(Reflections on the great Republican abyss that dare not speak its name....)

I guess I'm feeling a little like a flak for the Republican Party. I don't particularly enjoy that feeling. I don't like being a flak for anybody. Yes, we're in a war that's important.Terribly important. And, yes, I think John Kerry is a straw man who should not lead us in such a situation. But there's nothing that makes me more angry than masked or unmasked homophobia. It's deeply reactionary and immoral.

God, I admire Roger as never before. That's real integrity. (And pretty much how I would feel had I been put in Roger's position.)

As Glenn Reynolds has made abundantly clear many times, this issue simply will not go away.

Parenthetically, I am writing this while listening to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Saw some smug faces in the crowd, with forced half-smiles, applauding less than enthusiastically, and whole sections not applauding. Arnold just put in a good word for the unfairly demonized Nixon, too, and that took courage. A great speech delivered before a crowd containing more than a few too many clueless ingrates. (Well, they're only the ostensible audience; the real audience is at home watching.)

What I want to know is why the Republican Party has to be held hostage not so much to people who are against same sex marriage, but to people who truly believe that homosexuals are the greatest threat to Western Civilization. That a man should be judged not by the content of his character, but by where he puts his penis.

There are two utterly incompatible views towards homosexuality in the Republican Party; tolerance versus intolerance. Those who are tolerant of homosexuals, when they must face their intolerant counterparts, find themselves in a position analogous to old fashioned liberals who feel intimidated by far left Marxists.

It is because of moral authority -- real or perceived. It is thought by ideologues that the stauncher one's position on a given thing, the "purer" one is. Thus, Marxists are the purest of the left, and moral conservatives are the purest of the right. (At least, so they think.) Being a moral conservative lends itself, almost by definition, to moral authority.

I saw people praying instead of applauding while Arnold spoke. Praying! Now, I have nothing against praying, and I defend passionately their right to pray. But isn't there an appropriate time and place for it? No; for those who imagine that their precious intolerance is threatened, they must pray constantly. Such people think mere tolerance for homosexuals equals "persecution." (Of their intolerance!)

I am so damned disgusted right now that even Arnold's speech, great though it was, did little to cheer me that things will ever change.

Fanaticism does not change.

Maybe I'll feel better in the morning.

UPDATE: Interestingly, Roger L. Simon noticed similar anti-Arnold behavior last night by a leading moral conservative:

He had a scowl on his face. As we know, Schwarzenegger does not represent Buchanan's Republican Party. Nothing seems to make Pat happy these days. As Arnold began to lead the chant of "four more years," Buchanan spun on his heels as if repelled and stalked off, heading for the nearest microphone.

Those protesting under the banner of anarchism show no real resemblance to the historical phenomenon of philosophical anarchism and at best may be compared to the syndicalists (who would transfer authority to labor unions), the offshoots who fueled early communism (who would transfer authority to the intellectual elite), or Mussolini's several Fasci which need little explanation. None removes authority, but simply aims to replace it, thus none is truly anarchistic in the way each pretends to be.

The current refrain is that they oppose the 'police state', but as my friend noted the other day, 'when you remove the police and someone takes your shit, what do you do? Form a posse and become the new police?'

Save me the line about property as theft. I've read Proudhon. My friend's argument holds no matter the crime. Let's say your child is murdered. Still: do you form a posse and become the new police?

Notions of justifiable violence were as alien to the Haymarket martyrs as to Emma Goldman, but the self-described anarchists of today marry Bakuninite thuggery with any ideology which opposes liberalism.

Philosophical anarchism is thoughtful enough to see that authority, i.e. government, is a necessary evil, and that the spirit of anarchism is a sort of Socratic gadfly, the social conscience writ large in the voices of dissidents, but never with violence where oppression does not exist.

I heard one of these mental giants on NPR recently describing their planned tactics as 'civil disobedience,' you know, the same old stuff that 'goes all the way back to Martin Luther King ... and Green Peace.' Doubtless few of their grunts know any better than their leaders that Civil Disobedience goes all the way back to Henry David Thoreau, and that the point has never been to disrupt or simply to be heard, or to be part of something. It has always been about challenging the law on the court level, and in order to do that you must be willing to break the law, and to have your day in court to challenge the law you've broken.

If you oppose the use of tax dollars to fund a war (as Thoreau did), you refuse to pay the tax and then challenge it's legitimacy in the courts. If you oppose segregation, you go where you're not wanted.

You don't pack smoke bombs and ball-bearings, or toss urine-filled balloons at the police.

To the credit of the old anarchists (even Bakunin), they thought they'd spark a revolution that would make the world a better place, and they lived in a much bleaker time. But we've learned hard lessons since then, viz. that swift revolutions rarely last, and that socialism is a fantasy that never fails to fall, and always leaves blood in its path.

Lowell Ponte asks an especially mean-spirited question:

How can Senator Kerry be trusted to fight terrorism when he knowingly employs as one of his highest campaign staffers an extremist who has been trained by and facilitated the training of others for the Ruckus Society, which taught radicals ways and means to disrupt the 2000 and 2004 Republican National Conventions and has links to members of domestic terrorist groups?

Ruckus has come a long way since Berkeley. Today's New York Times mentions them in a piece on violence and other ugliness in New York, and there's more here documenting how they're way cool and into justifiable violence and stuff.

What worries me is that from what I've seen so far, those nasty Republican activists seem be using nonviolent tactics these days.

Beware! They could be trying to get the sympathy of those easily bamboozled clods in middle American flyover country.

The latter are so stupid that they might get confused by images of nonviolent activists trying to exercise their constitutional rights being met with well-organized violence.

This could lead them to actually feeling sorry for the Republicans!

There could even be a backlash of sympathy for so-called Republican "freedom riders."

Sheesh! Next they'll be reminding middle Americans about segregationist Democrats!

I have previously complained about a notorious online content filtering service called SonicWALL. This blog is blocked, as are a number of blogs on a wide variety of subjects. (What that means is that if you enter our URL on a computer "protected" by SonicWALL, you'll get an ugly black screen displaying only the message, "This site has been blocked by SonicWALL.")

The blocking is quite insidious, and involves far more than protecting kids from porn. The following description is from the company website:

SonicWALL Content Filtering Service categorizes Web site content into the following categories: Adult/Mature Content/Pornography, Sex Education, Intimate Apparel/Swimsuit, Nudism, Alcohol/Tobacco, Criminal Skills/Illegal Skills, Drugs/Illegal drugs, Gambling, Hate/Racism, Violence, Weapons and Cult/Occult.

Your vast national kindergarten at work, kiddies!

Don't bother to complain to SonicWALL, as they will not answer.

Out of curiosity, I tried to open my blog on a SonicWALL-silenced computer last night, and of course it was still blocked, as were many blogs. Not only that, but SonicWALL has no sense of humor at all. (For example, they didn't want me looking at this picture of Glenn Reynolds wearing an "I had an abortion" T-shirt! And they hate God too; even Allah himself is blocked by the blasphemous, Satanic SonicWALL!)

