Happy Thanksgiving!

The Aardvark is thankful for a number of things which he shall enumerate in part:

• Thankful that the Dread Dormomoo does not say "mani-pedi".
• Thankful that his family remains remarkably intact for the era.
• Thankful that he is not allergic to turkey.
• Thankful that people like our work.
• Thankful to live in a loving community of faith.
• Thankful for Breathe-Right strips.
• Thankful for all his many reader.
• Thankful for the Nation, tho' the Ship of State appears to founder.
• Thankful for a place for /b/tards to go.
• Thankful for Vox and the Ilk.
• Thankful to not have giblet gravy.
• Thankful having infinitives to split.
  
• Thankful for the IntarWebs.
• Thankful that few have used the term "Turkey Day" in his presence.
• Thankful for you

Have a blessed Thanksgiving

Boortz is fulminating about this:

The Associated Press

Published: November 25, 2008

Florida Gulf Coast University Bans Yule Decorations

FORT MYERS - Employees at Florida Gulf Coast University are protesting a campus ban on Christmas decorations in common spaces.

The Staff Advisory Council voted on Monday to send university leaders a letter explaining employees' concerns. The university administration has said employees can decorate their desks but not common areas. It also canceled a greeting card design contest and renamed a giving tree for needy preschoolers a "giving garden."

In a memo to faculty and staff last week, President Wilson Bradshaw said public institutions "often struggle with how best to observe the season in ways that honor and respect all traditions.

Precisely the enlightened response to the holidays I would expect from a President of Higher Learning. NOTE: They are not banning ALL displays, "just" the public ones. The irony of the warfare being waged over the birth of the Prince of Peace is not lost on your Aardvark.

The Dread Dormomoo naturally comes at this from an off-beat tangent. She is curious as to the national celebrations of other countries, religious and secular. The question she raises disturbs me. When a nation tries to quash public displays of a religious festival, but celebrates holidays of death ( annual remembrances of the OK City bombings, the World Trade Center attack, the Pentagon attack....) what does it say about that country.

What does it say about us?

Denny Crane!

Your Aardvark feels the gnawing of the economic wolves at his hindquarters. This is not to say that they are about to repossess the baby's shoes, neither is foreclosure in the forecast. For some months I have apparently been whistling in the dark as to the state of our economy. Our anime convention sales are in the tank. we have two cons this weekend, one in Orlando, and one in Massachusetts. They have reeked. The Orlando show is the melding of two FL cons, one of which is a comic convention. I really should have nixed it because historically comic shows are the kiss of Death for us. The MA show has done little better (up to the reports I had last night.

John McCain said that the fundamentals of our economy are sound. As far as the words he used, the statement is correct. The UNSOUNDNESS lies in the pee-pul, exacerbated by the opinionated newsreaders they listen to, and the representatives they vote in.. Seizing upon the smallest downturn, the newsies flog it into a prophecy ot impending Depressions and global-warming induced Dust Bowls.

Where is Henry Fonda when we need him?

The ardent listeners hear the prophetic utterance, and fearfully strive to fulfil it. "Can't spend...I might lose my JOB." Fear begets its object. If we don't spend, then others will lose their jobs. Then, they can't buy from you, which means you may get downsized.

This is what would happen if everybody did.

Dave Ramseyites, I am not talking about credit-carding the nation into prosperity. Congress, and Helicopter Ben Bernanke have proven the lie in that remedy, though they do not seem to recognise it. "Let's print and spend more...HARDER!" I am saying that where one is able, one should behave rationally. Buy three presents instead of five. Eat at home rather than out, as much. But eat, and gift, and take some joy from your toil. Our household is budgeting Christmas strictly, but we are not Scrooge-ing.

Proverbs 10:24, "The fear of the wicked, it shall come upon him: but the desire of the righteous shall be granted."

Proverbs 29:25, "The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe."

Job 3:25, "For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me."

Fear is running our economy, and it is touching many people. Economies are essentially barter with an added step. If I buy something from you, then you can buy from me. If either of us fails, it upsets the ecomomy. Low sales = ultimate layoffs. The economy is not that bad, yet. If we behave like it is bad, then it surely will be.

Don't over-extend yourself. Don't over-spend, but do NOT succumb to fear. Keep saving, buy silver and gold when you can. Be thankful, do not fear.

