America’s 2009 Axis Of Idiots (List In-Process)
Kofi Annan, David Axelrod, Gary Bauer, Warren Beatty, Bob Beckel, Paul Begala, Harry Belafonte, Joe Biden, Rod Blagojevich, Barbara Boxer, Bill Bradley, Jerry “Governor Moonbeam” Brown, Willie Brown, Pat Buchanan, George W. Bush, Robert “Kleagle Bob” Byrd, Maria Cantwell, Andre Carson, Jimmy Carter, James Carville, Lincoln Chaffee, The Senator from Chappaquiddick, Hugo Chavez, The Dixie Chicks, Wesley Clark, Eleanor Clift, George Clooney, Alan Colmes, John Conyers, Katie Couric, Matt Damon, Lanny Davis, Howard Dean, Phil Donahue, Maureen Dowd, Dick Durbin, John Edwards, Rahm Emanuel, Russ Feingold, Diane Feinstein, Barney “Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae Are In Great Shape” Frank, Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo, Robert Gibbs, Charles Gibson, Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, “Weird Al” Gore, Sean Hannity, Orrin Hatch, Hildebeest, Eric Holder, Jesse Jackson, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Valerie Jarrett, Rep. William “90 Grand In My Freezer” Jefferson, Jim Jeffords, John Kerry, Alan Keyes, Paul Krugman, Dennis Kucinich, Patrick Leahy, Spike Lee, David Letterman, Carl Levin, Madonna, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Bill Maher, Terry “Global Crossing” McAuliffe, John McCain, “Baghdad Jim” McDermott, Cynthia McKinney, Michael Moore, Carol Moseley-Braun, Bill Moyers, Patty Murray, John Murtha, Janet Napolitano, B. Hussein Obama, Rosie O’Donnell, Keith Olbermann, Nancy Pelosi, Sean Penn, Bill Press, Charlie Rangel, Dan Rather, Harry Reid, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Charles Schumer, Cindy Sheehan, Barbra Streisand, Al Sharpton, Arlen Specter, Lawrence Tribe, Donald Trump, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Jesse Ventura, George Voinovich, Henry Waxman, Sick Willie, Oprah Winfrey, Judy Woodruff, Ron Wyden . . .
Martha Stewart’s chow puppy, Genghis Khan, was killed in a kennel fire in Pennsylvania early in March. I’m not normally a fan of Martha’s, but anyone who’ll name a pet Genghis has my vote for something. (March 11, 2009)
On a typical race day at the Indianapolis 500 Motor Speedway, the crowd of roughly a quarter of a million people drinks 37,860 gallons of beer, 22,656 gallons of bottled water, and 18,956 gallons of soda pop. The Speedway’s restrooms flush it all away with 2,001,400 gallons of water. A tanker truck loaded with helium is used to fill 30,000 balloons; the track’s public address system consists of 420 speakers, 200 amplifiers, and 329,000 feet of wire, and it’s the largest PA system in the known world. The radio network includes over 400 stations, also the world’s largest. In the early 1900s, when the brick surface was installed, workers laid 50,794 bricks a day on average, and completed the 3.2 million-brick job in 64 days.—Selected delightful factoids presented by Kevin H. Forbes, director of engineering at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, in a presentation to the Indianapolis Scientech Club, March 9, 2009.
“I eat at Mickey D’s (McDonald’s) three times a day and will sue when I get sick. It’s the American Way.”—Choatso, the screen name of a blog reader commenting on an article at an MSN.com blog, about America’s ten best and worst restaurants. (March 31, 2009)
“How we saw it, we couldn’t afford not to come by and sack every now and then.”—Harald, a sarcastic, sensitive (and fictional) Viking, quoted in one of nine collected short stories by Wells Tower, called Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. Harald, in this instance, is setting off with a few of his Viking friends on a “pillage-and-consternation tour,” and as narrator is trying to explain why they were such surly marauders. (From a book review printed in Financial Times, spring, 2009)
“ . . . the road to multiculturalism. . .is a downhill path for the functioning, genuine democracies into the abyss of tribal chaos.” –Angelo Codevilla, scholar, college professor, author, in his new book Advice to War Presidents: A Remedial Course in Statecraft, reviewed in the April 2009 issue of The American Spectator.
