Requiem in pace Electric Review, a smart "High Tory" blog of politics, literature, and culture. We'll keep the link so the ER's archives are available, but how sad. Where will the ER's High Tory writers go now? Find a place, please.

And a nice bit from Anthony Daniels over at the Social Affairs Unit (thanks to Enoch Soames for the heads-up) about the excesses of self-expression. My mind immediately went back to James Fitzjames Stephen and his jeremiad against Mill:

The odd manner in which Mr. Mill worships mere variety, and confounds the proposition that variety is good with the proposition that goodness is various, is well illustrated by the lines which follow this passage:-- "Exceptional individuals ... should be encouraged in acting differently from the mass" --in order that there may be enough of them to "point out the way." Eccentricity is much required in these days. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded, and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportioned to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric makes the chief danger of the time.

If this advice were followed, we should have as many little oddities in manner and behaviour as we have people who wish to pass for men of genius. Eccentricity is far more often a mark of weakness than a mark of strength. Weakness wishes, as a rule, to attract attention by trifling distinctions, and strength wishes to avoid it. Originality consists in thinking for yourself, not in thinking differently from other people.

Here, here. Difference for difference sake stinks of desperation, a call to "pay attention to me."

Imagine there's no heaven

Apparently Anglican priests are quite good at it , better even than Madonna. (Rather daring of him though to believe in the Incarnation. Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

The opening paragraph of this Spectator piece shows why Mark Steyn is the best in the business now, but the trenchant analysis of the article shows why he'll stay that way for a long time.

Well, Well, Well

And then there come those moments in the political theater called a Presidential Election Year that go beyond farce into the netherworld of possible insanity. Into the netherworld boldly goes John Kerry's Department of Wellness as even Kerry supporter Mickey Kaus recognizes. Really if Kerry hadn't announced it himself, I would have dismissed this Department of Wellness as a ploy by the geniuses who bring us "the People's Cube" .

Yes, it's HI-LARIOUS. But as Jonah Goldberg notes in The Corner , the name, the Department of Wellness, rings with an Orwellian tone. And so it does, but I find an even more ominous literary parallel. Start with a Department of Wellness and the Brave New World is not far behind.

Does this sound a bit extreme even from Cassandra, The Style Editor? Perhaps, but consider. The World Health Organization in its Constitution defines health as " state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." In which case your Style Editor would like to point out that she may have been healthy for all of 5 years out of her 33, but WHO might think that assessment optimistic. However, your average Victorian novelist would describe me as "bursting with rude health."

From WHO this well-being gobbledygook means nothing. There's so much disease and infirmity in the world that WHO can't even cope with that much less worry about our mental and social well-beings. (Although as it is, WHO spends far too much time worrying about health problems in the developed world.) In the developed world where we don't have diseases like malaria (How could I resist?) slaughtering our children and driving down the GDP, however, this definition becomes extremely problematic, and there is no doubt in my mind that the Dept. of Wellness would embrace WHO's definition. After all, it's international.

Thisdefinition leads to a bioethical swamp through which we will pick our way in later postings, but not now because I am feeling unwell.

Ho-hum, [sigh], and "yawn," Dalrymple dissects boredom in the latest Spectator with the expected lovely result. This underlying, or existential, boredom — and the desire to overcome it by whatever means — is a major cause of the epidemic of self-destructive, as well as antisocial, behaviour that has swept the Western world in the past few decades, Britain above all. In matters of self-destruction, in fact, we are in the vanguard. If gold medals had been awarded at the Olympics for senseless, self-destructive egotism, we’d have swept the board, gold, silver and bronze.

The sensible royalist Enoch Soames expresses horror at poorly dressed, swinging Republicans at the NYC Convention last week: Oh, I would like to meet their tailor...If they had one. I am not sure that one should deliver the reins of a nation's government into hands that are incapable of tying a proper knot. Please people, a tie requires a dimple, and the collar forms an inverted "V", it should not be that difficult to discover the center...Not left or right but center. As in “line it up with the buttons you hideous ass” center, are there no mirrors in your house? You might scoff at a king, but one thing is certain, you would never be embarrassed by his knot.

Being a bowtie devotee, I never have to worry over such barbarities.

NR Online has pooled the thoughts of many literary, academic, and political heavies on which are the best/most-important non-fiction books of the 20th century. Several observations on the selections:

Here, here on C.S. Lewis (add the Screwtape Letters), Michael Oakeshott, Joseph Schumpeter (to the horror of libertarians, to the joy of traditionalists), and G. K. Chesterton.

Here, here on Tom Wolfe, but honorable mention to his From Bauhaus to Our House.

Camus? Important, yes, but great? Something to be honored or admired? Not sure on that.

Hofstader's Age of Reform is the century's greatest American history book? Debatable. Where is Louis Hartz? Perry Miller?

Irving Babbitt's Democracy and Leadership is the safe choice, but I've always liked Literature and the American College better.

Lippmann's Public Philosophy perhaps?

I nearly fell over when I saw Pobedonostsev's Reflections -- certainly a fascinating and useful thinker, a major stick-in-the-eye for 20th century liberal democracy, but one of the greatest books of the century? The theorist of Russian czarism?

Roll Jordon Roll deserves mention for its impact if not for its interpretation. As my mentor once said, "Only Genovese could make collard greens and skunk sound so good." Methinks those planters were a bit more capitalist than the Godfather believes. Just how did they get so rich?

Freeman's Lee is great ... as a work of literature.

I prefer Von Mises' Human Action to his Bureaucracy. But I am a glutton for punishment.

Note to the Style Editor: they put Carson's Silent Spring on the list. How do you feel about that?

McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom is good, but look to Roy Nichols' Disruption of American Democracy instead.

Might I add to the list Robert Remini's three volume Andrew Jackson biography, to say nothing of his massive bios of Webster and Clay? He is certainly one of the most prominent historians of the past 50 years. And how about David Donald's Lincoln?

Interesting that Leo Strauss and Eric Voeglin never appeared.

And here's a grudgingly positive review of Gertrude Himmelfarb's new book, which apparently is simply explaining that there were more Enlightenments than the Frenchy one. Well, fair enough, since that happens to be true. But it does sound as if she might be overdoing it...will have to read it.

Way back when the Doc and I first met, we had a nice little spat over David Brooks' arguments for "National Greatness Conservatism". I was moderately in favour, the Doc was against.

Now here comes Herr Brooks once again, advocating what we might call "Hamiltonian Politics". This time I am more convinced that he's right, for 9/11 reasons. Back then it seemed that he was scurrying about for a great task to engage the nation. Now, like it or not, we have one.

It seems to me that this would be just the argument to make to the Center, completely closing out the "Michael Moore Democrats". But I think that the greatest mistake so far of the President and his administration has been their reluctance to make this a truly national fight. All in the interests, I am sure, of not spooking the economy.

It's not too late to think better of the American people.

Fascinating story of the day: Italian mountain climbers discover the bodies of three World War One Austrian soldiers encased and preserved in ice. They've been there since September 1918.

A smart article on Kerry's charge that our economy is equivalent to the Hoover years of the early Depression. Honest historians everywhere should howl at its complete inaccuracy. Tim Kane convincingly blows up the claim here. More telling is his observation:

What were Hoover’s policy responses to the Great Depression? He persuaded Congress to raise the top income tax rate from 25 percent to 63 percent. Hoover also signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff, a 40 percent tax on imports. But aren’t higher taxes on the rich and protectionism against outsourcing Kerry’s signature issues? Every time outsourcing is mentioned in this campaign, voters should recognize Hoover’s fingerprints on the Kerry economic agenda.

Kerry is no JFK, he's HH.

Yarr

I'm involved in a little pirate shindig a few weeks from now and was idly surfing the Internet when I ran across this:

Grog Recipe

Ingredients
2floz rum
1 organic sugar lump
the juice of half an organic lemon
2 cloves
small stick of cinnamon

Method
Put all the ingredients into a heat proof mug and fill with boiling water. If preferred serve in a strong tumbler when the drink has cooled a little (so as not to break the glass).

And then it struck me. What? No organic rum? Is no distillery fulfilling this vital need?

Update: Google answers all questions. There is not one but at least three organic rums.

First from the island of Grenada, Rivers Royal Grenadian Rum .

