Only Gassy Old Windbags Need Apply

The Nobel Prize for Literature has finally been announced, a week after the originally scheduled time, and it has gone to Harold Pinter of the UK.

I have no opinion on the Pinter. I've not read him. I know his political views, which are a dime a dozen in the literary world, but I don't know his actual work, so it may be he well deserves it. He may be the best pick ever for all I know.

But what is far more interesting than the Pinter is the possibility as reported for the past week is that the Nobel committee hesitated because it was split on giving the Prize to the Turkish novelist, Orhan Pamuk. Why? Because Pamuk has publically come out against genocide, stating that the Turkish government was responsible for genocide against the Armenians and the Kurds, a statement for which he will soon be tried.

So now with the announcement of Pinter, we see the Academy has shown it's usual courage, the courage it so boldly displayed during the Rushdie affair. The much mentioned possibility that Pamuk was too young for the award is completely specious. Much tosh is talked about how the Nobel is an award for "lifetime achievement" and at 54 Pamuk doesn't have a large enough canon (Only 7 novels. Shocking!) to justify the award. Nonsense. If you look at the history of the Nobel, it has been given many times to authors in their 50's or even YOUNGER. Gracious this author didn't publish her most impressive work until 15 years AFTER her Nobel.) But then people used to think that quality trumped quantity. Now apparently the Nobel Committee thinks that if you want to be considered, you have to be a gassy old windbag. If I were Mr. Pinter I wouldn't be very flattered.


I don't know whether Mr. Pamuk is Nobel worthy. I've never read him, and it's not my call anyway. (If it were, here would be the 2005 winner for Literature.) The point is the Committee thought Pamuk Nobel worthy but then backed away because it values politics over literature. The last courageous choice the Nobel committee made of literature over politics was in 1970. Judging from this year's actions, the committee will never be as courageous again. The only good thing about this decision for me is that it has inspired to me not only to read Pamuk, which I've never done, but to buy his books as well. I may well hate his writing, but I say the courageous should at least get some royalties.

What Bunnie hasn't told you

I offered to PAY for her opera experience and still she turned up her twitchy nose and muttered rich atavistic libertarian oaths against the elite under her carrot laced breath.

He's Irish, not stupid

The Corner at National Review is touting the bizarre rumor that U2 is holding a benefit concert for Sen. Rick Santorum's re-election campaign this Sunday in Philadelphia. I know that speed is thought essential in the hurly burly blog world, but could we pause for thought occasionally? How likely is it that Bono, who has been very careful to not align himself too closely with any political side, would commit not just himself, but his BAND for a political fundraiser for the re-election campaign of a Senator with whom he some things, but not everything in common? Next to impossible. Has The Edge no edge? Does he just knuckle his brow to the commands of Bono if Bono had in fact so commanded? I think not.

I am the rasaest of tabulas when it comes to rock music. I am not just a void of knowledge on the topic; I am a black hole. But like everyone else in DC, I have been an interested observer of Bono going through his political paces, and while I do not agree with many of his positions, what is clear is that he's a canny man. He's been careful to appeal to both sides, and while he thinks well of Santorum's former Chief of Staff, I doubt he would go out on such a political limb as to volunteer his BAND for a fundraiser. He does not strike me as a man who would throw over his mates for the sake of a tenuous political tie. ( I assume the members of the band are his mates but perhaps those with knowledge of the rock world will tell me everyone in the band hates Bono's guts, and he theirs, and it's all about him in his mind.) Bono doesn't need Santorum for his political ends--Casey would probably be just as sympathetic to his desires--but he does need his band.

As for the rumor, consider the source . Or rather don't. I know many in the conservative movement love this source, because it feeds them the kool-aid 24-7 through a 14 gauge IV, but I have found it to be notoriously unreliable. I wouldn't trust a story from it unless I established three independent confirmatory sources for the story, and there are none for this one. What is clear from the Internet is that U2 is playing that evening in Philly at part of their tour. (Get your tickets here!) I'll bet Santorum's re-election campaign has bought seats at that concert, and the reporter zonked on the heavy kool-aid spun it. Now if this is obvious to me, why can't the bright lights at National Review figure this out?

(To be fair in the 30 minutes it took me to spew this piece, The Corner did figure it out and put up the correction, but my original point stands. They should have known this story was ridiculous on its face and should also know better than to trust NewsMax. Clue in Conservative Kids!)

Scooter Support

Now that the White Soxs have swept the Red Soxs, the Pink Soxs, a new breed of hairless Corgis has been created. Before he starts building this breed, I encourage Dr. C to go see Wallace and Gromit, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. For one thing it will cheer him up. For another, it 's a valuable lesson about mucking about with nature. I'm sure Scooter would agree.

Nobelly Done

The Style Editor interrupts her extended hiatus to congratulate the winners of the 2005 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, J. Robin Warren and Barry J. Marshall. Drs. Warren and Marshall received this well deserved honor for their discovery that ulcers are caused not by stress and diet but by a bacterium, Heliobacter pylori. The Style Editor remembers vividly the controversy that surrounded their discovery and the lengths to which Dr. Marshall went to prove the connection in the face of established thought and the contempt of his "peers." Elias A. Zerhouni, director of the National Institutes of Health, is spot on the money in saying: "I think this is a perfect example of how excellent science triumphed over conventional dogma. The prize affirms that we must keep true to our scientific principles of exploration, and continually question our assumptions." The academy, or established thought, can be a huge threat to actual science, and I am pleased that in honoring these two scientists the Nobel committee seems, at least for a moment, to recognize that.

Congratulations to two Aussie scientists who got the vibe of science. (It's the inflammation; it's Heliobacter pylori; it's the vibe.) I hope they're stoked.

Pope Benedict XVI opened his first bishop's synod today, with a full plate of issues to mull over. "A tolerance which allows God as a private opinion but which excludes Him from public life... is not tolerance but hypocrisy," the Pope said in the homily. "When man makes himself the only master of the world and master of himself, justice cannot exist." Delicious!

