I've had a week of posting other places again.

I also sang in public for just about the first time ever, just me and my lonesome guitar. Did middle-aged women throw bras and panties at me? No. At least not in a friendly way.

I'm here today; getting to know these local guys a bit. Always willing to grab an opportunity to expound. I said it before: like a fool for his dope and a drunkard his wine, a man will have lust for the lure of the mine...

“The main place I need to be more aggressive is with women. I take the "nice guy" concept to it's extreme.”

That's the Oklahoma cannibal on his blog. I guess he got over that.

Big Kerry supporter, which just means liberal doesn't necessarily equate to well-balanced. I mean sure, Jesus is a liberal, but then so is this guy.

Update to post below.

Let's revisit Katrina Vanden Heuvel:

"Bill Coffin, as his friends knew him..."

You know, that's actually pretty interesting. I would have assumed his friends knew him as "the Reverend William Sloane, Coffin, Jr." As in, "Hey, the Reverend William Sloane Coffin, Jr., we're all goin' to see the Mets, ya interested?" or "The Reverend William Sloan Coffin, Jr., seriously, you're parked behind me and I gotta get going now" or "Oh, I forgot to tell you, the Reverend William Sloane Coffin Jr., Katrina Vanden Heuvel says hello. Katrina. Vanden Heuvel. Hoi-vuhl. Works for The Nation. Whatever, she says hello."

But no, it was"Bill Coffin" to his friends, and actually it's not surprising at all. Bill was the godfather of Civil Disobedience; it'd just be weird - sort of pro-institutional or something - for a guy like that to insist on being called "the Reverend William Sloane Coffin, Jr." By everybody, all the time. (Although I'm sure there were cases he was tempted.)

Competing versions of William Sloane Coffin (dec.)

From Katrina Vanden Heuvel at The Nation’s blog:

Bill Coffin, as his friends knew him, was one of our greatest and most eloquent prophetic voices. For more than forty years, his passionate calls for peace, social justice, civil rights, and an end to nuclear insanity challenged this nation's conscience.

From Roger Kimball at “Armavirumque,” blog of The New Criterion:

Like other gurus of the period such as Herbert Marcuse, he pretended that American society was an oppressive battleground which could only be combated by "civil disobedience" (the phrase supplied the title for one of Coffins book) or even "revolutionary" activity. But as the legal scholar Alexander Bickel noted in 1970 (he was writing about Coffin and his colleagues), "to be a revolutionary in a society like ours, is to be a totalitarian, or not to know what one is doing."

Huh.

From a Mark Steyn column in Nat'l Review

Subscription required:

As for the gals, I was startled in successive weeks to hear from both Dutch and English acquaintances that they’ve begun going out “covered.” The Dutch lady lives in a rough part of Amsterdam and says, when you’re on the street in Islamic garb, the Muslim men smile at you respectfully instead of jeering at you as an infidel whore. The English lady lives in a swank part of London but says pretty much the same thing. Both felt there was not just a physical but a psychological security in being dressed Muslim. They’re not “reverts,” but, at least for the purposes of padding the public space, they’re passing for Muslim in public."Europe is discovering it has no defense, should one be needed. Its fate might be up to the attitudes of the newer residents.

Me: Europe is discovering it has no defense, should one be needed. Its fate might be up to the attitudes of the newer residents.

Small point living up to honesty: Just wrote this as a comment over at Althouse, and thought: hey, post it.

Larger point about honesty: Most of the left's disdain for sources like National Review is based on the spin given issues that both sides cover. Needless to say I usually disagree with typical left-side put-downs like “dishonest” or “jingoist” or “hegemonistic” or “Cheney-like” or something. But what also attracts me to the conservative writers is their willingness to talk about a whole range of things the left rarely goes near. Like, you know, the situation in Europe. Which seems sort of important.

I'm back to thinking that AI is a great show.

After last night’s video visits back to the hometowns and family and homefolk, that is. They captured the show’s core, the semi-honest collision between deceitful, cruel cynical Hollywood and actual America.

Sentiment dripped from the rafters and from Kellie's "snot rag" last night, and it was all based in reality.

Of course Simon is crucial to the mix: his brutality and refusal to condescend during the actual competition (by never dropping his disgusting attitude towards humanity) is fascinating.

Not to slight the drunken or be-pilled or simply embarrassing Paula Abdul, who yet remains very hot, and gentle, and her alleged affair with a former contestant is just the nasty thing I like. Or Randy, who, you know, I never heard of before, and I don’t begrudge him his sturdy role here. And Ryan, sporadically hilarious – he’s good at reactions at times.

Over the course of four months we get a real nice view of energetic, trying-to-make-it-work America. Life can be rough, sometimes it’s kind; a real good life is hard to find. These brave contestants (you've got to give them that) and their families and towns seem up to the challenge.

It’s the time for sad farewells now, so good luck Bucky. Until last night I was not aware of the NASCAR abandoning Rockingham tragedy, which makes your dad so sad: “Now we got this great facility out there for nothin’.” You probably can’t do anything about that. I hope the town’s withdrawal from the brief high you provided isn’t too bitter.