The SonicWALL support site is very poor, and the help forum is available only to registered users. There is simply no way to contact them directly if you're blocked. (I suspect that there's an assumption that anyone who's blocked is an unclean degenerate who should be shamed out of existence.) I did find the following non-copyable statement (what's up with that? I can take a screen shot, can't I?) at their "knowledge portal":

I went to the Cyber Patrol site and entered my URL, but it didn't come up blocked, so I have no real explanation as to why Classical Values is being blocked.

Must be homophobia. Or hoplophobia.

Eugene Volokh is outraged over Dennis Hastert's comments on FoxNews:

Here in this campaign, quote, unquote, "reform," you take party power away from the party, you take the philosophical ideas away from the party, and give them to these independent groups.

You know, I don't know where George Soros gets his money. I don't know where -- if it comes overseas or from drug groups or where it comes from. And I...

WALLACE: Excuse me?

HASTERT: Well, that's what he's been for a number years -- George Soros has been for legalizing drugs in this country. So, I mean, he's got a lot of ancillary interests out there.

WALLACE: You think he may be getting money from the drug cartel?

HASTERT: I'm saying I don't know where groups -- could be people who support this type of thing. I'm saying we don't know. The fact is we don't know where this money comes from.

Volokh's response:

Hastert's substantive criticisms of campaign finance may be legitimate -- but the suggestion that Soros might be getting money from illegal drug distributors, even as a hypothetical example, is pretty reprehensible. (Imagine that, say, Ted Kennedy said "I don't know where Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are getting their money, if it comes from overseas or from neo-Nazis"; I take it that we'd be pretty appalled, even if Kennedy was just giving a hypothetical example.) And while "drug groups" may be slightly ambiguous in other contexts, where it might refer to pro-drug legalization groups, in this context it pretty clearly does suggest drug criminals, partly because Hastert didn't deny the connection when Wallace raised it and partly because the pro-legalization groups are funded by Soros, not the other way around.

But that's not the case at all. It was Wallace, not Hastert who used the term cartel. Hastert's phrase was drug groups, and he was careful to emphasize the point that the funding for independent groups is largely unknown. After Wallace asked whether he meant cartels, Hastert said it 'could be people who support this type of thing. I'm saying we don't know.' Was this a calculated attempt to smear or a careless answer to a question?

And is it reprehensible? It seems to me too close a thing to appearance politics when a response to a question in a live interview is put under the microscope and evil machinations are imagined. If we want to begin calling such comments reprehensible we're soon ready to censure, and we reinforce the current climate in which every misstep pours outrage from all quarters and leaves only the bland and overly cautious on the stage.

The fallacious analogy doesn't hold either. The Swift Boat Vets are not to Naziism as the legalization advocates are to the drug industry, and that comparison could only have been chosen for high rhetorical effect.

Of course singling out George Soros was stupid, and of course Soros is right that criminalization does more harm than good. And it's clear that Hastert disagrees and sees him as a threat. But should he be roasted over this?

Adrian Wojnarowski has an excellent piece at ESPN.com on basketball star Allen Iverson and U.S.A. Basketball:

The most telling moment of all was in the minutes after the United States' loss to Argentina in the semifinals, when the possibility for gold and glory were gone. When the coach stayed on his self-serving course of blaming USA Basketball, his players and the officials, Iverson stayed with his message in these games: It was an honor to represent his country, and his team had an immense obligation to treat the bronze medal game as though it was playing for gold.

Read it all.

Coach Larry Brown spent six years in Philadelphia refusing to call Iverson by name. He was always 'the little kid,' and Brown, famous for breaking young players (like Jalen Rose in Indiana and Larry Hughes in Philadelphia), never missed an opportunity to blame his star.

Many point to Iverson's history of missed practices under Brown, but he was the only projected star ever to develop under Brown (Brown's history is in taking other men's teams and making them better by emphasizing fundamentals, never in developing individual talent of his own, and there's a litany of soured relationships on his resume), and I would argue that Iverson's unwillingness to be broken by Brown has meant more than Brown's tutelage. And people always ignore Brown's bizarre double-standards, that would allow the likes of Derrick Coleman to set his own schedule while Iverson's every misstep was promptly aired by 'Coach' before the press.

Rumor has it that William Kennedy Smith's accuser admits to a relationship following the alleged rape. My source tells me that Soulias, the accuser, says she didn't realize at the time that Kennedy Smith was in a power position and that what he did was abuse.

I haven't been able to substantiate this yet by a secondary source, but the story may have just broken. I'll keep my eyes and ears open for confirmation in the press.

Any sources to support or contradict this rumor appreciated.

That last remark (by Dennis) about "puffery" reminded me of a few pictures taken over the weekend.

Especially this first one; a candid shot of live puffballs in action.

It's tough to take an action macro shot of these mushrooms releasing their spores, as someone has to manually stimulate them! Fortunately, a helper was found, the 'shrooms were pushed, and the spores became airborne.

Now that's what I call an invasion of puffery!

Not too far from the puffballs, I found this frog sitting next to a pond. Surprisingly, he allowed me to photograph him at close range. (Perhaps he realized how photogenic he was.)

Couldn't get him to do any puffing, though.

Last of all, no puffed up discussion of puffery is complete without an actual photo of my dog, Puff (named in part for his puppyhood habit of puffing up his throat like a frog when he "talked.")

Here's Puff -- huffing and puffing in yesterday's stifling heat.

He's standing next to a tasteless scoop....

A while back (when I was still posting under the name Varius Contrarius) I was getting tired of my own posts, and wanted to try something new. I dashed out a critique of a critique quoted on a website, and even though at the time I was hesitant to post it, I followed through to break up the monotony of political polemic. Sometimes in conversation Eric will say, 'you should post about that!,' but here I am still poking Kerry with my little stick.

I stumbled across a response to that post that never made it's way to the comments or as a trackback here at Classical Values, but apparently some folks over at Fresh Bilge decided to let me have it. Who knew? Not I.

I tried to leave a comment, but they've long since closed. The critique of my critique of Perloff's fragment of a critique begins:

I've been meaning for some time to riff off a poetry post by Varius Contrarius, one of Eric Scheie's two new co-bloggers at Classical Values, but I've been so busy with FB redesign that I never got round to it. Instead I solicited a comment from the skipper, who is a poet and metrist of some repute. He's also a technophobe, and unwilling to blog, even though I've offered him guest-posting status. He responded the old-fashioned way, via email. The skipper agrees with Varius that Marjorie Perloff is, shall we say, over-rated in her expertise, but he finds Varius himself no wiser.

Fair enough. I have no doubts that last part is true, but let's take a look at the argument:

Tim and I believe Perloff and Contrarius deserve one another, being equally muddle-headed about matters metrical and poetical. WCW was not a metrical poet. In fact I would argue that only the line breaks cause such a mundane utterance to be called a poem. It became the besetting vice of poetry, during its Twentieth Century decline, that it could only be distinguished as poetry by an author's carriage return. Here's the skipper's riposte:

Varius is shooting at a pretty fat, slow target. Observe. In "Janus-Faced Blockbuster", a review of Cary Nelson's Anthology of Modern American Poetry on her website, Marjorie Perloff, who styles herself an authority on prosody, quotes these lines by the African-American poet Georgia Douglas Johnson (written in 1918) :

The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on; Afar o'er life's turrets and vales does it roam In the wake of those echoes the heart calls home. The heart of a woman falls back with the night, And enters some alien cage in its plight, And tries to forget it has dreamed of the stars While it breaks, breaks, breaks, on the sheltering bars.

