TO Has a Good Point!

It's sizzling hot; dogs are dying in the streets; pavement has turned to glue.

Let's talk football!

Fans of da Phil-del-phia Iggles are currently fixated on a drama involving Terrell Owens. But as the Philadelphia Inquirer puts it:

Since his dazzling Super Bowl performance, Owens has shown himself to be many things - disrespectful to Donovan McNabb, naive to the ways of Eagles fans, easily manipulated by his agent, greedy, and foolish for blowing a rare opportunity to own the notoriously fickle city of Philadelphia.

But it could be worse...he could be wacky Ricky Williams!

As for TO: shut up and play.

Things have been disgracefully quite around the place. Naturally we can make all sorts of excuses. The Doc has doubtless been taking his prize corgim (Welsh plural?) around to various dog exhibitions in the hopes that they will be Best in Show. The Style Editor has been trying out Summer Hats. Dr. Potomac has been mind-melding with Karl Rove so that there will be a Sucessor Svengali should The Architect be removed from his position. And I have been doing...well, nothing, to be honest.

This must change! It will change!

So if you have not heard of the website Iraq the Model, you should, and you really must go there to read something about the new Iraqi Constitution. Interesting stuff. It would appear that the Constitution is going to be a rather leaner document than I had suspected, for which I am grateful. But there is some disturbing stuff in there as well. Take a look.

Oh Puh-lese!

This article by Marc Fisher had precisely the opposite effect upon me than I believe it intended. It laments the poor teachers who must work summer to make ends meet. Why take dear "Lorelei Emma, a 28-year-old special-ed teacher at Columbia Elementary in Annandale, teaches summer school in the mornings, tutors, dog-sits, house-sits and drives out to Lexington each weekend to work at her family's flower shop. Even with all that, and with mom's help on her student loan and car payments, Emma lives in a small bedroom with no closet in a Fairlington house she shares with two roommates.

Last week, Emma applied for work at a Whole Foods store -- she and her teacher buddies call it "Whole Paycheck" -- "because maybe I could get a discount on groceries there."

"I love my kids, and I love teaching, but I can't afford it," Emma says. "I can't be a 30-year-old and expect my mom to keep paying for my car." With a master's degree and four years of experience, Emma makes $49,000 in the Fairfax schools. But housing and other costs in this area make seemingly decent salaries feel like poverty wages."

Cry me a river, Lorelei Emma. With 4 years experience and a JD, I got paid less than you do AND I only got 2 weeks off not a whole summer. Even in the years I was making CONSIDERABLY less than you, I managed to live quite comfortably in Arlington, socking away some retirement funds each year, going to plays and concerts, and for most of the time living on my own in a one bedroom apartment or in an apartment or a nice house (both of which had closets)with roomates. At one point until he could clunk no more, I even had a car. And what's more I am a financial idiot. My budgeting and financial restraint are definitely not what they should be. And you know what? I had and still have a great life.

So, whining teachers, shut up and get off my lawn! Not a penny more of payment or a jot of sympathy will you get out of me.

A light blogging season...

Great article here by Kathleen Parker on the wristband fad and, in her delicious phrase, "the era of competitive caring."

Like nearly everything else these days, it’s all about moi. Here’s the trick: While publicly declaring your deep concern via colored ribbons and embossed bracelets, you get to draw attention to yourself. It’s not enough to care quietly or to commit private acts of conscience. You have to erect a billboard on your forearm.

With waterfalls this really feels like a sanctuary!"

Two words to that: Oh, buh-ruuuhhhh-thah!

I am going to stop now and put my ear to the ground to catch the inevitable explosion from Bunnie Diehl.

Vote or else!

Now here's the most hysterically bad idea I've seen in a long time: compulsory democracy!

Brit Labour pol Geoffrey Hoon suggests that in order to boost election turnout (only 61% voted in the last general election) citizens who do not vote will be fined. That's right, if you choose not to vote or forget (apparently, to Hoon, there is no difference), the government will track you down with its lists and police, and fine you for a lack of civic mindedness.

Apparently, this is already in place in Australia, Austria, Belgium and Greece.

