Month: April 2006

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Sentential Link (special edition)

In yesterday’s posting of this week’s Sentential Links, I focused on the bloggers whose work has been featured this week at Jayne Says as Jayne’s been out of town. However, I thought Jayne was returning to blogging today, which turns out to not be the case: she’s returning tomorrow, so there’s one more blog I have to feature sententially. So here it is:

:: Last night, something unprecedented happened: I went a whole evening without downloading any internet porn.

There. A great wrong, rectified. At last I can rest in peaceful slumber! (But not until after I feed and bathe The Daughter. And watch American Idol. And drink some cola laced with Spum. My work is never done, it seems.)

(Oh, and the post above reminds me of something. As much as I think YouTube may be the greatest damn thing in the history of the Interweb — and that’s coming from a guy who once thought that Gopher was the coolest possible thing on the Interweb — it turns out that there are, indeed, less than ideal uses for YouTube. For example, you can watch in awe as some person demonstrates some mad Minesweeper skills. Hoo baby!)

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Bill the White House for three tons of caulking and window sealant.

I’m not possessed of the keenest legal mind — hell, there were episodes of Matlock that had me confused — so I’ve generally been avoiding the whole “George W. Bush and the leaks” thing. But I have noticed that the general Republican spin seems to have settled on this: “Ach, so what? Bush can leak whatever he wants, and it’s all perfectly legal.”

I guess my problem with that is that it doesn’t make sense when considered as part of the timeline of what actually transpired. If the Administration’s actions were legal the whole time, why have we endured several years of stonewalling, meta-narratives, grand jury investigations, indictments, and all that? Why didn’t the President just stand up and say, “You know what? Here’s a document I’m declassifying. The document says _____, and I’m declassifying it in response to _____.”

In reference to this whole deal, John Scalzi posted a comment in the thread (connected with this post), in response to just such a “Hey, Bush did it, so it’s perfectly legal!” claim:

Oh, you mean his “Let’s declassify certain information that helps us, and then not tell anybody that it’s declassified and then present it as a leak and then act all indignant that people are leaking in our administration, but then pull out this excuse when the leak eventually gets traced back to us” maneuver. Yeah, it’s legal. However, there aren’t very many words in the English language that fully describe the utterly repugnant moral and political cynicism of a maneuver like that, Brian, and I feel very sad for you that “it’s not illegal if it’s the president” is the only argument this administration allows you to present for its behavior.

Over at The American Prospect, Greg Sargent had a good response to the “What Bush does is legal” argument the other day, concluding thusly:

So to recap: Libby has revealed that Bush authorized a leak of classified info for political purposes. End of story.

I just want to know, if the President’s actions here are completely legal and justifiable, just why it is that everybody’s acting so damned guilty over there until now. Maybe it’s because they suddenly realized that lots of their supporters have already bought into the “What the President does is legal” argument once (in reference to the NSA wiretapping scandal).

I do know one thing: these guys wouldn’t have made it to the first commercial break against Ben Matlock.

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It BURNS!

I have to admire the PhotoShop effort on the cover of Ann Coulter’s new book. There’s no way that woman could actually wear a cross around her neck without the flesh around it bursting into flame.

And looking at that photo, her freakishly long left arm reminds me of that scene in Terminator 2 when the T-1000, having assumed the form of John Connor’s foster mom, morphs its arm into a giant dagger to kill the foster dad.

Ann Coulter as an emissary of Christianity? Please.

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Sentential Links #45

A bit of a different approach this week. Jayne Says has become a favorite blog of mine, of the “personal diary” variety. Her own content tends to focus on spirituality, with a little politics and a bit of pop culture thrown in. It takes a good writer to make subject matter like that interesting, and Jayne is certainly that.

But this week Jayne’s been absent, and she’s turned her blog into a showcase for some of her own favorites, presenting posts she’s borrowed from those blogs (rather than just allowing them to post new material to her blog). So this week’s “Sentential Links” will provide links to posts from the blogs that have been featured on Jayne Says, only not from the actual posts from those blogs that have actually been used on Jayne Says. I hope that makes sense. My head hurts a bit from typing that.

(Oh, and there will be a couple additional links at the end, from my own trekking ’round Blogistan.)

