Irish Elk

2010-01-11T11:06:00.000-05:00

The New Place

Irish Elk currently is in residence at The Jury Box.

The new place is a work in progress, and the boxes still haven't been unpacked.

But please feel free to stop by and say hello.

Cheers ~ MCNS

2010-01-09T20:43:00.002-05:00

Things are looking up

Public Policy Polling reports:

"Massachusetts Senate race is now a toss up"

Buoyed by a huge advantage with independents and relative disinterest from Democratic voters in the state, Republican Scott Brown leads Martha Coakley 48-47.

The Weekly Standard's reaction. Wow.

Instapundit writes:

I had noticed that the powers-that-be in Massachusetts were acting kinda nervous, so maybe their own polls say something similar. It must be troubling when your push-pollers ask people if it would affect their vote if the guy was a Nazi and the respondents say “Nope, he’d still be better than Coakley.”

Legal Insurrection was manning phones at Brown HQ.

I arrived at around 11 a.m. The best description of the experience was that it was like one of those movies or commercials where everything is quiet until the actor opens a door, and then there is a blast of noise and light.

From the moment I arrived until I left about 5 hours later, the atmosphere was electric. I had not expected the frenzy of phones ringing, people walking in the door to write checks, dozens of people making calls to voters, and generally ebullient mood.

Those of you who follow this blog know that I am a big supporter of Scott Brown. So I claim no neutrality. And you can believe me or not when I tell you that there is an air of excitement and movement which is beyond belief.

They are out of lawn signs and bumper stickers. Completely. Nothing left, but people kept calling all day wanting to find out where they could get them. I was told it has been this way for days.

Earlier:

The Campaign Spot at NRO: Coakley by 15, or by 1?

A reader in Massachusetts that I trust sends along word that each of the Boston papers will have a poll of the Senate race out this weekend. The Globe's poll, he hears, will have Coakley up by 15 percentage points. The Herald poll, he hears, will have it much closer—Coakley ahead by 7 percentage points among all voters, Coakley ahead by only 1 percentage point among likely voters.

That's a pretty dramatic spread. No word on whether the Globe poll was among all voters or likely voters.

Boston Herald: Brown's swearing-in would be stalled to pass health-care reform.

First their candidate won't campaign or agree to a one-on-one debate; now this. Perhaps the "Democratic" Party should consider a name change.

* * *

Above: Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.

2010-01-07T16:42:00.002-05:00

The Massachusetts vote

Irish Elk is on the campaign trail for Scott Brown. Please consider clicking the button at left to contribute to the candidate the editors of National Review call the Man Who Can Stop Obamacare.

The Cook Political Report has downgraded the Massachusetts race from "Solid Democratic" to "Leans Democratic." Writes Jennifer Rubin at Commentary: So if the Massachusetts senate race isn’t “solid” Democratic what does this portend for Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Nevada and other less-Blue races in 2010? You understand now why so many Democrats are hanging it up “voluntarily.”

Legal Insurrection writes Brown is winning the online race, and that the election itself is winnable.

Mass. Citizens for Life is trying to get out the vote for Brown as the 41st vote against the health-care bill.

The comments at the Globe website on Vicki Kennedy's endorsement of Coakley make interesting reading.

Martha Coakley has gone into hiding: Globe columnist Brian McGrory wrote yesterday: Let's take a look at Coakley's campaign schedule for today. Well, actually, we can't. There isn't one. She isn't doing anything in public — no meetings with voters, no debates, no public appearances. For all we know, she's spending much of her time at home with the shades drawn waiting for Jan. 19, Election Day, to come and go.

Jim Geraghty at NRO passes along one number-cruncher's take that Brown has a 40-percent chance.

Geraghty also shares an e-mail from the late Dean Barnett's brother:

For what it's worth, I was at a Brown fundraiser last night, and there is palpable enthusiasm in Massachusetts. Even The Boston Globe had two articles yesterday that were highly negative for Coakley (one in which she dragged her feet in prosecuting a cop that had raped his two year old niece, another in which a columnist trashed her for refusing to debate Brown one-on-one). I'm pretty choosy about where I give my political donations, but this is a race well worth pursuing. He might not win, but a strong showing would be a dash of cold water to every Lincoln, Landrieu, Nelson, etc.

How many Democrats from swing states and districts would decide not to run for re-election (and how many strong Republican candidates would enter races) in late January/early February if Coakley were to win 53-47? Thus even by losing, if the race is competitive, it could do a world of good. And he might win, which would be of inestimable value.

Kathryn Jean Lopez at NRO posts another e-mail from a Brown supporter:

I just finished a two hour shift calling for Scott his Cape Cod office not two miles from the Kennedy compound. You would not believe the positive reception he is getting. People aren't letting me finish the canned presentation before they jump in to say that they're with him. Incredible enthusiasm. They're all out of bumperstickers (not surprising because they're everywhere — no so for Martha) and lawn signs.

I think that Rasmussen's take that he's within 2 with those who plan to vote is going to flip. I think this is going to happen.

And the Nanepashemet blog named for the 17th-century Great Sachem of Irish Elk's hometown also has come out for Brown. This is pleasing to St. Tammany.

Elsewhere:

Solomonia: Brown's hard line for Israel

Michael Graham, NRO: The GOP insurgency in Massachusetts

Dana Loesch, Big Government: Mass. voters could make history Jan. 19

Jules Crittenden: Brownapalooza

David Frum, The Atlantic: Bring Back the Mugwumps

* * *

Above: Leverett Saltonstall casts his ballot

2010-01-06T21:45:00.001-05:00

Scott Brown: Old-truck ad

2010-01-06T21:43:00.000-05:00

Scott Brown: JFK ad

2010-01-06T16:41:00.002-05:00

Where there's smoke

Is there a chance of a GOP upset in the Massachusetts Senate race?

Two weeks before the vote Rasmussen has Republican Scott Brown trailing Democrat Martha Coakley by nine points – and by only two points among those who say they definitely plan to vote. Brown holds a big lead among independents.

Both candidates get better than 70% of the vote from members of their respective parties, but Brown leads 65% to 21% among voters not affiliated with either of the major parties. In Massachusetts, however, Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans and it is very difficult for the GOP to compete except in special circumstances.

Special elections are typically decided by who shows up to vote and it is clear from the data that Brown’s supporters are more enthusiastic. In fact, among those who are absolutely certain they will vote, Brown pulls to within two points of Coakley. That suggests a very low turnout will help the Republican and a higher turnout is better for the Democrat.

Sissy Willis is among conservative bloggers hammering the case for Brown as a critical Vote 41 against Obamacare. Laura Ingraham was touting Brown on her show this morning. At RedState Martin Knight declares:

From now until 01/19, every day is Scott Brown day: donate and volunteer.

So far the national GOP hasn't been much help. Jules Crittenden wonders:

What’s always mystified me is why the national GOP showed so little interest in kicking off the 2010 mid-term elections with a strong showing, if not a win in Kennedy country … especially when that health thing could be riding on it. A revolt in the erstwhile Kennedy satrapy of Massachusetts, home of first-in-the-nation, budget-busting universal health care? That would make national headlines. And a heck of a Kennedy legacy.

If I were a GOP donor looking to put a thumb on the Bay State scales, I’d be inclined to send my check to the national GOP with “FOR SCOTT BROWN, YOU DOLTS” written in the memo line.

* * *

Meantime, the Globe actually has begun to criticize Coakley. Columnist Brian McGrory hits her today for ducking a one-on-one debate:

If you're a registered voter in Massachusetts, your friendly Democratic Senate candidate, Martha Coakley, is sticking her thumb in your eye.

