A Day of Mourning

Two men, manly men, the type that build bridges and move mountains, passed: Herb Peterson and Al Copeland...or in this case the creator of the McMuffin and founder of Popeyes respectively. Is there another passing where two men, so great, of such significance and a linked significance at that, pass on the same day? The only other instance I can conjure up is of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.

Note: For any naysayers out there that think the popeyes founder doesn't stand atop the same peak of fast food history as the creator, nay, inventor of the McMuffin, is a dolt. Popeyes chicken is the shit!

Diddy Did It

The LA Times has an interesting article attributing Tupac Shakur's murder and a prior shooting to associates of Sean "Puffy" Combs, aka, Puff Daddy, P.Diddy, Diddy. The article doesn't speak to any involvement on the part of Diddy, and Diddy denies any such involvement, I just liked the alliteration in the headline.

The War on Christmas

I think the whole thing is without any basis. I could care less if department stores put up kwanzaa trees (fake holiday created by a FBI snitch by the way) or opts to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. What I find patently absurd is this business of putting up Christmas decorations so damn early. The mall by my work had a massive tree up the first week of November. When I was a kid (some would argue I still qualify as such) trees and decorations didn't go up till the first day of advent (after Thanksgiving). It just makes the holiday that much more crass. If I have to hear John Gibson or Bill O'Reilly harrumphing about the secular Nazis among us trying to subvert Christians in their celebrations of Christmas, ostensibly by using the wrong greeting, I will vomit. If those mental pygmies would like to do some good they would be well advised to go to their local macy's and browbeat them into taking down their decorations and not replacing them till advent. Curmudgeonly rant over!

Dumbeldore Is Gay

or so says J.K. Rowling. This seems totally frivolous. I have not read any of the Harry Potter books though I absolutely loved the movies. I guess I will have to read them to see if I can see if there are any signs or if this is just a means to stir up a little more interest.

Funny

Here's Schlesinger writing about Kennedy on parenting:

"March 31, 1962. The White House. The issue of raising children came up. The President, probably in order to provoke Marian and [society hostess] Martha Bartlett, said that he did not see why children should not be brought up in community nurseries. This led to a discussion of the role of the family. I asked why the Kennedys had turned out so well and the Churchills and Roosevelt[s] so badly. JFK said, "Well, no one can say it was due to my mother. It was due to my father. He wasn't around as much as some fathers; but, when he was around, he made his children feel that they were the most important things in the world to him. He seemed terribly interested in everything we were doing. He held up standards for us, and he was very tough when we failed to meet his standards. This toughness was important. If it hadn't been for that, Teddy might be just a playboy today."

Super Duper Important News Item

College Rankings by Marijuana Consumption. It does not surprise me that my alma mater, St. Olaf College, isn't on the list.

Not a Good Model For Art History Majors

Here is John Derbyshire (NRO's resident curmudgeon) on Martin Creed's Turner Prize winning Exhibit, “Work No. 227: The Lights Going On and Off.” (the Turner Prize is awarded with 2ok Sterling):

"What do I think about all this? Well, first I think that the directors of the Tate Gallery, which receives funding from general taxation, should be locked up in prison and made to do hard labor scraping the rust off bolts for twenty years or so with nothing to eat but cold oatmeal porridge. Then I think Mr Creed should be stripped naked, sprayed all over with bright blue paint, and made to run round and round Piccadilly Circus until he drops from exhaustion, after which he should be killed by some not-very-humane method. Then the Tate Gallery should be reduced to rubble by aerial bombardment, the rubble carted away to be used as landfill, and the ground sown with salt. Then the fools who pay good money to look at this “art” should be packed into boxcars and tipped off the white cliffs of Dover, and their mangled corpses left to be feasted on by dogs, crows and crabs."

I had similar sentiments as I was reviewing various pieces as an undergrad but my desire for an A usually prevented me from letting loose like this.

Facebook Etiquette

Reihan Salam gives the rundown. I don't have enough friends where I have to worry about "un-friending" somebody. One of the few upsides to being a prick.

Breaking Nascar News

Dale Earnhardt, Jr. will be driving the Mountain Dew car, way cooler than the Budweiser car, almost as cool as Kyle Petty's Mello Yello car from back in the day. Ricky Bobby's WonderBread car still reigns supreme.

Crack for Your Brain

Here is a little news item on Britney's (Spears that is) custody case.

Dane Cook

He is the new famous Comedian and he absolutely sucks. His appeal is entirely lost on me.

Pimp My JumboJet, part two

Apparently pimping your A380 costs $500 million.

Best Movie Ever Made...

Is being remade! Yes, I am speaking of Tron. You ask what is Tron? Well as Ricky Bobby would say "It won the Academy Award for Best Movie Ever!"

Men in Bulging Tights

10 WWE wrestlers were suspended for using steroids. This is not real wrestling but rather the type with men in tights and capes. Should we care that these men use steroids? Or put in other words, should there be federal involvement in Wrestling as there was in baseball? Presumably these “wrestlers” have not used steroids under duress. They are not engaged in a sport so there are no concerns regarding the purity or fairness of competition. The only reason I can imagine that we would care that the wrestlers took steroids is that they might be role models.

