It Sucks!

That Poulan Pro™ leaf blower now works like a charm, just like all the other fine products from The Electrolux Group™, which is, in this writer's opinion, The World's Number One Choice. It was just a clog, and I'm sorry if anyone misunderstood my earlier comments, which were made in the heat of the moment. There was never any question in my mind that this is a quality piece of equipment which has already given me years of service under tough, demanding conditions, and I will be glad to take back what I said about their engineers "having sexual problems" if they will take back what they said about me "voiding the warranty".

'Tis Those Icky Fish Eggs to the General

Ben Shapiro: "As art declines, will civilization follow?"

Okay, first, I grudgingly admire the courage of a young man who'll stand up in front of Townhall's readership and link the shibboleth of 20th Century Art to declining moral values and civilization's immanent collapse. Boy, is he gonna get some email about this one!

But, look, is it too much to freakin' ask that someone with a college education could, I dunno, be somewhat conversant with opposing viewpoints? Or know where to look for facts? Didn't they force this stuff down his throat at UCLA?

I guess not. With a wave of his hand Young Ben not only dismisses Duchamp, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Klee, and Pollock, Les Demoiselles and Le Sacre du Printemps, but he makes the whole 19th Century disappear. I know, it's a particularly disturbing century for the Right, seeing as how everything they despise about modernity actually arose in their Golden Age, but still, you'd think an education might make someone a little leery of displaying total ignorance about a complex subject. At least google John Canaday, fer chrissakes, even if you won't read his detractors.

Card of Thanks

To Alex and Chris Clarke, who not only are two of the funniest and wittiest commenters in the rarefied atmosphere of Professor Bérubé's joint, a place so heady that there are sometimes sixty or seventy comments and mine are the only sophomoric ones, but who both write blogs so funny I sometimes get up and walk to the kitchen for a glass of milk just so it can come out my nose.

UPDATE: Savvy reader J.T. suggests filling a pint sprayer bottle with coffee and simply spritzing the monitor or keyboard, which I'm going to save for good but lesser talents. I'm a man who likes to pay his bills in full.

I Suspect This Will Be A Weekly Feature

Weekend inanimate object devilment report:

Name: Poulan Pro Leaf Blower

Problem: Doesn't suck

Comments: First, like any good liberal I'm embarassed to own power landscape tools, but I only use the leaf blower to mulch leaves so they'll compost more efficiently, so I can pretend it's a wash. Plus I never run the thing unless one of my fellow suburbanites is already making internal combustion noises, but that's not much of a restriction.

The housing is held together by umpteen allen head bolts. I counted them. Exactly umpteen. Somewhat surprisingly, they're all the same size. But one--one!--is placed just deep enough that my Swiss-army-type allen wrench failed to reach it by a fraction which would require a diamond cutter to measure, so I had to buy another set (though this happened two years ago, and I got the mandatory torx-head bits at the same time, so no hardware trip today). I am reasonably sure this all traces to the fact that engineers do not get enough sex.

Results: Inconclusive. The temperature is falling fast and it became too cold to use my fingers anymore. My suspicion is it was just a clog and all I've got to do is put it back together now.

Boy, I can almost hear the hit counter spinning as I type.

TV Guide™ Roundup

The great bloggers extend our reach into every last fold and dimple of what in the last century we used to call "reality", from analysis of the Arab press to the latest in the Arts to the rantings of The Rant. But all this information can carry with it a heavy investment in time, so I thought to combine a time saving feature with my own area of expertise. Now you can get right to the listings:

Letters: Last week's "TV's 20 Hottest Kisses of All Time!" aroused some readers. Largo, Florida's Thomas C. Rizzo thinks Lucy and Desi's pregnancy kiss exceeded any on the list "because it was believable". Janice E. Mitich and Theo Chen weigh in for osculation events on Beauty and the Beast and Ally McBeal, respectively. On the political front, Idahoan Connie Peterson thinks the concern about the overportrayal of Muslims as terrorists misses the mark. The Apprentice's Carolyn gets a Cheer from Tena B. Foster for disapproving of a contestant's foul language, while the Heartland's Steve Oster enjoys Lost but wishes Rose had been included in last week's story. And plain-speaking Texan D.J. Scudday wants to know why networks repeat the same movies over and over.