And then from deepest Paraguay (yet in a Sainsbury's near you!) (Note also the organic gin and vodka.)

And best yet an organic AND fair trade rum from Brazil!

How my little libertarian friends would cheer at this happy news of yet another triumph of the market, if they didn't loathe organic food almost as much as they loathe NASA. I am opposed to the organic loonies foisting organic foods on everyone, but you want to pay twice the price for organic out of your own pocket, I say God bless and don't mind me as I roll about on the floor laughing in the line behind you when you purchase "organic" ethyl alcohol for health reasons. (Have you not seen Bruce Ames' work on what causes cancer?)

The bizarre tale of "Indiana time" is worth a peek at Dog's Life, all the more interesting since I now live within that rarest of Hoosier places, one of the 5 counties (out of 92, I believe) who operate under Central Time and use Daylight Savings. Here's the map.

Seems poor old St. Christopher was rooked by the post-Vatican II purge of his sanctification. Did anything good happen in 1969? I'm still thinking.

Here's a surprise: a group of pastors and religious leaders held a conference on the question, "How would Jesus vote?" Seems they think the Savior would go Kerry. I disagree, of course. Jesus was a monarchist. He wouldn't vote at all. It was, after all, the Kingdom of Heaven he was helping us toward, not the People's Republic of Heaven. Long live the King. Sort of reminds me of that earlier canard of "What would Jesus drive?" foisted by the anti-SUV crowd. To which I always answered, either an SUV or van -- how else could you fit all the disciples into one vehicle?

Happy Birthday former British Prime Minister Lord John Russell, PM 1846-1852 and 1865:

Immediately after the repeal of the Corn Laws Peel resigned and Russell became Prime Minister at the head of a Whig administration. During this first premiership (1846-1852), he helped pass legislation limiting working hours in factories in the 1847 Factory Act and was responsible for the passing of the Public Health Act of 1848. This ministry also ended restrictions on colonial trade by repealing the Navigation Acts in 1849.

His government's efforts to prevent widespread starvation as a result of the Irish famine of 1846-1847 were ineffective. Russell's alternate support for and dissent from Aberdeen's government policies during the Crimean War (1854-46) caused him to lose the leadership of the Liberal party to Viscount Palmerston.

As foreign secretary (1859-1865) under Palmerston, he supported Italian Unification and antagonised the United States during the American Civil War by actions that seemed to favour the Confederacy. He retired from political office after briefly heading a second ministry in 1865-1866 but continued to sit in the House of Lords where he spoke on a variety of issues until he died on 28 May 1878.

Adam Gopnik in the New Yorker has penned an exceptionally eloquent review essay of the latest World War One history that has emerged in the last several years. And although it is simple, doesn't his formulation of how historians and politcians view the two great wars of the 20th century weigh heavily on how people look at wars (and the threat of them) today?

The First World War teaches that territorial compromise is better than full-scale war, that an “honor-bound” allegiance of the great powers to small nations is a recipe for mass killing, and that it is crazy to let the blind mechanism of armies and alliances trump common sense. The Second teaches that searching for an accommodation with tyranny by selling out small nations only encourages the tyrant, that refusing to fight now leads to a worse fight later on, and that only the steadfast rejection of compromise can prevent the natural tendency to rush to a bad peace with worse men. The First teaches us never to rush into a fight, the Second never to back down from a bully ... Every time a Western politician with any historical sense faces a crisis, he has to decide whether he should back down and search for whatever compromise he can find, for fear of repeating 1914, or step up and slug somebody, for fear of repeating 1939. John Kennedy, at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, had Barbara Tuchman’s “The Guns of August” as a warning at his bedside, but he also had his generals around him muttering about Munich.

And how about this for fascinating: archaeologists have discovered a cave once used by John the Baptist to baptize followers.

Alas dear Julia is no longer with us , but her contributions to the noble art of cooking shall be ever with us.

Don't forget: it's Burry Man day! Sees the scapegoat; he's the kid!

Been meaning to pick this book up: WSJ gives Forrest McDonald's autobiography a ringing review. Put it on your list.

A lost medieval city of nearly 400 buildings has been unearthed in Monmouthshire, Wales, perhaps one of the region's largest cities in the 13th century.

Call the press: couples won't get married in this modernist church because it is ugly. Imagine that.

What is the world coming to? C-SPAN is cancelling "Booknotes." Our little bright corner of literacy and civilization just dimmed a bit.

Let me hike up my chiton and toddle up to the wall to give my best Cassandra proclamation on the news out of my native state that McGreevey is resigning from the governorship because he is gay....

No sorry, waves of hilarity are causing me to clutch the battlements, ruining my moment of solemnity. Let's skip the atmosphere and cut right to the reading of the entrails: McGreevey's not resigining because he's gay; he's resigning because he's a crook.

Let me be clear. McGreevey is a CROOK. And a heel and a low crawling slimy thing who would use anything to obscure his real motives for resignation.

Most news organizations are running around appaluding his "bravery" and gay organizations are rallying behind the gov. Fools! You're being used like a human shield during a bank holdup.

McGreevey resigned because he's initimately involved in a corruption scandal, so vast and blatant that even New Jersey can't ignore it, which just goes to show how vast and blatant it must be. The corruption scandal was poised to break right before the election, and there were good odds that it would have had a profoundly negative effect on the Democratic party in NJ and could even hurt Kerry's chances in NJ. McGreevey's sudden declaration of his homosexuality is his (and I suspect ultimately the Dem. party's) bid to obscure the corruption scandal by a sex scandal and also a clever move to take control of the resignation date. Instead of being forced out and a special election being called, McGreevey has annouced he will resign Nov. 15th so a special election can't be held.

How bad is the situation in NJ? It's SO BAD that even the NY Times gets it. And NPR mentioned the Kerry connection this morning.

I honestly don't know if anyone has said this yet, but are there Scots Jacobites now naming hurricanes? Bonnie Charlie? Apparently there are '45ers at the National Hurricane Center. Rise and follow Charlie!

Interesting book review in the Washington Post about how history textbooks from around the world say startingly different things about U.S. history. In itself, I guess, that is not too startling, but this article echoes the book's thesis (called History Lessons) that the texts are too insular and nationalistic. Perhaps, but that seems to miss the whole point of who is writing these texts, usually well-known and prosperous history professors. Which makes one wonder about Canadian historians:

According to Canadian texts (six are cited), the United States planned to conquer and annex Canada during the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War and at various points in between. During the Cold War, the United States repeatedly bullied Canada into supporting its aggressive military policies. Canadian officials hoped that NATO would evolve into a North Atlantic community that would act as a counterweight to U.S. influence in Canada, but in vain: Canadian governments had to toe the U.S. line or suffer humiliation. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Prime Minister John G. Diefenbaker, concerned that Kennedy's belligerence might lead to a nuclear war, waited three days before announcing that Canadian forces had gone on the alert. In the next election, the Americans used their influence to topple the truculent prime minister. Diefenbaker's successor, Lester Pearson, aligned Canada more closely with the United States, but in 1965 he annoyed Lyndon Johnson by calling for a bombing pause and a negotiated settlement to the Vietnam War. In a meeting after the speech, Johnson grabbed Pearson by the lapels and shouted, "You pissed on my rug."

And you wonder why young Canadians don't like us.

Just when you'd think Anglican bishops would have far better things to do with their time and pulpit (like save the Communion from schism perhaps), one bishop wants Britons to stop singing "I Vow To Thee My Country" because It's saying my country right or wrong. I don't think anybody could actually say they could adopt an approach whereby they said they would not ask any questions of their government and their policies and so on ... The government under the Queen in this country is actually the representation of this country and it has all the... echoes of 1930s nationalism in Germany and some of the nastier aspects of right wing republicanism in the United States. I'll leave aside the anti-American barb, because it makes absolutely zero sense. Bereft of any historical perspective or common sense, the bishop apparently sees no qualitative difference between Weimer Germany and 2004 Britain. It's all of the same cloth to him. Here's the hymn (listen here), judge for yourself:

I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above,
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love:
The love that asks no question, the love that stands the test,
That lays upon the altar the dearest and the best;
The love that never falters, the love that pays the price,
The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.

And there's another country, I've heard of long ago,
Most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know;
We may not count her armies, we may not see her King;
Her fortress is a faithful heart, her pride is suffering;
And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase,
And her ways are ways of gentleness and all her paths are peace.