The Answer To All Will’s Questions Is Yes
“I shared in that revolt. I do not regret it: it is the function of youth to defend liberty and innovation, of the old to defend order and tradition, and of the middle age to find a middle way. But now that I am too old, I wonder whether the battle I fought was not too completely won . . . Have we too much freedom? Have we so long ridiculed authority in the family, discipline in education, rules in art, decency in conduct, and law in the State that our liberation has brought us close to chaos in the family and the school, in morals, arts, ideas, and Government? We forgot to make ourselves intelligent when we made ourselves free.”—Will Durant, author of The Story of Civilization, philosopher, teacher, commenting on the consequences for our country of the “anti-everything” revolt of (mostly) young people in the 1960s and 1970s. (October, 2009)
Half The Children Left Behind Act?
Only half of Indiana’s public schools met federal rules for “adequate yearly progress” this year, according to an announcement this week from the Indiana Department of Education. Last year, the standards (set by the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001) were lower and only 54% of the schools met them. Is it time to abandon the opium dream that we can have standards and meet them, too? (April 22, 2009)
Another of AOL’s ceaseless polls of the American psyche showed that 76% of those voting—not necessarily Americans, mind you, and over 250,000 of them—believe the gub’mint is covering up evidence of the existence of extraterrestrial life. Another 72% believe that extraterrestrials have already visited our planet. I wish they’d put down in my back yard the next time they visit Hard Cheese. (April 22, 2009)
Scrolling through the vast, trackless, mind-numbing universe of cable television, I came across this program: Changing Your World with Dr. Creflo Dollar. Sometimes I’m left speechless. This was such an occasion. Creflo Dollar. Ho-leeeeeeeeee mackerel. (April 27, 2008)
The phone rang at work. The voice was raspy, breathing hard. I am speaking to you, it said, from the parking lot of a gun shop in tony suburban Hamilton County. I’m waiting for them to open. “Good,” I replied. “Buy all the small arms ammunition you can find. And if you take a shine to any small arms, buy them, too. You can never have too many guns or too much ammo. That is all.” I hung up, laughing, encouraged. (April 28, 2009)
. . . And Does Swine Flu Mean That, Finally, Pigs Can Fly? Or That Rosie O’Donnell Can?
A correspondent from the far, far northern frontier twittered in this cosmic question: When the flu pandemic came from Hong Kong, they called it the Hong Kong Flu. How come when this big flu pandemic comes from Mexico, they call it the swine flu? (April 27, 2009)
Arrol “Grim” Lee, Henry “Love” Doherty, Lee “Wee Lee” Charles, Herbert “Big Boot” Bourgeois, and Lionel “Boss Player” Winfield, Jr.—Five special nicknames from obits appearing in the New Orleans Times-Picayune at the end of April, 2009.
Two Kratchlows!
This morning, quite by accident, I discovered that there are two—TWO!!—Kratchlows in the Jonathan Winters pantheon of legends. I’ve been listening to Jonathan for decades, but never made the connection. Paul Kratchlow is the one embedded in memory—he’s the past commander of the Legion Post in Johnny’s Amateur Hour skit. Paul is especially memorable for being asked by his good friend and colleague, Oscar Devling, who serves as master of ceremonies, “Don’t come up, Paul, don’t come up. You’re a little gassed—don’t come up!” This morning, while listening to Winters’ Test Flight –where test pilot Speed Davis and Senator Winglow (no first name ever revealed) get most of the attention—I heard the nerdy little designer babbling that “the nose cone doesn’t work and half the panel isn’t finished and the wheels—Oh, geez, I. . .” while answering to the name of Willard Kratchlow. Winters never makes clear if there is any relationship between Paul and Willard, but the body of his work suggests it’s likely they are the Kratchlow Brothers. I will forever regret that in the only other known set of brothers in the Winters repertoire—The Maverlys—only one has a revealed name—Carl Bob. (June 14, 2009)
Karl Malden has expired at age 97. I will miss most his huge, bulbous nose. My favorite role was when he played Dad Longworth in One-Eyed Jacks, a western film starring (and directed by) Marlon Brando. The film also featured Katy Jurado, Ben Johnson, and George Kennedy.
Poised To Win The Lottery!
