COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Going Home


"Going Home" Dwight Williams
trish said...

A bit of completely unrelated and maudlin navel-gazing this Christmas Eve:

I don't know why it didn't occur to me until yesterday that when I leave here I am going to lose the unique sense of freedom that comes with being a stranger in a strange land and that this is the cause (along with leaving behind those I've grown to care for and can't take back with me) of genuine sadness.

That my last pony ride was as a puke diplomat ( : ) ) in a third world country just beginning to take off, I find astounding once again - after having grown so used to it as to regard it as perfectly mundane. This has, after all, been home for two years. My everyday scenery; my life. And yet, who am I kidding, it's not TRULY home. Hence the oddly felt freedom of the resident foreigner, the transient, the In Between.

Somewhat paradoxical, that sense of freedom, given that I've never had to be more circumspect, but I benefit from
a renewed and deeper appreciation for that particular facility as well. It keeps things moving along when things need urgently to be kept moving along.

So it was inevitable that I would reach the moment of ambivalence about my return home. But as my grandfather used to say to me (and it's the curse of plenty of Army brats), "Wherever you are, you want to be someplace else. Wherever you're going, you'd rather stay instead." Irritated the hell out of me at the time, his saying that. But there's quite a bit of truth in it.

(I recall sitting at my parents' kitchen counter the morning we flew out, knowing that I really had not a clue what I was in for. All things considered, that was probably the best way to go.)





94 comments:

  1. Come on home.

    I'm sure that you will still feel somewhat like a stranger in a strange land.

    There will still be plenty of room for adventure, if you want it.

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  2. That was beautiful #2, after it took me five minutes to figure out what it meant.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I agree with Whit.


    When do you actually leave to go home?

    ReplyDelete
  4. For the first time, NYT prints op-ed calling for U.S. bombing of Iran's nuclear program

    This morning, for the first time to my knowledge, the New York Times — which as everyone knows is, alas, America’s most influential newspaper — has agreed to run an article explicitly calling for the American bombing of Iran’s nuclear program (and the “sooner the better” it says).

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  5. The Unrest in Iran
    [Michael Ledeen]

    From Twitter this morning:

    “‘NajafAbad,Qom&Isfahan are ticking bombs’ Masses on streets. Sporadic clashes everywhere.”

    “Ever growing number of ppl going to Qom from allover to join protection force for Sanei&Montazeri camps.”

    “NajafAbad epicenter of revolt.It’s a popular uprising that has taken over the city,not a green protest.”

    “State of Emergency announced by Isfahan Governor who calls in military for help.”

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  6. That news, doug, shows what a hideous idea the bombing of Iran really is, if the NYTimes recommends it, as the way to go.

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  7. Too Bad The Won doesn't give a shit about the Iranian people that want to be rid of the Mullahs.

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  8. Ledeen insists the mullahs could be overthrown by the people if they had outside help and support.

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  9. Yes, let's bomb them, so their patriots are forced to follow their Government, against the foreign threat, rather than toppling the current regime.

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  10. Got to go with the Rat on this one.

    First, it's a waste of time worrying about it since there is no way the US is going to be bombing Iran given the current political, military, and economic situation.

    Second, as Rat pointed out, there is growing oposition within Iran right now. Bombing Iran would immediately mute that opposition.

    Third, there are ways to inhibit Iran's progress on the bomb without military action (controlling their access to uranium for instance) although this would require the cooporation of China and Russia something that is always problematic.

    Fourth, even if Iran eventually gets the bomb, the implications are likely less dire than the immediate negative consequences of a US military attack.


    .

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  11. Not very seasonal but I see that Steve Martin has been nominated for Grammy and Emmy awards for his bluegrass music.

    Steve Martin and Earl Scruggs

    .

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  12. I saw that article in the New York Times and it is insanity to talk about bombing Iran. The mullahs would love that.

    The idea, that any present or future nuclear power will attack another nuclear power is propsterous. Iranian politicians are more politician that Iranian. They like power and will do what it takes to keep it. Getting themselves killed is not on their to-do-list.

