Wit & Whim

 Well done, Matt. Now we are eating. A Muslim, a catholic, and a Kennedy walk into a bar. No, wait, a conservative, a liberal, and a communist walk into a bar. No, lets try again, an African, an Italian, and a Pol...ish person walk into a bar. The three way mayoral race in New York should be introduced with such a line, because we can all see that it is a pretty bad joke. Ladies and gentlemen, behind door number one I give you: Cuomo. The ossified scion of american political gentry. A good catholic, who publicly professes against the beliefs of the church. A great statesman, who left office under the cloud of numerous scandals. Who could not seriously be on this ballot if he was not a wealthy political blue blood with the backing of a political matchine. And in this corner I give you the champion of the little man Homer Stokes! No, actually, it is Zohran Mamdani, the stunning underdog son of...wealthy elites with extensive  connections. No worries though, Zohran is here to mak...

 You can't make me do it, Matty. I'm not writing about any topic twice in a row, let alone that one. The reason I still like to check in on drudge is that he, if somewhat more obviously taking sides than in the past, still seems to have a great barometer on what is news worthy, and will link to a handful of non-AI slop stories about it. I looked around at a handful of other news sites I frequent on occasion to see if there was anything worth teeing off on. They were all 'problematic' in the same kind of way, and now I'm going to tell you how in a characteristically rambly way. Beer, Brats, and Bride is a peculiar event; a camp festival where we all revel in gathering around a cult classic that we have seen too many times. The camaraderie is strengthened by the shared knowledge that we are doing something very silly. Lines are recited aloud, laughter, hoots, and screams come from the audience as if scripted. Every single year, unfailingly, I look forward to watching ...

 How does one choose what to write about after a long hiatus? So much water under the bridge, some of it sweet and clear, and some brackish, muddy, carrying along oak trunks festooned with desperately clinging raccoons. The boring, the sublime, the absurd: life has had plenty of it. Choosing the right thing were too difficult, so instead we are going to play a game. Matt Drudge is going to have a headline, and I am going to give my half-formed opinion about it. I hope this will be fun for both of us. I promise to keep it short form, as long as you promise not to read it. Let's get started. DEVELOPING: HOSTAGES RELEASED I'm honestly shocked the hostages were released. I would have taken odds against it a month ago. I think we should all hope and pray for the peaceful transfer of power from Hamas to civilian authorities, and that humanitarian aid may flow freely, and that this is the beginning of an era of peace and healing for the people of Gaza. But I doubt it. And take my doub...

Author's Note: what you are about to read is a draft that I am publishing after 9+ years on ice. I have not taken the time to complete it, so you have my leave to think of it as my 'Dead Souls' of blogging. I believe that a fair few of you may be somewhat familiar with an American film classic called "My Fair Lady." A fine movie. Damn fine. I could spend a paragraph trying to explain and make excuses for why I have not written in so long, but I will let Rex Harrison do that for me. If you really need an explanation, his character has a fine little song staged in his library about halfway through the film that says it all. Trust me, you will know it when you hear it. In truth, I have come back to my blog a dozen times since the last piece I completed, and each time got part way through, only to be drawn away by some distraction. My distraction has become increasingly insistent of late that I should get back to writing something. Since these instructions are n...

 Machiavellian 'virtu' and real virtue are a world apart. Not to dunk upon Machiavelli, because the Prince was clearly a work of necessity and the disourses on Titus Livy are the real deal. But Real Politik and the desire of men to be hard rather than good christians is getting tired. The history of the world is full of men who are powerful: excellent in their own regard. They have panache. They say things that sound right. They do things that look right. But they are ultimately evil, and behave in ways that are true to their internal evil, and the evil of the peoples that they stemmed from. They delight in the exercise of power, and the exercise of their power is not for righteousness. Leonidas and Trump (who I will likely wind up voting for) are poster children. Molon Labe. Come and take, says the spartan king, who eats of the bread made by slaves, on grain grown by slaves, upholding his evil government that relies on the work of brutally surpressed slaves, their raped wives,...

Do you all remember Pottermore?  If it does not ring a bell, Pottermore was a Harry Potter fan website while I was in college. It was full of HP related games and trivia, and extra Harry Potter stories, all overseen by the author herself. But that is not why people went to Pottermore. No. Pottermore was where you took the most important test of your young life. Not the SAT. Not the ACT. Not Myers-Briggs, or the Wechsler, or whatever ISTEP nonsense was out there. Pottermore offered to put you through the sorting hat.  It asked you a battery of rotating questions, many of which had clear correlation to personality, and some of which were much more subtle. At the end of the quiz, you received your house assignment. I think virtually all of my college classmates went through this process at the time, and you could not escape hearing about it for a little while. As a child, I pretended not to be able to read well after I had acquired the ability--because kids can be real dicks, rig...

 My total phone screen time for the day is under an hour, even with me drawn to memes about last night's debacle like a dog to its still warm vomit. Part of that time is also just when it sat open playing my audio book. It just has not held any draw for me. Likewise I have spent very little time playing video games in the last while. Not that I could not enjoy it, but it feels less like time I felt I spent well. Naturally, this is all because I recently turned 30, which has unleashed all manner of new dadly powers. I look forward to getting up before the sun and running 4 times a week. I polished shoes that needed it, cut out half of my alcohol intake, got rid of all of the old shit that was taking up space in the garage, aside from the pallets, which are about to be converted to support the new hobby I've become inexplicably attracted to...well okay, Emma suggested it, and I get excited about it the more I read. Folks. I am taking up smithing. I am not doing this because I wan...