On Life Day and Other Sorrows.

I was speaking with the Dread Dormomoo of the ungrateful reaction Some have had to my heartfelt (or maybe it is just reflux) Holiday offering. She has not seen the Star Wars Holiday Special, and I have not shown it to her, as I live under the same roof with herself (though I AM certain that our marriage could take it, with a year-or-two of counseling. After all, I took her to see Laserblast a few months after we were married...)

The DD, upon hearing the list of actors who appeared in the Holiday Special commented
upon them as "lemmings jumping the shark".

She REALLY should blog, you know.

On the original point, it is fascinating to me that I have never heard a solitary soul admit to LIKING the SWHS. It could be a real tool for peace. Sec'y of State Rodham declares to the whole Mid-east" You people get along together, or we will SO make you watch the Star Wars Holiday Special .".

I'm quite surprised that Reagan didn't use the tactic, though that could be why the Iranian hostage situation ended when he was sworn into office. I suspect that they play it at GITMO. Makes the detainees beg for waterboarding.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

I just got in the spirit of the thing.

Here's why....

Also THIS.

(Please don't hurt me.)

I am watching A&E's "Andromeda Strain". What a sorry remembrance of the work of Michael Crichton.

AMC is doing a remake / reboot of Patrick McGoohan's seminal work "The Prisoner",
with Jim Caviezel as No.6, and Sir Ian McKellen as No.2. Not real happy at the prospect.

I wish to share a joy with all my Reader.

I present: the incomparable Robert Benchley:

THIS CHILD KNOWS THE ANSWER—DO YOU?

We are occasionally confronted in the advertisements by the picture of an offensively bright-looking little boy, fairly popping with information, who, it is claimed in the text, knows all the inside dope on why fog forms in beads on a woolen coat, how long it would take to crawl to the moon on your hands and knees, and what makes oysters so quiet.

The taunting catch-line of the advertisement is: "This Child Knows the Answer—Do You?" and the idea is to shame you into buying a set of books containing answers to all the questions in the world except the question "Where is the money coming from to buy the books?"

Any little boy knowing all these facts would unquestionably be an asset in a business which specialized in fog-beads or lunar transportation novelties, but he would be awful to have about the house.

"Spencer," you might say to him, "where are Daddy's slippers?" To which he would undoubtedly ]answer: "I don't know, Dad," (disagreeable little boys like that always call their fathers "Dad" and stand with their feet wide apart and their hands in their pockets like girls playing boys' rôles on the stage) "but I do know this, that all the Nordic peoples are predisposed to astigmatism because of the glare of the sun on the snow, and that, furthermore, if you were to place a common ordinary marble in a glass of luke-warm cider there would be a precipitation which, on pouring off the cider, would be found to be what we know as parsley, just plain parsley which Cook uses every night in preparing our dinner."

With little ones like this around the house, a new version of "The Children's Hour" will have to be arranged, and it might as well be done now and got over with.

The Well-Informed Children's Hour

Between the dark and the day-light,

When the night is beginning lo lower,

Comes a pause in the day's occupation

Which is known as the children's hour.

'Tis then appears tiny Irving

With the patter of little feet,

To tell us that worms become dizzy

At a slight application of heat.

And Norma, the baby savant,

Comes toddling up with the news

That a valvular catch in the larynx

Is the reason why Kitty mews.

"Oh Grandpa," cries lovable Lester,

"Jack Frost has surprised us again,

By condensing in crystal formation

The vapor which clings to the pane!"

Then Roger and Lispinard Junior

Race pantingly down through the hall

To be first with the hot information

That bees shed their coats in the Fall.

No longer they clamor for stories

As they cluster in fun 'round my knee

But each little darling is bursting

With a story that he must tell me,

Giving reasons why daisies are sexless

And what makes the turtle so dour;

So it goes through the horrible gloaming

Of the Well-informed Children's Hour.

--Love Conquers All, by Robert C. Benchley

------------------------------------------------

The REAL "Children's Hour" poem is by Longfellow:

There is also a Librivox audio release of "Love Conquers All". Enjoy!

io9 has a picture of the new old Enterprise from J.J. Abrams' prequel due out next May.

Meh. The nacelles look like Dollar Store ray guns. The Engineering hull shows where the Enterprise-D designers went wrong.