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  13. I wonder how many of the staff of the New York Times have served in the military?

    ReplyDelete
  14. Now our resident neo-con liberals will tell US that we have misjudged the NYTimes, that they have "grown" at the Gray Lady.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Merry Christmas and best wishes to all the Chicas, corpoate honchos, ex-military badasses, mercs, and roues at the EB!

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  16. In his article, Mr. Kuperman states:

    The final question is, who should launch the air strikes? Israel has shown an eagerness to do so if Iran does not stop enriching uranium, and some hawks in Washington favor letting Israel do the dirty work to avoid fueling anti-Americanism in the Islamic world.

    But there are three compelling reasons that the United States itself should carry out the bombings. First, the Pentagon’s weapons are better than Israel’s at destroying buried facilities. Second, unlike Israel’s relatively small air force, the United States military can discourage Iranian retaliation by threatening to expand the bombing campaign. (Yes, Israel could implicitly threaten nuclear counter-retaliation, but Iran might not perceive that as credible.) Finally, because the American military has global reach, air strikes against Iran would be a strong warning to other would-be proliferators.

    Negotiation to prevent nuclear proliferation is always preferable to military action. But in the face of failed diplomacy, eschewing force is tantamount to appeasement. We have reached the point where air strikes are the only plausible option with any prospect of preventing Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. Postponing military action merely provides Iran a window to expand, disperse and harden its nuclear facilities against attack. The sooner the United States takes action, the better.


    Not much mention of international law, but on another matter Mr. Kuperman had this to say
    on US support for Kosovo Independence

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  17. To all, Merry Christmas!

    trish, Godspeed.

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  18. Wow, has it really been two years trish? I remember you posting that you wouldn't be posting anymore 'cause you were going to a faraway land. Maybe that was after a 1 year break 'cause it sure doesn't seem like that long ago though I have noticed that my perception of time has compressed as I get older.




    I've solved an eternal question for you all so I've made my annual Holiday post on my blog. Check out my latest post at Ashrants to find the answer.

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  19. Merry Christmas to everyone at the EB! I have a house full of relatives here in snowy Southlake, TX. I havent seen a few of them in years. I stepped over people sleeping this morning. As someone who lives alone, quite unusual. I love it. God has blessed me with a great family, worts, blemishes and all...

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  20. DR wrote:

    "Yes, let's bomb them, so their patriots are forced to follow their Government, against the foreign threat..."

    Question: Follow them where? Into our waiting armed arms?

    The best thing that could happen would be an open, brutal military - military clash. The Iranians would be made mincemeat in hours.

    You would then have to find a different cause. There is China, another tyranny loved by the greedy.

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  21. There is a very smug picture of Harry Reid on the Yahoo web page this morning. I have an urge to punch his lights out.

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  22. I have noticed that my perception of time has compressed as I get older.

    heh, and soon you will have the "Death Panels" facing you too, Ash. Even you. And your time will be compressed even further.

    But I do wish you a Merry Christmas, and to all.

    Now I really got to run.

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  23. Yes, I am sure both Russia and China will lend a hand in bridling Iran. They have been so helpful in the past on this score.

    In the real world, Iran will be dealt with now or latter. Time is not our friend.

    Having said all this, I admit reluctance, given our present political and military leaders.

    As to XXXXXXX, the XXXXXXX will have to do what they have to do. A neutered Syria and Lebanon would sure be good now, but that option is long gone.

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  24. who do you want running the "death panels" old boy - representatives of 'the people' or insurance companies looking to profit?

    It has been sad watching the debate and the ensuing legislation emerge. This article highlights some of my concerns with what is squeezing out of the legislative pipe:

    Obama's health-care revolution, buried in loopholes and red tape

    an excerpt:

    "Mr. Obama's health-care reform will go a long way to correct a national embarrassment as the richest country on Earth, the one that spends proportionally more on health care than any other, finally moves to ensure almost all of its legal residents have access to basic insurance. But by entrenching private insurers as the arbiters of patient care, rather than creating a single-payer public program like Canada's, the current reform promises to make an unwieldy American health-care system even more complex.

