A Helicopter of Fists

Jonah Goldberg on the Senator Graig's bathroom antics:

Imagine if John McCain or Jim Webb were in that stall and accidentally did what Craig claims to have done by accident as well. It would take them fifteen minutes to even understand what the cop was talking about. "You think I'm what?!?!" "You're saying I wanted to do what!?!?!" "Because I touched your #$%^*&@ foot with my foot!?" And then McCain/Webb would become a helicopter of fists.

Degrees of Gay in Iowa City

Gays can now legally marry in Iowa.

Red Sox in The Bronx

Sorry for the light blogging, not that it's ever heavy or anything I ever write is heavy. I've been in New York City attending a seminar. Say what you want about New York, but there is no city like it, it truly is the capital of the world.

For baseball fans here in Connecticut, the border state for the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry, this is the time of year everyone waits for. A three game series that may decide who gets to play in October. The Sox have a hefty 8 game lead in the A.L. East so the pressure is all on the Yankees, which makes them a little more dangerous than usual. If the Yankees sweep us, not likely, we will still have a 5 game lead. If we sweep them, also unlikely, they'll be down by 11 games with 28 left to play, including another three at Boston - that's what is known as fork in the ass time- they're done. The Yanks are still in the wild card race, but I don't see them overtaking Seattle. I predict that we will take 2 out 3 this week to pick up another game against them.

Robert Loggia Minutemaid Commercial

Sometimes the absurd is delicious.

Sex Education

Read this, it's hilarious.

Which Is It Ann?

Ann Rice says she pro life and pro Hillary. If I had paid attention in logic class I would probably know the Latin name for self negating statements.

Separated at Birth: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Andrew Keen

Various Sports and Their Stories

• Phil Rizzuto died, may he rest in peace. He was a great ball player, a good announcer and a good and decent man. It's guys like him who make it difficult to truly hate the Yankees.
• Jose Offerman goes berserk and went all whack-a-mole on a pitcher and catcher with his baseball bat after getting drilled in minor league baseball. What a Huckleberry!
• One of the Rutgers Women's Basketball Team members is suing Don Imus for referring to the team as "nappy headed hos". At the risk of defending the uber-asshole Don Imus, I would suggest to this over sensitive Amazon that she stop being such a whiny wench. People are going to say mean things to you, get over it. You're six foot four, 200 pounds if you're an ounce and yet you plan on going into court and crying about how that old mean man said mean things about you and a dozen other woman, I'm ashamed of you.
• The Yankees and The Red Sox are going to go at it hammer and tongs for the remainder of the season. As much as I would like to see the Yankees season end in ignominy, disgrace and despair, I must admit, it's fun to care about every single game, even against teams like Tampa Bay.

The Beautiful Country

What a truly great film this is. The other half picked up a bunch of DVDs the other day - 10 for $20 - and this was in the pile. I'd never heard of it but that's not surprising. I miss a lot of stuff when it first comes out.

"Bui doi" is the racist insult Binh must endure. It means "less than dust" and is given to Vietnamese children of American fathers. Binh's story is an immigrant's story but it's also a kind of homecoming. Which is to say he belongs here (in the U.S.) in part because he's so marginalized in the country of his birth. There's a scene where Captain Oh (played by Tim Roth), the captain of a slave ship that's taking Binh to America, turns to Binh and says:

I've been thinking about you.
You've never really had any fun, have you?

Binh: Never had a good time.

Captain Oh: You should go somewhere new.
Go somewhere clean. Get a new start.
You should go to...

Binh: I go to America.

Captain Oh: I offer you a new life, you choose an old dream.

I love that.

The Beautiful Country isn't perfect. At times it almost feels like an allegory (not that there's anything wrong with that) but it's grittiness gives a realism that saves Binh and his story from being merely symbolic.

Make a point of seeing this movie. It'll be 2 hours well spent.