Otherwise it's pretty cool, I guess. I'll see the movie. It's Trek. I've gotta see Kirk cry.

GROUNDED

This is the SUPERCAR episode which also marked the debut of the characters of Harper and Judd: a pair of villains who were, sadly enough, used too little. When one considers the knockabout clown antics of Masterspy and Zarin, Harper and Judd must have sometimes seemed like a breath of fresh air. Especially with Harper, who was perhaps consciously designed to possess a cool, reptilian demeanor

.
It's good to see the years have been kind to Harper, though the type-casting is regrettable.

OK, I have summat to say. I had better not hear a single numbskull utter the syllables of "America is a RA-cist nation" ever again. It will NOT be pretty.

What's funny is that most of the race-whiners are white, and belong to the party that supported slavery.

On the other hand, Abraham Lincoln was a Republican.

Remember the Dixiecrats? The "crat" is an important syllable.

Just sayin'.

Well, all I can say is, maybe "Rev." Wright was right.

Happy New Regime.

Fear and Loathing in North Alabamastan.


I am in the midst of a Long, Dark Night of the Soul. I have written precious little about the political end of things, but I have serious fears for our Republic. Now, I recognise that it sounds like I'm late to the party, there, but I have tried to maintain some optimism about the country. It is increasingly hard so to do. I was in school when the Pledge of Allegiance was important, when the thought of defiling a flag was abhorrent to any but the most politically perverted. (Now Billy Mays mends a ripped flag with his Wonder Fabric Glue, and hawks his product with the fixed flag fluttering in a wind tunnel affair. Remember when you were to burn a flag if it touched the ground or became damaged or worn out?) I was on the tail end of the "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"-style patriotism, before the cynical '60s took their toll. I was a Goldwater fan during the LBJ candidacy, in the fourth grade. I remember huddling in the school halls during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The 4-H TV Action Club was on ETV, and we learned about fallout. Yaaaay! Mr. Atom is our Friend!

Despite the misbehavior of politicos from time-to-time, there still seemed to be a modicum of honor, a gravity to the realm of Public Office. Now it appears it's all a game. Maybe it always was, but the stagecraft was certainly handled better. I voted today. I don't know if it means anything, but I did. The Republic is safe once again.

I am REALLY fascinated at the pundits and talk mavens, even the hard-core ones like Cunningham and Savage, who cannot seem to cross the divide and recognise the Power of Positive No. I mean, if the Obamanoids, Pelosites, and Reidians have their way, talk radio as currently formatted is toast. Dry toast. Therefore, it's not like they will have anything to lose by telling the populace: When they come for your guns, when they come for yet more your money, when they come for your livelihood, when they come for your children to indoctrinate them against what you taught them, when they come for your preacher because he dared speak truth, or your elders for refusing to bow the knee to Caesar, When they come, SAY NO ! No more. No representation, no more goodies.

Why is this such a hard thought to wrap your brains around? Wait...I hear "Romans 13" twittering in the breeze. I don't have a king here in the YouEssofAy. At least in theory, the PEE-pul are the government, so exegete that for me.
------------------------------------------------------------

As the day progresses, I find myself falling into a deeper funk. It is as though all hope is lost...no matter WHO wins. These things are important, and so few can see beyond class warfare. YEAH! Stick it to the Corporate Fat Cats!! Raise those corporate taxes!
(Then wait until prices on Doritos, Barbies and WWE DVDs go up at Wal-Mart.) Corporations don't pay the taxes (beyond writing a check). The consumer does, through higher prices. The corporation, not being a Charity, passes the tax increase on in to YOU. Why can't people turn off American Idol and Alabama football and bloody THINK??!?

Oh, and I started the second round of shots on Tuesday last. Hmmmm....

Do I hear the haunting strains of "If My People"? 2 Chronicles 7:14 is lovely, and utterly Old Covenant. If you drag that out, you may as well rebuild the temple and start hunting for a Red Heifer.

Sorry guys. If this is the real me, then maybe I'm not as loveable as I might wish.

To quote Marvin the Paranoid Android:"I'm so-o-o-o depressed."
Good thing I'm not emo, or I would need a transfusion by now.