What fun.

Lots more re the race:

Power Line: Support Scott Brown

Real Clear Politics: Interview with Scott Brown

HillBuzz: Nobody comes between us and Senator Hottie McAwesome

Erick Erickson, RedState: Dems worried in Mass.

Jack Fowler, NRO: How now, Brown cause?

National Journal Hotline

Atlantic Wire

* * *

Above: Gov. Herter lights up

2010-01-05T16:25:00.001-05:00

Theodore Roosevelt's
Nine Reasons Why a Man Should Go to Church

1) In this actual world, a churchless community, a community where men have abandoned and scoffed at or ignored their religious needs, is a community on the rapid down grade.

2) Church work and church attendance mean the cultivation of the habit of feeling responsibility for others.

3) There are enough holidays for most of us. Sundays differ from other holidays in the fact that there are fifty-two of them every year. Therefore, on Sundays go to church.

4) Yes, I know all the excuses. I know that one can worship the Creator in a grove of trees, or by a running brook, or in a man's own house as well as in church. But I also know, as a matter of cold fact, that the average man does not thus worship.

5) He may not hear a good sermon at church. He will hear a sermon by a good man who, with his wife, is engaged all of the week in making hard lives a little easier.

6) He will listen to and take part in reading some beautiful passages from the Bible. And if he is not familiar with the Bible he has suffered a loss.

7) He will take part in the singing of some good hymns.

8) He will meet and nod or speak to good, quiet neighbors. He will come away feeling a little more charitable toward all the world, even toward those excessively foolish young men who regard churchgoing as a soft performance.

9) I advocate a man's joining in church work for the sake of showing his faith by his works.

~ Via the Theodore Roosevelt Association

Image: TR with Cardinal Gibbons * Maryland Historical Society

2010-01-04T15:39:00.002-05:00

Sonny Jurgensen

On the plane ride home after last year's opening-game victory over the Bears in Chicago...Coach Otto Graham came down the aisle to congratulate him (Jurgensen had had one of his brilliant days) and to inquire about his passing arm, which had been operated on in May and had been paining him.

"Hurts like hell," said Sonny.

"Well, what do you think you should do about it?" asked Graham soothingly.

"I guess I'll have to drink with my left hand," said Sonny.

~ John Underwood, Sports Illustrated, July 28, 1969

2009-12-31T17:49:00.002-05:00

New Year's 1906:

Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland

Via Grantbridge Street and ilovecomix

2009-12-29T13:30:00.000-05:00

Kick it off, Leon

2009-12-27T20:18:00.000-05:00

Sunday After Christmas Listening

2009-12-27T14:03:00.001-05:00

Post-Christmas Sunday Reading

2009-12-25T01:09:00.002-05:00

Dear Santa Claus,

Sorry for the lack of cookies, but we have lots of carrots. :)

Try to finish the world fast!

From, Neddy

~ Note left last night

* * *

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-19T14:07:00.000-05:00

Los Straitjackets: "Yuletide Beat"

2009-12-13T19:01:00.001-05:00

Trudging off the field, 1962

Andy Robustelli, Dick Modzelewski, Jim Katcavage and Rosey Grier trudge off the field at Yankee Stadium during an Eagles-Giants game on Nov. 18, 1962. Photo by Dan Rubin ~ Via the NY Times Store

In a football mood lately. Big game tonight between the Giants and Eagles.

At the Internet Archive you can download an entire scanned copy of Barry Gottehrer's 1963 history The Giants of New York. Emlen Tunnell would approve.

2009-12-13T13:49:00.001-05:00

Irish Brigade leader's sword makes a return visit

Gen. Thomas Francis Meagher had been sentenced to hang, exiled to a penal colony in Tasmania, and hunted jaguars in Central America before he ever made it to Fredericksburg.

Once there, at age 37, he led the Irish Brigade's charge of the stone wall at Sunken Road during the 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg.

The sword that Meagher (pronounced "Mahr") is said to have carried during that battle took a similarly circuitous route--though without quite so much drama--before arriving in Fredericksburg just a few days before the 147th anniversary of the battle.

Meagher's sword will be on display for the next month at the Battlefield Visitor Center on Lafayette Boulevard.

Meagher's Irish Brigade has become the best-known unit to storm the Confederate stronghold at Marye's Heights on Dec. 13, 1862. Meagher lost nearly half of his men to Confederate fire as they crossed a field already littered with Union dead and wounded. ~ Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star

2009-12-11T10:41:00.001-05:00

What the well dressed Republican is wearing:

Dick and Pat admire Gov. Herter's bowtie, 1956.

In today's Mass. Senate race news:

Howie Carr offers Scott Brown some Christmas advice. Orthodox priest Fr Peter-Michael Preble offers Brown an endorsement. And Brian Maloney offers him advice on how to win.

It must be said: Scott Brown is in some ways the most obviously worthy successor to Ted Kennedy.

Meantime, Ann Coulter takes the paint off Martha Coakley, who kept an innocent man in prison for political gain.

2009-12-08T13:29:00.002-05:00

Alma de Maria Retablo

Alma de Maria
El Alma de Maria
N.S. de la Encarnacion
Concepcion Inmaculada
Nuestra Señora De La Concepción Inmaculada
The Soul of Mary
The Virgin Annunciate
The Virgin of the Dove

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was proclaimed by Pius IV in 1854. The title of "Nuestra Señora De La Concepción Inmaculada" may be properly assigned to a variety of Marian figures. These all refer to the purity of Mary, although they may appear in a milieu of different poses and allegories. Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception is shown here…as a young girl with a crown of roses, with her hands crossed over her heart, holding a dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit, and staffs of roses and lilies to her chest, which represent her purity. She has a halo of stars around her head and clouds framing her.

~ Posted by Hessee to the Flickr set Mexican Retablos and Beyond

2009-12-04T12:04:00.001-05:00

Peaux-Rouges

While significant majorities of actual Native Americans polled have responded they don't take offense at the Washington Redskins' nickname, the question has remained an issue for some who consider the name pejorative.

The Week Magazine collected 19 more-PC names that have been proposed for the team, including the Washington Jepziwok (Chippewa for "great athletes") and the Washington Matwesaso ("courageous" in the native dialect of the Nanticokes, dominant tribe of the Potomac region).

Irish Elk likes the "Washington Americans." No one could object to such a fitting name associated with the nation's capital, and since the Indian is a centuries-old allegory for America, they could keep the logo. (Maybe they could even add a few more feathers.)

Above: Turk Edwards by Goal Line Art via Redskins Football Card Museum.

2009-11-26T08:49:00.002-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving

~ New Yorker, Nov. 26, 1938

2009-11-24T17:07:00.001-05:00

Louis Jordan & The Tympany Five: "Beans and Cornbread"

2009-11-22T19:09:00.003-05:00

Mystic chords of memory

~ JFK, 1962; Arthur Rickerby, Life

2009-11-17T14:54:00.003-05:00

The Presidential Rodeo

The Irish Elk already is devising his litmus test for the 2012 presidential candidates.

At this point few appear to suit.

The questionnaire so far:

Pro-life? Yes or No?

America's role in world: Point of pride, or cause for apology?

9/11: Remember it or forget it?

Ayn Rand: Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down?

Creationist? Yes or No?

Nativist? Yes or No?

* * *

I had been following with interest the prospects of Rep Paul Ryan, R-Wisc.; it was my hope to see a Catholic rise to the conservative fore, providing an alternative to the reigning evangelical Protestantism of the GOP, and he seemed to be making the case against Obamacare quite well. But it turns out Congressman Ryan is an Ayn Rand acolyte. Red flag! He needs to read his Whittaker Chambers.

