Fretting about the crèche.

Part 1: "'Your people shall be my people and your God my God.' I meant those words when I spoke them. I don't have to believe in the same God as my husband for these words to be true. I don't have to believe in God at all."

Part 2: "Tell him to take us to court to get it out of there. As far as I'm concerned, they can leave it there." "I take any such display to violate the separation of church and state, a concept which I hold dear." "This is very ironic, because much of Sauk County was settled by non-religious people."

"This season makes me think that individualism is way overrated."

Nina writes:

Isn’t it true that most people view themselves as being quite independent, carving their own path, listening to some internal voice rather than conforming to the (petty) demands of others?

It seems that the time you most like to do your own thing is when what is expected is too annoying, too displeasing, uncomfortable, grating.

If you place two individuals in the same room and both view themselves as being extraordinarily independent, what happens?...

[I] no one bends, then, unless you’re both on the same planet with your individualism (and it can happen, but how likely is that?), you’re going to be running past each other all the time.

Don't do it!

I don't know what "it" is, but it sounds really important. Am I being a troublemaker? Nice photo at the link. Is the girl really dreaming? Or is she terribly unhappy? Look at her eyes.

"If I had the choice of being waterboarded by a third party or having my fingers smashed one at a time by a sledgehammer, I'd take the fingers..."

Says a guy who waterboarded himself (but did not sledgehammer himself).

527s!

"Bitter attacks":

"John yesterday said that he didn't believe in 527s," [said Barack Obama]...

“I do not support 527 groups. They are part of the law, but let me be clear: I am asking this group and others not to run the ads. I would encourage all the 527s to stay out of the political process,” [said John Edwards]...

... Obama said his concern was not with the independent spending by labor unions per se but with the question of Edwards' character.

"I love labor," he responded. "It's just important not to say that you oppose" 527 spending "the day before" the spending begins. ...

"I already said I'm against 527s," Edwards said, ignoring a question about whether he'd call publicly for his allies to cease spending on his behalf. "I've been fighting against these people my entire life."

In 2004, Edwards demanded that President Bush stop independent spending on his behalf by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth with "three words: Stop these ads."...

But a person close to the group [said it] was barred from responding to Edwards' call for them to stop advertising — because that would constitute coordinating with his campaign, which is illegal.

Count the delicious ironies.

Twittering the Iowa Caucus.

Clever.

Graffiti on State Street, in Madison, Wisconsin.

I'll bet your mom is buying you presents right now. Isn't she ignorant? The sheep. Doing what the corporations have trained her to do. She doesn't know what real emotion is. Unlike you. Thanks for you chalky wisdom.

Did you come out in the drizzling rain last night to a place that looked like this?

A random photo from the Madison meetup, which happened last night. Were you there?

ADDED: Dan from Madison was there, and he told an amazing story about that time somebody was ringing his doorbell incessantly at 4 a.m. — ringing it with his nose.

No embedding? No comments? The Royal Family on YouTube.

The Royal Family has a YouTube channel now — here's the BBC report — but it's really not much fun at all. Too controlling. I can understand keeping us from messing up your site with comments, but embedding is key. I want to mess up my own site with your video, but you'll have to relinquish some control.

I did watch Queen Elizabeth's first TV Christmas message from 1957, and fortunately there's a link to the transcript, so I can quote something (and correct a bad typo):

Twenty-five years ago my grandfather broadcast the first of these Christmas messages. Today is another landmark because television has made it possible for many of you to see me in your homes on Christmas Day. My own family often gather round to watch television as they are this moment, and that is how I imagine you now....

That it is possible for some of you to see me today is just another example of the speed at which things are changing all around us. Because of these changes I am not surprised that many people feel lost and unable to decide what to hold on to and what to discard. How to take advantage of the new life without losing the best of the old.

But it is not the new inventions which are the difficulty. The trouble is caused by unthinking people who carelessly throw away ageless ideals as if they were old and outworn machinery.

They would have religion thrown aside, morality in personal and public life made meaningless, [honesty] counted as foolishness and self-interest set up in place of self-restraint.