Tuts Madge, "These chug-chug iambic pentameter stanzas rhyming aabb remind one of a Hallmark card." [At least her sister critic, Helen] Vendler admits she has a tin ear; but Perloff can't even discriminate between iambic pentameter and anapestic tetrameter! What did Sondheim write? "These indiscriminate/ women it/ pains me more/ than I can say!" But if Varius thinks Williams' free verse is metrical, he knows less than they. His apparent scorn for accentual syllabic verse in English, which the great prosodic thinker Robert Mezey ranks with the wheel as one of man's two great inventions, bespeaks a classical snobbery which would have appalled Housman, the greatest classicist of his day. Indeed it would torture into fits Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald. I've memorized enough syllabic verse in French and quantitative verse in Greek to be inclined to agree with Mezey. Accentual syllabic was good enough for Shakespeare, and he was no robot.

The skipper has spoken. I can only add that the "blockbuster" Georgia Douglas Johnson was doing a stilted, sentimental-feminist takeoff of Tennyson, and that (at least on evidence of the quoted lines) she has been elevated for critical acclaim only because of her race and gender.

Now if you've ingested all of that I hope you've seen the error. The Skipper, in all his wisdom, ignores my definition of meter and argues that I know less about meter than Perloff (who 'can't even discriminate between iambic pentameter and anapestic tetrameter!') and WCW (who wrote 'free verse' which is decidedly unmetrical). However, I was careful in my post to define meter openly as anything by which poetry is measured. This allows for poetry in any language (not just the classical poetry of Western literary dialects) and allows for meter beyond that recognized by pedants.

To do so, according to the Skipper, 'bespeaks a classical snobbery which would have appalled Housman, the greatest classicist of his day.'

Of course the real issue here is that he misinterprets my emphasis upon sentence stress in favor of word stress. My argument was that sentence stress is more natural than word stress 'unless you're a robot', not that word stress is to be scorned.

This may be defended in part by an example which I believe appears in W.S. Allen's Accent and Rhythm (which I don't have handy) wherein a poet is derided by a critic for misunderstanding his own meter, when in fact the poet sang his verse with quite a different rhythm than that with which the critic read it.

Admittedly the robot line was rhetorical and I knew when I wrote it that some people might take offense, but I'm not worried about offending those who hold faithfully to metrical schemes as canonical and reject all that does not fit their rules. And so it is curious that the Skipper and his mate would accuse me of classical snobbery when it is they who have limited the scope of what is metrical and poetical. And is it classical snobbery to admit of a wider concept of meter, or rather to declare that 'only the line breaks cause such a mundane utterance to be called a poem?'

That the Skipper's mate speaks of the decline of poetry as conventions change is a most damning counter to their shared thesis of my so-called classical snobbery.

It would surprise them that Housman is dear to me, and that I believe Shakespeare will never be surpassed. I wonder if it would surprise them too that the mature Shakespeare's blank verse is quite like the meters employed by Greek and Roman playwrights in that it often gives one the illusion of natural speech. In this work Shakespeare differs from his earlier, more formal period.

I'm wondering why the Skipper is silent on sentence stress. Perhaps when strict rules of sentence stress have been defined and technical names applied to them, once poets acknowledge and employ those rules, we'll recognize it as meter.

And once we've memorized enough French and Greek poetry we can take shots at slow moving targets from a safe distance, viz. third-party puffery from unknown quarters.

No one seems to be reporting the fact that Kerry's daughters were greeted with boos last night when they appeared at the MTV video music awards, as reported to me by my faithful colleague Jason. No word on how the taped appearance of the Bush girls was received.

ABC News notes that the daughters appeared, but says nothing about the incident:

The daughters of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and President Bush made an appearance the Bush daughters on videotape to urge people to vote. Even the Rev. Al Sharpton made an appearance connected to voting not for the election, though, but for the viewer's choice award.

Perhaps that's not surprising as the MTV video music awards are hardly newsworthy, and that almost every article published follows perhaps a single wire feed with slight modifications. But someone other than my colleague should have noticed, and given the context it seems at the very least like an item of interest.

And someone did: pop music critic Jim Derogatis at the Chicago Sun-Times, who is perhaps alone in writing an independent review of the event:

The show offered nothing to rival last year's notorious Britney Spears-Madonna kiss. The closest it got to controversy was when many in the crowd at the packed AmericanAirlines Arena loudly booed Alexandra and Vanessa Kerry, the daughters of the Democratic Presidential candidate, when they appeared to urge viewers to vote -- hopefully for their father -- in the coming election.

Jenna and Barbara Bush also popped up to give a similar message. But the President's daughters were on videotape, so if they were booed in the arena when they mentioned their dad, viewers at home never heard it.

Were the music fans and professionals in the audience really showing their dislike for Kerry, or for the politicization of entertainment?

Either way, it's worth taking a look at because it challenges a long standing stereotype, viz. that participants in the entertainment industry are by default both political and on the left.

More escalation of tactics, and more Marxist fundamentalist zeal in action.

Just as people have no right to run in a Marathon race or live peacably in their own homes when there are more important issues, there's no right to attend the theater either:

....[I]ndividual protesters kept tensions high, some of them hissing or cursing at well-heeled couples heading to popular Broadway musicals like "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and "Fiddler on the Roof."

"Republican murderers go home and kill your babies!" one young man yelled at theatergoers, a far cry from local public service messages urging New Yorkers to "make nice" to party delegates in the city for the four-day convention, where Bush will be nominated for another four-year term.

A second protester shoved a middle-aged woman in a black cocktail dress, shouting:

"Bitch, go home! We don't want you here!" At one point, police cordoned off a city block after several dozen demonstrators jeered and razzed the incoming audience.

Old Berkeley stuff for me; I can tell this week will be a walk down memory lane.

But speaking of nostalgia, I should remind readers that at a large gay riot I attended, the crowd refused to storm the opera house.

In those days, attacking theater patrons was thought (by gay demonstrators, at least) to be gauche and tacky. More gorilla than guerilla theater. Perhaps the demonstrators need a makeover from "Queer Eye for the Demon-straight Guy."

MORE: There's another side to this argument, of course, and out of fairness to the demonstrators, here's an IndyMedia editorial in support of them:

If the goal is to make the Republicans here for the convention as uncomfortable as possible, we can take pride in our collective success. Regardless of how much you may enjoy Aida, you enjoy it much less if hundreds scream that they hate you while you step outside for intermission. The direct confrontation of protesters and the side effects of inconvenient checkpoints and spooky scenes of helmeted police wielding clubs has made things unpleasant for our red state friends.