David Brooks now has floated Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., as potential presidential timber. Wait till Mr Brooks' friends at the NYT get wind of the creationism syllabus at Sen. Thune's alma mater, Biola Bible college.

* * *

Above:

"The buffalo hunt"

An optimistic view of the presidential prospects of Martin Van Buren, nominated at the Free Soil Party's August 1848 convention in Buffalo, New York. Here Van Buren rides a buffalo and thumbs his nose as he sends Democratic candidate Lewis Cass (left) and Whig Zachary Taylor flying. Both are about to land in Salt River. Van Buren says defiantly, "Clear the track! or I'll Ram you both!"

Via the Library of Congress

2009-11-11T09:38:00.003-05:00

THE INFECTIOUS HORNPIPE

By H. M. Bateman ~ From Mr Punch's History of the Great War

Happy Armistice Day!

2009-11-10T12:29:00.002-05:00

Sergeant Major Jiggs,

First Unofficially Official Mascot of the Marine Corps

~ Happy 234th Birthday to the USMC

2009-11-07T12:41:00.000-05:00

Dartmouth vs Harvard, 1928

~ Via Historic Football Posters

2009-11-04T10:59:00.002-05:00

Up from the grassroots

Maine Voters 1, Social Engineers 0

Thomas Peters at NRO:

Guilty confession: My favorite part of last night’s election coverage was watching Rachel Maddow’s demeanor go from exuberant, to smug, to infuriated over the results of the marriage referendum in Maine. And then she seemed to lose interest.

It now appears highly likely that, when all the votes are counted, Maine will join every other state in the union (which has had a popular vote on the issue) in rejecting gay marriage.

This result comes despite Maine being a liberal state, despite a 2-1 funding disadvantage, despite aggressive legal action against traditional-marriage defenders, despite unusually high voter turn out, and despite Rachel Maddow and the elite press running interference.

Proponents of same-sex marriage, unlike in California’s Prop 8, can’t blame Maine on Mormons, on African Americans who turned out for Barack Obama, or on confusing ballot wording. Their issue loses when the people decide. And it loses every time.

2009-11-02T10:24:00.001-05:00

Wee Willie Wilkin

Washington Redskin Wilbur "Wee Willie" Wilkin from St. Mary's College was a dominant tackle in the NFL's early years, known as much for his Rabelaisian nightlife off the field as for his bruising play on it. "He was 6-foot-6 and weighed 270 pounds, give or take a few cocktails," wrote Washington Post sportswriter Bob Addie. The author of The Redskins, 1937-1958, Morris A. Bealle, called him "a man mountain of bone, muscle and sinew." One newspaper in 1940 described him this way: "Is a veritable Gibraltar on defense and likes to block punts by crashing through, bodily picking up a protecting blocker and tossing him into the punter."

One of Sammy Baugh's favorite stories – one that no matter how many times he told it he couldn’t keep himself from laughing – involved teammate Willie Wilkin…Redskins coach Ray Flaherty and the 1942 NFL all-star game at snowy Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

Wee Willie, a notorious drinker, was a no-show the morning of the game. Baugh said there was a rumor that Wilkin didn’t get back to the hotel until 2:30 that morning, then left again at 4 a.m.

Just before the all-star team headed to the field for warm-ups, Wilkin arrived drunk and carrying his coat.

“Somebody finally told him where his locker was and we all just sat and watched him,” Sam said. “He slowly took one shoe off and put on one of his cleats. But he hadn’t taken off his pants yet, so he had to start over again.”

About that time, Flaherty poked his head out of the office to see if the tackle had arrived and spotted Wilkin sitting on a bench with one leg in his pants and the other out.

“You could just see the coach’s face turning red and he walks over to where Willie is sitting,” Sam described. “Neither one of them says a word. Then all of the sudden, that coach just reared back and knocked the fire out of Wee Willie. Kaboom! He knocked him right off that bench and Wee Willie started crying.

“He’s laying there with one leg in his pants and the other on the bench, and while he’s crying he says, ‘Aw coach, I was going to play a hell of a game for you, but you done broke my spirit.”

Sam would then burst out laughing.

“Broke my spirit. That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said. “The sumbitch is still crying and coach yells at him, ‘I’m going to start you and leave you in the game until you die!”

2009-10-31T10:16:00.002-04:00

Happy Halloween!

Get in the spirit with:

The Retro Cocktail Hour Halloween Spook-tacular

and A Haunted House of Blues Radio Hour

(Free registration required)

2009-10-30T11:11:00.002-04:00

He Who gets Slapped (1924 USA 80 mins)

~ In its entirety, with Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer and John Gilbert; directed by Victor Seastrom [Sjöström]

David Cairns:

Chaney plays Paul Beaumont, an aspiring scientist who loses everything in one horrific day – his theories are stolen, he is disgraced before his peers, and his wife scorns him in favour of the man who robbed him. Each horror culminates in a slap to the face. Beaumont cracks, begins to laugh, and the next time we see him he’s employed as a circus clown and known only as HE. And then the film’s true story begins...

Freud once remarked that Chaplin was a simple case: a rich man driven to endlessly replay the trauma of poverty by dressing as a tramp. As usual, Freud was mistaken, at least partly: Chaplin quickly tired of his tramp persona but was compelled by the public to maintain it. But Chaney’s character, HE, obsessively revisits his own trauma, re-enacting the slap that ended his first life, again and again, for the delectation of the circus audience. As an exploration of emotional masochism, He Who gets Slapped is an extraordinary work, far removed from the romantic glitz MGM would make its stock-in-trade.

2009-10-30T10:30:00.000-04:00

Lon Chaney Tribute

2009-10-27T16:25:00.001-04:00

The Shemp Meditation Tape

Bizarre and funny, 30 minutes of hee-bee-bees:

Recommended for new age nitwits and chuckleheads alike....scientifically mixed in Shemp-A-Rama for your enlightened casaba-banging pleasure.... Soar the Horwitz heavens and become one with Shemp's karma on the Heee Beee Beee Beee side... transhempify your mind and cook your chakras on the life-infirming Ahh Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha side.

Elsewhere:

A vast lode of myriad phobias: He was afraid of water, afraid of heights, afraid to drive, afraid to ride in a car. He wouldn't get on a plane, he jumped at every noise, and he was afraid of every dog but his own Collie, Wags.

Shemp Company

Wall of Shemp

2009-10-26T17:08:00.002-04:00

'Cozy' Dolan says: Go you Phillies

They're out to win, win ev-'ry day. Every victory is sweet.
Watch 'em hit that ball a mile; play a game that's packed with thrills.
Get Pa to bring your Mother, Sister and your Brother
Come out to see the Fight-in' Phils. The fight, fight, fight-'in Phils.

~ Phillies fight song, 1950

More songs about teams

2009-10-22T16:00:00.003-04:00

Why Catholic?

Apropos of the Pope's recent remarkable invitation to the Anglicans, an inquiring friend writes:

If you weren't raised Catholic, would you be Catholic?

My reply is that is an excellent question. If you'd asked me 10 or 12 years ago I would have said not necessarily or probably not. Today I'd say definitely.

