps" on the page, Sir? How did it not come up, even in a non-military context? What sort of crap was on your reading list?

In the pithy words of Dennis Miller (referring, I think, to Bill Clinton, but I wouldn't swear to that), Mr. Obama, if you were any more low-rent, you'd be a spring break destination.


I've had it with this random stuff -- it's 4:00 a.m. Time to catch some Z's.