A picture is worth how many words? I forget.
Tag: Blithely
Lighter fare, emphasis on books and movies, but also meaty stuff
Not your usual political book
GW Bush’s new book has something very good for pro-lifers:
In the chapter “Stem Cells“, Bush describes receiving a letter from Nancy Reagan detailing a “wrenching family journey”.
But ultimately, Bush writes: “I did feel a responsibility to voice my pro-life convictions and lead the country toward what Pope John Paul II called a culture of life.”
In the book, Bush describes an emotional July 2001 meeting with the Pope at the pontiff’s summer residence.
Savaged by Parkinson’s, the Pope saw the promise of science, but implored Bush to support life in all its forms.
Later, at the Pope’s funeral — and after a prodding from his wife that it’s a time to “pray for miracles” — Bush found himself saying a prayer for the cancer-stricken ABCNEWS anchor Peter Jennings.
Surprise, per Drudge, no shots at anyone in Decision Points — a quite personal autobiographical account.
In whom do we trust?
Try this on for size, from James Bovard:
“To blindly trust government is to automatically vest it with excessive power. . . .
I disapprove of splitting the infinitive, but let that pass and read the rest here.
Noodling how to grow (verb intransitive)
The people I know who listen regularly to NPR are almost all degreed. It appeals to them partly for the very aspect that this study says is limiting its audience:
A new study for NPR identifies a much bigger potential news audience that would listen to public radio if the field works to break down perceptions that its programs are elitist and stuffy.
Producers would have to make shows that are more lively and conversational and promoters would have to take greater care when describing public radio as “intelligent” and “serious,” according to the Los Angeles-based firm SmithGeiger.
So. Maybe more like Rush Limbaugh?
Rahm runs, meets, greets
From Pat Hickey about Emanuel streetwalking in Chi-town:
From what I can gather, Rahm’s pressing of flesh -as it were – is being treated by us helots with all of the joy and delight that a hot tub owner might elicit had Jimmy The Leper done a cannon ball into the foaming brine!
Jimmy the Leper, keep out of my hot tub!
The human animal reflects on how to act
Demosthenes said it, 4th century B.C.
“There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots. What is it? Distrust.”
The man knew politicians.
On the other hand, Dr. Samuel Johnson said this in 18th century A.D.
“There is no crime more infamous than the violation of truth. It is apparent that men can be social beings no longer than they believe each other. When speech is employed only as the vehicle of falsehood, every man must disunite himself from others, inhabit his own cave and seek prey only for himself.”
I think they go together. Stay light on your feet, ladies and gentlemen. Satan prowls these precincts.
This tot lot rocks
Don’t want to let another day go by without celebrating the instant and continued roaring success that is the Randolph Tot Lot, here discussed and cavilled at as hazardous to tots because it had an alley running through it.
Forget about that, even if the park district has not posted the yellow caution signs an aide told me weeks ago were on order. Yes, the alleged speed bump is not enough to slow down a tricycle, but it doesn’t matter: there is almost no foot traffic from the tot side of the alley to the lovely sitting and reading-on-bench side, no little ones darting forth, there being nothing to attract them on the multiple-bench-equipped other side.
As for the tot side, from Grove east to the alley, it’s practically standing room only at some times of the day, and has been since the Aug. 10 grand opening. Just tonight, strolling down our alley toward Randolph, I spied a veritable flotilla of strollers, each with a young one aboard and a young mother or nanny pushing.
And the tots in the lot have a glorious time, the parents and other overseeing adults having an only slightly less glorious one, it seems to the stroller going by on a daily basis. Chortles aplenty, sometimes quiet intensity as a little guy navigates the hummock left over from the previous lot, moving up to the top with gravity befitting a high-wire walker.
The mockup of a railroad train is immensely popular, affording many nooks and crannies whence one can peek out from a sort of porthole or peek in from near or far. The swings are sling jobs for infants and sit-alones for older ones. Lovely to peak at the parent pushing the infant oh so gently on the sling job.