Here we go:

:: Twice a year, my system and life is screwed up for nearly an entire month as Mr. Body Clock tries to figure out why the freakin’ hell I am suddenly reprogramming him to get up or sleep in early or later, and why I’m going to bed earlier or later. I think it affects me so severely because Mr. Body Clock, bless his heart, is an A-type personality over-acheiver. (Heh! Luckily for me, my own Mr. Body Clock is easily mollified with generous quantities of rum. BTW, I love the effect this blog uses when mousing over links. A little cheesy, but great!)

:: My coworker and I had been typically getting on each others nerves all day and it boiled over when he brought up the coffee late in the afternoon. In addition to ripping into him for his breakdown in logical thinking that while strong coffee could be watered DOWN… the lightly colored water he called coffee COULD NOT BE MADE STRONGER!!! (Remember the old chorus from the Letterman show: “Decaffeinated coffee — it’s useless warm brown water!”)

:: Mostly I’ve found pieces of consolations from various easter religions and I continue to do so, but if I knew I wouldn’t fail, I’d try to embrace Catholicism in the interest of having a spiritually cohesive family. (If you like knitting, this blog’s for you. I’ve never knitted; I’m more of a knotting kind of guy.)

:: Can you feature seeing this on your commute??? I mean, every road in Salt Lake has one of these looming up at the end of it. just about. (Lots of photos at this post.)

:: I like old stuff, I like being the caretaker of old stuff. I have a primitive pew like bench in my great room that is over a hundred and twenty five years old. I paid forty five dollars for it. I wonder how may people have sat there, where, and when.

:: Sometimes we change so much that we have to rid ourselves of the people that we have outgrown.

:: The thing is, when someone gives you their heart, even if it’s a bit battered and bruised and some pieces are sold separately, YOU TAKE CARE OF IT.

:: I followed the story and in time all charges were dropped against the Rabbit. I knew then that I had moved to the right town. (Heh!)

:: It only took 20.7 months, but my daughter has finally reached the point where she is insistent on pooping in private. (I’m not telling how long it took with The Daughter. Suffice it to say, modesty ain’t her thing, and I have some trepidation about what kinds of productions she’ll appear in if she majors in theater in college.)

That’s all of Jayne’s blogsitters. (I think Jayne is back tomorrow.) Here are a few links from my own Fellow Travelers:

:: There are things about other people smoking that I miss though. I miss the sounds—of a match being struck, the snick of a lighter, the first satisfied exhale of the contented nicotine addict getting her fix. (This is a great post. Go read it, if nothing else.)

:: But I’m tired of people telling me when and how I have to remember 9/11. Don’t worry, folks. I remember. I remember even though I’m a Democrat. I remember even though I don’t go to church. I remember even though I voted for Kerry. I remember even though I can’t stomach George W. Bush not for one second.

:: This disk held fast an event I had shared with my father: 71 minutes out of the 16 years we had together. Soon after, as an “enemy of Reich and Führer,” my father also disappeared into Hitler’s abyss. (OK. After reading Lance’s post, read this one.)

All for this week!

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How does one become an FVI?

This will probably get linked all over the place, but here it is anyway: a New York Times article describing what things are like in El Salvador, eight years after that country’s complete outlawing of abortion.

It’s a pretty powerful piece. Two tiny details struck me: the fact that women still find ways to get abortions if they feel them necessary (rich ones can just fly to Miami, we’re told), and there are actually people in El Salvador called “forensic vagina inspectors”.

I also noted the mental gymnastics common among prolifers, one of whom insists that the woman getting the abortion has both “murdered her baby” and become a “victim” of the abortion providers.

Sigh.

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On This Date

All the cool kids over in LiveJournalopia are apparently doing this: you plug your birthdate into Wikipedia and then report back a handful of notable things that happened on your birthdate, a few notable folks who share your birthday, and a few unfortunate folks who chose your birthday to shuffle off this mortal coil. SO what the hey? All of the following happened on September 26.

1580: Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe. (I’m a tad baffled by this, since it implies that he did it in one day. Did he embark on his journey on 9-26, or did he complete it?)

1957: West Side Story opened on Broadway.

1969: Abbey Road was released.

