REBECCA: This is so bad it’s almost good.
ENID: This is so bad it’s gone past good and back to bad again.
Morality is Insignificant
Fidelity to a personal code of morality would seem to fade in significance as the public sphere, like an enormous sun, blinds us to all else.
Ted Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne
The most fitting eulogy I’ve read for Senator Kennedy . . .
A Senator from Massachusetts has left office in the only manner possible for an incumbent Democrat, i.e., in a coffin. The New York Times leads off their story on Ted Kennedy’s death with “his sometimes-stormy personal life.” When I think of Ted Kennedy, though, my first thought is always sadness at the death of Mary Jo Kopechne, a promising young woman killed by Kennedy, who waited more than eight hours before seeking help for her rescue. One expects politicians to impoverish constituents with reckless spending; one does not expect them to kill constituents. . . .
[Some friends asked today how I would have summarized Ted Kennedy’s biography, if not the way the New York Times did. I observed that he had spent his entire life either as the child of a wealthy family or as a government employee. Never having held a job in the private sector and never having been exposed to the risk of losing a job or a paycheck (either as a child or an adult), he created many new laws and regulations on private businesses (most of the laws that apply to private employers do not apply to Senators themselves in their relations with staff). In his personal life, rather than donating to charity (source) or working directly with the unfortunate, he enjoyed drinking and partying. He drove a car off a bridge, trapping a young woman inside, managed to save his own skin, left her to die, and did not attempt to summon help that could have saved her.]
Update: I just noticed that Barack Obama gave a televised speech from Martha’s Vineyard in praise of Ted Kennedy. Though he was speaking just a few miles from where Mary Jo Kopechne died, President Obama did not mention her. Barack Obama did note that there was nobody in the Senate who had earned more “respect” and that he was one of “the most accomplished Americans ever to serve our democracy.” I guess if all of our government workers were similarly accomplished we would no longer have to worry about overpopulation.
What Makes Me Mad
You know what makes me mad? People asking me, “Are you mad about something?” If I’m mad about something, I’ll tell you I’m mad about something.
When someone asks me if I’m mad about something, it makes me think they know something I should be mad about.
From now on, when someone asks me if I’m mad about something, I’m going to say yes. And when they ask what I’m mad about I’m going to say, “You know what I’m mad about.”
Twitter: 2009-08-29
- Iced chai latte with an add shot! Bow to my genius! #
Twitter: 2009-08-28
- RT @capricecrane: New Game: Loudly and aggressively say, "That's what YOU think!" after *everything* anyone says. #
Twitter: 2009-08-27
- RT @PeteCarroll: congrats to matt barkley on being named our starting qb… let's rip it matt! http://bit.ly/o7hbG (@USCRipsIt) #
- RT @OCWeekly: We round up our top five favorite things to eat at Disneyland: What'd we miss? http://bit.ly/15dKgE #
Twitter: 2009-08-26
- @ChinaVagina draw a face on your hand and talk to it? #
- http://bit.ly/xE13e via @TheOnion – Socialites Without Borders Teach Rwandans How To Mingle #
Lightning’s Book Reviews: Don’t Know Much About History
Hi everybody! It’s me, Lightning!
My owner’s son has this book for his AP U.S. History class. You should read it! The title — Don’t Know Much About History — makes you think of the famous song by Sam Cooke, so right away you want to know more about it!
History is fascinating! For example, did you know that the Duke and Duchess of Windsor had ELEVEN pugs?! The Duke used to be the King of England but he had to “adbdicate” (that means quit) so he’d have enough time to walk all of his dogs.
I hope that fact is in the book!
— Lightning 
Thomas Jefferson on Edward M. Kennedy, 1932-2009
I’ve never understood what was so great about this guy. He was immature, a drunk and a womanizer. In 1979, he couldn’t answer a softball question about why he wanted to be president and didn’t even make it out of the primaries.
The best thing I can say about him is that he got things done. He had an undeniably impressive track record of passing legislation — most of it disastrous, of course — but he did get it passed.
And he killed that poor girl, Mary Jo Kopechne. Don’t forget that. Put her in a lake, then went back to his hotel room and fell asleep. Never even reported it. Far from ending his political career though, the whole Chappaquidick “incident” was written off as just Ted being Ted.
As a deceased person myself, I know that death is like following a light into the next world. If you’re lucky, that light won’t be the moon shining through the window of a submerged Olds 88 . . .
Twitter: 2009-08-25
- RT @OCWeekly: Thanks to all those who have participated in the OC Weekly Flickr pool! http://www.flickr.com/groups/ocweekly/ #
Twitter: 2009-08-24
- "Alec Baldwin won't run for Senate" #bottomstoriesoftheday #
Appeasement
There’s a point at which realism shades over into weakness . . . It’s hard to avoid the sense that Mr. Obama has wasted months trying to appease people who can’t be appeased, and who take every concession as a sign that he can be rolled.
As we all know, you can’t appease terrorists. Oh wait, sorry–appeasing terrorists is worth a try. It’s Republicans you can’t appease.
Personal Space
The guy at the Green Burrito drive-thru leans all the way out the window and almost into my car to ask, in an Eastern European accent, “Can I get you any taco sauce or something?”
Uh, no thanks, Miroslav. I know different cultures have different ideas about personal space but here in America we like you to stay inside the window and just talk to us from there . . .
Dwight Howard’s Reality
[Dwight] Howard has also expressed the desire to have his own reality show.
Here’s a suggestion: The show should focus on Howard’s learning how to make savvy passes when he’s doubled, how to shoot a short-range jumper and how to make free throws.
That’s the kind of reality that the young man should be interested in.
HW ‘s Book Reviews: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Gayest. Crime Story. Ever.
The Moreno Valley: Junkyard of OC Dreams
The Moreno Valley is now the poster child for American housing gone wrong, and the New York Times weighed in with one of their stock magisterial pieces, the kinds that read purty but don’t say jack shit about reality. The Orange County connection is that two of the homeowners profiled in the piece moved to the MV because they couldn’t afford apartments in OC, which should clue the rest of the nation into how stupid they were to buy into Moreno Valley. Reporter Jennifer Steinhauer doesn’t note that even people in Colton ridicule Moreno Valley residents for living there. It’s not an area “filled with people priced out of Los Angeles and Orange Counties, or looking to escape louder, less-safe cities,” as the Times notes; it’s a place for fools who weren’t smart enough to buy a house in Calimesa. Shit, even Beaumont is better than Moreno Valley, and Beamount is sketchy.
[The New York Times piece is here.]
Twitter: 2009-08-23
- @ReporterHaley Love the food at Lucille's. And they make a very good mint julep… in reply to ReporterHaley #
- RT @capricecrane: I was trying to make exercising fun but apparently after a certain age its no longer "appropriate" to play Ding Dong Ditch #
The Death of Ivan Ilych
It occurred to him that what had seemed perfectly impossible before, namely that he had not spent his life as he should have done, might after all be true. It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. And his professional duties and the whole arrangement of his life and of his family, and all his social and official interests, might all have been false. He tried to defend all those things to himself and suddenly felt the weakness of what he was defending. There was nothing to defend.
“But if that is so,” he said to himself, “and I am leaving this life with the consciousness that I have lost all that was given me and it is impossible to rectify it — what then?”
Magic Johnson at USC Scrimmage