Just goes to show that there is a mightly big difference between liberalism and democracy. They are not synonymous. Somewhere, Rousseau is smiling.

French woman ordains herself

Yes, you read that correctly, woman ordains self. It looks like an Onion headline, but it is not. Rather powerful of her, I thought, being able to make oneself a Catholic priest. I thinking about ordaining myself all kinds of things, a housecat perhaps or an owl. Maybe I'll ordain today National Gin and Tonic Day. I am powerful that way too, you know. The whole thing gives new meaning to word "individualism," no?

And her "reasoning" for this is rather funny: "This is not a rupture with the Roman Catholic Church," Beney said in a statement read aloud before she boarded the boat. "If there is a rupture on my part, it is with a situation that I consider to be obsolete and unjust to women."

I figured "I" would come in there somewhere. The "I"s always know better than immemorial institutions, don't they?

And then: "We consider ourselves Catholic," Beney told AP in an earlier interview. "But we do not agree with the church law ... that says only a baptized male can be ordained as a priest."

Yes. Well. I consider myself a bird, so let's see if I can fly. Can you be a part of something yet oppose what that something stands for? Let's have some fun with this:

"I consider myself a Girl Scout ... despite the fact that I am a 78 year old man."
"I consider myself a member of the Red Sox ... even though I cannot play and am not a member of the team."
"I consider myself a student at your university ... even though you rejected my application and have barred me from campus ... I'll be holding classes off campus and will give myself your degree in four years."

Rome hardly blinked and excommunicated the lot. [Yawn] What is it that Evelyn Waugh wrote (perhaps the central meaning of the text) in Brideshead?

Sayeth Julia: "...I've always been bad. Probably I shall be bad again, punished again. But the worse I am, the more I need God. I can't shut myself out from His mercy. That is what it would mean; starting a life with you, without Him. One can only hope to see one step ahead. But I saw to-day there was one thing unforgivable -- like things in the schoolroom, so bad they are unpunishable, that only Mummy could deal with -- the bad thing I was on the point of doing, that I'm not quite bad enough to do; to set up a rival good to God's."

I know I should put this in the comments to Doc's entry but who reads the comments? We only have three people reading this blog anyway, and I want them all to know this: Mark Helprin is the greatest living writer in the English language. In his writing you hear the echo of the angels. The excitement most people have for the upcoming Harry Potter novel, I have for Freddy and Fredericka . My copy is pre-ordered, and if I had a custard store, it's the book for which I'd have a special flavor .

A wonderful profile of writer and columnist Mark Helprin in the latest Harvard Magazine. To say he's an unusual fellow with a rather amazing tale to tell is, ahem, a slight understatement. This should whet your appetite:

Helprin is a classicist. He believes in history, tradition, and eternal verities. He values aesthetic symmetries and the literary forms the centuries have passed down to us. To Helprin, the principles of modernism are fatal to art, and he has no truck with the avant-garde. “The avant-garde are frauds,” he bluntly declares. “Modern literature is all cool and detached, even though a lot of modern writers are passionate about their politics. To me, passion should be for literature, and reason and detachment for politics.

“A lot of people hate heroes,” he continues. “I was criticized for portraying people who are brave, honest, loving, intelligent. That was called weak and sentimental. People who dismiss all real emotion as sentimentality are cowards. They’re afraid to commit themselves, and so they remain ‘cool’ for the rest of their lives, until they’re dead—then they’re really cool.”

And Shelby Foote, the great narrative historian of the Civil War, died this week at age 88. I first encountered Foote's multi-volume history of the late unpleasantness while in high school. Those days, after school was completed for the day and waiting for my ride, I would wander around the library stacks looking for a book, usually history or politics, to pass the time. Foote was a revelation, and although many academics scoffed at him for being too novelistic rather than source and footnote-bound, how I wish all historians could write with such grandeur and love of their subject.

The BBC skimps on its coverage of the anniversary of Trafalgar. Next they'll be running bits suggesting the Brits issue an official apology for sinking so many Spanish and French ships. "Blair issues apology for 19th Century Naval Hegemony," perhaps, or "Brits Nix Nelson; Sorry for Oceanic Oppression, says PM." (Thanks for Englishman's Castle for the tip)