Turns out there was really was a Moonlight Graham of Field of Dreams fame. Great article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The BBC headline read: A Catholic woman is "ordained" in a secret ceremony in Europe. More correct, it should have read: A "Catholic" woman is "ordained" in a secret ceremony in Europe.

On a similar grammatical note, the Supreme Court now considers private property (and picture Justice Stevens gesturing with his fingers to denote quotes) "private property." There are now no limits to takings.

Strawberry Kiwi Goo

Snapple attempts to set up the world's largest popsicle (or iced lolly if you prefer.)in NYC in June. Popsicle melts before being erected. Sic transit gloria mundi.

I'm not sure what pleases me more: confirmation that Sartre and de Beauvoir were debauched (and did I mention Stalinist apologists?) or the fact that even the French really don't care all that much for them any more. I suppose I'll choose the latter. What better revenge than seeing them totally forgotten. "France hated him when he was alive and shuns him in death," French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy said.

Ah, that's a shame.

The British Royal family costs the British taxpayer 61p. a year. Whoopdedoo. How much does Parliament cost, with all their junkets and privileges? Congress? What a bargain!

Man fills out a job application at a pizza store, and while waiting for his pizza, changes his mind and robs the store instead. And, yes, he left the application behind. "I would chalk it up to either inexperience or plain stupidity," Clark County prosecutor Frank Coumou told the Las Vegas Review-Journal for a Wednesday report.

According to Any-Day-In-History, today the first doughnut was made. In that case, June 22 ought to be a national holiday.

The first "humanist wedding" in Great Britain took place at the Edinburgh Zoo. Seems about right, no? I wonder who gave the bride away, the panda or the giraffe.

Enoch Soames sticks up for the bully Waugh against the bully Baldwin. Here, here. And I have been to a tractor pull.

Dahn entertaining article by Peter Hitchins on the impending death of the British Tory Party. He wants a new British party of tradition: On the great battlefields of marriage and the family, education and culture, morality and law, the Tories have been utterly outmanoeuvred and bypassed. Because they did not fight, they co-operated in the destruction of their own electorate. To this day, they have no idea why it is that they are so despised by the young, and their wretched attempts to toady to fashion — in such areas as civil partnerships for homosexuals — manage to offend or puzzle their supporters while utterly failing to convince their opponents that they are genuine. It would be perfectly all right to be the Nasty Party if they knew why it was necessary to be nasty and meant it. Millions long for a truly Nasty government, that will be thoroughly horrid to the wicked, the criminal and the dishonest, and to the European Union. But to be Nasty without meaning to is worse than useless. And to be Nice about these things is to let down the besieged, oppressed, vandalised, burgled, mugged people of Britain. Long live the Nasty Party!

I thought I read this headline wrong when I first glanced at it: "Plumber who took leak convicted." But, no, the BBC is quite punny this morning. The plumber did a nasty thing on camera and was caught.

Sporting News

A great essay in the WSJ by the one, the only, Julius...Dr. J...Errrrviiiiing!. He remembers the 1980 NBA Finals in which rookie Magic Johnson helped the Lakers win against the Sixers...a very gracious essay, considering how bitter that memory still is for Sixers' fans. But then, what sports memory isn't bitter for a good Philadelphia fan? I know I must have some happy, sweet ones in the cerebrum somewhere...oh, yeah, there's a real good one. Tug McGraw's last pitch to win the World Series. Mmmmm. Let me just bask in that for a bit.

(Pause)

OK, all the other ones are really, really bitter. No way around it.

But...if you can't get good memories from Philly teams, maybe you should start paying attention to cricket.

Exciting stuff! A brilliant one-day by England against Australia...now there's a clause I never thought I'd write, for all sorts of reasons. Anyway, the English bowlers ("pitchers") Darren Gough and Jon Lewis got seven batsman ("batters") out in just 20 balls ("pitches"). In cricket this is akin to, I don't know...a triple-play. Twice in one game. Something like that. It's hard to do, anyway.