Peaches and I engaged in some late-summer house painting, and it led me to a potential gold mine. I bought a small package of what the 3M company described as “home dust masks” for protection when spraying. Half the packaging was devoted to warnings: the product was not a government-approved respirator, was not to be used in OSHA-ruled workplaces, and it did not supply oxygen. A light bulb went off in my mind. I contacted Kermit Sligo, one of my attorneys. He agreed with me that there was no warning applicable to my plan. So I promptly ate a couple of the masks. I am waiting for symptoms, and I am coiled, crouched, ready to sue the bastids for billions. (August 31, 2009)
“It is a dye marker, ‘lighting up’ a whole archipelago of morally wretched people.” –Jonah Goldberg, writing about the Free Polanski Movement which has sprung up on the left following 76-year-old Roman Polanski’s apprehension in Switzerland on a long-outstanding U.S. arrest warrant. Polanski, a Hollywood film director at the time, was convicted of child rape charges, but fled the United States February 1, 1978, to avoid sentencing and has since lived a life of celebrity in—where else?—Europe. (October 5, 2009)
Hallowe’en Costume Sparks Outrage! screamed the headline on AOL’s home page. I can smell sniveling ninnies a double click away and sure enough, there they were. Wacko lefties in southern California—The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Lost Angeles--are in the streets screaming over a Hallowe’en costume on sale in Target and other stores. It features a head mask of an outer space creature—the one with an oblong skull and huge, dark eyes and tiny nostrils and mouth—wearing an orange jumpsuit. The right hand is clutching a green card and across the front of the suit are the words, Illegal Alien. AOL is obsessed with, among other things, keeping a finger on the pulse of America, and submitting everything to a vote, so nearby was a chance to vote Yes or No on whether I was offended by the costume. I voted No, and learned that 69,396 people had already cast a ballot and 91% of them were not offended. But the howlers will get all the publicity, and have already worked their magic—Target immediately announced it would pull the costumes off its shelves rather than offend even a single soul. Within a few days, Walgreens, Meijer, Toys R Us and Amazon caved in, too. (October 17, 2009)
We’re Not Quite No. 1—But We Got Two In The Top Five Crappiest!!
London’s Heathrow airport was voted the worst in the world in a survey of 14,500 travelers. Chuck DeGaulle in Paris was No. 2. Frankfurt International in Germany was fourth worst. Lost Angeles International (No. 3) and Miami International (No. 5) brought home medals bacon for the U.S. and gave us two on the Worst Five list. The best airport? Changi in Singapore. (Excerpted from USA Today) (October 26, 2009)
The basketball season’s arrival has brought us brutal reminders about the abuse of language in our pathetic culture. Sports writers, apparently without the permission of anybody, are substituting the word “length” to describe height. A coach describing the opposing team’s center, who stands 7 feet 3 inches high, says “that guy’s got tremendous length.” A writer commenting on a team with a notable shortage of tall players says the team “lacks length.” Nobody in the real world talks like this. A tall guy is a tall guy, and a team with a lot of tall guys has a lot of height on its roster. When will the Obama Administration legislate to stop this outrage? (November 17, 2009)
Signs of The Coming Apocalypse
Something named Hoffman Ma of Hong Kong was the winning bidder—at $350,000—for the white rhinestone-studded modified golf glove worn by Michael Jackson (on his left hand) he wore for his moonwalk on a 1983 television program. The glove was among Jackson items auctioned November 21.
Our Dear Friend, The Penumbra. . .
“Science is a lighted clearing in the forest. Beyond the well-lit central area is a penumbra of more or less shadowed ground. Beyond that is the infinite dark domain of our ignorance. Scientists toil to enlarge the lighted area—the zone of settled science. This is the science Paul Johnson wants us to trust. This is the science that we do trust. Beyond it, though, in the penumbra, there is dimness enough for all kinds of malarkey. This is the preferred playground of ideologues, politicians, and crooks. This is where the climate-change battles are being fought.”--John Derbyshire, quoting Paul Johnson from the latter’s 1977 book, Enemies of Society, in a Derbyshire essay on the global warming controversy printed in the December 21, 2009, issue of National Review.
AOL’s movie fan site, Moviefone, has posted its list of the Top 40 Films of the Decade of the 2000s. Peaches and I saw many of them, but would grant only 10 an “outstanding” status. They, and their Moviefone ranking, are: Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (1); Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (3); The Dark Knight (4); Harry Potter: Prisoner of Azkaban (10); No Country For Old Men (11); Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (14); Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (18); Casino Royale (19); Michael Clayton (23), and Chicago (33). We saw eight more of the Top 40 but would not enthusiastically recommend them, including Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Children of Men, Eastern Promises, Spider Man 2, Iron Man, Slumdog Millionaire, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, and Sideways. The rest are mediocre or rubbish, and they included Weird Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, Shrek, Borat, Bowling for Columbine, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It remains a gol-danged jungle out there. (December 31, 2009)
Government Pays Better Than Most Crime
With more than 15 million Americans out of work, life inside the Wonderland Beltway roars on. A report in the December 31, 2009, issue of National Review notes that the federal bureaucracy in the last 12 months has added 13,000 jobs and the number of gub’mint employees making over $100,000 annually has doubled. The average federal worker is paid $71,206 (this does not include an estimated $41,000 in non-salary benefits) while the average private-sector employee earns $40,331. This is what they do to us while we sleep. (December 31, 2009)