Shocking, isn't it? Such reckless language, such violent imagery...

Global warming is killing grouse, and deep-sixing the "Glorious Twelfth." Right. Isn't it possible to have a damp summer and not have it mean apocalypse? I mean, it was cloudly here in Indiana yesterday, and I don't think it meant anything more than a passing cold front. We had a lot of snow two years ago in NH, and not as much this year. Must fluctuation always mean something global and nightmarish? Sometimes it just rains.

Remember Killington, Vermont? The town attempting to secede to New Hampshire because Vermont state taxes are too high? Add another. Dorset, Vermont is planning to join the secession movement.

Doesn't this make you want to visit Manhattan ... at least for one Tuesday ... the bowties (check), the cocktails (check), the Château Peyraguey and strawberries (I wish). Fogeys of the world unite!

Speaking of the French, parasites benefit by sharing .

Also, children, vegetable pop rocks are coming soon to a store near you. They are supposed to help children to eat their vegetables. Personally if I bit into a fizzing celery, I'd never touch the stuff again.

Ah the French. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: there are no other more consistently amusing people on the face on the Earth than the French. If they didn't exist, we'd have to invent them, but would it be possible for us to create a people so inherently comic? I think not.

And when it comes to amusement, there is no finer spectacle than the French ripping on the French. They do it with such...elan. I have a friend who hails from France and by the time she finishes her latest critique of the French: their manners, their attitudes, their cleanliness, their government, the general sheep like behavior of the people, even my German genes feel sorry for the French. Once I felt so sorry for the French that I said out loud something vaguely positive about the French and the resulting blistering counter attack lasted a good 5 minutes. It made me appreciate what Caesar went through during the Gallic Wars.

The French are beating themselves up this summer with the question, what does it mean to be French? Niall Ferguson took on the question of the flatlined French economy a few days ago, echoing the same theme and calling it the "atheist sloth ethic." Good stuff as always.

And how about the stir created by Austrialian historian Keith Windschuttle in down under academic circles, attacking the academic establishment for fabricating Austrialian genocide of Aboriginal tribes in the 19th century. Says the Austrialian article:

With the passage of time, the academic history profession is far from over the history wars. An extraordinary number in its ranks believe they have been been damaged by populist history propounded by Windschuttle. They are searching for a way out. Only a few seem brave enough to speak up, arguing that freedom of expression is the primary issue.

Um, no it is not. Freedom to express falsehoods? How about accuracy? How about the slipshod denigration of Windschuttle's work by airly calling it "populist history," meaning it is read by the "great unwashed" not just profs?

It continues:

"There is an understandable public concern about the accuracy of historians' work," he says. At the same time, Macintyre maintains, Windschuttle fits with a conservative agenda to lift a burden of national shame from Australian shoulders over the Aboriginal issue.

Macintyre told the conference the history wars fitted in with broader "political dimensions" of the Howard Government's "abandonment of reconciliation, denial of the stolen generations, its retreat from multiculturalism and creation of a refugee crisis".

"Windschuttle was the first conservative intellectual to base his case on substantial historical research," he says.

Windschuttle says this is precisely why the academic community is still so scared of him. "There is a whole generation who have invested not just their academic capital but also their political capital in the Henry Reynolds view," he says. And, says Windschuttle, he has made Australian history interesting again for high school students who are more likely to go on to study it in universities.

While not referring to the Windschuttle debate, NSW Premier Bob Carr, a longstanding history buff, said much the same thing at the conference.

"History is an argument and the more argument there is in it the more young people will read it," he said.

Heaven forbid.

Here's a good one: Vermont man stops cop and asks to be arrested for drunk driving.

Skip the cheese, eat the wrapper

Soon you will not have to unwrap those pesky cheese singles. You'll just be popping them onto your sandwich without unwrapping them, and be doing yourself a nutritional favor in the process.

It is doubtful however that this new edible food film technology will have any effect on the "Stonner" a 1,000-calorie, deep fried pork sausage kebab that all the rage in Glasgow. Round off the meal with a fried Mars Bars and an Irn-Bru and you'll be ready to shout "freedom" too. Too many of them though, and you might not look that grand in a kilt.

Some fans don't like it that their favorite singers and bands are boosting Kerry -- concert boycotts this fall?

British reaction against expansion of innane slang over standard English (and yes, there is such a thing) -- my favorite "reader reaction" from BBC: Hopefully it can stop the annoying craze of saying "innit" after every single sentence. Simon , High Wycombe

Happy Birthday Herbert Hoover. One of Harding's biggest mistakes was putting HH in the Cabinet as Commerce Secretary in 1921. "Wonder Boy," as the wry Coolidge called him, approached the '29 Crash as an engineer, tried to fix it, and ended up making it far, far worse.

Nix to New Urbanism

"Smart growth is something people want," said Marsha McLaughlin, Howard County's planning director, who had supported more homes on the property. "They just don't want it in their own neighborhood." Not even Sierra Club members.

We have arrived. We are Hoosiers now.

Moving must be one of life's more miserable moments: the evaluation of everything you own on whether it's worth keeping or not, the interminable trips to the dump, the likewise interminable trips to the liquor store for boxes, the endless packing of those same boxes. Then you get the truck (ours was far too small -- we seriously underestimated how many things/books we had) and begin an all-day stuffing of it, putting things in strategic places, hoping against hope it all fits (it didn't). At the day's end you clean up the now empty house and hand over the keys.

Next day, you begin bright and early and head west, suffering recurrent heart attacks while driving behind your truck as you watch it sway back and forth going over highway bumps (please God, don't let it tip over on the NY Thruway). The trip takes two days, about 20 hours, and when you arrive, you are exhausted. The unpacking begins, always quicker than packing, and you are overjoyed when you begin to see the back of the truck.

Four days of hell, but it is over and things are calming down. Time to rest up, set up shop, and begin life anew.

Call Me Unreliable

The dear Doc sends out a plea to his colleagues to fill the blogging void as he travels westward to become a stranger in a strange land, and his plea is met with...silence. We should at least have posted a meditative passage. Perhaps "Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. " would have been appropriate.

It seems an approprite passage to describe the politics of opera as well, which will be on display in a new book by Howard Breslin, the former agent of Pavarotti. The book's due to come out in October, but this just means you have time to read Manuela Hoelterhoff's highly entertaining description of Breslin in Cinderella and Company before he gets to give his own take on the matter.

4 days and counting till we saddle up and move west to Indiana -- hence the distinct absence of blogging recently.  I must depend completely upon the words of my compatriots in this space for a little while longer.

There are few things more stressful (and I hate that word, terribly overused) than moving.  Once we get there, I'll probably need several days and several bottles to calm down and get my bearings.

Wish us luck.

We sleekit, cow'rin, and tim'rous beasties

Post-docs, academics, students and anyone who has ever had to speak in public should read this great piece by Rachel Brem or perhaps not because the identification factor is so very high that you may find yourself collapsing against the desk in hypoglycemic horror or longing for a hotel breakfast. And you don't have to know a thing about mouse genetics in order to appreciate it.

If you like mouse genetics though, you may well be interested in this update on the ongoing intellectual property imbrolgio over the transgenic mouse. This would be a perfect place to discuss the pros and cons of intellectual property if only I understood them. But I don't. Alex Tabarrok does however, so perhaps you should go see what he has to say on the topic.

How's your stomach feeling? Strong? Ready for grossness? Then click on over to the Weekly Standard site and read what Matt Labash has to say about Hugh Hefner. He think's he's a liberator, but actually he's a nutcase. Hugh, not Matt.

Here are some revelations you probably didn't need to know.

Hugh is Sensitive: "Hefner is a gentle lover, Zehme [Hugh's ghostwriter] tells us, presumably not from personal experience, though one can't be sure with sentences like: 'Feelings intensified, as they are wont to, and walls changed to portals, as his gentleness would impress each woman he ever knew.' How Hefner had a chance to survey each woman, when he was pinned at the bottom of a Sealy Posturepedic dogpile, Zehme doesn't specify."

