Blah Blah Blah

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by hilzoy

As far as I can tell, the entire world is doing one of three things:

(a) dying

(b) attending a funeral

(c) waiting for something.

I tuned in CNN over the weekend, and felt like a refugee from Sixth Sense: “I see dead people!” All the time, over and over. I flipped to CSPAN, and they were, honest to God, showing the funerals of Caspar Weinberger and Coretta Scott King.

Meanwhile, Bush continues to act as though he has all the time in the world to decide what to do about Iraq. Congress starts up in two days. Last time I checked, Iraq had not entered a whole new level of violence after Saddam’s death, but there’s always time for things to get worse. No one quite knows what’s about to happen in Somalia, now that the ICU seems to have given up the ghost.

Hanging fire.

There is, however, one piece of vital news: the Gävle Christmas Goat has survived the entire Christmas season without being burnt down. Apparently, this is due to “a special flame-resistant chemical coating”, which seems to take the fun out of it. Maybe next year people will try to destroy it in some new way. Torpedoes. Ravening hyenas. Vast swarms of flame-resistant-straw-eating ants.

If anyone else has found any interesting news (other than the Congressional Republican Whineathon, which I found very amusing), let me know.

***

UPDATE: On the bright side, via Matttbastard I learn that I am an antiamerican satanist:

“How many times have both left and right scolded me (and others) for pointing out that liberalism, at least the style currently in vogue, is incompatible with Americanism. Liberalism is mental illness evidenced by worship of evil and hatred of good. Liberalism is Satanism.

GP is right: the left is the enemy. It is not just an alternative political order. Western republican-democratic government cannot coexist with liberalism. It is our bounden duty to put away the left. “

Also, I am the enemy. The sick, sick, enemy. Also, insane. At least, my voice is:

“There is an enemy in America- Powerful -Shrill- Self-Hating – It has never been more obvious, it has never been more open… than it is today- mourning Saddam!

It is not a fringe element.

It is not a minority.

It is the voice of today’s American Left. (…)

Don’t ever allow a Leftist to lecture you on human rights again… Ever.

Lord, please help those sick, sick people.”

To the last bit I can only say: Amen.

***

Yet another update: Apparently, there’s a town called Poetry Tulip in Georgia. Also: Experiment and Po Biddy Crossroads. I don’t think any of these make my top four list (Cheesequake NJ, Meddybemps ME, Eek AK, Bugscuffle TN), though Poetry Tulip comes close. What a wonderful name.

46 thoughts on “Blah Blah Blah”

  3. I’ve got tickets to see Don Giovanni in about two weeks. Don Juan, like Saddam, is despicable – DO NOT INVITE HIM TO YOUR WEDDING – consistently charming and utterly fearless.
    He doesn’t die at the end. He gets dragged straight to hell instead, an outcome from which the rest of us sinners take hope.

  4. I hope and trust you are not seeing Don Giovanni in a German opera house. In these houses, the (stage) director is god, and it is all about the Konzept! When I saw Giovanni in Hamburg, the basic stage setting was modern (1930s?), featuring a pool table, a huge (30-foot high?) portrait of the Commendatore, and the worst lighting design I’ve ever witnessed, with most of it apparently deliberately designed to keep the faces of the singers in darkness. (E.g., they would be wearing huge wide-brimmed hats and their spotlights would be directly *above* them.)
    One slightly cool moment was when the Commendatore’s form is simply peeled out of the portrait, leaving a huge figure-shaped hole from which the gigantic ghostly voice emerges, presumably representing the depths of hell. “Aha,” thought I, “when Giovanni is dragged down [should I have put “SPOILER ALERT” here? Too late] it will be through this rift in the giant portrait.”
    But no.
    I had apparently missed the Konzept.
    Giovanni goes down to Hell – I’m Not Making This Up, You Know – through the pool table.

  5. I have no idea whose staging we’re about to see. I’m at the bottom of the left coast, Orange County, California. Previously we’ve had framing scenes of Spanish penitents in conical caps flagellating themselves, which weren’t as satisfying as one might hope.
    When the villain’s sidekick sings, “Ma, in Ispagna, son giá mille e tre”, the staging loses its relevance. It’s Mozart and da Ponte, and surrender is the only option.