As usual, it is difficult to tell the difference between a Boston Globe article and one of their editorials. The two tend to blend together. Read this article on priests in the Boston Archdiocese and decide for yourself. Ugh.

I thought this was quite interesting: researchers claimed to have found the home of Homer's Odysseus. Robert Bittlestone - backed by two experts - claims the rocky island depicted in The Odyssey is part of Greek tourist destination Cephalonia. He used satellite imagery to match the area's landscape with descriptions in the poem about the return of the man behind the wooden horse of Troy.

Too bad most of the "hurricanes are examples of global warming" crowd haven't read this rather interesting article in Reason. Too much to expect, I guess. Anyhow, it dismisses the notion that big storms have anything to do with g.w. or G.W.

And this article was fascinating: British teachers using an online site have reached the conclusion that children's names are a fairly accurate indication of what kind of student they will be. You can bet the parents were outraged at this. The good names (studious and polite) are: Kate, Gregory, Sean, Charlotte, Jamie, Daniel, Lucy, Isobel, Ben, Sam, Harpreet, Imran, Asam, Alice and Joseph. The bad names (rude and disorderly) are: Bobbi-Jo, Kloe, K'tee, Kristopher, Jayne, Wayne, Charlie, Liam, Ryan.

Now, when asked to think up a list of the most violent countries in the developed world, few people come up with Scotland. But, according to the UN (admittedly a pretty bad source for anything), the Scots are commiting violent crimes at a high rate. By the way, England and Wales are #2.

The study, by the UN’s crime research institute, found that 3 per cent of Scots had been victims of assault compared with 1.2 per cent in America and just 0.1 per cent in Japan, 0.2 per cent in Italy and 0.8 per cent in Austria. In England and Wales the figure was 2.8 per cent.

And I thought gun control would solve all their problems...but apparently, in Scotland at least, there is a knife control problem. Maybe we should have registration and a waiting period on knives too.

A good looking blog, The Joy of Curmudgeonry, is on the scene. T'will be linked soon.

President James A. Garfield died on this date in 1881, the victim of assassination, leaving the White House for the inestimable Vermonter Chester Alan Arthur (right there behind Pierce, Buchanan, Fillmore, and, of course, Warren G. Harding in the heart of the Doc). Raise a glass to Garfield tonight.

And perhaps the proprietor of Zambone.com will explain to us all why he likes cows so much.

Interesting note here in the BBC, that KGB agents infiltrated the highest levels of the Indian Government in the 1970s -- "We had scores of sources throughout the Indian government," the book quotes former KGB general Oleg Kalugin as saying. "It seemed like the entire country was for sale."

Did everyone see this so-called debate between Christopher Hitchens and George Galloway on C-Span the other night? Entertaining, but, as the WSJ makes clear, was more a red meat festival for the New York leftie crowd (or perhaps I should say soy burger festival) than an actual forum. Still, Hitch held his own admirably.

Apparently there is a move afoot to change the Red Cross emblem to something "less religious." One proposal is to change the cross to a red crystal.

Who the hell is Harold Evans over at the BBC? He claims (sounding a tad like Don Quixote, methinks) that Katrina will finally wipe the last vestiges of Social Darwinism from American shores. Read, for instance:

America has long been entranced by stories of fortunes made by hard work and perseverance without help from government. More tellingly many of them come true, truer in America than anywhere else. It is just that they are not the whole story. When people fail it leaves, exposed as a raw nerve, the question of moral duty in a civilized society.

So Social Darwinism has remained in the American psyche, sometimes submerged in the current, sometimes coming to the surface like a log in a fast-flowing river. [President Grover]Cleveland's sentiments might have popped up any time in the 1980s on Ronald Reagan's teleprompter. His remark that "government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem" was an echo of Cleveland and many presidencies thereafter.

The log came clearly into view again when turbulence in the wake of 9/11 led to the re-election of George W Bush. His instinct for low taxes and small government has been neatly encapsulated by the evangelical tax cutter Grover Norquist: "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

My judgment is that the log of Social Darwinism will disappear again under the toxic flood waters of New Orleans. The corpses floating face down in the muddy overflow from broken Mississippi levees are too shocking a sight for Americans of all classes and parties. They are too kindly a people. They will look once again for vigour and compassion in government, even at the price of higher taxes.

Apart from my amazement of his using Grover Cleveland, this is fighting paper tigers. As he readily admits, Americans are a most charitable and kindly people, itself deflating the central factor of Social Darwinism that people ought to be allowed to fail and fail hard, without much compassion and concern from the rest of us. We have the lovely mixture, which works well in a federal system, of distrust of centralized government (which has zero to do with compassion, by the way -- few things are more cold than a national bureaucracy filing paperwork and filling patronage) and individual and neighborhood acts of compassion.

We fear national incompetence -- well-established here and elsewhere over these many, many years of New Deals and Great Societies -- and embrace private initiative and the acts of those governments closest to us. When they fail, then and only then are the feds invited and welcome. Mr. Evans seeks to upend this, and make the feds welcome first on the basis of a vague, curious, and frightening "compassion in government." Governments can love us too much, and when they do they take more than give, talk more than listen, and grow at the expense of individuals and competing institutions. And soon that love is smothering, unwanted, and inescapable. This has absolutely nothing to do with Herbert Spencer, William Graham Sumner, and the host of Social Darwinists. It has everything to do with history and the track record of governments.

Yes, Bunnie, we are a bunch of derelicts, aren't we? August was vacation, but we should be back on the job now.

So.