But is discomfort the best we can hope for? Many delegates made a point of smiling and waving to the angry protesters, apparently not at all bothered by the unwashed masses held securely in place and safely at bay by burly officers. We’re winning in numbers, and the legions of anti-Bushies give each other hope and energy, but the protests seem like a losing battle. The happenings around the city are a metaphor for the larger situation in America. The rich and powerful dine in beautiful settings and enjoy elaborate entertainments in air-conditioned theaters, while the hungry, hot, and dehydrated majority wait in the sun for a chance to voice their frustrations.

The powers that be have learned many lessons over the years, and there will not be any Selma-like images of police raining down billy club blows in teargas smogged streets or demonstrators being pinned to walls by high-pressure jets of water from fire hoses. The oppression we face as the poor, hungry, and uninsured come in smaller chunks over long periods of time. You can’t photograph children being brought up in under funded public schools, only to face unemployment and the impossibility of medical care once they achieve adulthood. These tragedies don’t have the same power on television or the internet that a single photograph of Selma still has.

It’s not enough to intimidate our opposition in this class war. We need something to rally behind, something easy to understand that will win the hearts of our oppressors, much the way the public was moved to support civil rights by the brutality against African Americans during the civil rights movement. If the people in power will not and cannot see the damage that is being done to the rest of us, only a bloody and terrible revolution will save the United States.

When I was on Berkeley's Police Review Commission, arrested demonstrators would (as part of their strategy) routinely bring utterly groundless charges against Berkeley's police officers. As might be expected, Berkeley cops are well trained to cope with professional demonstrators, and bend over backwards to accomodate. Never mind: evoking Selma, Birmingham, and Bull Conner was standard fare.

"BERKELEY IS JUST LIKE BIRMINGHAM!" "CHIEF BUTLER IS JUST LIKE BULL CONNOR!"

Not many hearts and minds were moved.

Although a number of eyeballs did move -- upwards.....

UPDATE: It's getting even uglier. The New York Times reports punching of theatergoers, assaults on police, and other ways of winning hearts and minds.

Let's see if I have this right. Nonviolent activists attempting to exercise their constitutional rights are being attacked by organized violent thugs.....

You know, it does sound like Selma!

Perhaps there'll be some winning of hearts and minds after all....

By now almost everyone knows about the nutcase who disrupted the Olympic Marathon:

ATHENS, Greece - A man wearing a brightly colored costume bolted from the crowd and grabbed the leader of the marathon Sunday, about three miles from the finish. The intruder wrestled Vanderlei Lima of Brazil to the curb and into the crowd. Police tackled the intruder and freed Lima.

Lima, whose lead had been slowly shrinking, was able to get back into the race. But he lost several more seconds, and eventually was overtaken by Stefano Baldini of Italy.

The intruder, who police said was from Portugal, was arrested. His name was not immediately available.

Well, it turns out he wasn't Portuguese; he's a well known, defrocked priest from Ireland.

A Kerry priest!

If you think I am kidding, read this:

THE Kerry priest who brought the British Grand Prix to a halt last week has been remanded in custody for a further two weeks.

Scartaglin-born Fr Neil Horan’s second application for bail was refused at a hearing at Northampton Magistrates Court on Monday.

Fr Horan, 56, who is now residing in Nunhead, London, was arrested by Northampton police after he ran onto the Silverstone track during the Grand Prix on Sunday, July 20. Wearing a kilt and a tam o’shanter on his head, Fr Horan waved a banner that read "Read the Bible – the Bible is always right".

Seriously, though, Father Horan is a serious man with a serious message, and some serious, um, issues:

“Remember it took only 20 minutes to destroy the Twin Towers on September 11. The end is closer than we think,” Horan predicted recently.

Fr Neil Horan, aged 56, from Scartaglen, County Kerry, has been making grim predictions for many years, but sees himself as an agent of peace in a troubled world. Dressed in a kilt, he has been stepping it out and dancing around the globe for peace. He also believes the rich cultural heritage of his native Sliabh Luachra, famous for its traditional music and dance, is guaranteed a place in the post-Armageddon world.

“Music will play a huge part in lifting the human spirit after the Final War,” says the London-based cleric who describes himself as a Catholic priest on sabbatical.

“I took up step dancing when I was studying theology in St Peter’s College, in Wexford, mainly because I can’t sing,” adding that he’s no Michael Flatley, but still wants to use his talents in the best way he can.

Ordained in 1973 by Bishop Eamon Casey and posted to England, his talent came in useful when he started working in multicultural parishes, mainly in the London area. “Dance is a powerful way of bridging the gap between different nationalities. Language barriers tend to come into a song, but dance is visual. Dancing introduces a lighter side to things.”

Fr Horan believes that war will be instrumental in the formation of what he terms the New Kingdom. He says that suffering is the price to be paid for the “joyful” post-apocalyptic world, which he feels should come into being in the next 10 years or so.

This Father Horan is not new to the blogosphere; Anthony Wells has posted about him at least twice.

Sports columnists like stuff like this, of course.

Father Horan is also a published author of at least two books -- Christ Will Soon Take Power From All Governments, and The Bible And The Grand Prix Priest (the latter refers to his dancing on the racetrack; can dancing against NASCAR be far behind?) -- both of which are available here:

Even the most hardened cynic will get that prickly feeling down the back of his neck as he reads this book.

Is God speaking to us through this man?

Before you laugh, bear in mind that Father Horan has some serious supporters:

One can only admire the man, who describes himself as a priest on sabbatical, for having the courage to risk life and limb to highlight his beliefs but, in that respect, he has been ploughing a long furrow for decades. In keeping with our policy of giving a voice to individuals or groups that find themselves in a distinct minority, this newspaper has been charting the life and times of the Scartaglin-born priest for many years.

We have reported faithfully on his one-man crusade for world peace, his peace dance at the House of Commons, his correspondence with world leaders and his heartfelt belief that the end of the world, as we know it, is fast approaching and will be replaced by "a glorious new world". Fr Horan’s publicity campaign has stemmed from a genuine belief that the end is nigh and, dear reader, who are we to dispute his stance or dismiss his predictions? His decision to race onto the track at Silverstone while the British Grand Prix was in full flight was the act of a man desperate to get his point across and it confirmed that he was willing to risk his own life be true to his convictions.

I think it's just as well that Horan wasn't Portuguese, or dressed as Columbus, because he'd be attracting more supporters.

It hasn't escaped my attention that many who claim to oppose religion in politics (except fundamentalist Islam, of course) are in their behavior at least as sanctimonious, as glazed in the eyes -- and even as messianic -- as the religious zealots they condemn. (Messianic photo-link via Glenn Reynolds.)

Things are really getting ugly, and fast.

This is a sickening example mob rule, of the sort which I saw in Berkeley, and which typifies the left.

Nearly 40 protesters gathered Saturday at the home of the chief financial backer of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose ads criticize Democrat John Kerry's military record. (Via Glenn Reynolds.)

Kerry supporters chanted "Hey, hey, ho, ho, your stinkin' ad has got to go."

It's a hell of a way for Kerry's supporters to try to win an election.

More Americans need to realize that these tactics are alive and well.

And on the left.