Random Note

Paternity suits used to be called bastardy suits. This reminds of a story (it actually is the reason I don't use the word bastard anymore). A friend of mine was impregnated by her boyfriend the spring of her freshman year and then bore the child the following winter. The boyfriend as is often the case disappeared from the scene and ran from his responsibilities. Anyhow, my friend continued with her studies and from time to time would bring the child to campus. Anyhow, one day around the campus p.o. boxes I encountered her with her child. As she was boasting about what a good and handsome and healthy baby he was (which all appeared to be true), I remarked what a "cute little bastard he was." Fortunately she was a great deal more couth than me and charitable enough to overlook my poor choice of words and took the my remark as a compliment as I had intended.

Picking a Bone

Michelle Cottle over at TNR's the plank alludes to the hypocrisy line often fashionable amongst liberals in dismissing family values:

"It's not so much that Craig has been championing traditional piety for others while wallowing in his own vice--the kind of tiresome hypocrisy so often practiced by Republican congressmen who fan the family values flames even as they cheat on their wives with hottie Hill staffers. (Yes, Newt, that includes you.) Rather, Craig has been championing traditional piety for others as part of a desperate attempt to cover up a dirty little secret that he so clearly hates himself for. "

In this instance she is fisking Larry Craig for being a closet homosexual and at the same time taking a hard-line stance against homosexuals. Fine with me, I agree. Where we part though is in her broader hypocrisy charge. I agree that Newt and so many conservatives that espouse family values or the virtues of the traditional nuclear family make for awful messengers. I disagree that this nullifies the validity of their message, namely that the nuclear family or family values writ large is a good thing or represents the optimal social institution. Newt Gingrich can afford his abysmal personal character. Most Americans, however, cannot. A divorce for folks of modest income can represent substantial hardship, financial and otherwise, whose effects are usually borne by their offspring. Being born out of wedlock correlates highly with anti-social pathologies. It is in the interest of society to have healthy families. It baffles me that people find such a statement objectionable.

Larry Craig Gets His Freaky Freak On

Apparently Sen. Craig (R-ID, as in "IDAHO, no You Da Ho!") was engaging in lewd and disorderly conduct in a bathroom stall at Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport. As far as I can tell he was masturbating loudly when an undercover cop attempted to play footsie with him under the stall? I am not quite sure. Anyhow, this is a great story. My hat is off to you Sen. Craig.

Lindsey Gets Off

In other news, Lindsey Lohan has escaped felony charges stemming from her DUI incident where she was found with a bag of nose candy.

Michael Vick and Race

Michael Vick is about to plead guilty to dogfighting charges and will actually do time, somewhere between 12 months to 18 months. I think that's only appropriate. One of the things that has been interesting to observe is the media's coverage of the Vick controversy.

The media has covered this story extensively and all of the gruesome details (the electrocutions, rape stands, etc.), however, there is one element that it has sorely missed- race. And I don't think that reporters are necessarily brushing this under the carpet but are simply unaware of this dynamic.

The Michael Vick dogfighting case is quite similar to the OJ Simpson trial in that how it is perceived divides significantly on race. Admittedly, I am drawing this conclusion from a small sample: colleagues' reactions at work, a couple of radio channels, statements from other players. But I do think there is a substantial difference in the White and African-American communities in terms of their perception of dogfighting in general and the Michael Vick case in particular. I didn't anticipate this. With the OJ Simpson case, even though there was a complete irrationality in the perception of OJ's innocence or some grand conspiracy, at the root of this irrationality as it applied to OJ was a deepseated mistrust in the law enforcement community and the justice system that was well founded. I am sure to some extent this is a contributing factor in the Vick case but not one that fully explains this phenomenon. I would speculate that the difference probably comes from differing norms on pet ownership more than anything but I don't really have a clue.

Office Happy Hour Rules

It's midnight and I am thinking about booze. Anyhow, a couple weeks ago your loyal correspondent attended an office happy hour that ended in disaster. This experience inspired me to come up with some basic guidelines on how to avoid being stuck with an absurdly high check (I wasn't, I ran).

1. If there are more than five people ask the waiter to provide separate checks.
2. Buy your drinks from the bar. This way, at the end of the night when thirty people are converging on the bill to try to sort out who owes what you can casually walk away.
3. Bring cash. When you have failed to follow rules #1 and #2 this rule is a vital safety valve. Here is what you do, when the waiter brings the bill to your table do not, I repeat, DO NOT take the bill into your posession. Gently guide the bill to your neighbor and look over their shoulder and calculate the amount you consumed plus tax and tip, round it up and throw the wad of cash at your neighbor and run.
4. In the event that your neighbor is faster on the draw then you are and guides the check over to you: Pick up the check, calculate your amount, put your cash on the tray or folder the waiter has provided and shove it into the hands of the first person that runs towards you to satisfy guideline #3. This is called hot potato. Chuck the check and then RUN!
5. If you have not adhered to rules #1-#4 then you will be stuck with the bill and will be amazed at how many people forgot to add a drink here or tip there or are too stupid to figure tax.