I just love how the media is all over the President and the feds about the lateness of the hurricane response. It was late, but last I checked the first respondents in any natural disaster, and the first planners of evacuation routes, are the local and city governments, backed up by their state. 25% of New Orleans is below the poverty level, thousands do not have the automobiles to leave, and depend on local public transportation for evacuation. And yet still, Mayor Nagin screams and yells on the radio (but was quick to get some good photo ops with the President yesterday too) about late federal response. Hey, Mr. Mayor. Why are all these buses just sitting here in a flooded parking lot? Whose plans were foul? Who was unprepared?

And then they begin attacking the President about not fully funding levee reinforcement, ignoring former ACE Director Mike Parker (brilliant on CNN last night, I thought) who calmly explained that levee funding has been negligent since the LBJ Administration. And even if Bush had funded the levee reinforcements way back in 2001-2002, the current ACE Director even said it wouldn't have made much difference, and that the repairs wouldn't have been completed by now anyway.

I see that a consortium of nations is releasing 60 million barrels of oil to help the US fuel crunch, and that is admirable. I think it is also good economic policy. If gas prices remain at an average of over $3 for the rest of the year, consumers will cut back radically on spending (can you imagine what Christmas at the malls will be like? Would you like to own retail stocks right now?), and the economy will flatline. And when the US economy flatlines, it takes others around the world with it. Keeping US gas prices low is good global economics.

Here's a laugher: first the media and many pols says FEMA's late response is due in part to bureaucratic snafus, paperwork, red tape, and poor coordination. Fine, I don't disagree a bit. Then Mary Landrieu turns around and suggests creating a Cabinet-level position to coordinate disaster relief. Then another talking head on CNN yesterday said because unemployment in the Gulf States would be such a problem, perhaps we need to create a National Recovery Administration, a la the New Deal. Wait, I thought bureaucracy was the problem...

Another good one: Katrina's devastation was due to global warming. Excuse me, when hurricanes were devastating the Gulf Coast around the same time that St. Thomas Aquinas was writing the Summa, was that due to global warming too? Even the Weather Channel this week discounted the role of global warming in this disaster, and they are hardly a branch of the Republican National Committee.

David Frum has some particularly good links on the politics of Katrina over at NRO.

That should cover me for a day. O-man? Style Editor? Doc Potomac?

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)

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...

(Mis-)Interpreting DC

Brilliant writers do not always make good political analysts, especially when they are from the United Kingdom and have Washington, D.C. as their beat. Dr. Potomac refers, of course, to Andrew Sullivan, late of the New Republic and now periodic contributor to the Sunday Times, the New York Times and his own blog. Mr. Sullivan's piece in the Sunday Times this week, while surely of great interest to readers in metropolitan London, was, from start to finish, a misinterpretation of developments in the American capital. It is difficult to tell whether this is the result of little or no reporting on Mr. Sullivan's part or his ongoing obsession with religious conservatives as a clear and present danger to the
Republic.

Paragraphs three and four are where Sullivan runs into a ditch he never gets out of. First, he explains that the filibuster deal in the Senate will "mildly constrain" the President hen vacancies occur on the Supreme Court later this year. Second, he claims the "hard social right" is "livid" over a "defeat" on stem cell policy in the House of Representatives. And finally, he believes that John McCain, by exploiting the excesses of the conservative wing of the Republican party on both of the above issues, has succeeded in transferring power away from the White House, toward himself and strengthening the McCain for President in 2008.

Let's take these ideas one at a time, shall we?

The ink on last week's Senate deal began to run off the page before all 14 signatures were affixed. (By the way, the pretentiousness of that signing boggles the mind. Signing things is what President's do and what just about every senator wants to do but can't. By in large, senators regard themselves as presidents-in-waiting and putting their names to that "agreement" must have given them a frisson of executive action but that's about all it will accomplish.) Sullivan's notion that this will in any way constrain President Bush in his choices for the Supreme Court represents a fundamental misreading of Bush's character. It is far more likely that Bush will take great joy in rolling a grenade onto the Senate floor in the form of a highly qualified and highly controversial conservative judge. This will re-divide the parties and force dissident Republicans back into the fold while driving the Democrats into full filibuster mode. The primary objective here is not to fill seats on the Supreme Court or the Appellate courts but to take the courts out of policy development and restore them to their proper role as administrators of justice. In short, POTUS wants a fight over the courts and the Senate "agreement" means little or nothing to his objectives. He has gotten approval for three conservative judges. Fine. He will want more and will continue to pursue this course irrespective of what the moderates think is best for the country.

On stem cell policy, pro-life forces on the Hill, far from being chagrined, saw last week's outcome as an unqualified success. No one is under the illusion that the Bush policy is in any way popular among Democrats, the bio-tech industry or the public at large (at least in the terms that the debate is typically conducted: people in wheel chairs versus frozen embryos.) The main threat the pro-life movement saw leading up to the vote was that there would be an insufficient minority to sustain a presidential veto of the legislation in the House. After weeks of intense effort, the pro-life movement was able to build a substantial cushion against a potential veto override. There was even modest progress on reshaping public attitudes on the moral status of the embryo through pictures like this that appeared on the front page of the Washington Post following the House vote. The Bush policy on stem cells is safe through 2008 and is likely to be a central issue in the Republican presidential primaries. No one who favors overturning that policy will stand a chance of getting the nomination meaning that the pro-stem cell research team must now wait for the election of a Democrat. That could be a very long wait given the dynamics of an Electoral College that continues it glacial movement toward the South and West.

Finally, John McCain. Dr. Potomac has a confession to make: he loves John McCain. This affection is based on having seen the man in action on the Senate floor in some private, unscripted moments in which he revealed great humor and personal humanity. He brings joy to the work of politics. He hates the French. So, what's not to like? Being a reasonable conservative, Dr. Potomac is as much dismayed as anyone by Senator McCain's strayings from the orthodox faith. He's like an unstable chemical element - on wheels. It would be great fun to watch a President McCain but there's a strong chance the whole enterprise would end in tears.