It would be bad enough if the storm troopers consisted only of the lunatic fringe, but they don't. In Berkeley I saw that the respectable, mainstream politicians wink at this sort of thing, secretly enjoying the fact that they have behind them a dangerous mob who will do anything. Gives them a feeling of power.

Surely, John Kerry would condemn such home invasion tactics as being beyond the pale on politics, if not borderline terrorism....

Wouldn't he?

Uh oh! Wasn't there similar behavior at the president's home in Crawford, Texas by Max Cleland and Jim Rassman?

Yeah, there was, and the Kerry campaign was formally and officially behind it. A man in a wheelchair and a war buddy of Kerry aren't the same thing as 40 demonstrators, but is it the number of people that's the issue? While the Crawford ranch is more of a symbol of a residence than are most residences, harassing people by surrounding their homes crosses a line which has always separated civilized discourse from mob rule. It's no accident that Cleland and Rassman chose the president's personal residence as opposed to the White House (which is a place of business).

I think it was intended as a clear signal that home invasion is now to be considered mainstream (at least in the Democratic Party). Far from disparaging brown shirt tactics, Kerry is doing precisely the opposite.

Little wonder that personal intimidation of delegates is now also part of the plan:

a liberal Internet site [] lists delegates to the Republican National Convention and urges protesters to give them an unwelcome reception....

I honestly didn't think I would see this at the national level, by a leader of a major party.

Things look pretty damned bad.

While it's true that we still have the Second Amendment, in political discourse armed self defense is normally thought of as being the sort of thing that's a last resort.....

Could it be that Bush is unfairly undertaxing the poor and working classes, to Kerry's pampered disadvantage?

Here's a graph from the Detroit News (courtesy G.R.) showing that while everyone's taxes went down, the percentage of the tax burden decreased for the bottom 60% of tax payers, while it increased for the top 40%, which means the rich take on a larger share of the overall tax burden than they did before when everyone paid higher taxes.

Before Bush's tax cuts the top 20% paid 78.4% of the taxes, and now pay 82.1%. In contrast the bottom 60% had formerly been responsible for 6.3% (adding the numbers) but are now only responsible for about 2.7%

Under Bush the top 40% take on 97.3% of the tax burden.

When will their free ride end?

Carl Lewis wins this week's Idiot Award:

Criticising Bush for linking his foreign policy with the two countries being allowed to compete here, Lewis said: 'I felt that was disingenuous. It is funny that we boycotted the 1980 Games [in Moscow] in support of Afghanistan, and now we're bombing Afghanistan,' he told the Athens News yesterday.

If that isn't a perfect display of ignorance, I don't know what is.

Oh ... maybe this:

Scientists have proven that it's impossible to long-jump 30 feet, but I don't listen to that kind of talk. Thoughts like that have a way of sinking into your feet.

That's right, Carl. There's no sense listening to reason. It might find a way of sinking into your brain.

Frequent readers may recall that I have pushed this book, “The Golden Age”, on you once before. In belated honor of Glenn Reynolds birthday, I feel that one more time wouldn’t be inappropriate. Matter of fact, I’m recommending the whole damn trilogy.
The subject matter concerns topics of interest to him. Plus, these may possibly be the best science fiction novels ever written by a lawyer. Read these books, Professor!

My earlier post promised some excerpts from the book itself. Okay, coming right up. This following snippet is on the whimsical side, as our hero finds himself blasting along in midair thousands of feet up, without a vehicle. Even eighty thousand plus years in the future, that’s not normal. He calls home seeking an explanation. Bear in mind that this civilization relies to an extraordinary degree on virtual reality and its half-and-half cousin consensus reality. What a citizen of the “Golden Oecumene” perceives is largely a matter of choice on his or her part. Reality and special effects can be seamlessly merged.

Phaethon put in a call to his mansion. “Rhadamanthus! Rhadamanthus! I know the Silver-gray protocols don’t let you manifest in a way that jars the scenery; but this is an emergency. Something odd happened to me this night; I need your help to find the answers. His sensorium signaled to admit a new object. A moment later, out of the high clouds behind him, surrounded with a roaring engine noise, a small black shape darted on wings. It did a snap-roll and came closer, till it paralleled Phaethon’s plunging descent. It was a penguin wearing bow tie, aviator goggles, and a long white scarf. The penguin’s stubby wings were spread, its bullet head thrown back, its little beak cutting the air. A contrail of vapor issued from its little webbed feet. “Oh come now Rhadamanthus! This blends?!” The penguin cocked its head. “It is a bird, young master.” “Realistic images or none at all! That’s the motto of our manor. Penguins do not fly!” “Hmm. I hate to say it young master, but neither do young men” “But--a contrail--?” “Ah, sir, you may check my math if you like, but a penguin-shaped object traveling at this speed through this atmosphere—“ Phaethon interrupted. “Be realistic!” “If the young master would care to look behind himself, I think he will see he has a condensation trail not unlike my own—“ “Good heavens!” Phaethon checked his sense filter again. The penguin and its contrail were illusions, existing only in mentality. But Phaethon’s contrail was a real object. “How am I doing this? Flying without a suit, I mean.” He checked the properties value on his sense filter again. It was real. “If master would care to direct his attention upward, in the extremely high frequency range?…” “I see a latticework of energy lines across the sky, from horizon to horizon…A levitation array? But the scale is grandiose. It extends for miles. Ah…hundreds of miles. Was this all built last night?” “It was constructed in orbit and lowered into place, young master. A surprise for the guests!” The penguin pointed with a stubby black wing. (Technical exposition omitted) “I’m impressed. But you sound sort of nasal, Rhadamanthus, even for a penguin.” “It saddens me to see a way of life I like pass on, even though I am not myself alive. The new ease of air transport may decrease the advantages of telepresentation, and, over the next four centuries, reduce the prestige of the various manorial and cryptic ways of life. Including mansions like me. Heh. …”

For the context impervious, a Sophotech is an Artificial Intelligence, usually of much greater than human capacity. Like the immensely capable “Minds” in Iain Banks’s stories of “The Culture”, the Sophotechs are the real players in this society, restrained from trampling on mere humans only by their own ethics and inherent humaneness. Even so, most of them are preoccupied with high rpm navel-gazing.

Many of the Sophotechs that had no names and no personalities among the human population would remember, later…These cold, remote beings had no other interest in humanity or human things, regarded all of human civilization as the toy, the museum piece, or the playthings of Earthmind and Aurelian, chess-loving War-mind and sentimental Nebuchadnezzar, and young impulsive Harrier.

Most human beings in these stories consider the sophotechs friends and teachers, rather like well treated dogs might regard humans. But there are a few wolves left in the pack…

“Aren’t men right to fear machines which can perform all tasks men can do, artistic, intellectual, technical, a thousand or a million times better than they can do? Men become redundant.”

Thank you, Drs. Kass and Fukuyama. The rebuttal takes us into economic territory, specifically the theory of Comparative Advantage. I first learned of it from Milton Friedman, who presented it in terms of third world tee-shirt manufacture. Some of you may know it as the Martha Stewart Hires a Typist scenario. (She can type faster than anyone alive. She’s Martha Stewart. She can do anything! So why would she need to hire a typist?)