The reasons for this are many and not that easy to articulate, but I'll try to provide a few, via a sort-of jumbled shorthand:

* Looking into my infant child's face and knowing there must be a Creator at the heart of all, and that I am grateful to Him;

* The idea that this Creator so loved us that He would come among us and share our existence and our suffering, and offer Himself for us; that the Divine would thus touch and ennoble the human experience; that He would have us see Him in one another and in all things, and that His message would be one of sacrificial love;

* The remark by, I believe, Chesterton that if you look into the mirror of the universe and all you see looking back is yourself, it's a pretty shallow existence;

* The connection with the "seen and unseen"; the Communion of the Angels and Saints; the Blessed Virgin;

* The Real Presence; the idea that the Church asks you to believe something that is not perceptible to the senses but that is taken on faith; the realization that the most enduring and important things in life likewise cannot be seen or touched;

* The description – Chesterton again – of the Church as an institution that does not move with the world, but that moves the world;

* St Christopher; St Bernadette of Lourdes; St. Dismas, the Good Thief; Fr. Willie Doyle, SJ; Jesuits and Oratorians, Passionists and Marist Missionaries;

* My family;

* Taking Communion to Mozart's 'Ave Verum Corpus' sung by the boy choir at St. Paul's in Harvard Square, or kneeling at the altar rail in front of a statue of the Virgin at the old Holy Trinity German Church in the South End.

The list could go on, but there is a website that does the job far better, a blog by North Shore writer and publisher Webster Bull called Why I am a Catholic.

He describes the site thus: A friend, a fellow convert, asked me out of the blue one day, "So, Webster, why Catholicism?" I was at a loss. I couldn't say. So I started this blog. Each post is a partial answer.

The result is a remarkably eloquent work in progress, well worth a visit. (Via America.)

* * *

Above:

Jesuit Father Alfred Barrett, teacher-poet, reads aloud from a book of his poems to students on the lawn at Fordham University ~ From "Jesuits in America," photos by Margaret Bourke-White, Life Magazine, October 1953.

2009-10-21T13:17:00.005-04:00

'New era begins

as Benedict throws open gates of Rome

to disaffected Anglicans'

This is astonishing news. Pope Benedict XVI has created an entirely new Church structure for disaffected Anglicans that will allow them to worship together – using elements of Anglican liturgy – under the pastoral supervision of their own specially appointed bishop or senior priest.

The Pope is now offering Anglicans worldwide “corporate reunion” on terms that will delight Anglo-Catholics. In theory, they can have their own married priests, parishes and bishops – and they will be free of liturgical interference by liberal Catholic bishops who are unsympathetic to their conservative stance.

This is a decision of supreme boldness and generosity by Pope Benedict XVI, comparable to his liberation of the Traditional Latin Mass. The implications of this announcement will take a long time to sink in, but I suspect that this will be a day of rejoicing for conservative Anglo-Catholics and their Roman Catholic friends all over the world.

~ Damian Thompson, The Daily Telegraph

* * *

Rev Thomas J. Reese, SJ, Washington Post:

Anglican welcome could revolutionize Church:

Could married Roman Catholic men from the traditional dioceses join the Anglican ordinariate and become seminarians and priests? If so, we have just solved the priest shortage problem and within a generation there will be more priests in the Anglican ordinariates than in the traditional dioceses. The rest of the people will soon follow and the Anglican ordinariate will hold a majority of Roman Catholics.

* * *

WSJ: Vatican in bold bid to attract Anglicans

Time Magazine: Pope to unhappy Anglicans: Come on in!

The Times (London): Pope's gambit could see 1,000 quit Church of England

Google Blogs roundup: Catholic Church Opens up to Anglicans

Midwest Conservative Journal: Bombshell

The Anchoress: Pope: Anglicans, Liturgy, Welcome! UPDATED

Mere Comments: Come on in, the Holy Water's fine

* * *

Above: John Henry Newman

2009-10-15T11:06:00.002-04:00

Happy Wodehouse Day

Oh, by Jove, oh by Jove, oh by Jove.

2009-10-13T16:26:00.001-04:00

Stag party

2009-10-09T10:30:00.005-04:00

Ig Nobel

Michael Binyon, Times of London:

Absurd decision makes mockery of prize

James Delingpole, Daily Telegraph: WTF?

Mary Katherine Ham, Weekly Standard: Some thoughts and laughs

Peter Beinart, Daily Beast: Nobel farce

Benjamin Kerstein, New Ledger: Joke is on us

Marc Ambinder, Atlantic: But should he turn it down?

Benedict Brogan, Telegraph: He should turn it down.

Jonah Goldberg, NRO:

Hilarious…and sad:

The only thing that really bothers me is that this comes just days after the Obama administration turned a blind eye to the Dalai Lama and told the world that it's at least considering a separate peace with the Taliban. That's grotesque. Meanwhile, there are real peace activists and dissidents out there whose dungeons will stay just as cold and dark for another year because of this.

2009-10-08T12:16:00.002-04:00

"Tessie (You Are the Only, Only, Only)"

~ Sung by Dan W. Quinn (1902)

2009-10-07T21:00:00.002-04:00

The GOP at the Museum of Natural History

~ By Elliott Banfield

2009-10-05T19:30:00.002-04:00

Annie is a most pious dog.

At the Blessing of the Animals she kept licking the holy-water sprinkler.

2009-10-02T11:09:00.002-04:00

Jazz at the National Zoo, 1925

The polar bear is digging it.

Via Shorpy.

2009-09-28T17:41:00.003-04:00

A bit more Audrey Munson

"If you have walked Manhattan streets, visited Central Park, or stood in the atrium of the Metropolitan Museum's American Wing, you have seen the art of Audrey Munson," observes arts journalist Jane Librizzi.

Certainly Miss Munson is all over town, mostly undressed. Mrs P, it is possible that Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. addressed this American Venus, in her statue form, while he was pub crawling with H. L. Mencken.

New York City Statues has posted a remarkably long list of all the statues in the city depicting Miss Munson. Above she is seen as "Pomona, the Fountain of Abundance" at Fifth Avenue and 59th Street.

Previously:

American Venus * With Buzzer the Cat

2009-09-28T17:40:00.002-04:00

Lodge and Mencken go to a speakeasy

The young Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., covering the [1932 Democratic] convention for the New York Herald Tribune, joined his friend H. L. Mencken for a tour of the Loop's speakeasies. "A taxi took us to a bar which was located in a long, narrow room," he recalled. "Near the front door and to the left was bar itself. Standing before the bar was a young lady who could best be described as gorgeous. At the end of the room was a piano and a species of male singer, in vogue at the time, known as a crooner. Mencken and I ordered drinks and, as we stood drinking, the crooner's voice became more and more objectionable. Finally, Mencken said to the young lady behind the bar, 'I'd like to shoot that son of a bitch.' The young lady did not bat an eye or change her supercilious expression. She reached under the counter, pulled out a Thompson submachine gun, laid it on the counter, and with a condescending fluttering of her eyelids said, indifferently, 'Go ahead.'"

~ Happy Days are Here Again, Steve Neal

2009-09-28T17:01:00.002-04:00

Madame Nhu

Shooting an apple off Henry Cabot Lodge's head

Via Charlie Parker Gunslinger

2009-09-28T11:33:00.003-04:00

Shocking Blue: "Venus"

~ Shot in a monkey house

2009-09-25T09:59:00.001-04:00

Henry Cabot Lodge campaigns at the Royall House

~ Medford, Mass., September, 1952

Am currently reading Kennedy Versus Lodge and enjoying it.

The GOP could use a few more Henry Cabot Lodges today.

2009-09-21T16:55:00.008-04:00

RCB for the NY Football Giants, &c

Irish Elk has a dirty little secret: he is pulling for the New York Football Giants.

How could he not given the legacy of the late Wellington Mara?

Almost everything about Wellington Mara was old-fashioned, starting with his name. Who anymore names a child after the Duke of Wellington?

He had an earthy, pug-nosed Irish face and an authentic New York accent, of the kind you hear now only in movies from the 30's and 40's. He was a Catholic who attended Mass daily and fathered 11 children. And as his eulogists kept pointing out, he was the last of the old-school sports-team owners, a throwback to football's leather-helmet era.