With this confession in mind, Dr. Potomac is willing to assert firmly that last week's Senate deal and the vote on stem cell research will do much to retard the Senator's chances of becoming President. On judges, he injected himself into an issue of great import to his chief adversaries - the base of the Republican party, keeping the enmities of 2000 very much fresh in the religious right's mind. On stem cells, he will face withering grassroots attacks and suffer a political death by a thousand door knockers in Iowa. New Hampshire independents will love him; latitude not withstanding, South Carolina will be much colder climes. McCain told reporters after the deal on judges was announced that he wasn't afraid of the politics as long as he was sure he did the right thing. Dr. Potomac
hopes this thought will warm him when his candidacy folds its tent on a cold March night in 2008.

The Shaky-Shaky Dance of Defeat

Readers of the Manolo know all about the Eurovision Song Contest, more really than we ever wanted to know, but did anyone ever suspect that the Eurovision Song Contest may contribute to the demise of the EU?

Bookish, hard, and full of rage

Far be it from the Style Editor to cock a snook at the writing world. I am generally supportive of most writers as I know darn well that I would never have the patience or talent to write an actual book; I can barely make it through a blog entry. Further more I salute any writer who can make a living at the game, even if they do so by writing the purplest of romance prose. But a deplorable spirit is creeping into the book world, a menace that must be stopped. I refer of course to the "SAT/ACT vocabulary novel" These novels are designed as "fun" prep pieces full of the 1,000 most common SAT vocab words. That is their purpose at any rate, although not all readers seem to grasp that purpose.

I've heard of teaching to the test, but this is ridiculous. When do the "SAT reading comprehension" novels come out? I can do no better than to quote the Ombudsman who when informed of this development replied, "Hey kids, read a damn book, and stay off my lawn!"

Jacques-ass
Reluctant as he is to wade into the fever swamps of Euro-politics, Dr. Potomac would like to offer a quick reflection on today's overwhelming rejection by the French public of the proposed European constitution. A salutary development, no doubt, but how to explain it?

Dr. Potomac hasn't seen the internals on the French exit polls but he'd be wiling to bet a half year of his salary in euros that those polls will not reveal that the French were suddenly seized by the threat the proposed European constitution poses to individual liberty and free enterprise. Occam's razor suggests that one should look for the simplest, most direct, and since we are talking of the French, the most irrational explanation. Bear in mind, treasured readers (all three of you), this is the same country that in the depths of the Cold War took its army and its nuclear weapons out of NATO, depriving the alliance of critical strategic depth in the event the Red Army plunged across the Central European plain, on the grounds that France (the same France that Nazi Germany sucker-punched into oblivion) could go it alone in defending itself against the Soviet threat. The French may engage in dangerous liaisons but they don't do alliances in the sense of cooperating seriously with anyone. For shear pig-headedness, no one can out do the French.

This has the sting like the dickens for Monsiour le President. He, after all, has spent the last several years building up in the French mind the notion of a French-led Europe as counter-weight to the American hyperpower; la gloire de France, ex-Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin with his painting of Napoleon on the office wall and all that daft stuff. Suddenly Chirac's imperial pretentions have turned to bite him in the derrier: the French public, made to believe that France is the savior of the Western world is now reluctant to see itself as just one of 29 countries in a European union subject to, say, the wishes of the Latvians. Quelle surprise! This must surely be the Night of the Long Faces in Paris as the leaders of all the major political parties contemplate how much has been lost: a central European bureacracy (cushy jobs with expansive, unenumerated powers and a constitutional license to meddle endlessly in the lives of 400 million people) that large countries like France and Germany really could dominate. All of that gone with single Gallic, "Non!" One can almost hear the word proceeding from the nose of DeGaulle himself.

After a long and glorious Spring, the Summer season is upon us in the Nation's capital. The traditional signs are beginning to appear: squaddles of interns wandering about the streets in a dazed fashion snarling traffic. Gaggles of Greenpeacers congregating in Metro entrances, blocking the smooth flow of traffic as they urge people to sign petitions. And just today I saw a man walking over the Key Bridge his Oxford shirt dangling from his hand, as he bared his nude torso to the elements. It was not an aesthetically pleasing sight, and I hope this is NOT the start of some sort of trend in DC. Please, gentlemen, keep your shirts on. Let the seersucker suit and a nice Panama be the height of your summer frivolity.

Still, as the season is upon us, I present to you, from the pen of my good friend, Miss Maximally Cool, a ditty to the American condiment. Yes, this is how we citizens of the nation's capital keep ourselves occupied during the "work" day. One can read only so much of an asbestos bill at the time.

Ketchup

Shall I compare thee to a mayonnaise?
Thou art more lovely, more smooth and scarlet
Mayo globes like celluloid as on it you gaze,
And its expiration has all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the sun on checkouts shines,
And that pungent smell can serve as a ruler
To avoid the egg-based condiment that can decline
By chance or nature's course when outside the cooler.

But thy sweet scarlet ketchup shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of natural mellowing agents.
Thou need not hide deep in the cooler's shade,
But sit out, an icon to Christians and to pagans.
For so long as men can taste and eyes can see
So long live ketchup, to give good times to you and me.

Bernie Sanders in the Senate? Yup, says the latest polls. Vermont remains a perplexing place, to be sure. I lived there for four years while an undergraduate, and while it still retains traces of its former conservative Yankee self, it is now thoroughly dominated by the People's Republic of Burlington.

You have to head off into the woods and fields to find that old Vermont, of guns and pickups, and bumper-stickers that say "Welcome to Vermont -- Now Get Out," and hardscrabble farms, and the smell of cow manure hanging in the morning air, and small towns out of a Currier and Ives print. Nowadays, when people think of Vermont, it is Starbucks and Ben and Jerry's, left-wing used book stores and daily protests over [insert favorite cause here], aging hippies with fat portfolios and waistlines, and New Yorkers who use Chittenden County as their weekend vacation home (the Hamptons are so yesterday, no?).