….”Efficiency does not harm the inefficient. Quite the opposite. That is simply not the way it works. Take me for example…Any midlevel Sophotech could have written in one second the architecture it takes me, even with my implants, an hour to compose. But if, in that one second of time, that Sophotech can produce something more valuable—exploring the depth of abstract mathematics, or inventing a new scientific miracle, anything at all (provided that it will earn more in that second than I earn in an hour)—then the competition is not making me redundant. The Sophotech still needs me and receives the benefit of my labor. Since I am going to get the benefit of every new invention and new miracle put out on the market, I want to free up as many of those seconds of Sophotech time as my humble labor can do. And I get the lion’s share of the benefit from the swap. I only save him a second of time; he creates wonder upon wonder for me…”

I hope any bright kids reading these books can internalize these relatively painless lessons. Heinlein did it for my generation. We should keep up the tradition. Wright also tackles the unfortunate notion of life without money. But hey, the Federation gave up money! And they’re a Utopia! Just don’t ask any nosy questions about all that Latinum floating around the frontier.

“No civilization can exist without money. Even one in which energy is as cheap and free as air on Earth, would still have some needs and desires which some people can fulfill better than others. An entertainment industry, if nothing else. Whatever efforts—if any—these productive people make, above and beyond that which their own idle pastimes incline them to make, will be motivated by gifts or barter bestowed by others eager for their services. Whatever barter keeps its value best over time stays in demand, and is portable, recognizable, divisable, will become their money. No matter what they call it, no matter what form it takes, whether cowry shells or gold or grams of anti-matter, it will be money. Even Sophotechs use standardized computer seconds to prioritize distributions of system resources among themselves. As long as men value each other, admire each other, need each other, there will be money.”

Diomedes said, “And if all men live in isolation? Surrounded by nothing but computer-generated dreams, pleasant fictions, and flatteries? And their every desire is satisfied by electronic illusions which create in their brains the sensations of satisfaction without the substance? What need have men to value other men then?”

“Men who value their own lives would not live that way.”

Too right. Life is not a dream.

One of the reviewers on Amazon remarked that this couldn’t possibly be a libertarian utopia because the computers ran the whole show. People were just pets. Hmmm.

”Why couldn’t I be prevented from making such a foolish agreement in the first place?”

You are free to join the Orthomnemonicist School, which permits no memory alterations except anti-senility storage, or join the primitivists, who permit none at all.”

“You know what I mean. You Sophotechs are smarter than I am; why did you let me do such a foolish thing?”

“We answer every question our resources and instruction parameters allow; we are more than happy to advise you, when and if we are asked.”

“That’s not what I’m thinking of, and you know it.”

“You are thinking we should use force to defend you against yourself against your will? That is hardly a thought worth thinking, sir. Your life has exactly the value you yourself place on it. It is yours to damage or ruin as you wish….If we were to overrule your ownership of your own life, your life, would, in effect, become our property, and you, in effect, would become merely the custodian or trustee of that life. Do you think you would value it more in such a case, or less? And if you valued it less, would you not take greater risks and behave more self-destructively? If, on the other hand, each man’s life is his own, he may experiment freely, risking only what is his, till he find his best happiness.”

“I see the results of failed experiments all around us, in these cylinders. I see wasted lives, and people trapped in mind sets and life forms that lead nowhere.”

“While life continues, evolution and experimentation must also. The pain and risk of failure cannot be eliminated. The most we can do is maximize human freedom, so that no man is forced to pay for another man’s mistakes, so that the pain of failure falls only on he who risks it. And you do not know which ways of life lead nowhere. Even we Sophotechs do not know where all paths lead.”

“How benevolent of you! We will always be free to be stupid.”

“Cherish that freedom, young master; it is basic to all others.”

Sounds pretty libertarian to me. There will always be people who are richer, smarter, more powerful than I am. If they respect my rights, how am I worse off? Lowered morale? Please. The politics of envy are despicable.

These few brief excerpts could easily get out of hand. The books have so many good parts, it really is hard for me to stop dragging out my favorites. If I had the space and you had the patience, I would trot out the various forms of mental perversion available to Wright’s neurotechnic society, like for instance, convincing yourself with any level of detail required that you are a consummate creative genius, a DaVinci, loved by all. Or Phaethon’s wonderful ship, the “Phoenix Exultant”, or the different human neuroforms and their modes of perception, or the Red Manorials who, shunning the clarity of Silver-Gray thought, live their lives in a quivering, amped-up state of emotional excess, rather like living their lives in a Regency Romance Novel. Brrr.

But we don’t have that time. So I’ll choose just one more thin mint, in honor of the Professor’s birthday and occupation. The Computer and his Boy have their day in Court.

The Chamber of the Curia was austere…Unadorned square silver pillars held up a black dome. In the center of the dome, at the highest point of the ceiling, a wide lens of crystal supported the pool overhead. Light from the world above fell through the water to form trembling nets and webs across the floor. The floor itself was inscribed with a mosaic in the data-pattern mode, representing the entire pattern of the Curia case law. At the center, small icons representing constitutional principles sent out lines to each case in which they were quoted; bright lines for controlling precedent, dim lines for dissenting opinions or dicta. Each case quoted in a later case sent out additional lines, till the concentric circles of floor icons were meshed in a complex network. The jest of the architect was clear to Phaethon. The floor mosaic was meant to represent the fixed immutability of the law; but the play of light from the pool above made it seem to ripple and sway and change with each little breeze. Above the floor, not touching it, without sound or motion, hovered three massive cubes of black material.

These cubes were the manifestations of the judges. The cube shape symbolized the solidity and implacable majesty of the law. Their high position showed they were above emotionalism or earthly appeals…
Once, long ago, these had been men. Now, recorded into an electrophotonic matrix, they were without passion or favoritism, and their most secret thoughts were open to review and scrutiny should any charge of unfairness or prejudice ever be brought against them.
The Never-First Schools always urged that the Judges should change from election to election and poll to poll, as did the members of the Parliament. The more traditional schools, however, always argued that, in order for the law to be fair, reasonable men must be able to predict how it will be enforced, so as to be able to know what is and is not legal. Having sat on the bench for 7,400 years, the minds of the Curia were, like the approach of glaciers, like the ponderous motions of the outer planets, very predictable indeed.

A voice radiated from the central cube:”The Court is now in session. We note that the counselor for the purported beneficiary has chosen to manifest itself as an armored penguin. We remind the counselor of the penalties attaching to contempt of Court. Does the counselor require a recess or any extra channels to array itself more presentably?”

“No, Your Lordship.” The image of Rhadamanthus faded, and, fitting into the prevailing aesthetic, the penguin turned into a large green cone.

Phaethon eyed the cone dubiously. “Oh, much better…” he muttered.

“Order in the Court!” radiated the cube on the left.

I'm in upstate New York for the weekend, and it turned out the people I'm staying with have a computer with a DSL connection. So I thought I'd sneak in a quickie post, so Dennis doesn't have to go it alone on a Saturday night. (Dennis is already proving himself to be one heck of a good blogger if I may say so; good man, good brain, who now has a good Internet connection!)