Hugh is Really Kind of Nuts: "Blessed with a white-trash palate (he loves Wonder Bread, but only fresh from an unopened pack), Hefner still manages to be so fussy that his round-the-clock kitchen staff keeps a meticulous log in the butler's pantry, along with photographs, detailing his meal preparations right down to the vegetable arrangements and placement of the salt and pepper shaker on his bed tray...A fried chicken fiend (he's declared himself 'pretty horny for some fried chicken'),...He requires three drumsticks per meal, and the drumsticks, when ordered from the butcher, must weigh 2.8 to 3 ounces, while thighs should weigh 3.5 to 4 ounces and breasts should be 22 to 25 ounces."


Post-Coital Breakfast Recommendations: "After a good, clean mansion orgy, which Zehme somehow knows is 'always happily consensual, full of good cheer and humor, lacking inhibition and later regret,' Hefner also likes to chow. Even in the middle of the night, his requisite post-coital meal (the book actually contains a photo of it) is 'eggs, sunny side up, with bacon, crisp. Hash brown potatoes. Buttered toast, grape jelly, a cold glass of milk, and applesauce. Followed by French toast. All served on a bed tray.' Admonishing Hefner to 'get a room"'would never be appropriate, since he logs more rack-time than '70s-era Brian Wilson. 'Get a table at Denny's,' would be more like it."

Quotable End: "Perhaps Hefner really has changed America. If so, someone should hold his nose in it."

My goodness, the world is alive with bloggable goodness. As the Style Editor is at a National Academy of Sciences conference, and the Doc is loading a moving van full of Boston Beans, salted cod and rum for his trip to the Land of Lutherans, that puts the burden of blogging on my shoulders.

So here's an item that the Syle Editor will find very interesting. She often complains bitterly that people are starting to use the word "come over to a barbecue" when they mean "come over for a grill in my backyard." Thanks to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, we now have a succinct definition that proves her completely in the right:

Low, indirect heat for long, slow cooking is the key difference between barbecue and grilling. Grilling occurs directly over the heat source, and it's relatively quick because the cooking temperature is high. Barbecue is low and slow, cooking at a temperature hovering just under 212 degrees.

"Water boils at 212 degrees. Because all living things are comprised mostly of water, the water in meats will boil, too. When it does, it causes an explosion of the cell walls and that causes toughness," Hofman explained.

Tenderness and flavor are the chief components of prize-winning barbecue as judged in contests held all over the country.

There you have it. Grilling and barbecuing aren't synonyms, the Physics Says So.

Don't mess with the physics, you damn kids.

It must be late July. The Braves just pushed by the Phillies into first place.

Let baseball misery now begin...

As the Act of Contrition notes, "for what I have done and what I have failed to do" -- I am quite contrite for not blogging as of late (a serious sin of omission), shamed by my fellow poster (who also operates a fine establishment over at zambone.com).
 
We are moving to Indiana in (dare I think it) two weeks, to Valparaiso, that thumping heart of Lutheranism in the thumping heartland of America, while we remain a Roman Catholic island amidst it all.  I am glad to see that Hoosiers are pleased with their state, opting to stay rather than move from the "Crossroads of America."
 
Alexander Hamilton, "the greatest American politician never to be president?"  An insightful and inciting remark, no?  Of course it kicks into the shadows a whole host of bright lights, like Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, James G. Blaine, among others.  I probably agree, but...
 
Should the Brits be celebrating Bastille Day?  I say fly the White Flag.
 
Proper celebration of William Blake, a man of vision and visions, and (may my heart not skip a beat) do I read this correctly that the British Empire is no longer a dirty word?
 
And let this be a warning to you: don't smoke in portable toilets.  Lots of gas there.

The Lobster Quadrille

Your correspondent has been roving about the British Virgin Islands of late, which is why she has been even more silent than usual on this space, and while one should definitely go to the BVI for some gorgeous scenery, superlative snorkeling, and easy but enjoyable sailing, what one does not go for is the food. The cheap drinks perhaps, although caveat emptor as to that because I had a rum punch unworthy of the name at a well known bar down there, but not the food. (A maximum respect shoutout though to the chicken roti at Ali Baba's on Jost Van Dyke and to their pina coladas as well, rated #1 in both alcoholic and virgin forms by our experienced crew.) I tried for instance what passes for a lobster down there, and I can confidently state that New England has nothing to fear. You can have the spiny lobster, Panulirus argus , give me the sweet briny succulence of Homarus americanus.

After this experience then, I look forward more eagerly than usual to reading at the earliest opportunity what sounds like a spiffy little book The Secret Life of Lobsters by Trevor Corson, which sounds to be chockful of fascinating information guaranteed to stupefy any unwelcome interlocutor at a social occasion. (A welcome interlocutor will of course be fascinated by all this interesting information.)

Mercy, Maude

I just noticed this scary piece on the New Criterion's excellent blog, Armavirumque. (The original is from Opinion Journal)

We're Christians, relatively speaking

About 88% of American teenagers identify themselves as Christian. But very few of them are, in fact, Christian. That isn't merely to say that they stray from time to time from the path. It is something more worrisome--by and large they don't even preach what they ought to practice. They do not hold the beliefs that are prerequisites of Christianity--and here is the proof.
". . . slightly more than half of all U.S. teens also believe that Jesus committed sins while he was on earth. About 60% agree that enough good works will earn them a place in heaven, in part reflecting a Catholic view, but also flouting Protestantism's central theme of salvation only by grace. About two-thirds say that Satan is just a symbol of evil, not really a living being. Only 6% of all teens believe that there are moral absolutes--and, most troubling to evangelical leaders, only 9% of self-described born-again teens believe that moral truth is absolute."

Remember, we are talking here about "believers" popularly thought to be "fundamentalist," rigid, intolerant, and so on! Has relativism so thoroughly permeated the culture that even their (as we are told) hermetically sealed minds cannot keep it out?

Whoa. I've never been a fan of Jesus, the really cool dude, school of "Christian" "thought". In fact I will go so far as to describe myself as an implacable enemy, as it is directly contrary to Biblical teaching. If all Jesus is is a really cool dude, I want nothing to do with him. I don't need a cool dude; I need a Savior. (Incidentally, children, St. Paul takes a similar view. You can find it in 1 Corinthians 15:12-20. The majority of you who don't believe in the bodily resurrection though may find v. 21 a bit of a shock, so brace yourselves.) But I had, apparently foolishly, thought this element was relatively minor, but if more that 50% of them think Jesus sinned while on earth, Christianity in US has a serious problem.

Logic and basic literacy face severe challenges as well, because according to the original piece, 60% believe the Bible is absolutely correct in all its teachings, and yet nowhere does the Bible teach that Jesus sinned. Pay attention, kids: Jesus wept, not sinned.

Been off for a bit, teaching and getting ready for the big move to the Midwest.

MCJ, in its short and direct way, explaining why the Anglican\Episcopal Church remains a very derailed faith, one of "moral, intellectual, Scriptural and spiritual bankruptcy."

Free Jeeves. Here, here.

We also do not approve of men with ponytails. To steal a thought from Eliot, for once stop trying to be eccentric, and hop the terribly exciting, thrilling ride that is being centric. We recommend it with conviction.

Puff this. A Galway pub defies the Irish national smoking ban and allows its patrons to light up: Galway-based Fibber McGee's decided to flout the law after suffering a 60% drop in sales since the ban was introduced in March.

Its owners are undeterred by warnings that they could lose their licence.

"We're going out of business. We might as well go out with a puff of smoke," said co-owner Ciaran Levanzin.

Here's a good headline: Sculptures mistaken for dead bodies

And on this day in history:

John D. Rockefeller, oil tycoon and world's richest man, was born in 1839.
Alec Waugh (brother of Evelyn) was born in 1898.
And William Jennings Bryan delivered his famous (or infamous, if you are a goldbug) "Cross of Gold" speech at the 1896 Democratic National Convention: You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard; we reply that the great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country ... If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we will fight them to the uttermost. Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.

As for Marty's Martin Luther: I am going to have to read the book. As Woodward describes it, it is a graceful synthesis of scholarship since the mid-1960's. I am most interested in how Marty as a (liberal) Lutheran deals with Dr. Luther's continuing presence within his own ecclesiastical body. These days, Luther is more often a skeleton at the feast then the convivial fellow he was while alive...at least in Marty's brand of Lutheranism.