The Union-Leader says it best: Vermont is where Calvin Coolidge, one of America’s most conservative Presidents, was raised and where he got his values. It used to be a land of common-sense conservatism much like New Hampshire. Now it is run by liberal refugees from New York who have turned the state into a hippie haven. Both Sanders and Dean were born and raised in New York City.

Sending Sanders to the Senate would make Vermont look even kookier than Howard Dean did. And most Vermonters don’t seem to have a problem with that.

They are an odd bunch, take it from me. Pity the real Vermonter, up there in the "Northeast Kingdom." Call it the Tyranny of Burlington, giving the once proud state such a reputation.

Amazing, ain't it? Bunnie abuses us, and we recover from our end of semester torpor. Or, since I am not currently on the semester system, my six-thousand-words-left-on-my-dissertation-here-comes-the-cliff feeling.

But I have to say, whatever torpor might do to me, I have no intention of giving a remote control to my students. If I cared about their opinons, I would be taking their class!

Hah! And stay the hell off my lawn, you damn kids!

There, that's a little bile and vituperation and curmudgeonly spirit, flowing each way free.

And I am somewhat serious...

Bunnie is quite correct. We have all been lax. Semester has finally ended for me, so now that I am out from underneath the correcting perhaps I can resume normal blogging.

Cleaning out the desk drawers of my mind:

- Sorry Clarence. Strict construction of the Constitution and a healthy respect for states rights versus my love of the vine. Waiter! Chardonnay!

- I've never watched a single episide of "Everybody Loves Raymond." And do you know I must be one of the last few Americans who has never seen "ET." And now, out of pure spite, I have no intention of ever seeing it.

- Two books I am reading right now: Patrick O'Brian's Ionian Mission and Sidney Fay's Origins of World War One.

- A boulder appears suddenly in an Iowa cornfield. No one knows how it got there.

-Mr. Soames likes John Wilkes? Now what would Dr. Johnson say of this?

- Match Game, Password, and probably Pyramid were the best game shows. I say this after watching a bit of GSN this week.

- Barrett Wendell on Unitarianism: "The second person of the Trinity having thus lost his mystic office, the third spread wing and vanished into the radiance of a new heaven. In this glorious region the New England Unitarians discerned singly and alone the one God, who had made man in his image. One almost perfect image they recognised in Jesus Christ; a great many inferior but still indubitable ones they found actually to populate the Commonwealth of Massachusetts."

More later.

Overheard as I walked past two college students speaking to one another about their classes:

"I write good."

Quiz round-up

Well, it seems that:
a. my inner European is Irish, thank heavens.
b. I'll live till I'm 85. Here's hoping...
c. I apparently belong in the year 1960. Sure, is 1860 an option?
d. The English-speaking country I most belong in the UK, which doesn't mesh too well with my inner Irish I might add.
e. I speak 40% Modern English and 40% Yankee -- how appalling. Indiana is having a bad effect on me.
f. I should learn Latin as my second language. The Pope will be pleased.
g. And I am 100% Roman Catholic, RC, Papist, baby! Ben-e-dict! Ben-e-dict!

Viva il papa! Life is all about making the right people mad. And won't all the right people be mad today.

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger is now Pope Benedict XVI, a lovely choice of name suggesting (1.) St. Benedict and his famous book of Order, (2.) that much like Benedict XV followed St. Pius X, Benedict XVI (in an amazing gesture) will do the same for a future St John Paul II, and (3.) a quieter pastoral papacy after a time of tremendous intellectual controversy and energy. Still perhaps that last bit won't hold true. He'll undoubtedly travel less than JPII but probably write as much or more -- when Cardinal, he was prolific.

My oh my, what a wonderful day.

Here's a detail I hadn't heard before, since I did not watch. The cardinals applauded Ratzinger's homily. Common courtesy or sign of genuine agreement? Black smoke ... I guess less than 77 applauded? ...

Black smoke. No papa.

Isn't there something lovely about the world fixating its gaze at an old brown-gray metal stovepipe propped up on the Sistine Chapel roof, looking for smoke signals about who will be the next pontiff? What a refreshing breath in an era when transparency is the orthodoxy -- a "what are you doing, what are thinking, what are you feeling" world, where all of life now seems a reality tv show or Oprah -- that this secret meeting fires our imaginations. We need this little bit of tradition, magic, and mystery.

Cardinal Ratzinger's morning homily certainly gained a lot of attention, some seeing it as brazen electioneering and others as merely restating what he has always said and believed. It certainly won't make him any friends among Catholic liberals (big surprise there) but, in combination with his funeral homily, gives you a "rounder" glimpse of the man: an intellectual with clear pastoral gifts and certain ideas about the problems and directions of the Church. Here is an excerpt from the homily, from the Vatican Radio site (Thanks to Against the Grain for the tip):

How many winds of doctrine we have known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking… The small boat of thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves – thrown from one extreme to the other: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism, and so forth. Every day new sects are created and what Saint Paul says about human trickery comes true, with cunning which tries to draw those into error (cf Eph 4, 14). Having a clear faith, based on the Creed of the Church, is often labeled today as a fundamentalism. Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and “swept along by every wind of teaching”, looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today’s standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.

However, we have a different goal: the Son of God, true man. He is the measure of true humanism. Being an “Adult” means having a faith which does not follow the waves of today’s fashions or the latest novelties. A faith which is deeply rooted in friendship with Christ is adult and mature. It is this friendship which opens us up to all that is good and gives us the knowledge to judge true from false, and deceit from truth. We must become mature in this adult faith; we must guide the flock of Christ to this faith. And it is this faith – only faith – which creates unity and takes form in love. On this theme, Saint Paul offers us some beautiful words - in contrast to the continual ups and downs of those were are like infants, tossed about by the waves: (he says) make truth in love, as the basic formula of Christian existence. In Christ, truth and love coincide. To the extent that we draw near to Christ, in our own life, truth and love merge. Love without truth would be blind; truth without love would be like “a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal” (1 Cor 13,1).