Anyway, a group I have discussed before -- Critical Mass (plenty of good links there, folks!) -- is busy hassling not Republicans, but ordinary New Yorkers who are trying to go about their lives:

Manhattan was spin city last night as 5,000 activists on bicycles swarmed city streets and snarled traffic during a protest of the upcoming Republican National Convention. At least 264 riders were arrested on charges of disorderly conduct for blocking intersections near Madison Square Garden and in the East Village, police said.

The arrests marked the first real confrontation between cops and the thousands of protesters who have descended on New York ahead of the convention, which starts Monday.

"The cops said, 'Get out of here!' and I was trying to get out and I was cuffed," complained one busted bicyclist who identified himself as Keith from Brooklyn.

At first, police seemed willing to allow the protesters to have the run of the road as they zigzagged up and down Manhattan from Union Square.

But as the cyclists blocked the intersection of W. 34th St. and Seventh Ave. at the Garden, police began arresting demonstrators.

Many more were collared later at Second Ave. around E. 10th St., near St. Marks Church, which was hosting an after-party for the bicyclists.

"The cops are coming! Move out!" bicyclists screamed to each other as they made their way down Second Ave., hurling their bikes over the church fence in a desperate bid for sanctuary.

And such sanctimonious humanitarians these bicyclists are!

"They were blocking intersections all along the way, backing up traffic," said top NYPD spokesman Paul Browne. "I personally witnessed several ambulances that couldn't get through. They had their lights and sirens on."

The ride, organized by an environmental group called Time's Up and dubbed "Critical Mass," is held in the city on the last Friday of every month but never near the scale of last night.

If we can inconvenience just one Republican.....

Reading about Douglas Brinkley (thanks to Glenn Reynolds), I was led to this fascinating bit of revelation:

Iraqi Sheikh Mahdi Saleh Al-Sumide'i, identified as a participant in the Battle of Falluja, was interviewed by Syrian television on August 23, as follows:

SUMIDE'I: [W]e believe that Allah protects the believers, and indeed, Allah stood beside Falluja, and I'd like to mention some miracles Allah performed in Falluja. It is possible that the media does not know about them. The first miracle that occurred in Falluja took the form of spiders that appeared in the city--each spider larger than this chair, or about the size of this chair.

The American soldiers left, holding the legs of this spider, and I too, in one of the Friday sermons, held up a spider, with all its magnitude, in front of the satellite channels and in front of the world. This spider also had thick black hair. If this hair touches the human body, within a short period of time the body becomes black or blue, and then there is an explosion in the blood cells in the human body--and the person dies. This is one of the miracles performed in support of Falluja, and the Jihad that took place in Falluja. . . .

You can't argue with something like that.

Why not? Because that would make you a racist neo-con. Or at least rational, which is even worse.

Here's a description of part of Kerry's appearance on the Daily Show (which I didn't see because I don't have cable):

As Kerry launched into a monologue about why President Bush avoids talking about issues like the economy, jobs and the environment, the comedian interrupted.

"I'm sorry," Stewart said. "Were you or were you not in Cambodia?"

Stewart and Kerry then leaned in and stared each other down before Stewart asked about other things Kerry's opponents are saying.

Like reading about the crisis in Darfur, which the U.N. would probably like to ignore:

Rerum status in Sudania

27.8.2004

In Sudania discrimen gravissimum de provincia Darfur possidenda ortum est.
Sunt in illa civitate duae partes rebelles inter se dimicantes, quae ab administratoribus flagitant, ut regioni Darfur amplior autonomia concedatur.

Pugnis in Sudania commissis iam circiter quinquaginta milia hominum vitam amiserunt et amplius decies centena milia domo fugerunt.

Consilium securitatis Nationum Unitarum rectores Sudaniae monuit, ut bellatores armis exuerent et cives suos a vi tuerentur.

Nisi id ante Kalendas Septembres fecissent, Sudaniae sanctiones oeconomicas impositum iri.

(Reijo Pitkäranta)

That's taken from Nuntii Latinii, a service of YLE radio in Finland, where you can also listen to the news in Latin.

One of my favorite actors, Peter Falk, is interviewed over at the Onion AV club, and he has a lot to say about John Cassavetes, one of my favorite directors:

Well, the entertainment industry is loaded with extraordinarily talented people. But the true, genuine originals, they're rare. Cassavetes was a true original. His contribution to filmmaking was enormous. He introduced a new standard of spontaneity in acting that had never been seen before. And I don't think people are aware of what a wonderful camera operator John was. He could put that thing on his shoulder and move around like a fish in water. And they also don't understand what a wonderful lighting man he was. He could light a scene beautifully. And I don't think they appreciate the fact that he was a non-political, non-ideological, non-issue-oriented director.

Read the rest here.

Victor Davis Hanson, the eminent classicist and historian of ancient warfare, has an excellent piece on John Kerry at the National Review, rife with classical allusions and the wisdom of Thucydides:

And so now we have the present mess that will go on for weeks and can only hurt Kerry. He is earning a reputation for once welcoming third-party hit ads, then (now) whining about them; for parading his service, then whining about scrutiny of it; for spouting braggadocio, then whining about hurtful speech. As the Greeks remind us, pride can lead to hubris and then to Nemesis — on its tragic and ultimate rendezvous with ruin.

Read it all.

Now, some may say that Rachel Lucas is Kerry's nemesis. I have to admit that I haven't read many blogs, but hers has become an instant source of joy.

Hey ... cut me some slack. I've never even read Instapundit (where you'll find more on Kerry's silver star debacle.)

August is one of those months!

Here it is early Saturday morning and instead of sleeping I am getting ready to hit the road and leave for the weekend.

My blogfather Jeff still seems to be away on a combination vacation birthday celebration, but I don't know when his birthday is, so I don't know whether to wish him a happy birthday or happy vacation.....

Anyway, there's not much time for a post, but since I'm into pictures lately there is one other little item. The Archaeoblogologist Ghost of a flea has a posted a high school picture challenge:

Ahem. Let's make this formal:

I hereby triple-dog dare bloggers everywhere to post their high school year pictures from Grade 9 and 10!

Mine may or may not be safely boxed up in another city so I am not saying I am going to post these tomorrow or anything...

Well, I haven't seen Nick's photos yet, but I will attempt minimal compliance with his triple-dog-dare.

This is from 1971, and it's minimal, because it's taken from a group shot:

Obviously, I had to edit out my classmates, lest anyone's privacy be invaded. I am at a disadvantage in this contest, because more pictures are not in an accessible place.

Once I see Nick's picture, I might work a little harder to rummage through boxes.... (I second Nick's words: "Mine may or may not be safely boxed up in another city.")

Meanwhile, I'm gonna let sleeping dogs lie!

Wherein the truth lies?

I have no idea how to celebrate Glenn Reynolds' birthday, because he's taking the day off and his blog contains no instructions.

So here's what I did. Not long ago, some silly leftists mounted an absolutely ridiculous attack against the InstaPundit because they didn't like his taste in T shirts, of all things! Seems his tastes in diversity were too diverse for theirs, and they had absolutely no sense of humor.