At the same time, Luther is not as welcome as you might think among the conservative Lutherans. They take their nourishment, whether they know it or not, from the Lutheran scholastic theologians of the 17th century. Luther is for them someone to be affirmed, to be held up as a badge of honor, but not necessarily to be read.

Where do I fit in on this? Well, I am pretty unabashed in my admiration for Luther, which increases the more I read him. The reason so many are abashed is because of his profound honesty. Erasmus, much more popular amongst academics, was much more given to deviousness and intellectual subterfuge. Which is perhaps why he is more popular among academics. If you want to live the spiritual and intellectual life with your chin up, eyes front, and heart on your sleeve, then you can do much worse than choosing Luther as your exemplar.

I await with mild interest the ex cathedra, ex polka response of Bunnie Diehl to all this.

I don't believe we have commented upon the National Trust for Historic Preservation's list of the 11 most endangered historic sites in the United States. The Trust has really gotten ambitious of late. They used to list houses or museums or train stations. While they still do that, they have gotten an inclination towards gigantism, putting a district of Colorado, western ghost towns or pbulic schools of the 19th century on their list. This year they have included...the State of Vermont.

Well, that makes you sit up and take notice, let me tell you. Given the fascination we have for the question of Killington Secession, for Calvin Coolidge, for the Dying Breed of Yankees...why can't we think of a way to save Vermont? I am afraid that it would have to begin with a few internment camps being set up in the Adirondacks. Desperate times deserve desperate measures, don't you know.

Naturally they direct their fury at Walmart and the "Big Box Stores". Me, I think Ben and Jerry are to blame.

(Aghast exhale.) Given that I am in the process of writing my dissertation, let me register a hearty dose of outrage along with the Doc's at that intellectual pervert and thief. In such a situation, I am sure that I would be physically ill. Really. So much work, pride, thought, ardor...taken.

For academics and writers, this is a horrifying tale of deceit: a professor finds another prof who plagiarized her entire dissertation. In the end, the other prof was stripped of the Ph.D. and fired. There are few more disappointing moments than finding a student who lazily copies work (usually from the net, usually a bad paper); I cannot even imagine if I came upon another dis or book that someone passed off as their own, that was entirely my words and work.

"This hath offended!" Happy Birthday Thomas Cranmer, born this day in 1489.

Fed up with inconsiderate dog owners, one British Council will now paint the poop pink. Why didn't I think of that?

A book review on Martin Marty's new bio of Martin Luther. Perhaps my good Lutheran compatriots have something to say on this?

World's oldest paper boy -- a Welshman, delivering papers since 1933, age 95.

I thought this was an interesting and sad story in Illinois: A Confederate soldier's grave tended by locals, who have searched and cannot find his identity. He apparently died as a prisoner of war while heading north on a train.

Happy Birthday to Me, June 29

So who was born on my birthday? I've always thought it was a less than spectacular group:

George Washington Goethals (1858-1928), chief engineer and later governor of the Panama Canal

William Borah (1865-1940), US Senator from Idaho, prominent Republican Progressive leader

Slim Pickens (1919-1983), cowboy actor

There are assorted other athletes (Harmon Killebrew and Pepper Johnson), actors (Fred Grandy and Gary Busey).

What happened of note on June 29? A lot of bad things, by the looks:

Shakespeare's Globe Theater burned down, the Townshend Act was levied on the American Colonies, the US purchased some Mexican desert property in the Gadsden Purchase (nice Franklin Pierce reference there), and the Second Balkan War began.

Pope Pius XI was pretty busy on June 29, issuing two papal encyclicals, one on the dangers of movies (you tell 'em!), one on "Catholic Action in Italy," and yet another on St. Thomas Aquinas.

It is also the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul.

Ah, yes, Jerusalem. Written by William Blake, as you probably know. But what you almost certainly didn't know was that the "dark Satanic mills" referred to in the hymn are not the harbingers of industrialized Britain, but Oxford and Cambridge.

All in all it's a rather strange song, what with the reference to a youthful appearance of Jesus in Britain (taken to Glastonbury by his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, who in the rather sophisticated legend was a tin-trader who made voyages to the west of England for the purposes of swapping commodities with the barbarians). Funny that it should be so popular.

But so it is, and they sing it with gusto on the "Last Night of the Proms", the final concert in a traditional BBC summer classical music series. The English Intelligentsia naturally see it as a terrifically jingoistic occasion, all very embarassing. Naturally it is instead very polite and sweet. The week after September 11th the BBD orchestra did not play Jerusalem as part of their traditional closer, which seemed rather strange to me. Hadn't they read the bloody thing? Seemed like that was the best of all times to sing it once more, with feeling.

Some good news from the North, where things are tied up once again despite some dreadful Canuck Tory goofs.

So I am either not a jinx, or I am being toyed with by a Higher Power. Hmmmm.

Up for some British imperial music? Who isn't? A nice collection of these hymns and songs here. I especially recommend Jerusalem, always a favorite, which is also apparently regarded by most Englishmen as their national anthem. Darn good choice.

In commemoration of these Canadian holidays, read Mark Steyn ("Ask a Washed-Up Canadian!") on St. Jean Baptiste Day.

O Canada

The United States has but one day of national celebration, but our neighbors to the North have twelve. Yes indeed "In the twelve days leading up to Canada Day, all Canadians are encouraged to celebrate their pride in their country by participating in "Celebrate Canada!" activities. From June 21, National Aboriginal Day, through Saint-Jean Baptiste Day on June 24, and culminating with Canada Day, you and your family may take part in a myriad of events and activities organized in your community." (Doubtless the election is just one of those organized activities designed to "Celebrate Canada!")

All this national pride and yet Canada is primarily represented in e-cards for this day as either a bucktoothed beaver, a moose, a ridiculous polar bear, an animated maple leaf, or a goofy mountie, whereas for the e-cards for our one day of national celebration, Glorious Fourth, the US is generally represented by the flag, an eagle or the Statue of Liberty.

Hmmm.

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

Today is also the Feast of St. John the Baptist, or as they would put it in Francophone countries where this day used to have particular importance, Clovis having cleverly aligned the birthday of John the Baptist with the summer solstice, La Fete de la St. Jean Baptiste. Now alas the feast of God's angry young man is just a secular nationalist day for French Canadians. Somehow I don't think acerbic and devoted St. John would be flattered.

On the liturgical cooking front though it is an ideal time to cook up the last of those cicadas you may have sitting in your freezer, unless you have access to some fresh caught locusts. Some scholars do argue that the locust referred to in the Bible is not the hippity-hoppity creature but rather the pod of the locust tree, carob as it were. Disappointing as this thought is, do feel free to cling to this interpretation if entomophagy is not your thing. Wild honey however is de rigueur.

However you mark the day though do give the last embodiment of the Law his due, for fond though I am of him, he makes me most grateful for the embodiment of Grace.

The Shakespeare conspiracy theorists are at it again, this time having birthday celebrations for the "real" Shakespeare.

Bob Dylan received an honorary degree from St. Andrews University in Scotland. That thumping you hear is Russell Kirk turning over in his grave.

And today is the anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, where in 1314, the Scots routed the English forces under Edward II and maintained Scottish independence.

Oh my heavens. Having just read the magnificent Christopher Hitchens' review of Michael Moore's film, I am nearly out of breath and weeping. He does have some rock-ribbed Mencken moments, no?

To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.

To use language this well (sigh).

Yet Moore is a silly and shady man who does not recognize courage of any sort even when he sees it because he cannot summon it in himself. To him, easy applause, in front of credulous audiences, is everything.

An insecure buffoon seeking out applause. Nothing more.

However, I think we can agree that the film is so flat-out phony that "fact-checking" is beside the point. And as for the scary lawyers—get a life, or maybe see me in court. But I offer this, to Moore and to his rapid response rabble. Any time, Michael my boy. Let's redo Telluride. Any show. Any place. Any platform. Let's see what you're made of.

Them's fightin' words! Take up the challenge! I want to buy a ticket!

If Michael Moore had had his way, Slobodan Milosevic would still be the big man in a starved and tyrannical Serbia. Bosnia and Kosovo would have been cleansed and annexed. If Michael Moore had been listened to, Afghanistan would still be under Taliban rule, and Kuwait would have remained part of Iraq. And Iraq itself would still be the personal property of a psychopathic crime family, bargaining covertly with the slave state of North Korea for WMD. You might hope that a retrospective awareness of this kind would induce a little modesty. To the contrary, it is employed to pump air into one of the great sagging blimps of our sorry, mediocre, celeb-rotten culture. Rock the vote, indeed.