    “Our administrative arrangements make pyramid building seem like parsimony,” Henry Aaron, a leading Brookings Institution health-policy analyst, opined in an interview. “And the U.S. system is going to continue under this law to be administratively grotesque.”

    As much as a quarter of the $2.5-trillion Americans spend on health care annually goes toward administrative costs, compared to less than 10 per cent in most developed countries with universal health coverage. Paper-pushing – such as pre-authorizations for care and disputes between patients, doctors and insurers about who pays what – remains a big and growing subsector of the U.S. health-care economy.

    The Senate bill tries to address the problem by requiring insurers to spend between 80 per cent and 85 per cent of patient premiums on actual “care.” But Wall Street analysts who have studied the bill say it contains enough loopholes to keep insurers doing business as usual.

    No wonder insurance company stocks have soared as investors contemplate 30 million new insurance consumers and the absence of new competition in the form of a public health-insurance plan for Americans under 65. "

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  25. Well, gag, you and yours have a snug, warm and wonderful Christmas there in Southlake.

    And a Happy New Year!

    ReplyDelete
  26. Just wanted to wish everyone at EB a wonderful Christmas.

    Thanks for all the entertainment over the year.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Merry Christmas to you also.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Welcome Home, Trish!

    Thu Dec 24, 11:20:00 AM EST

    You know they say that at Immigration and Customs and I get all choked up.

    I actually do.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Do you remember that apple pie I desperately needed to bake? Well, I battled the grocery store parking lot for 15 minutes to find out that there really weren't any long lines inside, which was good, because, long lines give me anxiety.

    My pies are made and look scrumptious and then...I forgot my oven broke two days ago.

    Yeah!

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  30. Melody: My pies are made and look scrumptious and then...I forgot my oven broke two days ago.

    You prolly just burnt out the element, quick fix.

    ReplyDelete
  31. "Watching Americans debate health care reform throughout 2009 called to mind the old Irish joke.

    Lost in rural Ireland, the tourist asks a local, “How do I get to Ballygambema?” “Well,” replies the local, “I wouldn't start from here.”

    “Here” is a system that leaves about 45 million people without insurance, millions more underinsured, insurance and pharmaceutical companies making huge profits – a system that costs the country 16 per cent of its annual national income for aggregate health outcomes no better than in countries such as Canada, whose systems cost much less.

    Put another way, there are a bunch of good reasons why no other country in the world copies the U.S. health-care system, or would want to reform its system by using the “here” of U.S. health care. It's too costly and ineffective, although the system works just fine for those with first-rate insurance. (And critiquing the U.S. system can be dangerous for Canadians, since it can lead to a hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil attitude toward our own system.)

    Free-market principles are great for many products. Health care isn't one of them, in part because the balance of information between consumer/patient and doctor/hospital provided is so uneven. Moreover, access to health care shouldn't be a commodity or a service, but a right, the definition and protection of which will necessarily spark debates in democratic societies."

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/can-the-great-republic-summon-the-will-to-tackle-health-care/article1409377/

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  32. Talking about ovens, and how a man needs a wife around the house, one time, when I was living here alone, the wife back in Ohio, I put a chicken in the oven, forgot to turn it on, then having all sorts of business and farming hit me in the face, totally forgot about it, and about two weeks later a big stink arose. I searched around forever, and finally, opened the oven, and O Christ.

    It's better to eat at McDonald's, every time, when you're living alone.

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  33. Yeah, Ash, Canada ships patients here because the care is just a good there.

    That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

    Like Obama, profit in your world is evil.
    ...for other people, but not for you.

    Obama never needed profits, he chose corruption as the easier course.

    Other countries have benefited by our Pharmaceuticals for decades, employing price controls, and shifting the cost of drugs to us.