By the way, several journalists have totally misread (perhaps willfully) Ratzinger's remarks on "fundamentalism." Taken in context, he was clearly saying that some label fealty to Church doctrine, in a way to dismiss it entirely, as "fundamentalism," thereby linking it to nasty extremists in other faiths -- a pretty deliberate bending of the truth and Truth. Running from this, many settle in with relativism, an anything goes, self-centered anti-philosophy. The traditional teachings of the Church are neither.

I keep wondering if perhaps this man doesn't really want to be pope. He became the "chief doctrinal officer" (back-handed mediaspeak for head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) reluctantly, and was talked out of retiring several times by JPII. Now everyone has him as a papal frontrunner and politician for the job. Could it be that this morning's homily was the Cardinal's way of saying, "Are you sure you want me?" and a way to retire quietly? This way he can be the kingmaker (or popemaker) and not be pope. Just a theory, one that I hope is wrong. Ratzinger is "one" on my short list.

By the way, check out the fantastic Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club. Why has it taken me so long to find you? All my fault. They actually have a gift shop where you can buy t-shirts, hats, mugs, etc. with the Cardinal's picture on them and various messages like "Papist" and "Putting the smackdown on heresy since 1981." My word, where is my credit card...

Going Nuclear

Friends have been asking Dr. Potomac for his views on Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s proposal to end the practice of unlimited debate (read: filibuster) against presidential nominations to the federal judiciary.  Dr. Potomac asks readers to bear in mind that he speaks as one who has spent nearly half of almost a 20-year federal career working for Senators of both political parties and has a quaint attachment to its somewhat arcane habits.  He has seen great evil and great good done through the Senate practice of “holds” on judicial nominees which are basically filibusters without all that annoying chatter.  On the one hand, you have Lani Guinier stopped in her tracks by the threat of Senate floor donnybrook.  On the other, you Chuck Schumer picking his teeth with the desiccated bones of federal appeals court nominees.  Geese and gander line up for the same Senate sauce.  The real question is whether, in the long-term, the Republic (as opposed to the Republican Party) is better served by unlimited debate for judicial nominees or a relative fast-track to confirmation.  This is a prudential question on which reasonable conservatives can, and do, disagree.

Dr. Potomac would add one more consideration that in his (reasonable) view lends itself toward limiting debate.  The federal courts are the playground of social liberals.  (This is in large part the fault of previous Republican administrations who allowed a lot of winking and nodding to take the place of clear expressions of judicial philosophy resulting in unfortunate “growth” among certain members of the federal bench.)  Pardon Dr. Potomac’s cynicism but is it likely that the Left has suddenly seen the wisdom of the counter-majoritarian nature of Senate processes and procedures?  It seems much more likely that People for the American Way, the ACLU, the Alliance for Justice, et. al. are really worried that no one dilute the liberal judicial philosophy which dominates the federal courts.  To prevent this outcome, they are willing to join hands with the doctrine of unlimited debate which blocked civil rights legislation for 100 years – and they are even leaning on Senator Robert C. Byrd, he of Klan heritage, to help them do it.  That’s enough to meet the “recommended daily amount” of irony for any thinking person. The bottom line here is that the federal judiciary needs reform (personnel is policy, remember) if the imbalance of power between the branches is to be corrected. Democrats, entirely dependent on the anti-democratic nature of the courts to enforce policies that would be laughed out of any state legislature, will do anything to prevent this reform from happening. Republicans, constrained by too many scruples, ought not to flinch from their duty.

Which brings Dr. Potomac to his final point:  whether Dr. Frist wins or loses (and Dr. Potomac has it on good authority that he will win) this fight demonstrates once again that American liberalism, like an army in full retreat, is engaged in nearly constant rear-guard actions and defensive entrenchments.  Meanwhile, through the attrition of election loses and public-relations setbacks, Democratic ranks continue to thin out.  Conservatives can and should expect to lose battles.  The war, however, is going our way.

It says everything about our age that, were a judicial nominee in America to echo the views of John Paul II on human life, the Democratic Senate would unanimously filibuster his nomination to death and denounce him as an extremist. Patrick J. Buchanan, "Pius XII and John Paul II"

Don't you just hate it when things fail to go your way? The Anglican Bishop of Lichfield attacked the late Pope's legacy this week, claiming that he appointed too many "conservative" (read: those who adhere to RC doctrine) cardinals. "His practice of replacing ecumenically-minded or modern-thinking bishops with very conservative ones has led to a trail of destruction in parts of Europe and South America." Pray tell, mine Anglican friend, where this "trail of destruction" is found in South America with its ongoing Catholic boom? Or in Europe, which has been madly secularizing for over a century? You can see the Bishop's smiling mug and article here.

And the Union-Leader has a perspicacious editorial this morning, pointing out the inanity of polling Catholics and somehow connecting that to Church doctrine and direction.

And now another idiotic statement from a Congressman

Proving once again that brains are a hindrance in elected offices:

   " Would you like to “spring forward” a month earlier each year? Stay tuned. Daylight-saving time would be extended by two months under an amendment to the energy bill that is expected to reach the House floor in a couple of weeks. The proposal, by Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., was approved yesterday by voice vote as the Energy and Commerce Committee began its line-by-line markup of the legislation. Under Upton’s amendment, daylight-saving time would begin on the first Sunday in March and run through the last Sunday in November. That is a month earlier in the spring and a month later in the fall than current law specifies. “The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use,” Upton said." --- CQ's Midday Update

I don't know what it is about Congressmen. They seem to have no grasp of the laws of nature. They always seem to think that Daylight Savings Time somehow increases the amount of daylight in the world, that the incantation "We are now in Daylight Savings time! Oogah-Boogah!" somehow pauses the earth's rotation. Is there some ancient scroll in the Library of Congress that says this is how God and Joshua worked the sun stopping scheme? And God said "Let there be Daylight Savings TIme!" And lo, the sun stopped in its course, and Joshua and the Israelites fell upon the host and slaughtered them, without having to use any electricity."

