"He instinctively can find the shining greatness of our American culture and does a good job of highlighting it (although he also does have those rare lapses when he writes about hockey, but that is something caused by impurities in the Eastern waters or something)." Erik Keilholtz
Under the patronage of St. Tammany
Mark C. N. Sullivan is an editor at a Massachusetts university. He is married and the father of three children. Email
Yankee Stadium denizen Steve M will appreciate this item from Down Under:
Cricket's governing body in Australia has ruled visiting English fans may be called "Poms" without breaking the country's anti-hate-speech laws.
However, the P-word may not be linked with anything "hurtful. . . racist, offensive or humiliating."
The Telegraph observes:
The last time an Englishman inside an Australian cricket ground was called a "Pom" without the addition of a hurtful, racist, offensive or humiliating epithet is lost in the mists of time.
Pommy-bashing having a rich and colorful history, the English newspaper editorializes in favor of allowing the Aussie sporting public a certain leeway in the opprobrium department, since "the word pom shorn of any suitably earthy antipodean qualifier is a feeble little thing." #
Oh, the humanity
Hood blimp crashes; pilot walks away unhurt. He came down in the trees in Manchester-by-the-Sea, after an unsuccessful attempt at an emergency landing on Singing Beach.
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Sunday, September 24, 2006
The Light Crust Doughboys are on the air!
Scroll down the right hand side of this page to hear them play their theme and "The Yellow Rose of Texas."
Their impresario, Pappy O'Daniel, became Texas' governor and a US Senator on his fame hosting country-music radio shows for Light Crust Flour and later his own Hillbilly Flour. His slogan: "Pass the Biscuits, Pappy!"
Bob Wills was among the stars of Western Swing who got their start with the Light Crust Doughboys.
Another early member was Milton Brown, a founder of the Western Swing style, who died young in 1936. Hear his band the Brownies play "Yes, Sir!" as this Western Swing site loads. His "Easy Ridin' Papa" sounds a bit like the Doughboys' theme.
At an old-time radio site you can hear a later incarnation of the Light Crust Doughboys perform in an actual show from 1948. #
Bob Wills & Carolina Cotton: "Three Miles South of Cash"
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Friday, September 22, 2006 You Belong in Brooklyn
Down to earth and hard working, you're a true New Yorker. And although you may be turning into a yuppie, you never forget your roots. Where Should Your Inner New Yorker Live?
Well I don't know about being a true New Yorker, but okay.
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I've been hunting for the song that is heard played on calliope during the credits on the movie A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and while I haven't yet found the hurdy-gurdy version, here is a vintage recording of the song, "I've Got Rings on My Fingers," sung by Blanche Ring in 1909.
Now Jim O'Shea was cast away Upon an Indian Isle The natives there they liked his hair They liked his Irish smile So made him chief Panjandrum The Nabob of them all They called him Jij-ji-boo Jhai And rigged him out so gay So he wrote to Dublin Bay To his sweetheart, just to say
Sure, I've got rings on my fingers, bells on my toes Elephants to ride upon, my little Irish Rose So come to your Nabob, and next Patrick's Day Be Mistress Mumbo Jumbo Jij-ji-boo J. O'Shea
Folded Space has mp3s of this and 19 other popular songs as well from between 1901 and 1920.
Danny Murtaugh…could have been the sort of man Chesterton had in mind. Murtaugh…was a man who parried adversity with wit, and yet beneath the humor was the suggestion of a vein of sadness. Bob Addie, Washington Post
Monday, September 18, 2006 You Are a Conservative Democrat
Frankly, the way most other Democrats behave embarrasses you greatly. You pride yourself on a high level of morals, and you have a good grasp on right and wrong. It's likely you think America needs to get back to its conservative, Judeo-Christian values. Why aren't you a Republican then? Because you believe the government helps more than hurts. What's Your Political Persuasion?
Axel Foley: What are you all, the second team? Detective McCabe: We're the first team. Detective Foster: Yeah, and we're not going to fall for a banana in the tailpipe. Axel Foley: [Mocking him] You're not going to fall for the banana in the tailpipe? It should be more natural, brother. It should flow out, like this - "Look, man, I ain't fallin' for no banana in my tailpipe!" See, that's more natural for us. You been hanging out with this dude too long.
Patrick is the perfect candidate for the liberal establishment that includes the Globe; he's young, nice, takes far-left stances but doesn't have any sort of dangerous mentality that might challange the status quo, and, perhaps most importantly, he's an articulate white man who happens to be black.
Howie Carr has been running some amusing commentaries on the lay of the political landscape in Massachusetts, where tomorrow's primary, he writes, pits moonbats vs moneybags.
The delegates can be broadly divided into two groups - moonbats and hacks. The moonbats, to a man - make that, person - are with Deval. The men all have ponytails and trust funds. The women will have their knitting, and combat boots, while not mandatory, are strongly recommended.