So even as YouTube is now new, television was once new. And just as television was part of a world that tempted people to throw out religion and live a life of meaningless immorality, we've got the internet making us feel lost and unable to decide what to hold on to and what to discard. We're still worrying about whether we're throwing out all religion and morality, and it's got to be a little heartening to see the Queen wringing her hands about it 50 years ago.

"Is Bill a loyal spouse or a subconscious saboteur?"

The Bill and Hillary psychodrama.

Is Bill torn between resentment of being second fiddle and gratification that Hillary can be first banana only with his help? Their relationship has always been a co-dependence between his charm and her discipline. But what if, as some of her advisers suggest, she turned out to be a tougher leader, quicker to grasp foreign policy, less skittish about using military power and more inspirational abroad? What if she were to use his mistakes as a reverse blueprint, like W. did with his dad?

When Bill gets slit-eyed, red-faced and finger-wagging in defense of her, is he really defending himself, ego in full bloom, against aspersions that Obama and Edwards cast on Clintonian politics?

Maybe the Boy Who Can’t Help Himself is simply engaging in his usual patterns of humiliating Hillary and lighting an exploding cigar when things are going well....

Hillary advisers noted that when Bill was asked by a supporter in South Carolina what his wife’s No. 1 priority would be, he replied: C’est moi! “The first thing she intends to do is to send me ...” he began.

He got so agitated with Charlie Rose — ranting that reporters were “stenographers” for Obama — that his aides tried to stop the interview...

Maureen Dowd sounds absolutely right to me. I note that she's reacting to the Matt Bai article that appears in this week's NYT Magazine. I reacted to it on Wednesday and said something similar:

If you were writing a novel about the 2008 presidential campaign, wouldn't you want Bill Clinton as your main character? What a complex situation he is in. He stands to gain power, but his time is also over. He can help his wife, but he can also hurt her. He is supposed to fight for her, but he's continually tempted to justify himself. He has the more creative mind, but he cannot outshine her.

This too. (About that priceless quote: "Everything I'm saying here is my wife's position, not just mine.")

So: Loyal spouse? Subconscious saboteur? Frankly, I think he's too smart for it to be subconscious. I think he's devoted to her, but he's a dominant male, and the situation is inherently complex. Perhaps he wants conflicting things, but he must primarily want her to win, and assuming that's so, he needs to get control of himself in public so that we never see the part of him that wants her to lose.

"You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us."

"Is that so, Spirit?"

For the annals of unflattering photographs.

The NYT presents Mike Huckabee:



Go to the link for the full size version of the photo by Spencer Tirey.

Doesn't he look like he's morphing into Dennis Kucinich?

"It is unclear whether Flew has lost the desire to reason effectively or whether he no longer cares what is published in his name."

Atheists wonder how believers can believe such things, but when atheists themselves turn into believers, can you believe them? When Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris are raking in so much money writing about their atheism, what's an old atheist to do? Where's the publishing niche? Ah, there! I love that key clues are the words “beverages,” “vacation,” and “candy.”

Depression blogging.

The Top 10. (Via Culturite, via Metafilter.) Would you read a "depression blog"? Are you depressed? Would anyone answer "yes, no"?

"A 13 shot venti soy hazelnut vanilla cinnamon white mocha with extra white mocha and caramel."

In search of the most expensive Starbucks drink. "And me, wincing at the first sip."

(Via Metafilter.)

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked..."

Oh, really? You saw them naked? Come on, Allen. Don't tell us that somehow you "figuratively" saw them. You said you saw them, and either you saw them or you didn't. Facts are stubborn things.

Nah, nah, he said it and it wasn't true. Or oops, maybe it was true.

How to visit a grave.

Do you visit a grave? Do you have a tradition? Pebble on the headstone? Something else? I saw this yesterday, done precisely the same for each of 4 or 5 graves in a line:



A small fire had burnt out. Each grave had bright flowers, a peeled banana, an opened tinfoil packet of rice and some other food (possibly chicken), and an opened can of some drink that had what looked like corn pictured on it.

MEANWHILE: "Decorations can be an impediment to backhoes, and there are liability issues in tripping over candy canes."

MYSTERY SOLVED: The canned drink is Yeo's Soybean Milk.