  6. I went to a gay friend’s birthday at a gay bar, on karaoke night no less, and spent most of the evening waiting to pry the karaoke book away from my friend, who was using it to flirt with a cute boy he’d drunkenly made out with a few days previously. So, um, yeah, I guess you’re right: I was indeed waiting for something. Most often, my next drink (:

  10. ah… the sound of modern American conservatism: “Enemies! [lies] Liberal traitors! [lies] Satanism! [lies] [threats]”. you can hear it anywhere on the AM dial. you can read it on a million blogs. you can watch come from the mouths of a hundred professional conservatives on TV. that is the state of conservative thinking today. truly a sound moral philosophy.
    all you who think there’s more to it are thinking about something else entirely.

  13. cleek, to be fair, that should be ‘conservatism’ not conservatism.
    if the most-visible of self-described conservatives are drooling jingoists, it seems fair to say that conservatism is drooling jingoism. if non-insane self-describe-conservatives want to reclaim the word for themselves, they’ve got to find a way to get themselves represented in government and media. until then…

  14. Hilzoy, obviously you need to read Language Hat. He had the Poetry Tulip story two weeks ago.
    Everyone, NPR is announcing that Padilla now says his name should be pronounced the way people used to assume it should be pronounced: with the “ll” making a “y” sound.

  15. Now I’m wondering if the pronunciation that rhymed with “gorilla” was what his captors called him and he adopted it because of his abuse.

  16. Some of my favorite town names:
    Jersey Shore, PA (in north central PA, about 200 miles from the Atlantic Ocean).
    Floyds Knobs, IN
    and of course, Truth or Consequences, NM.

  17. DTM, one of my father’s cousins used to live in Truth or Consequences (or “T or C”, as it’s generally called there), and another lived in Floyds Knobs.

  19. There was a discussion about some strange Japanese place names, but the only one I remember was Shikke, which means ‘ass hair’. However, I think only foreigners find it funny, as you only know it means that if you think about the chinese characters.

  20. to be fair, that should be ‘conservatism’ not conservatism.
    It’s entirely sporting to make a paranoid mouthbreather who can’t tell Ramsey Clark fans from liberals the poster child for conservatism. If the ‘decent right’ wishes to disavow him, they may.
    There’s a little town–well, it’s barely a town–in South Carolina named “Sugar Tit.” Sadly, there’s no “Nipple Ave.” in Sugar Tit.

  23. DTM, one of my father’s cousins used to live in Truth or Consequences
    My favorite is always Truth or Consequences, NM. Been there, actually, when I was between missile ground test and missile flight test out at White Sands. Florida’s got its share of amusing-sounding towns, but most of them are the Sopchoppy sort of thing; they don’t actually mean anything.
    Coincidentally, I was in Flowery Branch, Georgia just last week. You can get closer to Deliverance, but not by much.
    Giovanni goes down to Hell – I’m Not Making This Up, You Know – through the pool table.
    Professor Harold Hill was right, apparently.
    Sorry you’re the enemy, hilzoy. You can always hide out in my attic, although it gets brutally hot up there in the summer. Me, I think some folks ought to just step away from the keyboard, and stay away until their little hearts stop pitter-patting quite so frantically.

  27. Off the topic, insofar as there is a topic:

    “A radio talk-show entertainer whose earlier statements that he “may” have to assassinate members of Congress if the wrong people were elected Nov. 7 now has set a timetable for those killings.
    In a statement on his website, Hal Turner noted that a newspaper has reported that a bill granting amnesty to illegal aliens is expected to be enacted in January, when the Democratic Party takes control of the U.S. Senate and House.
    “ANY MEMBER OF CONGRESS WHO INTRODUCES, CO-SPONSORS OR VOTES IN FAVOR OF ANY SUCH AMNESTY WILL BE DECLARED A DOMESTIC ENEMY AND WILL BE CONSIDERED A LEGITIMATE TARGET FOR ASSASSINATION,” Turner posted on his website.”

    cite

  29. There is a private school near here called The Governor’s Academy. Nothing special there, except that the governor in question was a named Dummer, and from 1763 until about a year ago the school’s name was Dummer Academy.
    The name change was controversial.