Well, that puts it all together, doesn't it? The world would be a far sorrier place if the "great sagging blimp" had his way. I need a drink.

Funny you should ask about good political memoirs, as I was thinking about such things the other day. Who was the first president to write his memoirs?

Well, I think it was Martin Van Buren (haven't read it, shame on me), right? Did Tyler?

Followed by James Buchanan (read it and liked it, big surprise -- a contrarian, stick-in-Lincoln's eye account of the US leading up to 1861).

Then U.S. Grant, who wrote about his generalship but not his presidency (on my shelf, haven't read it, although it was widely respected and Mark Twain helped get it published. Still in print too).

Did Cleveland publish his? Don't think so, although he did write a book called "Presidential Problems" after he left office.

TR? Good one, I think so, but I cannot call it to mind.

Coolidge wrote the absolute dullest, information free memoir ever.

Hoover must have much later in life probably in the 50s or 60s.

Truman, yes. Eisenhower, not on the presidency if I recall correctly. Nixon, yes. Ford, yes. Carter, yes. RR, yes. Bush...another good question, not sure. BC, now yes.

Thus presidential memoirs are relatively recent phenomena: pre-1900, I count only 3, 1900-1950, 2, 1950-2000, 5.

What's really interesting is that it took the Welsh so long to hide that St. George painting, laden as it is with more political than religious symbolism. The congregation must have viewed the Reformation as a heaven sent excuse.

What's even more interesting is that Doc has been silent on Niall Ferguson's latest.

As for our wine recommendation for the day...well it's not really a wine. The Hitchens' Vineyard has brought out its June 2004 grappa. Whoa!

Lot of stuff out there today...allow me to summarize.

•The science of the brain freeze is revealed to a hitherto horrified adolescent world. This is the sort of information that I wish i had had back in 1688, when 7-11 rolled out the first slurpee. Yes, I was there.

•It was Reagan, Reagan, Reagan; now it's going to be ClintonClintonClintonClintonClinton. The BBC wonders why it is that political memoirs are so lousy [do you recall reading a good one, Doc?]. And speaking of the BBC, David Dimbleby asked Mr. Clinton his usual close, penetrating, rude, in-your-face questions, and Mr. Clinton got very angry. Hmmm. Clinton should have watched tapes of Rumsfeld dealing with Dimbleby. That was a gladatorial combat to remember. And Mr. Clinton should thank his lucky stars and be thankful that it was Dimbleby and not Paxo.

•Apparently the White House is considering speeding up the process of hiring a new director of CIA. They should. What they should do is appoint someone with the job of cracking heads and firing people, while moving up junior talent to positions of responsibility. That's what has to happen in a war; it's called battlefield promotion. My pick for the job would be Rudy Giuliani. But I doubt that such a person would be selected. The safe bet seems that it will be Porter Goss, the head of the House intelligence committee, and a former CIA case officer in the '60's. I doubt that he would be the reforming chief that's needed. Probably better in that role would be Congressman Chris Cox.

•My jinx is still on: The Globe and Mail smugly reports that the Conservatives are down six points in the polls as the Canadian election approaches on frosty, maple-syrup flavoured feet.

•And Mark Steyn patiently explains European realities, and What Federalism Means.

Interesting story: While making repairs to a Welsh church, builders uncover a large mural depicting St. George slaying the dragon that has been covered up since the Reformation.

Fido's Fashion

I've been worried about this for a long time, and I daresay you have too, but finally dogs in Bavaria can wear lederhosen, even if Bavarians claim that the only dog that looks really good in lederhosen is a dachshund. (Mind you a Spitzerich looks quite fetching in an Alpine hat.)

What a pity that Scooter is a boy Corgi otherwise he could wear the Welsh national costume.

A Murrain Upon Him


I too saw the Brit speak article, and while I do laugh when Albert rolls out a "I might do" and roll my eyes when he mispronounces "schedule" and have threatened the employer with certain and immediate death if he pronounces "pasta" in the British fashion in my hearing (which is perhaps unfair since he is British. Still, a girl has to have standards.) this is what I have to say to the author of the article:

Sod off.

Sure some people use Briticisms due to pretension, but there are others who use them as idiosyncrasies of speech due to reading and exposure. As his absurd slam of Gov. Schwarzenegger illustrates, the author doesn't bother to distinguish between these usages. Der Arnold, complains the professor, says "a coffee" instead of "a cup of coffee." Well here's a newsflash for you, Herr doktor professor of journalism, Germans frequently shorten the formal "eine tasse Kaffee" (a cup of coffee) to "ein Kaffee" (a coffee), so Der Arnold is not being pretentious, he's simply doing in English what he would do in German, and as his usage is neither incorrect nor ungrammatical, it seems to me you could lighten up a bit there, chum. Compared all the "modern" twaddle spoken and written by academics and journalist these days, a mere Briticism comes as a positive relief.

The Doc beat me by a couple of minutes with his post on Briticisms. Myself, I am more guilty of them than most, what with four years spent and misspent in that Island Kingdom. Jennifer snickers a lot whenever I utter a (involuntarily, I swear) "it might do", or such similar idiom. "I reckon" is also a favorite. No doubt she can come up with quite a list of others. But I attempted to avoid such things, lest friends and family suspect that I was trying to become some sort of 21st century Cary Grant, or Hugh Grant mimic.

What I rather resent from that Pravda essay...I'm sorry, I meant Chronicle of Higher Education ("Nossink is wrong, nossink at all, especially vit American Higher Education!")...is the following:

Generally a Yank can get away with at most one such locution in his or her active vocabulary, for example the person I know who likes to refer to his time "at university," the university in question being a large land-grant institution. Any more than that and he would be laughed out the door, like the professor who habitually shows up at faculty meetings in a bespoke suit, Turnbull and Asher shirt, and Liberty of London tie, done in a Windsor knot.

I scorn anyone who refers to having been "at university". But let the Birckenstocked mildewed athletic color striped sock wearing Rococo Marxist soy milk latte sipping ideologically hidebound narrowminded lefty reactionary denizens of any history department in this country try and laugh me out the door when I show up with proper tailoring, and I will take a malacca cane to their hairless quivering lily white backsides until they are red, and drive them from the departmental door into the outer darkness where they can wail, gnash their teeth and do Admissions counselling.

And stay the hell off my lawn, you damn academics!

(Whew.) Nothing like a little vituperation to purge the blood.

Right-o! It seems Americans prefer to use Briticisms. Lord knows I am guilty, and I think it's due to the large amount of British tv and radio I consume. I always find myself saying things like "I'd like a cuppa" when I want a cup of coffee, or even that something is "brilliant" when it is pleasing.

A fastball thrown by Samuel Huntington, clearly stating that America was and still is a highly religious and essentially Christian nation. And because of its greath wealth and great religiosity, it is (dare I say) exceptional.

Like a pin to a balloon -- Waugh on Joyce: he wrote absolute rot, you know. He began writing quite well and you can see him going mad as he wrote, and his last books - only fit to be set for examinations at Cambridge. Ha!

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! And now, according to an exhaustive Vatican study, we find that the Inquisition was not as brutal as many thought -- only 1.8% of trials ended in execution, and in Spain, of the 125,000 trials, only 2% of defendents were doomed.

The things you find when you hang off a cliff -- a 1,250 year old Christian grave was found on a cliff in Pembrokeshire, Wales. An ancient corgi grave perhaps? One can always hope.

The South Is Different

And it's not all due to malaria.

From today's CQ Midday update:

"If poise, beauty and looking good in a swimsuit are traits desired by North Carolina voters, then Rep. Richard M. Burr, R-N.C., has scored himself quite a coup in his bid for a Senate seat. The Charlotte OBSERVER reports that in two weeks, the outgoing Miss North Carolina, Dana Reason, will join his campaign as a field representative. "I'll be the name and face of the campaign," Reason, 25, told the paper. Burr is running against former Clinton White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles to succeed retiring North Carolina Democratic Sen. John Edwards. Reason was an intern in North Carolina Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole's successful 2002 Senate campaign against Bowles. "I really was impressed by his message," Reason said of Burr. "I didn't feel like I was meeting a politician, but a person." The new Miss North Carolina will be crowned June 26. "

It Had to Happen

A baker who lost nearly half his customers to the low-carb craze has tapped Dan Brown's best-seller for an Atkins alternative called the "Da Vinci Diet" that he hopes will bring people back to bread.