Cheers: Law & Order: CI (and Chris Noth); Tony Danza; Battlestar Galactica (and its butt-kicking women); Melissa Etheridge. Jeers: ABC (promo ripoff); Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony (flat); Star Jones (still breathing).

Cover: Rob & Amber: Will Their Love Survive The Amazing Race? Yes. John Stamos Is Back! Yes. As a publicist with a motley roster of celebrity clients and a hyperactive personal life.

Inside: Profile of last week's Jeeree Paris Hilton.

I Do Miss Alex' Mustache, Not That You Should Conclude Anything From That

You literally have to part the stuff stuck on our refrigerator to see what color it is, which is partly by design since it dates to the last remodeling of the kitchen, probably ten years before we bought the place, so it's either a) Avocado b) Harvest Gold or c) Coppertone. I forget which.

I dunno. I think I have a need for inconvenience as a counterweight to congenital indolence. Or as an excuse not to accomplish much. It took me a long time to come to terms with the remote. I've become reasonably skilled at home repair in large part because that excuses never calling a repairman. My Poor Wife is okay with this, I think. We're both packrats. Although it just may be she hasn't yet figured out how to make my death look like an accident.

Anyway, part of the refrigerator effluvia consists of two or three sets of those magnetic alphabets, and the game is to very rarely change the (frequently scabrous) message and see how long it takes for the other one to notice it.

For a long time now the freezer door has been labelled "Where Is Ken Jennings". It dates to about a week after his loss. My Poor Wife loves Ken. The Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions thing going on now is like slow foreplay to her, but I think if Ken doesn't show up soon she's gonna finish without him. I'm trying to think of a new message.

Uncut

Yosef (Still the Hottest Young Conservative Writer on the Nets) has objected to my recent outing at World O'Crap. I am not going to be drawn into the controversy, for the sake of my family, plus, I suspect it's all a ploy to get me to publish naked pictures of myself.

Besides, there's a 50K limit on photos.

Laff Riot

Max Boot: "Neocons May Get The Last Laugh".

Thing is, Max, this might ring true if you'd spent any of the two years since the invasion actually acknowledging any of our problems in Iraq before it became impossible to ignore them, instead of painting rosy pictures of their future outcome. Parenthetical weasel words like "(admittedly a big if)" don't count. A lot of folks (you weren't a solitary voice in the wilderness there, Max; rose-tinted glasses were all the rage) have been braced by a succession of feel-good images, toppling statues and deserted palaces and evil despot lice inspections, but what, exactly, do your hopes have to do with anything?

Is the argument supposed to turn now on the power of our magic? The Mystic Christian Mojo of George W. Bush, the reflection of his mighty Thunderbolt which bathes our Max in a nice warm glow (and never ask how many people fried so you could feel so toasty)? We'll see. We've bought over $200 billion cosmic example rays so far, without even a slowdown in sight. Twelve hundred plus Americans will not be applauding on the sidelines, to say nothing of those who've given right arms for the privilege. We're gonna need more than some nice thank you notes from the winning side.

And if we can't have a national debate that deals with complex questions in a complex fashion, maybe we should be asking who those neocons are laughing at?

George W. Bush's Gettysburg Address

A score of years ago--forty years ago, it's forty, I know that--Americans gave the world democracy. And because of that we're free. The world knows that. And equal. No matter who you are in America, you're an equal American. [Applause]

And now we're in a war. And this war is a lot like a test you have to take. It'd be a test for anybody, a test of their leadership. I'm a war leader, and I know it's hard. You have to endure. But we're going to see it through because, see, in a democracy that's what you do. See through things. And I'm going to do that. It's the right thing to do.

