Walt Kelly

Seguing directly to Walt Kelly.
"Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door."
"What's the use of a better mousetrap? It isn't the better mice that cause the trouble, it's that rough element, the worser mice."

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Cooking Sherry revisited

For those curious about the place of sherry in the class system, here is a definite marker;

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A Texas woman has been indicted for criminally negligent homicide for causing her husband's death by giving him a sherry enema, a police detective said on Wednesday.

Tammy Jean Warner, 42, gave Michael Warner two large bottles of sherry on May 21, which raised his blood alcohol level to 0.47 percent, or nearly six times the level considered legally drunk in Texas, police detective Robert Turner in Lake Jackson, Texas, told the Houston Chronicle.

"We're not talking about little bottles here," Turner said. "These were at least 1.5-liter bottles."

Warner, 58, was said to have an alcohol problem and received the wine enema because a throat ailment left him unable to drink the sherry, Turner told the newspaper.

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Democracy, 2095 years BC

Bush informs us (Feb 05) that
" We've seen a remarkable, remarkable series of events when you think about it. In a very brief period of time, Afghanistan became a democracy, people were able to vote for a President of that country -- they tell me, for the first time in 5,000 years."

If one were to look for matter in these burblings, one might ask
1) who did the Afghans vote for in the presidential elections of 2095 BC?
2) why is voting for a president so much prefereable to voting for members in a parliamentary system, which even ignoring elections under Kamal et al they did in 1969?

and

"I believe every soul yearns to be free; that's what I believe. I believe everybody desires to be free. The Iraqi elections helped prove that point. The people did incredibly brave things in order to express their will. It's because people love freedom and if given the chance to be free, they accept freedom."

If he does believe that (say) the election-bombers aren't people and have no souls, as would seem to be implied by the logic of the proposition, I suppose Abu Ghraib makes sense.

and

" And for those of you who have got a loved one in the theater, or has a loved one in the theater today, you got to know that the Iraqi people appreciate our sacrifices."

What is the distinction he sees between 'has got' and 'has'?

"muddled", yes. but I'm sure they map back on to some proposition in his mind - I just can't always work out what it is.


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Yet another Dan Brown rant

Can't the man get anything right?

The girl sitting next to me on the train this morning was reading the expensive illustrated edition of DVC, and glancing over her shoulder I noted the line "her father's vacation chateau in Normandy, north of Paris."

Calais is north of Paris. Normandy is just about due west of Paris. This is not rocket science, folks!

And I'm supposed to respect his opinions on ecclesiology?

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Hallelujah

I should say, I suppose, that this blog isn't one of those that comments on everything, and certainly not one of those that has an unwritten contract with its readers to put up something every day - it's more (a) a repository for things I want to put my hands on quickly together in the one place and (b) a spot to hoard old opinions. So, even though it's online in a number of other places,

"Hallelujah"

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah



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Commonplace Book

Modern Language Association

“Was I too hearty. Did he think me bold?

Should I have said, ‘like hell,’ and not ‘like fun’?

Does my mustache not make me look too old?

(He wants a man whose graduate work is done.)

Nebraska Wesleyan is probably cold,

I’d rather get down south of Washington.

He didn’t seem to like that joke I told;

Jeez, he’s a solemn-looking son of a gun!”

Thus the young savant ponders at his ease,
Knitting the critical brow, and on the belly
Twirling the scholarly thumb, while Ph.D's
Deal with the manuscripts of Machiavelli,
The intervocalic 'X in Portuguese,
And the unfaithfulness of Harriet Shelley.

A Salute to the Modern Language Association, Convening in the Hotel Pennsylvania

The Modern Language Association

Meets in the Hotel Pennsylvania

And the: suave greeters in consternation

Hark to the guests indulging their mania

For papers on “Adalbert Stifter as the Spokesman of Middle-Class Conservatism,”

And “The American Revolution in the Gazette de Leyde and the Affaires de l’Angleterre et de I’Amerique,”

And "Emerson and the Conflict Between Platonic and Kantian Idealism,”

And “Dialektgeographie and Textkritik,”

And “Vestris and Macready: Nineteenth-Century Management at the Parting of the Ways,”

And “Pharyngeal Changes in Vowel and Consonant Articulation,”

And "More Light. on Moliere’s Theater in 1672-73 from Le Registre d'Hubert, Archives of the Comedie Francaise,”

And “Diderot’s Theory of Imitation.”

May culture’s glossolalia, clinging

In Exhibit Rooms and Parlor A,

Sober awhile the tempestuous singing

Of fraternal conventions, untimely gay;

May your influence quell, like a panacea,

A business assembly’s financial fevers,

With the faint, sweet memory of "Observaciones sobre la aspiration de H en Andalucia,"

And "The Stimmsprung (Voice Leap) of Sievers.”

Morris Bishop

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Prince Harry

As my father once commented
"Well, yes, the royal family isn't terribly bright, but think what a waste it would be if they were."

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