The worst thing in the world is to out live...

Also to solemnize our Memorial offerings this Day. The opinion of a veteran of foreign wars, a scholar, and the father of a man who died in Iraq, serving as his father had done before. His words are the truth of the fine hammered steel of woe. And I ask, after you read, that we pray again as we were each taught, in honor of those whose prayers are now mute. "Our Father who art in heaven...

Memorial Day orators will say that a G.I.'s life is priceless. Don't believe it. I know what value the U.S. government assigns to a soldier's life: I've been handed the check. It's roughly what the Yankees will pay Roger Clemens per inning once he starts pitching next month.

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Happy Memorial Day

I can think of nothing more fitting on this Memorial Day than to observe both the dead of war and also that fact which is too evident though it is oft forgotten: War kills young men and young women indiscriminately, for War is not a member of any nation save that of Strife and of Blood. But soft, let us listen to Mr. Twain. He knows more of war and conflicts and of America than the whole lot of us put together.

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The Virtues Of Being Number One End At The Number Two.

There's a difference between "hegemon" and "unipolar super power." Athen's was the former (by virtue of the Delian League) before Sparta toppled it, Rome was the latter before it was toppled. In the last 60 years, the US has acted as both. You will, however, note the common verb in the two descriptions. [Hint: I'm not talking about "was."]

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House Cleaning My Head

• Something about Zach Braff makes me want to hit him in the mouth. I could get behind Garden State initially, but then I realized the melancholy whinging was just how Braff rolls all the time. And that makes him a whiny emo wuss, and so we are sworn enemies.
• Also, I like Aesop Rock.
• If Fred Thompson becomes president, I'm out. Seriously. That's a deal breaker.
• Oprah might have got to me. Seriously, I was in the Tattered Cover today, and her book club selections have been pretty excellent overall. Faulkner, Tolstoy. If she were to get a bunch housewives to read Madame Bovary, then I'd finally go over to the dark side.
• I have a globe.
• I want a piece of Rumsfeld now that he's not a cabinet secretary. You an' me Don, you an' me. No rules, only winners. I know you wrestled in college, Rummy, but it was at Princeton, so I'm pretty sure I can still take you. (That's right, Tigers, I'm callin' you out.) Wolverines!
• People who like both Zach Braff and Donald Rumsfeld...these are the ones to watch, they will betray you for they have a heart made of shit and splinters.
• I am your rightful king and sovereign.
• Seacrest out.

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Apparently 30% of Americans (and 100% of public officials) are affected

If you have this problem...Please, for your family's sake, get help.

Ask your doctor today.

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Me? Why, I'm a Gravel man myself.

I'm totally on board with Mike Gravel.
Why will putting the Iraq war to a series of daily votes in Congress eventually wear down Republican legilslators and force them to support withdrawal? "They will, because politicians generally are gutless." That's awesome.

Also: "The sooner we put some of our leaders in jail for what they do to the people, the sooner we stop [them] from doing [those things]." It's both extreme, yet oddly sensible. Start an illegal war, go to jail. Awesome.

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I'm moving

...And my new kitchen is canary yellow. I do not know how I feel about that. That is all.

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French Political Review

So Sarkozy won the French election. Some people seem to think that he will adopt a more right-wing assimilationist attitude toward the Arab and African immigrants in the banileues. Effectively telling them to start "behaving" themselves or else. Others seem to think he will go a more American affirmative-action, integrationist route.

Now, because I generally dislike racist ultimatums and ethnocentric policies that smack of easy platitudes for the white majority, I favor the latter option. One thing that America is really, really good at is integrating immigrant minorities. It doesn't look like it sometimes, but we are actually a lot better at it than almost any other Western democracy (Canada's pretty good, too).

It's interesting to me that France's "you best become French and stop acting like there's anything better than Frenchiness anywhere in the universe" attitude doesn't seem to work nearly so well as Britian, Canada, and the US's, "hey, can we have some of your awesome food and perhaps listen to some exotic music together?" method of dealing with immigrants.

As always, the usual caveats about insular rural nativism in all cases applies.

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The Undeservedly Obscure Dead

Today on The Undeservedly Obscure Dead: The Archpoet. The Archpoet is the anonymous author of ten medieval Latin poems in the Goliardic tradition. The Archpoet worked for Rainald the Archbishop of Cologne. (Hence, the clever pseudonym). He was a cleric of some kind and composed boastful, irreverant verse in the 12th century. His lines are found in the Carmina Burana codex (the source of Carl Orff's opera). In an era we often associate with dour conformism, the Archpoet and a number of his fellow clerics were satirizing Church hypocrisy and proclaiming their love of the carnal pleasures of creation as well as the spiritual pleasures of contemplation. Whether this is because the Archpoet was very contrary and subversive or whether this is because out popular interpretations of medieval Europe are blinkered is left as an exercise for the reader.
A sample from the Goliardic confession of the Archpoet:

Meum est propositum in taberna mori,

Ut sint vina proxima morientis ori.

Tunc cantabunt letius angelorum chori:

"Deus sit propitius huic potatori."

I mean to die in a tavern

So that wine will be close by my dying mouth.

Then the choirs of angels will sing more happily,

"May God have mercy on this drunkard."

May he have mercy indeed, Archpoet, and for your lively and wine-soaked sentiments, we salute you.

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I have a theory

On this fine May Day (happy International Workers Day everyone! all power to the Supreme Soviet!) I'd like to share something with each and every one of you. It's something very close to my heart. It’s my Special Theory of We’re-Fucked Relativity. It can be expressed in the equation: F=ac², where F is the amount that we are fucked, a is the amount of messed-up shit done by assholes, and c is the rate of social change that we cannot control (globalization, what!). Basically while the amount of uncontrollable social change is the same for everyone in a given society, a subjective observer may appreciate different values of how much we are fucked based on the perceived amount of assholes (a subjective category) and the perceived amount of damage those assholes can do to shit.

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