This is particularly important, because Australia is visiting England this summer to contend in the oldest tournament in sport, the Ashes. The Ashes is a battered trophy with, inside, ashes supposedly from burn cricket stumps. Legend has it some English ladies burnt the cricket stumps ("Stumps" are the verticals that hold up the little crosspieces called "bails" to form a wicket--that's what the bowler is trying to hit, and the batter trying to "defend") after Australia won a tournament in England in 1882...pretty early for a bunch of Australians to come all the way around the world to tour England playing cricket, but there it is. To say that England was collectively stunned is putting it mildly. The name for the tournament almost certainly comes from the following "memorial notice" in the Sporting Times, rather than from a rather dubious stories about cricket-loving cuties:

In Affectionate Rememberance of English Cricket Which Died At The Oval on 29th August 1882
Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances
R.I.P
NB: The body will be cremated, and the ashes taken to Australia.


They've been playing ever since. The last time that England won was...

...Well, it was three years after the Sixers won an NBA championship.

In England, that's reckoned a long time to bear defeat. In Philadelphia, it's called life.

Any and all professors can relate to this article from the Post on grade pressure from students. I get the emails and phone calls every semester -- "but I worked so hard..." And this relates to your grade how?

Mighty fine to see that Andrew Cusack is hanging out with Welsh Corgi devotees on Long Island. If Mr. Cusack sees this, I'd be delighted to know where (confidentially, of course) his friends acquired these fine dogs, my dear mother being a breeder and judge of long standing. And tape that left ear up. It can and should stand. God Save the Queen.

The truth was, I began at last to see, that throughout those old days [Mr. Lowell] had known better than any of us what dull, fruitless beings we college boys were; but that his business had been to teach us all he could, and he had known that he, at least, could teach best by showing himself to us as he was. All this kindness, all this friendliness, all this humanity was real; all the culture he had striven to impart to us was as precious as we had ever thought it. We ourselves, though, were mere passing figures, not worth very serious personal memory; and Mr. Lowell valued people at their true worth, and was beautifully free from that clerical kind of humbug which presses your hand after an interval of years, and asks feelingly for the dear children it has never bothered its wits about.

Barrett Wendell on his former Harvard professor, James Russell Lowell, 1893

A low in the world of entertaining and interesting information was reached last week when we were having Piercefest '05, Bunnie was blogging on the Spelling Bee, and the Washington Post was of the opinion that all we wanted to read about was Deep Throat. On the other hand, I certainly did get a lot of work done.

And yet proving that even the most tedious story has its interesting aspects, this story makes an excellent point about the Deep Throat frenzy.

No, I'll have a few more things to say about the President coming up. I momentarily stopped talking about the great man because of an ill-timed sinus infection which put me flat on my back for three days. Now, fortified with anti-biotics and back in Indiana, I am gathering my strength.

Seems John Kerry was not the academic superman we thought. He finally released his Yale grades, and low and behold, they are nearly identical to President Bush -- in some cases far lower. He received 4 D grades his freshman year (two history courses, political science, and geology), while his best first year grades were in another poli-sci course and (hold the choking and ironic laughter) French.

Doc: are you done talking about Pierce? Surely that was just throat-clearing, wasn't it?

This Rob Long piece, which ends just when it starts to get lose-your-breath-from-laughing hilarious, is enough to make me consider buying National Review Digital just so I can read the end.

Read it at your own risk (Make sure you are not drinking coffee, as I was. Fortunately I missed my iBook.):



12, rue Jacob

Paris 75006

Jeudi, le 26 mai:
Le patient arrives, late in the afternoon, directly from the Elysée Palace, for his regularly scheduled session with le docteur, his psychiatrist. Le patient has been preparing his remarks to la République, which he is scheduled to give in the evening. In his job as le Président de la République he displays command and dignity and an almost de Gaulle-esque (a former patient of this humble docteur, incidentally) power. But in his private moments — naked, alone, tout seul — he is clearly in turmoil. He is playing a dangerous game, perhaps even a deadly game, with his political life. Should the vote go his way on Sunday he will be a hero, a god-king, a lion d'or. Should it not, the crétinisation de Jacques Chirac will commence, sans arrêt.