My already tenuous grasp on reality is slipping. Things that are just-this-side of Eternal Verities are being shaken. I mean, come on ... The SciFi channel, which I got cable years back precisely in order to see, is now full of non-science fiction, like ghost-hunting shows, with nary a meddling kid in sight. It is painful to see grownups scaring themselves like twelve-year-olds on a campout. There is so much paranormal stuff on, that SciFi is making noises about changing its name to "Beyond". Oooooooooh. Beyond. And speaking of meddling kids, Cartoon Network, who brought us Dexter's Laboratory, Cow and Chicken, and PowerPuff Girls is now filling its schedule with decidedly non-cartoon movies. As questionable as it may be to some minds, CN brought anime to the fore here in the US, and some really excellent stuff, too, like Cowboy Bebop, and the two Ghost in the Shell series. Of course they also gave us Milk Chan, the less said about, the better.
Cartoon Network showing not-cartoons. Next they'll be showing WWE Wrestling on Lifetime.
----------------------------------------------------
If racism is defined thusly: "1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race" (Merriam-Webster)+, and many blacks - and their pet white academics "... argue that they can't possibly be racist by definition", what precisely are they saying about themselves?

I'm bettin' someone hasn't quite thought it all through. Maybe someone needs new PR people.
--------------------------------------------------

On an amusingly congruent note, we shopped at a German grocery store last weekend.
ALDI is an interesting store concept, one basic store brand of anything (but actually produced by the name-brand factories, so you get the quality, not the higher price.)
They also carry a few specialty items, special purchases, and fresh produce. We got a cart of groceries for $45.00. Milk is more than a dollar cheaper than anywhere else.
You put a quarter in a slot to unlock your cart, and you begin your shopping. You do NOT have forty-seven different brands of ketchup, just one good brand, reasonably priced. Ditto cereals, cookies canned veg, pet foods...you name it. There are special buys, too: This month, there is a $700 PC, a wooden breakfast nook kit, a $200 gasoline-powered generator. You can purchase your family's groceries for considerably less than even Wal-Mart. You bag your own groceries (bring your own bags, or pay a minimal price for ALDI bags (they refuse to hide the cost of bags in the grocery price). Take your groceries to the car, return the cart its parking area, insert the chain lock- rather like the tongue on a seatbelt- into the slot, and your quarter pops out. Check the locator on the ALDI website, and go to a local one. The food is good quality, and good-tasting.

He makes me afraid. VERY afraid.

Wasn't he in the original "V"?

First, the obligatory disclaimer: I am not a racist. I try my very best to appraise a person by their character rather than lack of, or abundance of, melanin. From a yout' I was aware of racial differences, and sussed out that the "n" word was A Bad Thing. I find the concepts of racism and bigotry to be abhorrent in the extreme. That the Son of God died for all races is a powerful argument against letting red yellow black or white be anything but window-dressing. I am making cultural observations, here.

Watching the Presidential campaign, I cannot see how many people won't wind up as racists. The in-your-face race-card playing of the Obamanites and Acornoids is breath-taking, and the tacit attitude of "if you disagree with Barack Hussein Obama, then it is because you hate black people" is hard to take. The Book of Proverbs teaches that if you want friends, you should be friendly. Honey vs. vinegar. The melanin-rich are not the sole holders of the attitude. James Carville makes noise about the possibility of...unrest:

But you stop and contemplate this country if Obama goes in and he has a consistent five point lead and loses the election, it would be very, very, very dramatic out there.

My personal worry is this: the danger here is the issue of self-fulfilling prophecy. If you behave as though everyone is a racist, then people might get sick of being judged for what they are not, and say Perdition take it! The rule of (an unredeemed) thumb is "bite if you're bitten". If even tolerant folks get bitten enough, they will nip back.

Just call me James Carville. Or call me a cab.

Hello, Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the ships at sea…

I am reporting from Parts Unknown. Part of our public presentation involves each member of our sales team wearing a different color of camo. The Dread Dormomoo wears lime green; I wear purple. “Where would you hide wearing that?” the mundanes query. I fix them with my most reasonable face and tell them “Why, the Welch’s grape vineyards, of course.”.

I was waiting for the chef to prepare my pancakes at the Marriott buffet -no silver dollars, here; these were old-school hotel plate-sized pancakes- when this grandmotherly sort asked the camo question. I explained, and as I enlightened her, a little birdlike lady, probably sixty-or-so (I would say "ma'am" to her), flanked me and said “Well I think they look sexy….”