So here we are on this great battlefield. It's great to be here. Good to see my friend Ed Horton--Ed Norton Everett. That was some speech, Ed. What was that, four hours? [Laughter] But that's what we're about as Americans, and that's why we're here. We've come here. I've come here. Because we need to make sense of it. People need sense. And that's just what we're here to do. With your help. [Applause]

Now, I don't think many people are going to remember this. Some might. It's really all about the work that needs to be done in front of us. Americans need work. And that's what we've accomplished, and we've left to be accomplished, because we're a devoted people. And that devotion can not be in--our love is not in vain. Because we love Freedom, the world loves Freedom. And the executive has to make the laws that give birth to that freedom. Or else government of the people, by the people--people who need people everywhere just need be free. [Applause]

"We Have To Beat Seven Men"

Saturday is Crispus Attucks Day, a celebration of the (probably) runaway slave shot down in the Boston Massacre.

Two weeks later, March 19, is the 50th anniversary of his namesake racially segregated Indianapolis high school, led by the immortal Big O, Oscar Robertson, winning the state basketball championship, a year after the win by tiny Milan which was the basis of the movie Hoosiers.

You can read about it here.

Why I Am A Republican

I grew up in a Republican household in a Republican stronghold in what was then a fairly mixed State. (It still is, counting governorships and legislatures, but in presidential politics it's solidly GOP). Like John Prine's grandpa, my people voted for Eisenhower 'cause Lincoln won the war.

Yes, it would have been easy to become the proverbial preacher's kid, what with the temptations of drugs and race music and braless, nubile, accommodating coeds and their creamy spread thighs, that strangely compelling musk which even now calls me in my sleep, but with the help of public men I've always been picked up by the armpits whenever the trail got rough. Here's a partial tip o' the hat.

• The principled conservative opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. Obviously, the clash between the Constitutional principles of "One Man, One Vote" and "Too Far, Too Fast" deserved a fuller airing. Yes, reasonable men may differ, but I think time has shown us that a more organic development--say, a local limited equality--would have brought us to the same point we are today, where Americans of whatever background can go to the polls without wondering whether their votes will count or if they've somehow been given the wrong address.

• Respect for the Flag. Democrats just don't care about it, at least not enough to try to impregnate the very cloth it's made of with their temporal partisan positions, let alone trying to do that with plastic, which is considerably trickier. The ubiquitous flag decal of the Vietnam era touched me emotionally, dammit, stirring up memories of the brave sacrifices required to ignore everything that was going on there. Though I did have to give up wearing hats, as I got tendonitis from saluting every other Plymouth Fury that went by.

• Symbols, Part Two. Without Republicans, I would never have realized that the so-called "Peace" symbol was actually a broken Cross and might have gone straight to Hell with those Quakers and other hippies. And time, of course, has proven that correct. It turns out you can catch Eternal Damnation in all sorts of ways you wouldn't imagine. Or want to.

I have a small confession here: when I was a lad we lived down the street from a county sheriff, and he put one of those "Footprint of the American Chicken" bumperstickers on his squad car. I ratted him out and it was gone in a week. I'm not proud of what I did, but it wasn't really politically motivated. I hated his dog. By the way, I can't be positive that it was my complaint that led to its removal as my letter was anonymous. I was thirteen, but I wasn't stupid.

• Richard Nixon. What more can I say? What youngster wouldn't have wanted to be just like him?

• Ronald Reagan. There's a lot to say here, but unlike most Reagan worshippers my admiration is not heavily nuanced. I just loved his stint as governor of California. I was quite taken by the example of a man in late middle age who was not afraid to base his entire public worldview on fashion trends among those thirty years his junior. And threatening a bloodbath over a local park sit-in, and delivering, was certainly an inspiration to our citizen soldiers throughout the state of Ohio, to say nothing of Mississippi. Not to mention his subsequent transformation, in just twelve short years, into everybody's good old Gramps. I understand they named an airport after him.