So codgers including those with grandchildren in another state can find much to enjoy. However, their main place is across the alley in the bench-rich area, where they can sit and soak up old sol and read or chat. This one read the other afternoon as the late afternoon September sun warmed his bones while Ezra Pound warmed his spirit with advice about poetry and discussion of 12th century troubadours in the south of France.
One could imagine himself there in that halcyon climate, or one could just enjoy it, with now and then a look across the alley at the play of the little children.
Rare baseball play
This recent quadruple play pulled off by the White Sox has been underreported. It happened when second baseman Omar Vizquel immediately after a triple play — forceouts at home, third, and second, threw to first to beat the runner whose swinging bunt with the bases loaded had landed in front of Sox catcher Pierzynski.
There already were three outs, but Vizquel threw anyway.
“It wasn’t me. Something took over my body and made that throw for me. It was like some, eh, renegade spirit trespassed into my soul and became my essence, and the only way for it to atone for its sins that was keeping it in this world and ascend to the glorious afterlife . . . was to catch that ball, turn around and throw it over to Paulo.”
He refers to the first baseman, Konerko, who treated the throw as just another one of the hundreds he has caught this season. It
easily beat Betancourt to the bag, as [he] had watched the play unfold and understandably headed back towards the dugout, believing his run down to first base to now be superfluous.
It was not, however. The umpire, caught up in the moment,
called him out emphatically, getting down on one knee and throwing a fierce uppercut at an invisible . . . boxing opponent while screaming “JYERIIIAAOUUUTT” in a grunge-rock falsetto.
The upshot?
After a brief conference, the umpires decided that Kansas City would start the fourth with one out.
“Initially, I thought that idea was ridiculous”, said crew chief Lloyd Robertson, “but [first-base ump] Gzowski convinced us. He was right: it was friggin’ awesome. I mean, who’s ever seen a quadruple play? Awesome. An Awesomely Awesome play of Awesome Awesomeness.”
I can’t believe it. History was made, and no screaming headlines.
It was reported, by the way, by Dave Rutt, who says of himself he’s a
- Teacher by day, sleeping by night. I also enjoy watching, playing and writing about baseball and other sports . . . . I recently returned from Barranquilla, Colombia, where I was teaching middle school math for a year, and am still finishing up all the blogs I want to write about my travels in Colombia and Peru.
His blog is Bottom of the Fourth, where he has lots more about baseball etc.
What means this quango?
What the heck is a quango? Not having immediate access to Diarmaid (I remember my spelling with diary-maid without the y) MacCulloch (also a tricky one), who uses it in the 9/10/10 Times Lit Supplement as something “set up” to do something. A group. It’s a collective noun, and a new one for me.
Oh yes. What do it mean?
–noun, plural -gos.
(esp. in Great Britain) a semi-public advisory and administrative body supported by the government and having most of its members appointed by the government.
Origin:
1975–80; qu ( asi ) -a ( utonomous ) n ( on- ) g ( overnmental ) o ( rganization ) or qu ( asi ) -a ( utonomous ) n ( ational ) g ( overnmental ) o ( rganization )
says Dictionary.com.
It’s an acronym, what do you know? Quasi autonomous (national) governmental organization.
Clever, these English people, though I’m not sure The MacCulloch would appreciate my calling him one of those.
A definite knack for words
This New York Sun knows how to start off an editorial:
O Christian Martyr Who for Truth could die
When all about thee Owned the hideous lie!
The world, redeemed from superstition ’s sway,
Is breathing freer for thy sake today.
Those are the words of John Greenleaf Whittier on the monument of one of the women of Salem, Rebecca Nurse, who went to the gallows in the summer of 1692 for being a witch. Now, more than 300 years later, our greatest pundits are pulling their chins over a long-ago television broadcast in which the Republican nominee for Senate from Delaware talks about a teenage escapade in which she went with a friend who dabbled in witchcraft and sat on what may have been a wiccan altar, though she wasn’t aware of it at the time for the lack of blood.
Why can’t we do that in Chicago?
Blithe Spirit 