On the Going-to-the-Sun Road...

... it's truly amazing (and terrifying!):



We were in Glacier National Park. Keep your eyes peeled for the glacier cameo.

"Dad's accused of boiling people alive – but Googoosha... just wants to be a star."

"Amazingly rhythmic sounds of torture... I never knew the sounds of children labouring in the hot sun for 12 hours a day could be so relaxing and Enya-esque."

Obama goes positive: "We've come too far to turn back now."

"I still believe in you, and if you still believe in me.... we will finish what we started...."

I'd like to see him (and Biden) stay positive like this. The campaign has been putting out some terrible negative material — like "put y'all back in chains" — and I hope this is a change of course. This ad seems very strongly oriented toward women. The crowds are nearly all women. I'm guessing their internal research shows women have been put off by the negative campaigning. (I know I am.) Also, it may be an effort to counter Paul Ryan, who's the new guy, channeling the feeling of hope and change that used to be Obama's. He wants it back.

At the Alpine Café....

... keep it cool and fresh.

"Walnuts 'improve sperm health.'"

Some study reported by BBC.

Oh, come on. Why did they look specifically at walnuts? Here's a clue: an old Woman's Day article titled "Foods That Look Like Body Parts They're Good For."

Hey, wait. That says walnuts are good for the brain and clams are good for the testicles! I thought clams were good for the vulva....

Shirtless Paul Ryan.

This is before the P90X workout. We're still waiting for the "totally transformed" abs he's got now.

(Here's our previous "Paul Ryan shirtless" discussion.)

Senator Schumer "is known to cajole, nag, and outright pester his staff" about getting married and having babies.

The NYT seems to be celebrating the man for using his position in the workplace to harass underlings about their private lives:

Cupid’s arrow lands where it will, but many of the couples say that Mr. Schumer, a New York Democrat, has an unusual knack for guiding its journey. He keeps close track of office romances, quotes marriage-friendly Scripture (“God to man: be fruitful and multiply”), and is known to cajole, nag, and outright pester his staff (at least those he perceives as receptive to such pestering) toward connubial bliss.

Religion too! He sounds like the Steve Carrell character in "The Office" — the inappropriate boss, who doesn't know the normal boundaries.

Forget Master of the Senate. This is the Yenta of the Senate.

“What’s the holdup?” the senator asks couples who are dillydallying on an engagement. “Did you get a ring yet?” Other could-be-marrieds receive a simple instruction: “Get moving!”

The NYT thinks this is cute, but you know damned well that if a conservative politician were doing this he would be accused of making the workplace a hostile environment.

[H]is focus, like many a politician’s, never strays far from his legacy: first comes Schumer Marriage, then come Schumer Babies.

“Have kids; have a lot of kids,” Mr. Schumer, who has two daughters, is known to intone. “Start early and keep having them.”

Jeez, he's appropriating their marriages and their babies.

Sometimes, Mr. Schumer greets a former staff member, “So, is your wife pregnant again?” Other times, he does not even bother with the question. One former aide, who asked not to be named, recalled seeing the senator bump into a recently married couple, both Schumer alumni. “He just stared down at her midsection and said, ‘Well?’ ”

Staring at a woman's belly as a way to convey the desire that she get pregnant? War-on-women warriors would be calling for his head if he were a Republican.

“Our staff is a family,” Mr. Schumer said, his voice often taking a paternal tone. “I want them to be happy. I get worried that they’ll be lonely. So I encourage them. If I think it’s a good match, I try to gently — as gently as I can — nudge it.”

Picture Steve Carrell saying that directly into the camera.

“It brings him joy,” said Risa Heller, a former communications director, one of more than a dozen former aides who recounted his sayings, often while imitating his voice. “He picks good people to work for him, and when they pick each other, it’s even better.”

You want to get ahead in the Democratic Party power structure? Submit to the matchmaking... and make some babies. I'd like to know more about how this picking of "good people" is carried out. Are good looking women chosen to provide wives for the men? Do the women continue climbing in the party hierarchy or do they retreat into babymaking and husband supporting?

I'd like 10 years of data.

"We expect Mitt Romney and the Republicans to outspend us. What I will not abide..."