Really, it makes one despair.

The Dirt

In baseball, apparently dirt is a crucial substance. So crucial that one NJ "farmer" makes his living from selling dirt to the major (and minor) league. I must say I had no idea. The thought never occurred to me when watching a baseball game, "From whence cometh the dirt?" I knew that the mud used to treat the balls comes from NJ, but I had no idea NJ, which doesn't have a major league team (and let's keep it that way), was the source of so much major league dirt. Of course considering the state of politics in my native state there is a certain logic to this...

A reasoned post, SE, although your offense at my "score one for our side" (from whose side Brown comes from is unclear, and hence hardly ground for too much offense) seems a bit outbalanced by anyone seriously engaging in a discussion, days after his death, of whether the Pope is the anti-Christ and burning in hell. Give. Me. A. Break. Being satisfied, at least externally, with someone accepting the divinity of Christ seems a matter of good taste and manners as much as reasonable theology, I agree. I've always considered this blog in that spirit. Neither of us see much of that in those other blog comments, however.

One of the many reasons it took me by surprise is that considering the dire straits of Christianity in the West, I think it simple good sense to make common cause with conservative, doctrinally-grounded Christians (very much in the spirit of JPII, I might add). We may not all know what we like, but we certainly know what we do not like and who the problems are. Hence, I've had no problem and enjoyed immensely the Lutheran spin on these pages, and have happily linked to others of the same ilk despite the fact that I am (as your brother the O-man well knows) a triumphant Catholic curmudgeon. I have so much more in common with the Bunnie Diehls of the world than the Gene Robinsons. Hence the anti-Catholic talk puzzles me.

Back to the Style Channel

As he is our RC rep, I shall leave all updates what's going down in the Vatican to the Doc, and I suppose the Ombudsman, should he be so inclined. (One should never speak for the Ombudsman. Although last I saw of the him, he was so deep into matters concerning the Revolutionary War that it may be news to him that Pius VI still isn't in power.) I will merely say that I am a bit surprised that the Doc doesn't remember any other Popes. Even though I was ASTONISHINGLY young at the time (well not that young), I do remember the short reign of John Paul I, and I can't imagine why as it had nothing to do with food, which is usually the only fixative of the memories of my youth. (Unless it was the rumors at the time that had to do with his being poisoned. That would involve food and might explain an otherwise anomalous occurrence of memory.)

We now go back to the regularly scheduled programming expected of the Style Editor, which is to say fluff and food, and the occasional exception for serious matters that I do not think are getting enough attention like the situation in Zimbabwe. However, Nick Kristoff at the NY Times wrote an excellent op-ed on the topic (and a multimedia piece too ) so Zimbabwe is getting more attention than I could ever bring to it, although not as much as it should be getting. But there is also the ever present evil brought to the world by viruses.

You did not know that viruses are the bringers of ever-present evil? Oh dear yes. It is well known that such is the case. It is true that I, the Style Editor, have a bit of an idee fixe about viruses. As some people are about pesticides causing all ills, so am I about viruses. Indeed the only difference between the pestilential pesticide purveyors and me is that I have a lot more science on my side. Some days I muse that perhaps I am too extreme in these matters, but then I read reports like this where it turns out that the dear sweet E. coli, bacteria, our usually charming and necessary digestive friend, mutated into its evil fiend form, such as E coli O157, as the result of A VIRUS. And then I think really my position on viruses is really FAR too moderate. (I once attended a National Academy of Sciences dealio on Emerging Infectious Diseases, where one participant announced that it was well known that viruses are the root cause of cancer, heart disease, and really just about any ill that affects man for which we do not already have a microbe, virus, or parasite as a root cause. What astonished me was not that someone held this position (I thought it eminently reasonable.) but that no one rose up crying, "You, sir, are a heretic, sir, and I want nothing to do with you!" No indeed, the entire assembly simply stroked their metaphysical beards and murmured their assents.)

Of course when viruses aren't involved, my other possible automatic answer is...malaria. Did you know that recent research shows that malaria could be the reason why African American men have a higher rate of prostate cancer? I shall be most interested in any follow up studies. (This is of course entirely possible explanation given that a similar one exists for the existence of sickle cell anemia.)

Coming up later: important posts on peduncle elongation and, in honor of the Charles and Camilla nuptials, thoughts on hats.

Doc dear, I know what you mean about those postings. You get indignant and peeved and perhaps even somewhat enraged when you read them. You think “??!!” and “Isn’t this rather missing the point?”. You breathe deeply and repeat to yourself several times over ,“Love thy neighbor; Love thy neighbor.” Yes indeed I know EXACTLY what you mean: it’s what I feel when I read the posts debating whether Karol Wojtyla is in heaven. It's also exactly what I feel every time a Roman Catholic says “Score one for our side.” when a Protestant becomes Roman Catholic or pushes the canard that CS Lewis had a deathbed conversion to Roman Catholicism or any variation of this common tale. “Heelloo!” says I, “isn’t the ultimate point “he that believes and is baptized shall be saved”? I don’t see the term Roman Catholic or Orthodox or Lutheran or Baptist or Presbyterian worked into that sentence.” Or as I put it to a RC friend of mine who was exulting that a Protestant friend had become RC, “Go convert someone who does not believe in the saving power of Christ and then color me impressed.”