A little-known math theory kneaded with biblical lore from The Da Vinci Code has transformed Stephen Lanzalotta into a dietary sage. His lectures promote a diet he has followed for decades to maintain a muscular 160 pounds into middle age.

Numerology aside, it's a low-fat Mediterranean diet, and very good sense it makes, too.

The United States Army has selected a new field uniform. I think it's very practical, and very intelligently designed. Maybe that's because they took input from soldiers, for once.

Now if they would only get rid of those stupid "Ranger Bob" uniforms, and alternate between the sharp dress blues we saw so much of during the week of Reagan's funeral and these new BDU's, well, that would be fine with me. And what a cost savings! No more desert-specific camouflage, the elimination of an entire class of uniforms...That should be money enough for a division. Or maybe one F-22. Maybe.

I look forward for an fashion assessment from Jennifer, whom the Doc has called our "Style Editor".

I am still smarting from the failure of my beloved Howard Dean (that's Dr. Dean to you, proles), but that does not prevent me from making the following prediction: the Canadian Conservative Party will soon be forming a new government, and Stephen Harper will be the Canadian Premier. Last night's debate was a major step towards that happening. Things seem to be going very well, very well indeed. It's just a couple of weeks until the vote.

Stand by for the inevitable E.J. Dionne article which will shrill in loud, frightened tones, "Hang on! Progressives aren't dead yet! They landed on their feet!"

Welcome to Parliament, dude

Apparently, the British Parliament doesn't like you, but is trying to shape up. A new committee has recommended that, in the wake of the infamous purple powder attack on PM Tony Blair, MPs should strive to make the old place a whole lot friendlier. No longer will visitors to the Commons Chamber be called "strangers" (this is decidedly unfriendly and alientating, don't you know) and guides will be posted around the building, smiling, and saying things like "How can I help? Where do you want to go?" You know, like Walmart.

Says MP Peter Hain: Parliament shouldn't be a private club where members of the public are treated only on sufferance ... They should be welcomed in - it's their democracy after all. It's not MPs' democracy or House officers' democracy - it's the citizens' democracy ... I think we can make Parliament a much more voter friendly place and a much more modern institution that young people identify with.

First, it is essentially a private club, but much stricter than the Elks Lodge, with a long history, traditions, rules, and etiquette. To attend and view Parliament is a privilege. Not everyone can or should be there. Lighten up the image, take away its gravitas, and people will take it lightly.

Second, "it's the citizens' democracy" seems a bit pandering, stating a rather obvious fact that people back in the district vote for their MPs -- so what? Does that give voters the right to do anything they want in the building? Reminds me of the drunks at baseball games who say, "Hey, I bought a ticket, I can do anything I want, like scream obscenities at the players." No. You are here as a courtesy. Don't push it.

Third, there is nothing that makes my shoulders dip more than saying national institutions need to be made more youth-friendly and "modern." Pray tell, how this will happen? Flashing lights that blink "Par-lia-ment...Parliament!" Perhaps constant thumping background music, so that visiting Parliament is roughly similar to visiting the mall? Celebrity promotional visits to the Commons and Lords, maybe Britney Spears in a wig ("I'd just like to tell all the kids out there that the Lords rock.")? Maybe a whole new building, since the current one is so fuddy-duddy and yesterday (one Liberal Democrat called the Parliament building a "mock medieval, neo-Gothic palace")?

Like, dude, Parliament and, like this voting thing, is phat.

The Military and the Media

Mac Owens has an essay on National Review Online describing what he sees as a renewing deterioration of military-media relations.

It's probably worth pointing out that some of this deterioration comes about when the media doesn't do the job it should, viz., dig into all stories, not just ones about the US Army. Here's an extract from www.strategypage.com, a list of what the after-action investigation of that "Iraqi wedding" found, and it explains why Army commanders were so adamant that it wasn't wedding.

- The only permanent buildings at the site contained large stocks of food (the meat was still frozen solid), bedding, medical supplies, ammunition and weapons, as well a document forging operation. 

- The site was not prepared for a wedding feast, and there were no stocks of dishes,
plates, etc. and, most importantly, no  "Nuptial Tent," which is a standard feature of an Arab wedding.

- There was no evidence of any means of support for the house. The most common livelihood in the area is sheep raising, and there was no evidence of that at the site. All evidence pointed to a smuggler way station, similar to others found along the Syrian border in the past.

- The deceased "wedding guests" were almost all men of military age, only a couple of women, no elders at all. There was only one child, who was wounded. All the deceased were dressed as city dwellers, not as the local Arabs who would hold a wedding at such a location. All of the deceased lacked any form of ID on them. The only ID's found were stacked up inside the house, and these were fewer in number than those bodies found at the site.

- Weapons and equipment found there included RPG's, military binoculars, and bomb making materials.

- There was lots of clothing found, prepackaged in pants and shirt sets.

- Weddings are traditionally held on Thursdays in Iraq to take advantage of Friday as a day of rest. The bombing raid took place on Tuesday night.

- There were also no gifts, no decorations, no food set out or left over, and the good bit of money recovered was all in the pockets of the bodies found at the site.

What I wonder is, how come they didn't leak this before? There's more to military-media relations than embedding...

And, this just in, it seems that President Bush edited on the fly when he made those warm and gracious remarks about former President Clinton. There has been a leak of the actual speech.

Niall Watch

Alas, I neglected to post this essay by Mark Steyn on Niall Ferguson when it originally appeared...but it tastes just as good after some time in the fridge! Maybe even better!

This is particularly so because The Doc's "Favorite Historian" was at the time (April, when Sadr's Militia took to the streets) that the Shiite Uprising had Begun, as any Old Imperial Hand could have predicted, but those Stupid Yanks just don't read history, particularly enough of his own.

And, pray, where is this Shiite uprising? Hmmm...it seems to have gone the way of the ferocious Afghan winter. Waiter, crow for Dr. Ferguson.

Or, alternatively, a bit of salt from Dr. Steyn's shaker:

I was sorry to see Niall Ferguson, currently living high off the hog in the bosom of the Great Satan, reduced to peddling the Max Hastings bloody-ignorant-Yanks-blundering-around-the-world line in Saturday's Telegraph. He trotted through a brisk precis of the 1920 Iraqi uprising against the British and then wrote confidently: "I am willing to bet that not one senior military commander in Iraq today knows the slightest thing about these events."

I'll take that bet! What do you fancy? Ten thousand bucks per commander, rising commensurately as we go down the ranks? Last year, at a roadblock in the desert between Rutba and Ramadi, I spoke to a humble sergeant who, on discovering I wrote for this great British newspaper, said: "Wow! You guys got into some serious shit here, right?" On the passenger seat I had my copies of the Karshs' Empires Of The Sand and David Fromkin's A Peace To End All Peace. "That's a great book," he said of the latter.

Professor Ferguson's thesis is that the "ignoramus" Yanks are so hung up on theories of American exceptionalism that they decline to learn from the British experience. This accusation might more usefully be bandied closer to home, where London's governing class has, in little more than a generation, cut loose its imperial inheritance. If one were to pursue the parallel further, one might argue that the British Establishment is so hung up on theories of European exceptionalism it's shrugged off its own history.

Do read the rest of it. It still has the requisite bite, snap and crackle on the palate, mixed with the smell of prickly yet juicy raspberries, characteristic of the best years of the Steyn vintage.

I see that a collection of Evelyn Waugh's travel tales have been published, and get a lovely review at First Things. Must put that on my list (how intimidating at 1106 pages).

National Review's reprint of its massive and comprehensive defense of Reaganomics -- a combination of supply-side primer and "I-told-ya-so."

And with all the vagaries and change of the world, it's a sign of stability to see that the Colonel of Libya might still be up to his old crazy tricks, this time plotting to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. But it's interesting to note that he wanted to do it to hike oil prices yet higher, not spread the cause of Islamo-Marxist revolution has codified in his unreadable "Green Book".

My, how times have changed.