That we will not see his like again is a certainty, if for no other reason than that people no longer become owners at age 14, the way Mara did in 1930, when his father, a former bookmaker, turned the Giants over to him and his older brother, Jack.

Mara…was beloved by his players - seven busloads of whom turned out for his funeral…

His obit in the NY Times observed:

Mr. Mara assembled the fabled Giants teams of the 1950's and 60's; they included Frank Gifford, Kyle Rote, Y. A. Tittle, Sam Huff, Andy Robustelli, Roosevelt Brown and Roosevelt Grier. And he helped fuel the immense prosperity that all the N.F.L. franchises enjoy by championing a formula in which all the teams share equally in national television broadcast revenue.

He devoted his life to his large family, his Catholic faith and his extended Giants family, whose members revered him for his integrity and kindness.

His friend Fr Rutler described Mara this way:

The archetypical Catholic gentleman distinguished himself in his pro-life work, very practically engaging football stars in his “Athletes for Life” which helped the moral formation of young boys in our morally desolate culture. I saw him shortly before he died and he never ceased to smile in spite of his discomfort.

We used to joke that we got on so well because of my disdain for professional football, fleeing the slightest prospect of free tickets. He was a faithful penitent and communicant and I think he converted many in his raucous profession by his example.

At Mara's funeral in 2005 his son John recalled in a eulogy one of the few times Mara lost his temper with the press:

‘What can you expect from an Irishman named Wellington, whose father was a bookmaker?’ A local sports writer derisively wrote those words about 30 years ago during a time when we were going through some pretty awful seasons. My father usually didn’t let criticism from the media affect him very much, but those words stung him in a very personal way.

‘I’ll tell you what you can expect,’ he said at our kickoff luncheon just a few days later. ‘You can expect anything he says or writes may be repeated aloud in your own home in front of your own children. You can believe that he was taught to love and respect all mankind, but to fear no man. And you could believe that his abiding ambitions were to pass onto his family the true richness of the inheritance he received from his father, the bookmaker: The knowledge and love and fear of God and second to give you (our fans and our coach) a Super Bowl winner.’

Lastly, if Wellington Mara weren't already in the RCBfA pantheon, this is his granddaughter:

Actress Kate Mara, pictured above in Vanity Fair, also is great-granddaughter of Steelers founder Art Rooney.

* * *

Elsewhere in leather helmets:

The New York Giants Historical Wiki

The official site of the Pottsville Maroons

A blog devoted to Green Bay Packers uniforms from 1919 to the present.

The Providence Steam Roller, 1925

2009-09-18T14:33:00.000-04:00

Cam Neely, a bear, and one outstanding-looking old-school hockey sweater

2009-09-16T15:44:00.002-04:00

Redskins start training

Washington, D.C. Aug. 28, 1937: He-man exercise took the place of calisthenics today as the Redskins, Washington's entry in National Professional Football League, started training. The boys "flying thru the air" are, left to right: Millner (Notre Dame), Rentner (Northwestern) and Peterson (West Virginia Wesleyan)

~ Library of Congress

* * *

Did you know the Redskins' non-PC name was inspired by the Red Sox?

According to Redskins Encyclopedia author Mike Richman:

Here's what I know about the selection of the nickname Redskins: The franchise was called the Boston Braves in its first season of existence in 1932. Owner George Preston Marshall chose that nickname to match with the National League baseball team; both teams played at Braves Field. (The NFL was only 12 years old, and it wasn't unusual at the time for a new football team to copy the nickname of the city's existing baseball team, i.e., Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates.)

Following the 1932 season, Marshall moved his team across town to Fenway Park, home of the American League's Boston Red Sox. He renamed his team the Redskins, pulling the "Red" from Red Sox and using "Skins" to maintain the Native American theme he had with the Braves. [That way he could keep using the team uniforms ~ Ed.] It's my understanding that Marshall didn't have any racist motives by selecting the nickname Redskins.

Around the same time, Marshall hired a new coach in William "Lone Star" Dietz, a part-blooded Native American. Dietz recruited six players from the Haskell Indian School in Kansas, where he'd once played with the great Jim Thorpe. Also, the players got a full makeover before the season-opener, wearing burgundy and gold uniforms and Indian war paint. Marshall was an entertainer at heart, and he wanted his squad to have its own uniqueness.

~ Via Burgundy & Gold Obsession

2009-09-16T11:02:00.002-04:00

Fred Cusick, RIP

2009-09-15T10:18:00.001-04:00

Loved those old AFL unis

So did Uni Watch.

2009-09-11T09:48:00.001-04:00

FDNY Emerald Society Pipes & Drums

"Danny Boy" (John Tighe, vocals)

"A Nation Once Again/ Amazing Grace/ God Bless America"

2009-09-11T09:47:00.000-04:00

9/11: Never Forget

2009-09-10T16:33:00.002-04:00

The Senior Senator

Sen. Leverett Saltonstall, holding his paddle high
up in the air at Harvard, June 1949 ~ From the Life Archive

Hub Blog: On The Flowering of New England

Dr Boli: Haunted by the past?

2009-09-02T21:23:00.002-04:00

John Nance Garner Pith Helmet

It perhaps will come as no surprise to longtime readers of this blog that a Google search on the above phrase returns this site first.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft recalls Cactus Jack in a 2006 Slate piece that asks "Can a drunk run the country?"

On Capitol Hill, as well as Westminster, drink once oiled the political process. "Cactus" Jack Garner, the genial Texan reactionary who was FDR's vice president in the 1930s and who famously said that his job wasn't worth a bucket of warm piss, confined his work to asking senators in to "strike a blow for liberty" over a flask of bourbon, so much of which flowed that Cactus Jack had a malodorous urinal installed in a corner of his office. If he wasn't the best advertisement for the virtues of booze, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan was a notably serious drinker who was also several cuts morally and intellectually above most of his Senate colleagues.

More alarming were Richard Nixon's last years at the White House. After a good many evening martinis, he would call Henry Kissinger, and the secretary of state would grin silently as he passed around the telephone so that others could listen to their commander in chief's unbalanced ramblings. Since Nixon was in a position to blow us all up, this suggests a somewhat esoteric sense of humor on Kissinger's part.

And yet it is not just patriotic pride to claim a special place for my country, from the time when William Pitt the Younger was prime minister in the 1790s while consuming three bottles of port a day. A contemporary jingle imagined him and his drinking companion Henry Dundas entering the Commons unsteadily: "Cannot see the speaker, Hal, can you?" "What, cannot see the speaker? I see two."

2009-09-02T14:43:00.004-04:00

Too Cool

~ Via Atlantic Ave.

More Silent Cal Channeling:

1920: Coolidge on the Duty of Government *

1981: Mr Pepperidge Farm on Raisin Bread

* Via Old Dominion Tory

2009-09-01T12:57:00.010-04:00

September 1951:

Bklyn & Boston Baseball Game

Photographed at the old Braves Field by George Silk for Life

More at the Life Archive

2009-08-31T15:47:00.002-04:00

Baseball Epitaphs

For a Pitcher
No runs,
No hits,
No heirs

For a Catcher
Here lies No-Knees Mick McGirk
Squatted when he went to work
Squatted when he went to bed
Squatting now that he is dead
His casket's only half the size
Of any other normal guy's
Because, no taller than an elf,
Mick could not unsquat himself

~ By J. Patrick Lewis

~ Elysian Fields Quarterly

2009-08-31T11:50:00.001-04:00

"Dear American Fellow"

~ The salutation on a piece of direct mail sent me by Sean Hannity
on behalf of the Heritage Foundation.