What can I say, beyond “Why don’t the twenty-somethings say that?”.

--------------------------------------------------

Just saw a shirt with a picture of Roosevelt which proclaims “FDR is dead.”.

Good.

---------------------------------------------------

I am at Classic Movie Monstercon in Kingsport, TN. I had to forego another area con to help out with this one. Sara Karloff is a featured guest, being Boris’ daughter. Inherited celebrity has always been odd to me, I suppose in the same way that leftists grump about trust-fund kids. Reminds me of Penn Jillette’s appropriate grumpery over magician who spent weeks inside a room built of ice. “He’s famous for being NEXT to ice.”.

Sara is a sweet lady, and her celebrating her father’s talent is a good thing. Keeping the torches lit, I reckon. And the pitchforks sharpened.

Donnie Dunagan, the Son of Frankenstein, is here. He was also the facial model for “Bambi” in the original Disney film. Felix Silla, the guy inside the Twiki suit in the Buck Rogers. If a small person was needed in a role, Mr. Silla fills the bill, as well as the latex suit. He was the hang-gliding Ewok in Return of the Jedi. He was even in the original Star Trek pilot “Menagerie”. He is a nice guy, who has earned his cadre of fans.

The con organizer, Bill Millhorn, had only spoken to me by phone, and was surprised to meet me. He thought I was 25. Ah, the reedy tenor strikes again. He is a hefty man who moves like a force of nature through the room.. He and his friends have pulled together a neat concept convention for fans of the classic midnight horror-show monsters. Tim Herron, a horror host and actor for thirty years, is portraying Frankenstein’s creature for a panel. He does a spot-on Karloff.

I am drafting on other people's nostalgia, here. My neck of the woods did not have the Saturday midnight horror shows (and I likely would not have been allowed to see 'em if they existed). The classic Universal monster movies, as well as the plethora of B-pictures on telly were great fun. (My earliest TV memories were "It Came From Beneath the Sea", as well as "The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T"...and, of course "Supercar"!). I never had the Ashley Ghastly or Zacherly experience, sad to say. No celebrations of hair-raising chiller thrillers.

Something that amazes me is the plethora of mediocre artists who attain a level of notoriety and fandom at media conventions. I mean really mediocre. I guess if you can draw nipples, then you can get fans

Sigh.

One of the preacherly sins I see is taking a small and mildly obscure passage and bloviating it into a forty-five minute endurance run.

Luke 12:16-21, "And he spoke a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, You fool, this night your soul shall be required of you: then whose shall those things be, which you have provided? So is he that lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."

The above story (when Jesus said "a certain...", He was referring to a person known to the hearer. This is not a parable.) is short and to the point. Jesus did not wave his arms and sonorously intone "O, what a doofus!". He said what He had to say and got on with it. I heard a Radio Preacher wallow in these verses for half-an-hour this morning I really think that most preachers miss the main point.

I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater...

Why did he not just build an annex? Why not another storage bin? NO, his plan was to pull down his existing storage and build bigger. What was to become of his currently stored stuff?

I believe that this story teaches a visceral truth.

Stupidity is a major sin, and its cost is dire.

Here endeth the lesson.



(Money Bin image copyright Disney)

Brother, can you spare a billion?


The Senate has passed the reprehensible Wall Street Panhandlers bill, despite the people's ninety-plus percent calls, emails and letters saying "NO!".

McCain spoke of the NEED for such an unpopular move.

Such bravery.

The people must be brave as well, just as the Founders were brave in crying "No taxation without representation!". The Senate has proven that they no longer represent the people.

It is time to be brave.

I stand in awe of the utter chutzpah of Congress AND the Wall Street gang in perpetrating the armed robbery of the American citizenry. I stand taking great offense at Obama referring to the backbone of our republic as merely "the taxpayers". That is all we are to him and his ilk: varied sizes of wallets to plunder so that they may do Great Things in the Name of the Pee-pul. (I am offended at Bush and HIS ilk for treating us equivalently.)

I stand in shock that the pee-pul of our land have not stood and said NO MORE! The government assumes that we will accept things as usual, and keep mortgaging our kids and their kids out of fear of reprisal. It has been said elsewhen, but they can't arrest everyone.

I think I'll sit, now.