    No effort whatsoever dealing with tort reform.
    I wonder why that is?

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  34. COST OF STATE REGULATIONS ON CALIFORNIA SMALL BUSINESSES

    The study finds that the total cost of regulation to the State of California is $492.994 billion which is almost five times the State’s general fund budget, and almost a third of the State’s gross product.

    The total cost of regulation results in an employment loss of 3.8 million jobs which is a tenth of the State’s population. Since small business constitute 99.2% of allemployer businesses in California, and all of non-employer business, the regulatory cost is borne almost completely by small business.

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  35. Los Angeles is bankrupt, yet the City Council just voted Water and Power employees a 5 year contract with raises EVERY YEAR of from 2 to 4 percent!

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  36. California alone is the tenth largest economy in the world, according to the CIA, and it's as bankrupt as Do Buy.

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  37. Put another way, there are a bunch of good reasons why no other country in the world copies the U.S. health-care system



    Cause most other nations in the world cant wipe their asses?

    Take away America's help across the globe and it's one big cesspool.....

    and guess what Ash (your boy obama) is doing just that, within a few uears the world will be more of a jungle than anytime in 100 years...

    Then I fur sure would take American CARE over MOST of the world without even taking a nanosecond to check it out...

    As for the true number of citizens that are denied basic access? who knows... deport all illegals and their American born children? that number would shrink beyond belief....

    ReplyDelete
  38. 100 things blamed on global warming:

    4. Eskimos forced to leave their village (I hate it when my town melts)

    6. Early heat wave in Vietnam (Shit. Saigon. I'm still in Saigon.)

    19. Surge in fatal shark attacks

    26. Snowfall in Baghdad (oh, wait, let's cover that one up)

    28. Diminishing desert resources (yes, the CO2 is causing trees to bloom and ruin our deserts)

    37. Global cooling (aha! it's cooling, that's PROOF it's warming!)

    45. Bigger tuna fish (Starkist Corporation demands a bailout)

    46. Water shortages in Las Vegas (nothing to do with those acres of water fountains)

    55. Increased threat of HIV/AIDS in developing countries (it's so hot that buttfucking is the only thing people can think to do)

    62. Collapse of gingerbread houses in Sweden (I'm thinking the ingredients weren't to code)

    67. Insomnia of children worried about global warming (nothing to do with propaganda in school)

    76. Cold wave in India (it's always coldest before it gets really hot)

    77. Worse traffic in LA because immigrants moving north (is that due to global warming or Obama's invitation to make them Americans?)

    100. Fashion victim: the death of the winter wardrobe (yeah, I'm frakkin wearing a bikini right now it's so warm)

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  39. Michael Medved had a good hour on the history of the Holidays.

    Saturnalia in Rome, and the Mithraists amd the old northern pagan festivals too, overlaid with a Christian film these days.

    ReplyDelete
  40. The mythology of the Mithraists, wow, it's almost New Testiment. Even to a flash bringing the world to an end, and the battle of good and evil.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Doug goes flying

    Caption says it's "Kyle", but who you gonna trust, some stranger or my lyin' eyes?

    Merry Christmas, friends.

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  42. Thought I was recording that, Bob, but had the timer wrong.

    Happy Holidays, Linear and all.
    Also Merry CHRISTMAS!

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  43. Providing healthcare for illegals will make healthcare better and more affordable for us WIO.
    Trust Them.

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  44. Follow them in a call for National Unity against the unprovoked foreign attack.

    Follow them to a million deaths on their side and an untold, but not required or beneficial loss on ours.

    ReplyDelete
  45. More diplomatic success

    Russia, Georgia Reopen Border Crossing

    New York Times - Clifford J. Levy

    MOSCOW - Russia and Georgia have agreed to reopen their major border crossing, officials said on Thursday, signaling the first thawing of ties between the two countries since they went to war last year over a separatist enclave.

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  46. Merry Christmas everyone,

    and Happy Hannukah (or whatever is appropriate.)