I immediately ordered one of the shirts, and I'm wearing it today to celebrate Glenn's Diverse Birthday!

The crossed swords symbolize combat readiness and teamwork, harmony and balance, and of course always honor high rank. That's a genuine California Redwood behind me (Sequoia sempervirens); must be some symbology there, although I can't imagine how it came to be planted in my yard in Pennsylvania.

No more interpretation!

Happy birthday Glenn!

UPDATE: I just learned that Glenn Reynolds has linked to this post, and I want to thank him for his generosity and welcome all InstaPundit readers. And I do mean generosity -- not only to me but to my blogfather, Jeff Soyer. Jeff is in dire need of financial assistance right now, and I see that Glenn has hit his tipjar, and helped spread the word. I'll more than second that! Please, if anyone can spare a few bucks, please go over to Alphecca and help Jeff! He got me started blogging, and he's more than a rugged individualist; he's the Blogosphere's Original Gay Gun Nut! Any of you readers who believe in libertarianism, the Second Amendment, and inspired writing owe it to yourselves to give Jeff a much needed tip. Other bloggers have turned their tipjars into a big money maker, but Jeff hasn't. He just needs help right now, and as Jay Solo explains, Jeff's cause is worthier:

I'd rather keep Jeff's blog going, thankyouverymuch. He's not whining that he'll quit if you don't donate fifty big ones just before he takes a month off at his second home. He's short the basic chunk of change simply to pay a year's real blogging bandwidth.

Hop on over there and click the shiny rounds in the upper right. Help a great blogger and amazingly nice guy out.

Thanks for coming, and please browse around. (I like to think between the three bloggers here, there'll be something to whet your whistle.)

There have been too many missed Online Test Days here at Classical Values! (Regular readers will know it's a year-long Friday tradition.) I was on vacation last week, but for a few weeks it seemed the tests had almost dried up.

Well, I am happy to report that I found some good ones today, enough to quench my thirst for things morbid and generally unwholesome!

Mmmm-Mmmm-Bad!

The first test -- What kind of Goth would you be? -- comes from my old buddy Nick, best known as Ghost of a flea.

I'm a tongue-in-cheek Goth (which makes a lot of sense, because I was already middle aged when I presented Berkeley's first Goth nightclub!).


You're a Deathrocker/Goth-Punk! You're into old
school gloom-n-doom ghoul punk music, ripped up
tight clothing, and big hair cut into unnatural
designs. You recognize the cheesiness in Goth,
and play with it to your benefit.


What kind of Goth would you be?
brought to you by Quizilla

Nick's result is not the same as mine, but it's positively riveting!

______________________________________________

In a related vein, I found another test -- "Which Dead Like Me Grim Reaper Are You?" -- which yielded even more pleasant results.

Take the quiz: "Which Dead Like Me Grim Reaper Are You (now w/ photos)?"

Rube
The leader of The Grim Reapers. The man who gets the list from the higher-ups. The man who knows more than he lets on. The man who writes the Post-It notes. You are honest, you blend-in well, and you know when to let things go. What would the other reapers do without you?

Via Abraca Pocus, who's also Rube, but who wanted to be George. (We both scored a perfect 4 out of 4.)

___________________________________________

Well, nobody's perfect, and the next test shows that I'm rather lacking in the asshole/bitchiness department!

I AM 30% ASSHOLE/BITCH! I may think I am an asshole or a bitch, but the truth is I am a good person at heart. Yeah sure, I can have a mean streak in me, but most of the people I meet like me. Take the ASSHOLE/BITCH test at Fuali.com

Via Raging Kraut, who, at 81% asshole, certainly lives up to his name. Maybe I should take a few lessons from him, because my results are disappointing!

(Oh well, maybe tomorrow I'll do some reaping, and make up for it.....)

___________________________________

Hey, if I'm not a bitch can I at least be a Bastard?

Perhaps I suffer from a need to compensate for my failing score on the asshole/bitchiness test, but I'm glad to report that I found my true weapon in a test called "What sword would you use?"

Bastard Sword, although used by many europeans in
medievil times this sword was more of a
collecters sword and was less used for fighting
and more used for looking at, and would only be
used by great warriors or lords/kings. (Please
Vote)


What sword would you use (info and pics on swords as well)
brought to you by Quizilla

From Persnickety at Ordinary Galoot, who's the smart and deadly Flamberge.

But remember, folks, the sword don't mean a thing if you ain't got that swing!

Don't let 'em turn yours into a ploughshare!

Here's a new idea -- Escape-a-Date, a phone service that rings or pages you with fake urgent messages so that you have a polite excuse to bail out of a dull or unpromising evening.

Before venturing out on an evening of adventure, you preprogram your cell phone to ring at a particular time with one of eight 30-second "emergency" messages (your roommate is locked out, you forgot to pick up your grandma at the airport). You convey the lie to your date, and poof - you're outta there.

For this, Virgin Mobile patrons pay 25 cents per call plus airtime. Cingular lumps the cost with its package of other Voice Connect services, such as wakeup calls, stock quotes and daily horoscopes, for $4.99 a month.

A clever innovation? Excuse me, but I thought that's what friends were for: to call you at prearranged times and get you out of sticky situations. Despite the song, apparently you don't gotta have friends.

But I have a better idea, and it doesn't cost anything. Not only that, but if you're trying to score with leftist trend-setters, you'll be considered just too cool for words. A real rad and bad dude!

Sound too good to be true? It's just an automated phone call away. All you have to do is leave your cell phone number at this web site, and viola! You're a way cool radical demonstrator, with far more important things to do!

This service sends short text messages to your mobile phone on breaking news and logistical updates from the streets of New York City during the Republic National Convention 2004. The information is provided through an experienced communications team who are in touch with the coordinators of events and actions. This is the source of critical strategic truth for you and your friends or affinity groups.

"Gotta go babe! We're smashing the plate glass at Starbucks in just thirty minutes!"

"Whoa! Gotta go! A notorious CEO has been spotted, and we're gonna try to spray him with something cool and creative!"

Any date who isn't impressed by that would be a waste of time anyway. With any luck, the date will be so utterly charmed that he or she will pay for the dinner you're running away from!

Good causes, like good taste, don't have to be expensive.

Still playing catchup! It's tough to write about stuff like this. And scary too! But I missed out on an important local news item (many stories, actually) about New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey's, um, lover? Boyfriend? Consultant? Victim?

The old newspapers have been lying around still wrapped in plastic, and this morning when it was time to put out the recycling bin I realized I had to remove the plastic, and then I saw them -- there were blazing headlines in the Philadelphia Inquirer all last week!

Like these:

These "mysteries" are now old news, and I don't want to bore my readers, so I'll just limit this recap to a few choice quotes.

In a pattern all too predictable in politics, Cipel cast himself as a victim:

....I've come to understand that I was a victim and just as importantly, I was the victim whose oppressor was one of the most powerful politicians and made sure to let me know my future was in his hands....

Meanwhile, McGreevey tried in vain to cast himself as Abraham Lincoln