• The battle over the ERA. People in this highly partisan age could learn a lot from the respectful opposition back in the day. Today phrases like "bull dykes" and "legalized interracial rape" are merely common incendiary devices. In those days they were wielded like gentle, loving cudgels. And though I by then had grown to young adulthood, I admit the spectre of unisex bathrooms have not occurred to me. It's a lesson today's Suffragists could stand to learn.

• The Hunting of the President. I have to admit I'm a bit puzzled that in this day of Bush Hatred Which Is A Hundred Times Worse I haven't been able to locate any Republicans who actually took part in this, but I remember it clearly. There are a lot of so-called "facts" which get in the way here, but the larger lesson is clear. The principles of this country are too important not to make them up as we go along. And I'm still convinced somebody got away with that $40,000.

• Bill Bennett. One of the real glories of the above was the popular emergence of the nicotine-addicted former Drug Czar. Yes, there may have been less outrage than we'd have hoped for, prompting some slight exaggeration in certain quarters, but Bennett's tightly-reasoned supra-factional arguments gave me hope that the grownups would soon be in charge. I'm a grownup, and I vote grownup. If that's wrong, then I'm wrong.

And even though I'm a grownup, I can still learn a thing or two! Bennett faced the multiple goring of his own oxen by averring that it was better to be a hypocrite than to have no morals at all. I was glad to learn this. I dropped Philosophy 101 my freshman year when I learned there was reading involved.

• The Dustbin of History Books. One really can't help but be inspired by Republican resourcefulness. The Democratic party, to my knowledge, has never made effective political use of a Cabinet department they'd pledged to dismantle just five years earlier. The democratic ideal of putting scientific belief to a vote has shaken the very foundations of the materialism of the last Century. As I understand it, those foundations were so rotten anyway they will implode any day now.

But for me it's more a matter of the heart, of learning to be open to the tender mercies of God's Love and accepting the fact that the people He reveals Himself to are generally the ones you'd least expect. I never knew there was even such a thing as a Judeo-Christian tradition, and I'd still be groping in the dark if it weren't for the necessity of courting constituencies with empty phraseology designed to touch our skin-deep respect for those who are different. And I swear they taught me in grade school that the Founders were mostly Deists. Turns out they were evangelicals. This is why such things matter. Future generations.

• The Election of 2000. Yes, it got ugly. Our country has been blessed, and there's so much money to be made just by grabbing one's own bootstraps or velcro enclosures that it's almost inevitable some of it will be used to rent angry mobs. But I like to look beyond, to remember the stirring acceptance speech of one George W. Bush before that angry crowd of disenfranchised citizens in the Texas state legislature, how he poured oil money on troubled waters. The masterful way he stopped just short of acknowledging there'd been a little problem. The way he reached across the aisle to those reasonable people among the majority who'd voted against him, and pledged to let them climb aboard the Mandate Express his people were about the announce, no questions asked, you've got one week.

• President George W. Bush. Well, he hasn't had the opportunity to do much yet, but I'm expecting great things. He's a uniter. He's going to surprise Democrats, I'm sure. And I just like the cut of his jib. A lot of people say he's the kind of regular guy you'd like to have a beer with. I go further than that. I'd like to split a case. And I'm buyin'.

Right Off The Bat He Goes For The French Whorehouse Ambience

Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise de Sévigné:

A sa fille qui «Est-ce vrai, madame, que, dans un dîner, récemment le mot 'foutre' vous ait échappé?»

«Non,» répond-elle, «j'ai dit F et j'ai passé outre.»

from The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, ed. Clifton Fadiman

No, it doesn't translate. And I have barely enough French left to understand it anyway. For the rest of you, the guy who first hipped me to the book had it on his coffee table, and his wife asked him, "If it's the Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, how come it's big and green?" Yes, she was serious. No, she was not purchased mail order. In fact she was a prodigiously intelligent woman with a Yogi-like talent for such moments. Sent to the record store to get a copy of the Pachelbel Kanon, she found she'd forgotten what she came for. "It's something like the Taco Bell Symphony," she told the clerk.

Second post and already I'm doing somebody else's jokes.