Apparently they are taking the hail-fellow approach, literally.

2009-08-29T15:08:00.001-04:00

Ted Kennedy III announces run for U.S. Senate

I'll vote for him in 2044.

2009-08-26T12:49:00.005-04:00

Sen. Edward Kennedy: If Only

Michael Knox Beran offers a compelling take on why Ted K chose the political path he did:

For the fourth and only surviving son of Joseph P. and Rose Kennedy, the path to liberal lionhood began on Dike Road on the night of July 18--19, 1969.

Had Chappaquiddick never happened, Kennedy would have had every incentive to try, as his older brothers did, to arrest the leftward lurch of the Democratic party, which weakened Democrats' ability to compete for the White House.

Ted, after Chappaquiddick, had to find another path to glory, one that did not include a sojourn at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. His choice revealed a certain native shrewdness: Morally debarred from the presidency, he would be the liberal lion that the older brothers--who valued possession of the White House more than they did the whimsies of the Left--could never be. The older boys were retrospectively endowed with liberal halos, as a concession to their martyrdoms; the kid brother would obtain the same crown in life.

By hewing with so little deviation to the liberal line, Kennedy has been able to maintain his dominance in the party.

Ted Kennedy did much good. But one is left with a sad feeling of "if only": If only he had channeled his immense power and celebrity and charm and Senate effectiveness differently – to defend the weakest, the unborn; to promote liberalism informed by his Catholic faith rather than in conflict with it; to promote the civility for which was credited behind the scenes, but which he so undercut with his attack on Robert Bork. How different would the Democratic Party and the country be today?

RIP.

* * *

The Anchoress on the late Sen. Kennedy and Purgatory:

Some will focus on his personal sins -the assumed repentance or lack of same (of which they will likely have no real knowledge, just hunches) and some will presume to know the state of his soul, but those will be the inveterates, working from long-habit. Most Christians will, I think, understand that “the favors of the Lord are not exhausted, his mercies not over and done” and will simply pray in hopes that Kennedy had made a contrite and humble confession of his failings and sins.

Others, of course, will suggest that Kennedy’s pro-abortion positions, in and of themselves, should damn him forever in the eyes of God.

Thankfully, God knows more, and sees more, than the rest of us, because eventually we’ll all need to count on his mercy, as we face his justice. For all that we know of Kennedy, there is much we do not know. A family member who works with the very poor once told me that when he was in a real fix and unable to find help for, for instance, a sick child in need of surgery, a phone call to Kennedy’s office would set the “Irish Mafia” of professional people -doctors, lawyers, pilots and such- into brisk motion. I think an examination of the life of every “great” person (and I mean “great” in terms of power and influence) will expose deep flaws and surprising episodes of generosity.

So, upon hearing of his passing, I say “ah, he’s gone, then,” make a Sign of the Cross, and think of what C.S. Lewis wrote of Purgatory:

Our souls demand Purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break the heart if God said to us, ‘It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the joy’? Should we not reply, ‘With submission, sir, and if there is no objection, I’d rather be cleaned first.’ ‘It may hurt, you know’ – ‘Even so, sir.’

2009-08-13T09:46:00.000-04:00

Off to Rhode Island

~ See you next week

2009-08-11T21:09:00.002-04:00

Interest in mysterious Kennedy sister spikes

That is the headline tonight at Yahoo! where the Buzz Log notes a surge in queries on Rosemary Kennedy, whose difficult life inspired her sister Eunice's work with the mentally disabled.

Irish Elk originally posted the picture above of Rosemary Kennedy four years ago. The number of visitors who have arrived at this site today via Google Image Search had passed 1,800 as of 9 o'clock tonight.

2009-08-11T14:16:00.001-04:00

Eunice Kennedy Shriver, RIP

Eunice Shriver warned in 1968 against what she saw as "a drift into what I would call the 'Hard Society'" -- one without love, in which everyone takes care of himself or herself and people too frequently use one another to satisfy their desires without assuming the responsibilities of permanent relationships. The Hard Society was characterized by "separateness between rich and poor, between whites and blacks, between an intellectual elite and the unlearned masses, where both individuals and blocs are concerned solely with maximizing their own comforts and enforcing their own prejudices."

She wrote:

"I think we should be intolerant toward anything that makes it difficult for a woman who has conceived a child to bring him or her into the world with joy and gladness...

(Via Kathryn Jean Lopez)

2009-08-07T15:54:00.004-04:00

D

The Dreadful

Dinotherium he
Will have to do his best for D.
The early world observed with awe
His back, indented like a saw.
His look was gay, his voice was strong;
His tail was neither short nor long;
His trunk, or elongated nose,
Was not so large as some suppose;
His teeth, as all the world allows,
Were graminivorous, like a cow's.

He therefore should have wished to pass
Long peaceful nights upon the Grass,
But being mad the brute preferred
To roost in branches, like a bird.
(We have good reason to suppose
He did so, from his claw-like toes.)

A creature heavier than a whale,
You see at once, could hardly fail
To suffer badly when he slid
And tumbled (as he always did).
His fossil therefore comes to light
All broken up: and serve him right.

MORAL
If you were born to walk the ground,
Remain there; do not fool around.

~ From A Moral Alphabet by Hilaire Belloc

2009-08-05T12:44:00.001-04:00

University Club (1960) by Norman Rockwell

~ Via Charlie Parker Gunslinger

2009-08-03T16:50:00.002-04:00

Buffalo Bill at old Cubs Ballpark, 1916

Portrait of William Frederick (Buffalo Bill) Cody (1846-1917), sitting in a director's chair with members of his travelling show standing behind him. Scenery painted to look like Rocky Mountains is visible in the background, as are horses (real or painted?). Cody was a buffalo hunter, U.S. Army scout, and Indian fighter who dramatized the American West in travelling shows. Buffalo Bill's Show took place at the old Cubs' ballpark.

Horses, cows and bulls graze in the field at the old Cubs' ballpark. Painted scenery, with Rocky Mountains and pine trees, is propped in the back of the field, next to the grandstand. The animals and scenery were part of Buffalo Bill Cody's travelling show.

Via Library of Congress * Chicago Daily News Collection

* * *

Varia

The Smart Set:

Black Tie & Stetson: Under the Stars With Buffalo Bill

Horsing Around With Catherine the Great

Yeoman Lawyer: Put On Your Darn Hat

The Spectator Book Club: Horror in the Arctic

The Onion: Terrier Defends Family From Squeak

Panabasis:

A Dream of Dinner with Franklin Pierce

A Dream of Sparring with TR

Charlie Parker Gunslinger: Art of the Big Top

2009-07-31T19:35:00.002-04:00

The Call of the Wild Bunyip

Last night I was awakened in the middle of the night by a strange sound right outside the bedroom window -- a very clear howling hoot of a cry, followed by a gurgling warble. Was it an animal? A skunk ape? A bird?

You can listen to a recording of what I heard here.

2009-07-30T15:03:00.001-04:00

Hi, Neighbor

According to the Gansett blog:

A case of Narragansett beer was left on the doorstep of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. on Monday after President Obama called a meeting between himself, Gates, and Sgt. Crowley (the arresting officer who also received a case of 'Gansett) at the White House to have a beer.

The 16-oz. can o' Gansett is Irish Elk's choice for tonight's home beer-summit.