Births on 9-26:

1774: Johnny Appleseed

1891: Charles Munch

1898: George Gershwin

1956: Linda Hamilton (although I may go back in time and see if I can’t undo this one)

Deaths on 9-26:

1820: Daniel Boone

1945: Bela Bartok

2003: Robert Palmer

Also, I note that September 26 is the date of “Bureflux”, a holiday of the Discordian religion: the “Season Holyday of the Season of Bureaucracy”. Ummm…OK.

Go ahead and play, folks. To make it easier, instead of doing an actual Wikipedia search on your birthdate, here’s the form of the URL you’ll eventually reach:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/26_September

Just change that date as it appears above, and make sure to capitalize the month before plugging it into your browser.

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I’ve heard all the lines; I have cried oh so many times….

My first exposure to Madonna* was the song “Like a Virgin”, which I still hate to this day. But I quickly warmed up to Madonna herself in subsequent years and songs, even though Madonna herself has turned out to be, well, a tad weird. Anyhoo, my favorite song of hers is the little bubble-gum confection “True Blue”, which is as perfect a pop song as I’ve ever heard. Madonna’s voice was somehow perfectly suited to this tune — and its exclusion from Madonna’s Immaculate Collection greatest hits album still annoys me. (I later got the song during my three-week experiment with file-sharing a few years back.)

Anyway, in the mid-80s, when “True Blue” came along, music-video was the name of the game, and every major single had a video made for it to air on MTV. What was different about “True Blue” was that before Madonna made her own video, MTV held a “Make Your Own Video” contest, with “True Blue” as the song. They played a lot of the entries during a marathon one day (just about all of them sucked), but the winning amateur video was actually pretty good. It can be seen here, albeit with pretty crappy video quality. Madonna’s eventual “official” video for the song can be seen here, but for me, the amateur one will always be the superior version.

* Yes, I realize that referring to one’s “exposure” to Madonna is a troublesome metaphor. Oh well.

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Signs of Desperation

I very rarely do these kinds of quiz-things, but I saw it over on Craig’s blog, and it struck me as kind of funny, so here are my results:

I'm Joshua Abraham Norton, the first and only Emperor of the United States of America!
Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

The details on this guy are as follows:

Born in England sometime in the second decade of the nineteenth century, you carved a notable business career, in South Africa and later San Francisco, until an entry into the rice market wiped out your fortune in 1854. After this, you became quite different. The first sign of this came on September 17, 1859, when you expressed your dissatisfaction with the political situation in America by declaring yourself Norton I, Emperor of the USA. You remained as such, unchallenged, for twenty-one years.

Within a month you had decreed the dissolution of Congress. When this was largely ignored, you summoned all interested parties to discuss the matter in a music hall, and then summoned the army to quell the rebellious leaders in Washington. This did not work. Magnanimously, you decreed (eventually) that Congress could remain for the time being. However, you disbanded both major political parties in 1869, as well as instituting a fine of $25 for using the abominable nickname “Frisco” for your home city.

Your days consisted of parading around your domain – the San Francisco streets – in a uniform of royal blue with gold epaulettes. This was set off by a beaver hat and umbrella. You dispensed philosophy and inspected the state of sidewalks and the police with equal aplomb. You were a great ally of the maligned Chinese of the city, and once dispersed a riot by standing between the Chinese and their would-be assailants and reciting the Lord’s Prayer quietly, head bowed.

Once arrested, you were swiftly pardoned by the Police Chief with all apologies, after which all policemen were ordered to salute you on the street. Your renown grew. Proprietors of respectable establishments fixed brass plaques to their walls proclaiming your patronage; musical and theatrical performances invariably reserved seats for you and your two dogs. (As an aside, you were a good friend of Mark Twain, who wrote an epitaph for one of your faithful hounds, Bummer.) The Census of 1870 listed your occupation as “Emperor”.

The Board of Supervisors of San Francisco, upon noticing the slightly delapidated state of your attire, replaced it at their own expense. You responded graciously by granting a patent of nobility to each member. Your death, collapsing on the street on January 8, 1880, made front page news under the headline “Le Roi est Mort”. Aside from what you had on your person, your possessions amounted to a single sovereign, a collection of walking sticks, an old sabre, your correspondence with Queen Victoria and 1,098,235 shares of stock in a worthless gold mine. Your funeral cortege was of 30,000 people and over two miles long.

The burial was marked by a total eclipse of the sun.

Yup, that’s the life for me!

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