"... is getting outspent by a margin that negates all the hard work our volunteers are doing."

Email from Barack Obama. I read it out loud and repeat I will not abide. Meade says "The dude abides."

Here's a discussion from English Language & Usuage:

I'm unfamilar with the word "abide" which is famously used the the movie quote "The Dude abides" (The Big Lebowski).

Looking it up in a German/English dictionary makes me believe it's "The Dude lives on", but I heard the word used on a way that makes it seem to be a variant of "approve," as in "The Dude does not abide this behavior."

I hear it used as "to obey" a lot, as in "we must all abide by the rules".

Can someone shed some light into the meaning of "The Dude abides" in the context it's been used?

Here's the top-rated answer:

Some discussions of the movie reference a peaceful, almost zen acceptance, as well as the idea that

The Dude will always be around.

A discussion on Reddit of what "the Dude abides" means has some consensus that it's an

Intentionally vague phrase hinting at the fact that The Dude Lives, in his unperturbable state of dudeness, somewhere.

and that the definitions "accept" and "continue" make sense in this context.

As @wfaulk points out, today we usually use abide transitively to mean things like trusting in, accepting or obeying; so it doesn't mean The Dude accepts or endures a particular thing, but I agree that the phrase still can imply a sense of patience or toleration, even if it's just the way someone waits or continues.

If you look at the etymology of abide, you can see how some of these meanings emerge:

O.E. abidan, gebidan "remain, wait, delay, remain behind," from ge- completive prefix (denoting onward motion; see a- (1)) + bidan "bide, remain, wait, dwell" (see bide). ... Meaning "to put up with" (now usually negative) first recorded 1520s.

Biden!

and going back to bide:

O.E. bidan "to stay, continue, live, remain," also "to trust, rely" (cognate of O.N. biða, O.Fris. bidia, Goth. beidan "to wait"), apparently from PIE *bheidh-, an extended stem of one root of O.E. biddan (see bid), the original sense of which was "to command," and "to trust" (cf. Gk. peithein "to persuade," pistis "faith;" L. fidere "to trust," foedus "compact, treaty," O.C.S. mmi>beda "need"). Perhaps the sense evolved in prehistoric times through "endure," and "endure a wait," to "to wait."

I think you're right: The Dude endures; The Dude lives on.

But The Dude will not abide... or will he? And will he abide Biden?

Should I not call the President "The Dude"? Obama is famous for calling a little boy "dude" when he said "Touch it, dude." And Jon Stewart famously called him "dude." That was back in 2010. It was much debated at the time. Here's Parker and Spitzer — remember them? — batting it around. And here's a WSJ blog:

Was it disrespectful for Stewart to address the president using a term that’s more commonly exchanged between two college guys sharing a bong?

Chooming.

Since the days of George Washington, America’s top leader has been addressed as “Mr. President.” Even Martha Washington called her husband “Mr. President.” Congress at one point considered the loftier title of “His Highness the President of the United States of America and Protector of their Liberties.”...

Then again, Thomas Jefferson once said that he hoped that “the terms of excellency, honor, worship and esquire will forever disappear from among us.”

Yes, it's really not too American to worship the President.



Odd that "The Big Lebowski" has become our prime association with "abide." There was a time, not so long ago, when it would have been the great hymn — "Abide With Me":

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.....

"Actually, I heard from a close friend of Harry Reid’s that Obama flunked Econ 101 three times at Columbia."

"With such significant rumors out there, the burden should be on Obama to release his transcripts and disprove this serious charge."

At the Rosy Paintbrush Café...

... show us something.

Romney and Ryan, "They really like each other and they feed off of each other."

Says campaign manager Matt Rhoades. “There’s an energy, there’s a chemistry."

Should they campaign together or separately?

Romney and Ryan had planned to go their separate ways before meeting up at the end of the month at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. But then campaign strategists saw how much of a psychic boost Romney got from Ryan — and how much more animated Romney appeared on television with his younger running mate at his side.

"Two young girls were driven home after being reported for stacking 50 rocks on railroad tracks."

"A railroad representative wanted the girls charged with trespassing."

It's the law enforcement roundup from the interlake region of Montana.