    Just poured my first Jim Beam, and Coke of the Season. Wish you all could join me (except Doug, of course:)

    ReplyDelete
  47. Follow them into a whirled wide economic depression.

    Which is in no way in the best interests of the United States.

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  48. I'd drive right over, but the roads are turning slick, Rufus.

    Good Irish Coffee weather here.

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  49. The really old mythology of these dark times had, I think it was, a five day interval, when the energy of the pleroma would come flowing through, to power us through the New Year.

    Lest the world die down, and we be out of gas, tire punctured, 50 miles from town.

    I think this is just an expression of humanity's will to life.

    We wouldn't be here without it.

    But, where, o where, does that come from?

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  50. Best of Holidays to you, Linear, my friend.

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  51. So what I say, to the entire Elephant Bar, is, a Pleroma on Ice, for Everyone!

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  52. Michael J. Totten

    Lebanese Prime Minster Saad Hariri just spent two days with Syrian strongman Bashar Assad in Damascus, and you’d think from reading the wire reports that Lebanon and Syria had re-established normal relations after a rough patch. That’s how it’s being reported, but it’s nonsense. Hariri went to Damascus with Hezbollah’s bayonet in his back.

    ...Hezbollah and its sponsors in Tehran and Damascus have forced Hariri to do a number of things lately — to give it veto power in his government’s cabinet and to surrender to its continuing existence as a warmongering militia that threatens to blow up the country again by picking fights with the Israelis.

    Hariri and his allies in parliament resisted an extraordinary amount of pressure on these points for months before caving in, but cave in they did. They didn’t have much choice. The national army isn’t strong enough to disarm Hezbollah, and unlike Iran’s tyrant Ali Khamenei, Hariri doesn’t have his own private army. Hezbollah militiamen surrounded his house last year and firebombed his TV station when the government shut down its illegal surveillance system at the airport. At the end of the day, Hariri has to do what Hezbollah and its friends say unless someone with a bigger stick covers his back when push comes to shove.

    No one has Hariri’s or Lebanon’s back, not anymore. He and his allies in the "March 14" coalition have sensed this for some time, which is why Druze leader Walid Jumblatt has grudgingly softened his opposition to Assad and Hezbollah lately. When Hariri went to Damascus, everyone in the country, aside from useless newswire reporters, understood it meant Syria has re-emerged as the strong horse in Lebanon.

    Walid Jumblatt is another member of what David Schenker calls the Murdered Fathers Club. Assad’s ruthless late father, Hafez Assad, put Jumblatt through a similarly gruesome experience back in the 70s during the civil war. First Assad murdered Walid’s father, Kamal, then summoned the surviving Jumblatt to Damascus and forced him to shake hands and pledge his allegiance. Who can even imagine what that must have felt like? Hariri knows now, and Jumblatt still tells everyone he meets all about it
    .

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  53. I'm giving free rides this evening after happy hour to all club members!
    Join the Fun and Frivolity!

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  54. Bob:I think this is just an expression of humanity's will to life.

    We wouldn't be here without it.

    But, where, o where, does that come from?


    It comes from somber reflection on the alternative.

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  55. I've wanted to ask you
    Melody
    On this eve of friviolity
    If you have a speckle
    By your left nipple
    Or is that my imagination
    Running free
    Or perhaps on your shoulder
    If I may be boulder
    Or on your lower ribs
    Or lower still
    This is the night of great celebraton
    Give reign to imagination

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  56. ...California alone is the tenth largest economy in the world, according to the CIA, and it's as bankrupt as Do Buy.

    Was 7th not long ago. Pete Wilson was guv, democrats didn't have quite the strangle hold, worming was only taught in ag classes...

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  57. One of us mispelled that word, friviolity, frivolity,Doug, but I'm not sure who got it right.

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  58. Doug

    A college from Dallas is playing Nevada in your state tonite. First bowl for SMU in about 20 years.