Some people who proclaim themselves Roman Catholic may be going to Hell, so may some Presbyterians, some Baptists, some Evangelicals and yes even some members of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, and bless us all, they won’t all be from the “Jesus First” gang either, even some members of the LCMS who proclaim themselves to be “Confessional” may actually end up on the real "other side". But whether this is certain and who these people are is unknown and always will be unknown to me and every mortal who has ever walked or ever will walk this Earth until the Last Day, save for One who has always known. But this I do know: it is foolishness, and not the foolishness of God, for anyone other than He to think that we know and thus to speculate on the matter upon a person's death. God’s ways are not ways, for which I heartily thank God, because they are far better than ours could ever be.

So personally when people proclaim themselves to be Christian, I presume in their favor that they acknowledge the saving power of Christ above all things. When they die still claiming the name of the Redeemer as their own, I look forward to rejoicing with them before the throne of the Triune God. As we say LCMS “Grant this, Lord, unto us all.”

(Incidentally my view is hardly shocking. I find upon cruising on the pages that it is merely a badly expressed version of the official position of the LCMS. I blame my poor expression not on the doctrinal training which so many Pastors and fellow members of the LCMS have tried to beat into my thick skull, but rather on my skill with words. )

Since I am the token Roman Catholic on this blog (even though it carries my moniker, harrumph), some thoughts on the passing of the Pope and what is to come:

1. Count me as one of the many who can remember no other pope. Being only seven when Paul VI died, John Paul I elected, died, and then John Paul II was elected, for me there has only been one pope. Thus it will be very odd and a tad disconcerting to see anyone else referred to as pope.
2. Thus the funeral and conclave holds great interest for me (I was glued to the boob tube for wall-to-wall pope coverage all weekend), both in its rituals as in its outcome. This process is something from old footage and books, but now we can see it work again.
3. Having been “inside” the Catholic Church for a few years, I’ve been enjoying myself by noting how many of the pundits (read: priests and professors) I’ve actually met. As of this morning, count me down for 5.
4. My eyes roll, the face turns red, the blood pressure rises, and inevitably I change the channel whenever I hear the chattering class talk about how the Catholic Church needs to “face the issues” of modernity. Of course this is another way of saying, “surrender entirely to modernity and begin ordaining female clergy, support birth control, back abortion and euthanasia, etc.” In other words, according to these dunderheads, the problem with the Church is that it does not think enough like us. Message to the aforementioned: “in the world but not of it.” Few greater disasters could befall the Church than if it made a conscious effort to resemble further the world around it. One of the greatest allures of the Church is its bold principled stance against the time and its many easy temptations. This was a core reason for JPII’s greatness. Take that away, and try making the Church look like any neighborhood institution (democratic and “modern thinking”), and its ceases to become an alternative in a very grubby world. And when it ceases to be that alternative, and going to Church is like going grocery shopping and your priest dresses like the local banker, no one will attend.
5. You want vocations? Reject the time. Stand boldly out there and say there is another way, and it is not found in the silliness around you. Only when put in stark contradiction to the modern world does the Church hold out hope. After Vatican II, the vocations slipped away. What makes us think further liberalization will bring them all back? Young Catholics, as so many polls and studies have shown, are through-going social and theological conservatives, thanks in large part to JPII. They are conservative because JPII’s message so rejected the times, challenged them, and offered a different path, one fixed in man’s nature and backed by two thousand years of Church teaching.
6. Another reason my eyes roll at the pundits calling for Church liberalization is that they absolutely misunderstand the place of American Catholics in the worldwide Church. Americans simply are not all that important in the Church anymore; they have an inflated sense of importance. As their numbers dwindle, and the rolls of Third World Catholics burst, American “issues” do not resonate with Rome. US liberal Catholics blather about married priests and women in the Church, while most Catholics around the world are thinking about social justice and globalization problems. Americans wonder why Father Joe is not Father Jane, and Third World Catholics are wondering if they’ll eat this week. Which do you think the Church considers more important?
7. When the pope doesn’t do as these liberal Catholics please, they charge him with being a reactionary, and become casual Catholics. They say the Church as “abandoned them” and does not reflect their ideas. Better put, they have abandoned the Church (the doctrine hasn’t moved a jot, brothers and sisters, it is you who have decided to move away from it) and they no longer reflect Church ideas. This is, in Evelyn Waugh nice turn of phrase in Brideshead Revisited, “setting up a rival good to God’s.” What greater sin, what greater threat to salvation, can there be than this?
8. A modest proposal: if the problem of American vocations is so extreme, isn’t it obvious that America needs to be evangelized by the Third World? Import to us Brazilian, Nigerian, Honduran priests to man our parishes and give missions in our cities and towns. Reverse the direction of so many years, of the First World bringing the Church to the Third World. They have God now. Unfortunately we have lost him. Send us your priests and missionaries.
9. I think Aaron Brown of CNN is on the verge of converting. Score one for our side. I also predict that this month will cause a noticeable up-tick in both conversions and vocations worldwide.
10. Check out this outstanding lecture given by George Weigel last January on the importance of the next pope. Spot-on.

11. One last thing. I like Bunnie Diehl quite a bit, and my blogging compatriots speak very highly of her. I refer to her blog almost daily and have happily linked to her for many months. But what is all this anti-Catholic stuff that is appearing on the comments about JPII? Some Lutherans have used the Pope’s death as an opportunity to discuss the Pope as “anti-Christ,” Church doctrines as “insidious,” and if the Pope is now actually enjoying salvation or hell. Now, I am no ecumenist, but somehow I doubt whether upon the death of a leading Lutheran (come to think of it, I don’t know of any) I’d be out there blogging about schism, error, and the fires of hell tickling eternally at the underside of Martin Luther. Call it class, respect, or just realizing the futility of such an undertaking, I wouldn’t do it. Clearly some others disagree, and that is a shame. Glad to see Max Goss over at In Hoc Signo Vinces is on the same page.

Just a few thoughts. I’m sure a few more will be coming in the days ahead.