Illusory Post 9/11 Unity

Read Mark Steyn, he's always good, but I really agreed with this part:

For a start, the author overstates the immediate unity post-9/11. Even then, there was a big difference between the "righteous rage" crowd and those who wanted to wallow in bathetic weepy let's-hold-hands-and-drone-"Imagine" candlelight vigils and retreat into antiquated tropes about "root causes" like global poverty notwithstanding the middle-class backgrounds of Mohammed Atta and co). The second time round, there won't even be a momentary veneer of unity. The angry left will be demanding by lunchtime "What did Bush know and when did he know it?" and citing eminent scientists such as Professor Rosie O'Donnell to demonstrate that it couldn't possibly have been anything but an inside job. The less angry left will demand not a punitive military response but a 12-month blue-ribbon commission co-chaired by Lee Hamilton to call witnesses and investigate where the administration went wrong. Less motivated types will be convinced - like British public opinion after the Glasgow attack and the sailor kidnappings - that it's blowback for Iraq. And a big chunk of the rest may even plump for the Spanish option post-Madrid: Oh, dear, we seem to have caught your eye. What would it take for that not to happen again?

Actually, that's pretty much the whole thing, still I agree with every word of it. I remember that shortly after 9/11 we were all supposed to stop what we were doing at the appointed hour, light a candle and have a moment of quiet reflection, prayer etc.. I felt ridiculous. While Islamicists danced in the streets of Gaza, Riyadh, Islamabad and Newark, citizens of the most powerful nation the world has ever seen gazed, teary eyed, into their collective navel. We need less Phil Donahue and more William Tecumseh Sherman.

Holy Cow, I'm a Feminist!

You Are 81% Feminist

You are a total feminist. This doesn't mean you're a man hater (in fact, you may be a man). You just think that men and women should be treated equally. It's a simple idea but somehow complicated for the world to put into action.

Are You a Feminist?

Men have always found me unattractive, now I know why. (Just kidding ladies, really I am, just look at the score above.)

Glory

Some say an army of horsemen or footmen or rowers

Is the most beautiful thing over the coal-black earth,

But I say it is that thing, whatever it is,

That one loves and desires. Sappho (630-570 b.c.)

I watched Glory again yesterday and something struck me. It's hard to describe exactly, which is probably why it was shown rather than told, but how beautiful it was when the black soldiers assembled in formation and ran head long to certain death in battle. They were no longer slaves to any man or to anything, not even themselves. They had freely given up all that this world has to offer for something greater than themselves and in doing so became something entirely different from what they were before. It was this becoming that struck me as beautiful.

Woodchucks in The Garden

When I was in college, I lived at a bed & breakfast in Coventry which was beset by a plague of woodchucks. These furry, little marmots would devour an entire garden of zucchini, peas and tomatoes overnight. They would also put dozens of marmot holes all over the horse paddock, just large enough for horse to step into and break it's leg. It was a big problem.

The owners of the farm were concerned about the horses and angry at varmints eating their dinner, so they did something about it. They put out traps and more importantly they encouraged me to shoot the little bastards on sight, a job I pursued with great alacrity. Some would even say with far too much alacrity. After trapping and/or shooting a few dozen woodchucks, I began to notice a few things; fewer woodchucks, no new holes in the paddock and fresh vegetables from the garden.

In the Boston Review of Books Glenn C. Loury wonders why we have so many people in prison and so many new prisons even though crime has dropped precipitously since 1992. I'm no expert, certainly no Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences at Brown University or a 2002 Carnegie Scholar, but I think that if you kill or imprison enough malefactors, you have a decent chance of riding a horse with four sound legs and eating a salad with fresh vegetables.

51 Games Left

There are 51 games left in the regular season for both the Yankees and the Red Sox, Boston leads the Yankees by seven games. The Sox play the Yankees six times in the next 56 days, three at home, three away. The Red Sox have a slightly easier schedule with their opponents in the remaining 51 games having an average winning percentage of .483 while the Bomber's opponents average .512 and the Sox have 25 home games and finish off the season at home to the Yankees 23 home games and they finish off the season away.
Of course none of this means anything in real life because anything can still happen and often does. I think all things being equal, which they aren't Boston has the edge, the Yankees have an up hill climb to capture the AL East. Of course the Evil Empire is right in there for the wild card race, which may lead to a Boston - New York ALCS which is like the World Series only more important.

Wowie Kazowie!

Them Aussies must be tough as nails.

(link via Hugh Hewitt)