And while on the subject of beer:

A selection of numbers and statistics filed under "beer" in the Harper's Index:

4/85Number of beer cans manufactured since they were introduced in 1935: 610,000,000,000
1/87Percentage increase in U.S. sales of Mexican beer in 1985: 60
8/87Takes required to film Tip O’Neill’s Miller Lite commercial: 79
10/88Average number of times a beer bottle in Japan is reused: 20
7/88Price paid in West Virginia last April for a case of Billy Beer: $2,000
1/92Liters of beer an escaped circus bear in the Ukraine drank in the Kharkov town square before being recaptured: 3
6/93Price of golf, dinner, beer, and a “cart dance” by a topless female caddie at Fort Worth’s New Orleans Nights club: $620
1/94Amount Miller Brewing spends each year to promote its Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund: $300,000
Amount it spends each year to endow the scholarship: $150,000
5/98Cans of beer the U.S. Navy requisitions for each sailor completing 45 days at sea: 2

2009-07-27T14:03:00.001-04:00

THE GRAND DUKE ALEXIS ON THE PLAINS –

THE BUFFALO HUNT AS IT REALLY WAS –

FROM A SKETCH BY OUR SPECIAL ARTIST,

FROM A TELEPHONE POLE

~ Newspaper caricature of Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich's

American buffalo hunt, Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, Feb. 10, 1872;

From the Library of Congress

2009-07-25T16:29:00.002-04:00

Whirling Horse

From Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show

Circa 1900

Library of Congress

2009-07-20T14:15:00.001-04:00

The Onion's take

2009-07-20T13:36:00.001-04:00

Who Should Play Jack Aubrey?

Robbo reports Russell Crowe is considering a new Master & Commander picture.

This raises anew the question: Given Crowe doesn't fit the part, who should play Jack Aubrey?

Robbo, I believe, has suggested, Brendan Gleeson, appropriately burly at six-foot-two, who has acted in Braveheart and Harry Potter, and recently portrayed Winston Churchill, a point, of course, in his favor.

As a possible dark-horse, how about Philip Glenister, of Ashes to Ashes? He has played in historical costume dramas, including Vanity Fair, Sharpe and Hornblower – the last role inspiring some ardent fans – and while only six-foot, he would be convincing in a boarding-party melee.

2009-07-18T17:15:00.003-04:00

And that's the way it was

Walter Cronkite pilots a sailboat in 1971.

"Errol Flynn died on a 70-foot boat with a 17-year-old girl," Betsy Cronkite joked.

"Walter has always wanted to go that way, but he's going to have to settle for a 17-footer with a 70-year-old."

2009-07-16T10:41:00.001-04:00

Frank Sinatra: "Fly Me to the Moon"

~ Dedicated to the astronauts of Apollo 11

2009-07-15T17:04:00.002-04:00

Count Rockin' Sidney

He was among the distinctive artists at Goldband Records.

Their motto: "Every One a Musical Treat." How 'bout that logo?

In the half century since the first recordings, Eddie Shuler and the Goldband Recording Company have recorded--and in many cases have created--some of the South's most important and distinctive musical styles and sounds, including Cajun, zydeco, blues, rhythm and blues, rockabilly and swamp pop.

Listen here to Count Rockin' Sidney's recordings of "Feel Delicious" and "Something Working Baby."

2009-07-14T11:28:00.002-04:00

Memorial to King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette

Saint-Denis Basilica, France

From the Times Archive Blog:

How Marie Antoinette and Robespierre went to the guillotine

Via the remarkable ExecutedToday.com

2009-07-13T16:43:00.001-04:00

The New Yorker, July 11, 1936

2009-07-13T14:24:00.005-04:00

The Common Three-Toed Sloth

Things have been pretty slothful hereabouts lately. Chalk it up to summer.

Here, some items of interest collected during the odd arboreal graze:

An Amy Kane photo: What Dogs Dream About

Andrew Cusack: Heaven in Herefordshire

Naked Villainy: On the Somme * Robert McNamara

Yeoman Lawyer: Dear Wyoming Democratic Party

John Salmon: Apostrophe Abuse

Via Scuffulans Hirsutus:

Dick Van Dyke set to Herbie Hancock

Panabasis:

Our Lady intercedes with octopus

Here, too * And here * And here

2009-07-07T13:57:00.002-04:00

Onlookers Overseeing Overcome Woman

Unidentified woman is helped to her feet after fainting outside Campbell funeral home during memorial for screen idol Rudolph Valentino.

~ Manhattan, August 24, 1926

* * *

Yeoman Lawyer: On Michael Jackson

American society made the man the pop star that the was. It allowed him to amass a vast fortune, at one time, that obviously was self destructive to his character. He was highly odd. A person cannot be blamed for being odd, however, or at least can't be exclusively blamed for it. During his life time the press came to be on him like wolves on a carcass because of that oddity, and the public joined in the feeding frenzy. It's a sad comment on what we create through our entertainment dollars and how we destroy, for amusement, what we've created. The man obviously needed help, and the press following him around because he acted like a freakish clown didn't help him get it.

Now, however, the press is celebrating his life as if all this didn't happen. It's celebrating his achievements, which are really minor in the grand scheme of things, and acting like it, and we, didn't have major role in the freak show. Claiming that he was an entertainment genius now doesn't really do him any good, and it glosses over what he became.

2009-07-06T21:38:00.002-04:00

Dogs Playing Poker: Presidential Editions

By Andy Thomas

Above, Teddy shares a bully jest with Tricky.

Below, if Slick Willy cheats, Andy Jackson has his pistol ready.

2009-07-04T13:03:00.000-04:00

Happy Fourth of July

2009-07-04T13:01:00.001-04:00

"You're a Grand Old Flag"

Watch the production number from Yankee Doodle Dandy

Plus: "Yankee Doodle Boy"

2009-07-01T21:45:00.004-04:00

Jupe Pluvius arch. Rain that interrupts or mars a game. Syn. J. Pluvius; Old Pluvy. 1st Use. 1868. (New York Herald, Aug. 13; Edward J. Nichols). Etymology. From the ancient incantation to Jupiter Pluvius, with "Pluvius" being an ancient epithet for Jupiter as rainmaker. ~ The New Dickson Baseball Dictionary

* * *

Above:

New Yorker Cover Print, June 6, 1959, by William Steig

2009-06-25T17:39:00.001-04:00

Laurel and Hardy Dance To The Gap Band

2009-06-22T11:19:00.000-04:00

If you use Twitter

If you use Twitter, set your location to Tehran & your time zone to GMT +3.30. Iranian security forces are hunting for bloggers using location/timezone searches. The more people at this location, the more of a logjam it creates for forces trying to shut down Iranians' access to the internet. Cut & paste & pass it on.

2009-06-21T15:57:00.002-04:00

Happy Fathers Day

When the nasty old bogeyman
Fills me with fears
And my little old pinafore
Is all wet with tears
And my cute little pug nose
Is all red for crying
Who is it that saves me
And keeps me from dying?
My Pa!

When my little pink cheeks
Are pale with fright
Who is it that lifts me
And holds me tight
And says, "There, there, little man
Everything is all right?"
My Pa!

~ Ursine Hat Tip (and a Happy Fathers Day) to Old Dominion Tory

2009-06-17T16:25:00.002-04:00

Know Nothing Soap

An illustrated advertising label for soap manufactured in Boston, interesting for its imagery and allusion to the popular "Know Nothing" or nativist movement. In the foreground are two American Indians, emblematic of the movement's prejudice against the foreign-born. In the lower right is a seated brave, leaning against a rock and holding a pipe. Above him a large American flag, with thirty-one stars, unfurls across the main picture area. The flag is supported in the upper left corner by an Indian woman, who points to the words "Know Nothing Soap" emblazoned on it. In the background is a landscape with tepees and a campfire on the bank of a stream.