Tellng a Newspaper By Its Cover

One of the things that is still very cool about England is that the big London broadsheet newspapers have a way with the cover art. They didn't hesitate, on September 12th, to devote the entire front page to a photograph. American editiors, and newspapers, just don't seem to have the technology or the courage to make a big splash. The cover of this mornings Washington Post is very boring indeed; but the online "cover" is wonderful, particularly the photo of the interior of the Capitol rotunda. This has to be the first-ever time I've preferred the design and look of an online version to the printed.

Canadian Liberals in Trouble

Or so one gathers by reading this Liberal-Sources-Only piece in the Globe and Mail. It makes for a pleasant muse, for those of us who assiduously follow Canadian politics. (Lector: Why do you follow Canadian politics? Auctor: Because they are fascinating? Lector: No doubt, no doubt...but why are they fascinating? Auctor: The stakes are so small.)

Just back from watching Mr. Reagan's funeral cortege. We were stationed in front of the Department of Labor and so were in perfect position to see everything, including the missing man formation beautifully executed right above us. I am pleased to say that everyone was extraordinarily well behaved and somber, despite the occasional eccentric clapping. (Apparently clapping is the only way we know how to give support.) I am even more pleased to say that when I went by the Capitol at 9:45, the viewing line stretched down the Hill and almost all the way around the Reflecting Pool and was actually longer than it sounds because around the Reflecting Pool it did not so much resemble a queue as it did a scrum.

The Heart of a King, and the Head of a Communist

This one is news to me, but apparently the heart of Louis XVII of France has been identified via DNA and was given a royal funeral by French royalists yesterday. Now a rock-hard, barely recognizable nugget in a crystal jar, it was apparently cut out of the dead king's chest (he was a boy of only 10 and died in a revolutionary prison of TB) and passed around as a secret souvenir for years.

Ok. Well, long live the king.

And a 9 foot high, giant bust of former Soviet leader and KGB director Yuri Andropov has been erected in Petrozavodsk, Russia, apparently upon the urging of local war veterans. Still, Russians liberals are a bit creeped out to have a giant KGB head looking at them. My favorite understated line from the BBC story: "But liberal groups have condemned the giant head."

Reagan Memories

There are of course floods of Reagan profiles, reminiscences, etc., being published this week. I noticed with a smirk this morning that the Washington Post must have been concerned about the positive coverage they were giving Reagan, since today they have a slew of "There were problems with his presidency" articles, including a bitter column by their new reliable lefty Harold Myerson. (When did he show up, btw? It must have happened while I was abroad.)

Here are the ones I've like the best, either because of the writing, perceptions, but usually because of the inside observations they bring to the piece. There was a quirky essay by Michael Beran which compares Reagan to the protagonist of Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim. Kenneth Adelman describes being Reagan's Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. The best part is the following anecdote:

The first epiphany came early in his administration, when we gathered in a formal National Security Council meeting in the Cabinet Room. Secretary of State Alexander Haig opened by lamenting that the Law of the Sea Treaty was something we didn't like but had to accept, since it had emerged over the previous decade through a 150-nation negotiation. Mr. Haig then proceeded to recite 13 or so options for modifying the treaty--some with several suboptions.

Such detail, to put it mildly, was not the president's strong suit. He looked increasingly puzzled and finally interrupted. "Uh, Al," he asked quietly, "isn't this what the whole thing was all about?"

"Huh?" The secretary of state couldn't fathom what the president meant. None of us could. So Mr. Haig asked him.

Well, Mr. Reagan shrugged, wasn't not going along with something that is "really stupid" just because 150 nations had done so what the whole thing was all about--our running, our winning, our governing? A stunned Mr. Haig folded up his briefing book and promised to find out how to stop the treaty altogether.

But probably the best of all the memories comes in an essay by another arms control negotiator, Max Kampelman, who gives illuminating glimpses into just how Reagan operated. Fascinating stuff.

And here's something else that shows Reagan's legacy; arms control negotiators just aren't as important as they were. They have less to do.

Neapolitans to the Rescue

I thought I would beat Jennifer to the punch with a food posting. Of course, it's more than just about food. It's about standards, and tradition, and what the heck you mean when you say the word "pizza".

Italian pizza makers, politicians and the modern-day proletariat had set aside a century's worth of squabbling over tomatoes, basil, cheese and oil to focus on a larger topic that threatened them all: Neapolitan pizza was under attack, facing impostors worldwide.

As one local pizza maker, Alfonso Cucciniello, put it: "Everyone in the world is trying to do this type of pizza. In Japan, in China, in the United States, in Miami."

"Pizza with pineapples?" he asked. "That's a cake."

You tell'em, Alfons! Hit em' again! You are the thin line between civilization and anarchy.

Has Someone Found Atlantis?

Fascinating story from the BBC about an aerial archaeological survey in southern Spain that has found something that looks uncannily like the mythical city described by Plato in the Timaeus and Critias. Frankly, I never expected that so much as a brick of the place ever existed. So to find what looks like rubble of a city grouped in concentric rings, just as Plato described, is more than a little surprising for me.

Truman's Korean Exit Strategy Finally Approaching Execution

Crying for Dr. Donne

Over on Bunnie Diehl , there's a bit of a discussion about whether it would be appropriate for churches to toll their bells on Friday to commemorate Mr. Reagan's passing. Some people object on the grounds that it mixes too much church and state.

I am as sympathetic as the next girl whose ancestors fled Germany because the State was too involved with the church and who hangs out with wild-eyed libertarians to worries about mixing church and state, but really there are limits as to how much one can worry about things. In my family worrying has been officially designated an Olympic sport but on this topic the limit has been reached.

The practice of the death knell is an ancient one in at least the English church. Doubtless it was primarily a parish wide notification system, but it was also a commemoration of a life and a reminder of mortality, for it was upon this aspect of it that John Donne mused in Meditation XVII, Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, Morieris. The meditation begins "Perchance hee for whom this Bell tolls, may be so ill, as that he knowes not it tolls for him." But its famous bit comes in the middle: "No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. "

So yes the bells should toll for Mr. Reagan, not because he cut taxes, or saved civilization, but because he was a man.

"if by this consideration of anothers danger, I take mine owne into contemplation, and so secure my selfe, by making my recourse to my God, who is our onely securitie."

I wish I had more time to write, but I am so busy lately. Especially as I have so much to say about Ronald Reagan.

One thing that strikes me is all the talk about the popularity of President Reagan's "sunny disposition" rather than his ideas. It is almost as if the media is saying his personality sold his program rather than the widespread appeal of anti-communism/supply-side economics. I saw Sam Donaldson telling George Will the very thing, that the people liked him more than they did his philosophy.

What total horse manure. Ask youself this: had Ronald Reagan come out in 1980 and campaigned for higher taxes, bigger government, and unilateral disarmament, would the American people have rallied around him in a landslide? Please. No one could have sold that, and Carter certainly tried. The people liked the man and they liked his ideas. His "sunny disposition" and conservative politics were cut from the same cloth.

Some people still don't get it.

A rather tough-hitting, tough-charging essay in the latest Spectator, pricking the "greatest generation" balloon just a bit. The generation that saved England and the West from Hitlerian tyranny, turned tail and led the UK into a swamp of welfare state decline. For all their heroism in war, it was the D-Day generation that clamoured for, developed and exploited a welfare state. For more than 30 years they fostered the belief that the statism so necessary in conflict could be continued, with advantage, into the peace. The very institutions that had nurtured their resilience and sense of duty were, in turn, undermined by them. The family was torpedoed by the liberal divorce laws, and by the removal of the stigmas upon single parenthood and bastardy. The extended family, so vital in the 1920s and 1930s when the D-Day generation were children, was supplanted by the welfare state. Patriotism was ridiculed and caricatured by the very generation whose freedoms were secured by it, and cast aside in favour of post-imperial guilt. It is surprising, given the success with which the values and attitudes of the 1930s were put to use during the war, that the very people who harnessed them should have, in the subsequent peace, reacted so violently against them. What irony.

Party of the People? The wealthiest members of the Supreme Court (with investments in the millions) are David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sandra Day O'Connor, and John Paul Stevens. The "poorest?" Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and William Rehnquist.

Not Grandpa?

For years we've been hearing how similar chimps are to humans, with approximately only a 2-5% difference in genetic make up. Now genetic analysis indicates that they may not be that similar after all.