They know Bush stole Ohio, and while they’ve never removed the Kerry-Edwards bumper stickers from their Lexuses, they don’t like Hillary Clinton anymore. Of the 104 Birkenstock-clad kooks at the Brookline Town Meeting who voted to impeach Bush, at least 100 will be voting for Deval.
The hacks - well, you know who they are. Think phony disability pensions and old Middlesex County commissioners. Think Billy Bulger’s old birthday “time” at Anthony’s Pier 4. This year, they’re split between Gabrieli and Reilly...
That breakdown pretty much seems to have held true heading into the primary. Certainly the blue Deval bumper-stickers are much in evidence in the faculty parking lot.
Thos Fitzpatrick is almost Fisher Ames-like in his gloom over the current state of Massachusetts' democracy.
I don't really have a dog in the hunt, either, but I suppose I will pull the lever for Muffy in the general, just for the sake of a two-party system (though the state GOP, what there is of it, is being pretty much wholly operated out of the Healeys' Prides Crossing carriage house).
I will say that on reading this Globe piece on Muffy's attempts to wield the common touch, it occurred to me that Deval, the progressive darling, seems to have been getting something of a pass from the Birkenstock set on his own conspicuous affluence.
At any rate, it is refreshing to see the Hamilton GOP, what's left of it, still flying the colors at a tent at the Myopia Hunt Club. #
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Tales from the Garret
Mrs P obliges with an account of her Bohemian days as an art student on Boston's Gold Coast. Art, where is thy sting? Mrs P tells all.
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Lincolniana
The 23rd International Churchill Conference is to be held in Chicago later this month. The theme is "Churchill in the Land of Lincoln," with presentations comparing and contrasting the wartime leadership and oratorical styles of the two great statesmen.
Churchill admired Lincoln, as most sensible people do. Ronald Reagan said: "Whoever would understand in his heart the meaning of America will find it in the life of Abraham Lincoln."
____________. He grew to know greatness, but never ease. Success came to him, but never happiness, save that which springs from doing well a painful and a vital task. Power was his, but not pleasure. The furrows deepened on his brow, but his eyes were undimmed by either hate or fear. His gaunt shoulders were bowed, but his steel thews never faltered as he bore for a burden the destinies of his people. His great and tender heart shrank from giving pain; and the task allotted him was to pour out like water the life-blood of the young men, and to feel in his every fiber the sorrow of the women. Disaster saddened but never dismayed him. As the red years of war went by they found him ever doing his duty in the present, ever facing the future with fearless front, high of heart, and dauntless of soul. Unbroken by hatred, unshaken by scorn, he worked and suffered for the people. Triumph was his at the last; and barely had he tasted it before murder found him, and the kindly, patient, fearless eyes were closed forever. (Address at Hodgenville, Ky., February 12, 1903.) Mem. Ed. XII, 451; Nat. Ed. XI, 210.
____________. Greatly though we now regard Abraham Lincoln, my countrymen, the future will put him on an even higher pinnacle than we have put him. In all history I do not believe that there is to be found an orator whose speeches will last as enduringly as certain of the speeches of Lincoln; and in all history, with the sole exception of the man who founded this Republic, I do not think there will be found another statesman at once so great and so single-hearted in his devotion to the weal of his people. We cannot too highly honor him; and the highest way in which we can honor him is to see that our homage is not only homage of words; that to lip loyalty we join the loyalty of the heart. (At Freeport, Ill., June 3, 1903.) Mem. Ed. XII, 449-450; Nat. Ed. XI, 208-209.
____________. I am very busy now, facing the usual endless worry and discouragement, and trying to keep steadily in mind that I must not only be as resolute as Abraham Lincoln in seeking to achieve decent ends, but as patient, as uncomplaining, and as even-tempered in dealing, not only with knaves, but with the well- meaning foolish people, educated and uneducated, who by their unwisdom give the knaves their chance. (To Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., October 4, 1903.) Mem. Ed. XXI, 504; Nat. Ed. XIX, 447. #
Whatever the Americans are proud of - whatever they consider to be particularly good, useful, brilliant, or characteristic of themselves or their climate, they designate, half in jest, though scarcely half in earnest, as an ‘institution.’ Thus the memory of George Washington... is an institution; the Falls of Niagara are an institution; the Plymouth Rock, on which the Pilgrim Fathers first set foot, is an institution...; ‘Sweet potatoes’ are an institution, and Pumpkin (or Punkin) pie is an institution; ...squash is an institution; Bunker Hill is an institution; and the firemen of New York are a great institution. -- Charles Mackay,Life and Liberty in America, 1850
Readers so inclined may consider themselves tagged!
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Tuesday, September 05, 2006
This 1909 sheet-music cover from a Food & Ragtime gallery has something for every taste: a demure showgirl for Mr Seal, and a bisque-worthy New England crustacean for Mrs P.
I empathize with the "giant, corpulent, avuncular smiling waiter with a knowing wink."
At the latter site you can listen to a Midi version of the song. The suggested tempo: 68 crotchets a minute.
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![[SMMMHDH]](http://www.mgilleland.com/music/smmmhdh.png){kind=small}