~ c. 1854 ~ Library of Congress

2009-06-17T15:06:00.004-04:00

Pictures from Iran

~ Via Llama

Lots of Iran coverage at Pajamas Media

Protest Babes show the Whig spirit:

Kiev

Ankara

Ankara

Ankara

Tehran

Tehran

Tehran

Tehran

Ankara

The Hague

2009-06-12T17:22:00.002-04:00

Cri de Coeur of Lumper Potboy

A spam e-mail from "Winnie" rises to a garbled crescendo:

Hello.

lumper attic ragout emir?
chalk warble nimbus.
rococo mix novel graft?
gasper agile bounty thyme!
alb potboy tempi pupa?
tops cue estop attic.
penes acuity.
farad budge.
pawn coatee ape gooey.
reflux nibble ingle find?
outre morgue.
bled novel coatee gypsa?
cue nimbus outre ragout?
ingle tare lumper.
cooker keeker.
pray gas fiber.
ape feel coatee.
warble morgue voter pant!
attic novel alb outre?
lumper potboy.
swathe wen feel fully!
sleety cashew fully arise!
moving fiber sniffy.
alb baboo.

This is more than spam lorem ipsum. It's poetry.

* * *

Above:

Dog Snow * Via Panabasis Photo

2009-06-10T14:40:00.002-04:00

Old Nick

A photographer at Flickr captures representations of Satan in Anglican churches.

They seem jollier companions than their real-world counterparts.

2009-06-07T20:28:00.001-04:00

Keep your eye on the ball

2009-06-06T12:48:00.002-04:00

Omaha Beach

ABLE Company riding the tide in seven Higgins boats is still five thousand yards from the beach when first taken under artillery fire. The shells fall short. At one thousand yards, Boat No. 5 is hit dead on and foundered. Six men drown before help arrives. Second Lieutenant Edward Gearing and twenty others paddle around until picked up by naval craft, thereby missing the fight at the shore line. It's their lucky day. The other six boats ride unscathed to within one hundred yards of the shore, where a shell into Boat No. 3 kills two men. Another dozen drown, taking to the water as the boat sinks. That leaves five boats.

Lieutenant Edward Tidrick in Boat No. 2 cries out: "My God, we're coming in at the right spot, but look at it! No shingle, no wall, no shell holes, no cover. Nothing!"

His men are at the sides of the boat, straining for a view of the target. They stare but say nothing. At exactly 6:36 A.M. ramps are dropped along the boat line and the men jump off in water anywhere from waist deep to higher than a man's head. This is the signal awaited by the Germans atop the bluff. Already pounded by mortars, the floundering line is instantly swept by crossing machine-gun fires from both ends of the beach.

Able Company has planned to wade ashore in three files from each boat, center file going first, then flank files peeling off to right and left. The first men out try to do it but are ripped apart before they can make five yards. Even the lightly wounded die by drowning, doomed by the waterlogging of their overloaded packs. From Boat No. 1, all hands jump off in water over their heads. Most of them are carried down. Ten or so survivors get around the boat and clutch at its sides in an attempt to stay afloat. The same thing happens to the section in Boat No. 4. Half of its people are lost to the fire or tide before anyone gets ashore. All order has vanished from Able Company before it has fired a shot.

Already the sea runs red...

"First Wave at Omaha Beach," S. L. A. Marshall, The Atlantic, Nov. 1960

* * *

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead, or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

~ Ronald Reagan, Remarks on the 40th Anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1984, Pointe Du Hoc, Normandy, France

* * *

Elsewhere:

David Gelernter, Wall Street Journal, June 4, 2004:

"Boomers heap insincere praise on 'greatest generation'"

Scott Johnson, Power Line: The Ordeal of Omaha Beach

2009-06-05T11:40:00.003-04:00

Conservatives Are More Easily Disgusted, Study Finds

A Cornell psychologist using scales to measure "disgust sensitivity" and political ideology found a correlation between being more easily disgusted and political conservatism:

People who squirm at the sight of bugs or are grossed out by blood and guts are more likely to be politically conservative, new studies find.

In particular, the squeamish are more apt to have conservative attitudes about gays and lesbians...

[Researcher] Pizarro explains that disgust is evolution's way of protecting us from disease. Unfortunately, in his view, disgust is now used to make moral judgments.

Liberals and conservatives disagree about whether disgust has a valid place in making moral judgments, Pizarro argues. Some conservatives think there is inherent wisdom in repugnance, that feeling disgusted about something - gay sex between consenting adults, for example - is cause enough to judge it wrong or immoral, even lacking a concrete reason, Pizarro explains. Liberals tend to disagree, and are more likely to base judgments on whether an action or a thing causes actual harm, he said.

Forget philosophy and considered principles. It all comes down to the eww factor.

This also explains Robbo "North of the Equator" Llama's great interest in antiquarian details of the French & Indian War.

2009-06-05T09:20:00.000-04:00

Koko Taylor, RIP

2009-06-01T10:36:00.001-04:00

Annie and Rhododendrons

2009-05-29T16:47:00.000-04:00

Fire up the Quattro

Steve M and other Ashes to Ashes fans will appreciate this:

BBC America for some reason hasn't been airing the second season.

But some good soul has been posting all the Series 2 episodes online.

ByeLittleLady, we raise a glass to you as we huddle around the Gateway.

2009-05-27T14:52:00.002-04:00

Some Music for a Rainy Wednesday

SHINDIG! - Sixties Superstars

-- Dobie Gray - "The In Crowd"

-- Zsa Zsa Gabor

-- Jerry Lee Lewis - "Great Balls Of Fire"

-- The Isley Brothers - "Shout"

The Chantays play "Pipeline" on the Lawrence Welk Show, 5/18/63

2009-05-26T15:37:00.002-04:00

Levitations of St. Philip Neri

In honor of his feast day, this excerpt from The Life of Saint Philip Neri by Pietro Giacomo Bacci (1902):

He was often seen with his whole body raised in the air; among others Paolo Sfondrato, Cardinal of S Cecilia, saw him in prayer raised several spans from the ground, indeed almost to the ceiling, as he told Paul V. a little before his death…

Father Gregorio Ozes, the Dominican, declared that before he entered religion he also saw Philip raised in the air and with a resplendent light around him; and F Francesco Maria Tarugi, that he had beheld him raised a palm above his bed when the Saint was praying once for Tarugi's deliverance from a temptation of sloth, which immediately left him. These occurrences were not confined to private places or witnessed only by a few; even in churches and public places the Saint was carried away against his will into ecstasies. On one occasion he was praying in St Peter's at the tombs of the Apostles, when his whole body was seen to rise suddenly into the air, with his clothes gathered up as they had been when he was kneeling, and then to descend with equal suddenness; after which, fearing that he might have been observed, he fled away with the utmost rapidity. The same thing happened in many other churches, so that when he entered a church in company with others, he used to stay a very little time, only saying a Pater and Ave and then rising from his knees, to prevent the possibility of his going into an ecstasy.

He was repeatedly seen raised into the air when he was saying mass. At Torre di Specchi some of the nuns saw him three or four palms above the ground during mass. A little girl who was at his mass at S Girolamo saw him about two palms from the ground, and turning to her mother said with childish simplicity, "Mother, I think that father must be possessed; see how he stays in the air!" but the mother replied, "Hold your tongue, it is a Saint in an ecstasy."…

* * *

Elsewhere:

A Philip Neri cornucopia by Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP

Msgr. Ronald Knox on St. Philip Neri

The Collect of the Day

* * *

Above:

Beatus Philippus Nerius
Matthias Greuter (1564-1638)
1606
Biblioteca Vallicelliana, Rome