    ReplyDelete
  59. I've wanted to ask you
    Melody
    On this eve of friviolity
    If you have a speckle
    By your left nipple
    Or is that my imagination
    Running free
    Or perhaps on your shoulder
    And if I may be boulder
    On your lower ribs
    Or lower still
    This is the night of great celebraton
    Giving reign to imagination


    There, that's better, and not the c word in it once.

    ReplyDelete
  60. Bob:To my friends Trish, Miss T amd Melody

    Every bar must have
    A trinity of femininity
    To move us ever on


    We're a team, like Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.

    Marcia, Jan, and Cindy.

    Han, Luke, and Leia.

    Crosby, Stills, and Nash.

    The Three Amigos.

    ReplyDelete
  61. Someone may also have misspelled "boulder" when he meant "bolder."

    I think I heard Donna Brazile on one of the Sunday Morning shows admit that the 45 million uninsured number includes about 20 million illegals.

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  62. I've wanted to ask you
    Melody
    On this eve of friviolity
    If you have a speckle
    By your left nipple
    Or is that my imagination
    Running free
    Or perhaps on your shoulder
    And if I may be bolder
    On your lower ribs
    Or lower still
    This is the night of great celebraton
    Giving reign to imagination

    There, that's better, and not the c word in it once.


    Bolder, dammit, bolder

    ReplyDelete
  63. Frivolity, Bob.

    And it looks as though the damsel has pulled her avatar as a result of your paens.

    ReplyDelete
  64. Well, I feel I can spell anything any damned way I want.

    You go back a way, to Old English, you won't even be able to read it.

    Try Chaucer. And that's not even Old English.

    Try "Chevy Chase", where they kill each other over some deer.

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  65. I'm sorry bob, I was just fishing for a job as your editor before you get rich and famous.

    ReplyDelete
  66. 14 January.

    Still plenty of time left to bitch about Bogota. : )

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  67. O Holy Melody--grr, I Mean, O Holy Night, what am i thinking

    While I'm not much into the savior business, thinking one must save oneself, I've always loved this song.

    Divinity is Being, Jesus had that, so do you.

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  68. Here's Another Rendition

    That master of yesteryear, Meister Eckhart
    said you must bring this birth into being in yourself.

    That is a holy night.

    ReplyDelete
  69. You have to admit it, she's damned good.

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  70. For Esteven:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ATKDsZTkXU

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  71. "We're a team, like Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.

    Marcia, Jan, and Cindy.

    Han, Luke, and Leia.

    Crosby, Stills, and Nash.

    The Three Amigos."



    Larry, Moe, and Curly

    Huey, Duey, and Lewey

    The Three Blind Mice

    The Three Little P..er..well

    Wynken, Blinken, and Nod

    Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll

    Lather, Rinse, Repeat


    .

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  72. She's good, Whit.

    "this first heaven of knowing"

    a line by my poet signifying the realization of being, beyond death

    the first realization of being

    thankful

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  73. "Long lay the world in sin and error pining"--which translates out metaphorically in the language of myth, as long did I not realize what I was.

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  74. Doug, I scrolled down and read Mongoose's comment.

    We heard the same thing in 1930; how did that work out?

    ReplyDelete
  75. Goodnight, Melody.

    I think the deeper meaning of all this is he is thee, and all of us.

    Pretty good singer, huh!

    She can hit all the high notes, and come down so softly.

    I wish you a wonderful Christmas Day tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete
  76. Merry Christmas Barmates.

    - from a most dedicated lurker and very irregular poster. D-Day.

    ReplyDelete
  77. Real Estate Games in Vegas

    The apartment she's trying to sell today is in Newport Lofts, a doorman building with a pool, gym and clubhouse on the roof, which, the custodian tells us, haven't been used by anyone in months. Newport Lofts is one of a cluster of several luxury condos that were supposed to be part of a revitalization of the downtown area. Apartments in Newport Lofts — Boemio's client, an out-of-town investor, paid $600,000 for one — are now listed for as little as $179,000. And this particular apartment isn't exactly in great shape. A squatter slipped past the doorman and, even more impressively, got a locksmith in to switch the lock and give her keys.