The crisis plays on his face. He looks terrible — old, haggard, wan — but when le docteur points this out, le patient merely shrugs majestically and lights a cigarette.

He is upbeat and optimistic. He tells le docteur that the various opinion polls that suggest that Sunday's referendum will result in a resounding "non" for the European constitution are "absurd" and "to be mocked." When le docteur shrugs, le patient chuckles loudly and rearranges his scarf as he opens a bottle of wine and lights another cigarette. For a moment, the office is silent save for the rustle and clatter of le patient's many activities.

After a few puffs and a sip or two of wine, le patient finally sits opposite le docteur. He smiles bravely. Le docteur shrugs. Le patient shrugs in return. The session begins.

Pierce-fest '05 continued

Red Ted excerpts from President Pierce's 1854 annual address (although there is some confusion here -- he calls it the Fourth Annual Address, which would make it 1856 -- again, being away from the books, I cannot verify which), a fairly standard Jacksonian Democratic grocery list, which a few items peculiar in their emphasis to Pierce:

"We have to maintain inviolate the great doctrine of the inherent right of popular self-government;" Standard stuff, although how you define popular self-government is a problem. Just ask Kansans 1854-1858.

"to reconcile the largest liberty of the individual citizen with complete security of the public order;" Goodness, Barry Goldwater said the same thing. The largest amount of individual freedom conducive to public order.

"to render cheerful obedience to the laws of the land, to unite in enforcing their execution, and to frown indignantly on all combinations to resist these;" That means you, abolitionists and others who view a disagreement with Federal law as reason enough to ignore it completely. Stop reading Thoreau.

"to harmonize a sincere and ardent devotion to the institutions of religious faith with the most universal religious toleration;" Pierce was a separation guy and well-known as an attorney for his defense of Shaker religious rights in New Hampshire.

"to preserve the rights of all by causing each to respect those of the other;" The power of example. Shame nobody was paying attention.

"to carry forward every social improvement to the uttermost limit of human perfectibility, by the free action of mind upon mind, not by the obtrusive intervention of misapplied force;" Good Jacksonian line -- reform via individuals and families, not government institutions and law.

"to uphold the integrity and guard the limitations of our organic law;" Pierce the lawyer talking.

"to preserve sacred from all touch of usurpation, as the very palladium of our political salvation, the reserved rights and powers of the several States and of the people;" States rights

"to cherish with loyal fealty and devoted affection this Union, as the only sure foundation on which the hopes of civil liberty rest;" But he was a states rights Unionist, very much in the line of Jackson.

"to administer government with vigilant integrity and rigid economy;" Jacksonians were renowned penny-pinchers of public monies. After four years of Pierce, the federal government was running a surplus and had entirely paid off the national debt. I think this is the last time it has happened in American history.

"to cultivate peace and friendship with foreign nations, and to demand and exact equal justice from all, but to do wrong to none; to eschew intermeddling with the national policy and the domestic repose of other governments, and to repel it from our own; never to shrink from war when the rights and the honor of :he country call us to arms, but to cultivate in preference the arts of peace, seek enlargement of the rights of neutrality, and elevate and liberalize the intercourse of nations; and by such just and honorable means, and such only whilst exalting the condition of the Republic, to assure to it the legitimate influence and the benign authority of a great example amongst all the powers of Christendom." A slightly misleading foreign policy grab-all, in that it looks pacifistic, but in reality was more than ready to fight for territory and honor if the chance arrived. Pierce was a "Young America" devotee -- expansion of national borders was quite desirable.

President Pierce, God, and Annoying Pastors

Well, well, well. You take a short vacation from the cornfields of Indiana and suddenly you are beckoned, lured, brazenly jostled out of your hiding place. As luck would have it, I am currently sitting roughly 10 miles from dear Frank Pierce's birthplace/father's home/pub in Hillsborough, New Hampshire. Back on the old rocky sod, God bless.