  30. Caspar Weinberger died again?
    Yes, it was a festival of funerals, was it not?
    And, endless clips of Gerald Ford doing the splits in a sequined vest, and guys in hoods hanging James Brown, and Saddam Hussein, that sentimentalist, signing the EPA into law.
    Speaking of Brown, he spoke eloquently in one clip regarding the value of “what they call a ‘colonic'”. I paraphrase: “I wasn’t feelin too good and the doctor gave me this elixir and stuck this thing in me and it all came out black and then it came out green. It was the steaks, all them years of steaks up in me, sapping my energy. Listen to me; it’s the red meat’ll get ya. Oww!
    He sounded like Bill Frist.

  31. I hate to be serious after a John Thullen masterwork, but about that Hal Turner guy: isn’t that illegal speech at this point?

  32. Jackmormon, no one has been questioned, arrested, or so much as told “tsk-tsk” for threatening Democrats, or even for mailing anthrax-contaminated letters to them.
    It’s all good as long as the targets aren’t Republicans.

  33. isn’t that illegal speech at this point?
    click through to Turner’s article, and scroll down past the Google ads. Turner spends an awful lot of time explaining how he’s chosen his words so that they don’t cross any legal lines. i’m not sure i’d take legal advice from him, but he sounds like he’s done some research on the subject – in the same way a dedicated stalker might invest in a laser range-finder so that he can carefully stay those 500 feet, but no more, from his victim.

  34. i wonder why WND is uncritically running Turner’s call for domestic terrorism ? shouldn’t they be denouncing this bloodthirsty sub-human barbarism, instead of giving the guy a forum ?
    [this has been another edition of rhetorical questions in lower case letters]

  35. re: Dummer.
    ahem. my direct ancestor. in fact, that’s my middle name, which may have something to do with the amount of mental health therapy i’ve needed over the years.
    i mean, i love my parents and all, but there’s really no good reason to saddle your child with a name like that.
    recently, when asked, i’ve started using French pronunciation, “du mer”, meaning of the sea.
    i’m pretty sure i’m only fooling myself.

  39. Hil: what school? I did not attend the school named for my ancestor. (I don’t think I’d have survived.)
    so i went to Groton instead.
    (which is in Massachusets, not Connecticut. no rides on submarines.)

  40. Anyone in the DC area attending any swearing-in festivities? I’m going to the Webb party in Arlington tonight and the netroots thing tomorrow.
    I thought about going to the open house our shadow delegation is having today (they were sworn in earlier today along with other city officials), but I have to get work done some time.

  41. Francis: BB&N — or Buckingham, as it was for the first 3 years that I was there, before merging with B&N.

  42. recently, when asked, i’ve started using French pronunciation, “du mer”, meaning of the sea.
    I just went to a public high school myself, and unlike Baldi it no longer exists, so what do I know? But shouldn’t that be “de mer” or “de la mer?”
    Reminds me of people who call themselves LeVine.

  43. Bernard, yup. But my middle name isn’t Delamare, it’s Dummer.
    Hil: I threw it away years ago, but i had for a long time a BB&N crew t-shirt from winning a race as a coxswain in a four-man shell.
    I was class of ’82. you?

  45. Anyone in the DC area attending any swearing-in festivities? I’m going to the Webb party in Arlington tonight and the netroots thing tomorrow.
    Not me. I’m skipping town around noon tomorrow to head up to Cleveland to house-hunt. Have fun at the Webb party! In six years living down here, he’s the first of my Federal office candidates who won.

  46. Posted by: cleek: “Turner spends an awful lot of time explaining how he’s chosen his words so that they don’t cross any legal lines. i’m not sure i’d take legal advice from him, but he sounds like he’s done some research on the subject – in the same way a dedicated stalker might invest in a laser range-finder so that he can carefully stay those 500 feet, but no more, from his victim.”
    That might be true, but that only matters in a court of law. Waterboarding has its own rules.

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