    The squatter left behind no bed, but she did leave stained bath mats, towels, flip-flops, Chinese-takeout remnants, Sun-kist soda cans, prescription medicine, old mail and some used airline tickets to Miami. Boemio casually walks around all of it, occasionally laughing. The buyer's agent — a woman in a Gucci scarf and sunglasses — is a little more freaked out, trying to figure out how much this mess will cost to clean up. Which is strange, since she's offering $250,000 on behalf of her overseas client — $70,000 more than the asking price. There are no other buyers. Boemio goes over the offer three times with the Gucci lady to make sure she understands exactly what is going on. Gucci lady, she figures out, is just trying to score an extra $2,100 in commission and is screwing over her client for $70,000. (See high-end homes that won't sell.)

    It is lawless right now in the Wild West. There's even a real estate agent (and the figures and details are slightly changed here to protect him) whose out-of-town investor demanded that the agent find a way to cover some of the losses he was taking on the $60,000 down payment he'd sunk into a house. So the agent created a separate contract, never shown to the bank, that said the new buyer had to purchase a $60,000 Persian carpet from the seller — a check his mortgage company, which was sucking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses on the short sale, would never see. When the buyer — who was happy just to get a deal on the house — asked if the Persian carpet was really worth $60,000, the agent looked at him as if he were insane.
    "I bought it at Wal-Mart," the agent told him. Now all the friends of the investor who got his $60,000 back are asking the agent to pull the same scam for them. And he's doing it.

    Leaving the condo with the sale apparently finished, Boemio drives into a huge subdivision in western Las Vegas, one of the hardest-hit areas. The houses look nice enough, but every third one has a for-sale sign, and there are almost no cars in any of the driveways...

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  78. You missed the point(s), Rufus!
    ...again.

    ReplyDelete
  79. "Perhaps Venezuelan soldiers mistook Father Christmas' sleigh for a spy plane."

    GABRIEL SILVA,
    Colombia's defense minister, responding to Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez's claim that the U.S. sent an unmanned plane into Venezuelan airspace

    ReplyDelete
  80. Did you watch this, Whit?
    Sounds like it was pretty funny.
    Judge!
    ---

    "She comes to live with the Hills in the first episode, when her mother stabbed her father and, in the melee, their trailer home was demolished. Wearing a tank top over her bulging bosom and a blond mane over her empty head — except in the season after her hair got singed off in the great Mega Lo Mart propane explosion — Luanne worked as a beautician and, on the side, a performer on a local cable TV station with her Christian sock puppets, the Manger Babies (one of whom was an octopus). In the early years she had a feckless boyfriend named Buckley, until he died in the propane blast. She later dated a series of jerks (voiced by Matthew McConaughey, Owen Wilson, Michael Keaton) and finally married one of them (Tom Waits). But her main function was to vex her uncle, the very conservative Hank Hill (voiced by the show's co-creator, Mike Judge) — once by joining the Communist party, and mostly by having taken Hank's den as her bedroom when she moved in."
    MORE"

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  81. I didn't miss anything, Doug. 1/3 of our economy is related to "import/export."

    You start a "trade war," or try to retreat into isolationism, and you'll "Long" for the Good Old Days of 10% Unemployment.

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  82. Elephant Bar Sitcom

    Casting Director's Report

    The Doug role:

    Doug as a boy

    Doug as a young man, enroute to Berkeley

    Present day Doug...a work in progress

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  83. LOL
    Present day is a combo of those two in a disintegrating re-entry vehicle!

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  84. In Puget Sound, where Norwegians abound,
    And lutefisk gulped every winter,
    Striated yellow, a fish-flavored Jello:
    I'd not want it daily for dinner.

    But blondes are great cooks despite their good looks
    When avoiding the mummified cod.
    Whoe'er leftse chooses, that butter and jam oozes,
    Hath a treat that's fit for a god.

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