I haven't lost too much sleep in recent years on Pierce's religious proclivities, unless thoroughly lubricated with gin or wine (what better way to consider the sadly bibulous FP) and chatting with the O-man. Red Ted notes that the President (that's what we call him in our house) was a New England Episcopalian. Let me make a weak rejoinder based purely on memory, since I am away from all my books. He wasn't an Episcopalian when he was President. If memory serves, he professed the Episcopal faith in the 1860s, after his wife (a thorough-going old line Congregationalist like her father) died. He then began attending (and professed the faith at) St. Paul's Church in Concord, NH, across from the State Capitol. In fact, he was buried out of there in 1869. Before this, Pierce was a sort of loose Congregationalist out of respect towards his wife.

The President also had a lingering mistrust of American religion based upon the political pastors and reformers of the antebellum era, and this may have led to the lateness of his religious life. He blamed them for much of the strife of the 1840s and 1850s, claiming that God was on their side, and making what he considered political and legal matters into universals and ultimates. Frankly put (pun very much intended), he couldn't find a church or pastor that did not irritate the hell out of him. Yet the Episcopal pastor in Concord spoke of saving the soul and restoring all things in Christ, not making the American South look like Suffolk County, Massachusetts. Here, he finally felt comfortable and at home, not constantly henpecked on reformist politics. In so many ways, Pierce became an Episcopalian in reaction against abolition and the Civil War.

As to how Pierce compares to contemporaneous presidents (say, Jefferson to A. Johnson) in how they used religion, that is a very interesting and complicated question, one that I'll have to mull over a bit to cover it well.

You asked for it.

Take Her Down Fifty Meters, Number One! Rig for Silent Running!

Sound the klaxon! I have spied, like a tanned Yank sub captain [Style Ed.: Doubless, in your imagination, played by Cary Grant? Ombud: Yes.] seeing a low-flying Japanese torpedo plane approaching his command from out of the sunrise over the South China Sea, another person on the blogosphere besides the Doc committed to the study of Franklin Pierce!

(Alarm; running feet; sound of men falling through the hatch)

Red Ted (which, I must say, I believe to be a pseudonym) wonders what the heck was the nature of Frank Pierce's religious belief. He begins with this startling admission:

"I have spent much of the evening trying to make sense of Franklin Pierce."

(Sound of rushing water; hatches slamming shut; wheels being spun frantically)

"I know that I am not alone, [Ombudsman: Yeah, whatever, buddy] and that many of us spend our time trying to figure the guy out. Most of the blogosphere is well aware that Frank was the 14th president of the U.S., that he came from New Hampshire, that he was a dark horse candidate elected on a late ballot as a pro-Southern Democrat from New Hampshire, that he was widely derided during the campaign as being the "hero of many a well fought bottle" because of his disastrous experience as a Brigadier during the Mexican-American War, and that he is widely considered one of the worst American Presidents.

He is confusing to me because of his religious beliefs. A New England Episcopalian, he chose to affirm rather than swear his oath of office. Unusually for Democrats (and political hacks, he qualified as both) his public pronouncements show a complicated sense of civil religion and national providence. Unlike the simple-minded triumphalism of James K. Polk et al, and unlike the civic Providence of Jackson, Harrison, and Taylor (so long as we hold to the Constitution, then the nation will prosper and be blessed), he called forward a sense of national frailty and contingency, a national providence that might not be granted for the future. His term as high priest of American Civil Religion thus looked far more like James Madison and John Quincy Adams than like his contemporaries. The closest similarity is Abraham Lincoln, and yet the two men's Gods, biographies, and backgrounds are mightily different. About the only thing they had in common was a sense of humor.

Then again, humor is tied to an awareness of pain, so perhaps it is not so surprising that the two mid-century advocates of contingent Providence were also much funnier than Buchanan, Fillmore, Polk, or the rest of the crew. For that matter, I have trouble imagining Andrew Jackson teasing his friends the way that Pierce teased Benjamin Brown Finch after the accident with the rum and the lemonade."

The crew is silent; sweat running down their faces; they wait for the sound of a torpedo in the water. Then the Captain clears his throat and says, softly:

So, Doc, what exactly was the accident with the rum and lemonade? Is that some kind of New Hampshire cocktail?

The crew blanches; surely they are now for it...