A woman called, requesting to speak with a particular deputy to ask him why he had left her son, “as sick as he was,” lying in the ditch earlier that day....

Several residents near the fairgrounds called to complain that the music was too loud, drowning out their televisions and keeping their children awake.

A man was removed from a supermarket on Third Avenue East North after he picked up several food items and went to the bathroom to eat them.

A man so drunk he did not know if he was a guest was reported vomiting in the parking lot in front of a hotel on U.S. 2 West....

A Memory Lane resident received a call from an unidentified person who called the resident a “Hitler” and told the resident to “meet me at Whitefish bank tomorrow, and if you don’t, I will come to your house and kill you.”...

An Eighth Street West resident cornered a badger in their backyard. The resident was advised to leave it alone.

A man was given a ride home after being found sitting in a ditch near the intersection of Northwest Lane and Three Mile Drive.

So the big question is: When does sitting in a ditch turn the police into your taxi service? No questions on the topic of badgers: Leave them alone!

Tommy Thompson is 11 points ahead of Tammy Baldwin in the Senate race in Wisconsin.

Tommy didn't win Tuesday's GOP primary by much. The old man had to fight off a handsome newcomer — Eric Hovde — and a lot of negative advertising was thrown around. But he's nevertheless way out in front of Baldwin already. This was utterly predictable, as is his ultimate victory over Baldwin in November.

The excitement in Wisconsin will have to be of the presidential political kind. Obama will have to show up here, and I wonder how much he will bother to help the predictable loser Baldwin. Remember, Obama did not stop by Wisconsin to try to help the Democratic challenger to Governor Scott Walker in the recall election last June. I think he didn't want his lack of magic to show and knew Tom Barrett was going to lose. But now Obama faces his last election — or so he says.* The polls showing Baldwin's dreary prospects are and will be much worse than what the public saw about Barrett. (But I believe Obama was looking at internal polls that show Barrett doing far worse than what the public saw before the recall election.)

Now, Obama needs to come to Wisconsin. These 10 electoral votes matter... a lot. They could determine the outcome of the presidential election. He must come to Wisconsin. Will he stand by Baldwin and promote her lost cause? It's a risk! It's not just the problem of getting loser on him, which we know from the recall he has an aversion to. It's that Baldwin is a lefty liberal, whose career has been based in Madison, and Obama needs to win voters from those parts of the state he's avoided in the past. He likes to show up for adoration in Madison and Milwaukee, but he won't win Wisconsin that way, and showing up in Madison/Milwaukee pushing Tammy Baldwin is not the way to talk to the rest of Wisconsin.

The rest of Wisconsin — including many Democrats — are going to vote for Tommy Thompson. Obama must talk to these people. Think about it:

Tommy has coattails!

Mitt Romney might win the presidency riding on Tommy's coattails.

It's all about Wisconsin, baby.
_______________________________

* I'd like to see him show his commitment to American politics by running for Governor or the Senate after he leaves the presidency. (But in/from which state? Is he going to go live in Illinois when he's done being President? I doubt it.)

"Who is to blame for the performance at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and for our being put on trial after the concert? The authoritarian political system is to blame. What Pussy Riot does is oppositional art or politics."

"Who is to blame for the performance at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour and for our being put on trial after the concert?"

Political argument in defense at the criminal trial of Pussy Riot in Russia. Also: "To my deepest regret, this mock trial is close to the standards of the Stalinist troikas."

The protesters got a 2-year sentence for "hooliganism." They've gotten a lot of international support, because the government seems to be coming after them for their free speech and their music, but — as the NYT puts it — they "have never released a song or an album, and they do not seem to have any serious aspirations to do so." And the prosecution accused them of acting out of "religious hatred" (as well as "committing 'moral harm' and even of practicing Satanism"). They did "prance around in front of the golden Holy Doors leading into the altar, dancing, chanting and lip-syncing for what would later become a music video of a profane song in which they beseeched the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Mr. Putin."

Cherries & Hucks.

Today, near Hungry Horse, Montana.

"For him to come home and just cry and go to his room and say, 'I give up,' I'm not going to let him give up."

"This is his dream. This is what he wants to do. And I'm going to make it happen."