What's for dinner?

We celebrated Valentine's day (which is also Coney Dog's service anniversary and the anniversary of moving into our current headquarters) by dining at a quaint little neighborhood spot -- oh, all right, our house -- with oyster stew and thyme croutons (using the White Dog Cafe's recipe); fettuccine with crimini, zucchini, and peperoni; and roast chicken with onions and rosemary. Why do you care? You probably don't.

Another one from the archves

This was written, at least according to the date, on 01/01/2000, apparently to mark the turning over of the century or something. Not sure, actually, what I was talking about, but here it is, claiming to be a piece resurrected from a hundred years back.

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Woode-Charles Intelligencer and The Scio Township Farmer's Voice

All the herein under found material is the sole property and the copyright of which is held by, in the year of our Lord, 1900, by the Woode-Charles Family, its heirs and assigns.

FOUNDATIONS OF THE REPUBLIC THREATENED

GREAT FEARS FOR THE FUTURE

Ann Arbor: Although it is not our custom to rant or to take up lightly a potentially controversial position, this paper can no longer remain silent in the matter of this most dangerous and insidious tendency of our elected officials, loosely termed by them and even by those opposed to them as "progressivism." For so-called progressivism, make no mistake, threatens the very foundations of our republic and the cornerstones of our individual liberties. And lest anyone should consider the danger to be slight or the threat to be far removed, they have only to remind themselves that our state government is even now in the hands of a man very closely associated with progressivism, none less than the ex-Mayor of the City of Detroit, Hazen Pingree.

What are Governor Pingree's associations and his intents? Recall, first of all, that he is usually mentioned in the same breath with such wild- eyed radicals as Mayors Johnson and Baker of Cleveland, those very anarchists who championed the municipal ownership of utilities, taking the bread from the mouths of those who invested their hard-earned capital in the development of righteous monopolies. And is he, Pingree, not also stamped from the same mold as that raving madman, Robert La Follette, now striving to sway the good people of Wisconsin from their steady, American values and convince them to elect him, too, to the position of Governor? What can we expect from these savage, bomb- flinging fiends, if we allow them to continue their assault upon our virtues? Allow us to suggest a few likely if not inevitable consequences of the unchecked growth of the progressive view of society.

GENERAL ASSOCIATIONS OF PROFESSIONS

Is it not bad enough that mere laboring men now band together to stymie the legitimate aims of capital? What if, as they now threaten to do, the educated classes, such as doctors, continue their steps toward consolidation? We understand that in a very few years, a nationwide association of physicians may come into being, stifling by its very orthodoxy the creativity and enterprise of the individual experimenter and the noble institution of midwifery. And let us not even imagine the results of a similar combination of members of the legal profession -- the thought is too horrible to entertain.

DEPENDENCE ON AN UNHOLY PRIESTHOOD

It is commonly known that progressives hold as their highest aim the development of a society run by engineers and with efficiency its summum bonum. The tract published last year by Mr. Thorstein Veblen makes this extremely clear. What it does not state is the condition of slavery to which the majority of Americans would be reduced by such a lunatic philosophy. Imagine a society in which engineers were the leaders! Imagine the horror of even polite conversation, sprinkled with the language of the engine room, the drafting table, and the logarithm! Imagine the fate of a people, so besotted with technology that they allow themselves to be swept up in its cold, unfeeling embrace, abandoning the delights of the table, the hearth, and even the boudoir!

CRIPPLING CONGESTION OF OUR CITIES

The progressives, as is well known, advocate nothing less than increased freedom and participation in society for women. However, if women are allowed these liberties, will not their unquestioned frailness require new devices and conveyances? What woman, burdened with children and livestock, can handle a full-sized carriage or buckboard wagon? Will it not be necessary for a family to have two vehicles, one for him and one for her? Will our streets not become choked to impassability with these new, miniature carriages, driven poorly and often in the improper direction?

EMASCULATION OF MAN'S BEST FRIEND

Dogs and their bustling, robust American nobleness are another target of the vile progressives. It has been clearly determined from private documents that Pingree and his ring of accomplices have a plan to introduce small, foreign, even German dogs into Michigan, eventually supplanting our virile, healthy hounds with yapping, mindless little informers and socialists, carrying tales back to their masters in Lansing while you and I sleep the uneasy, dream-ridden sleep of the just but persecuted ...

(Note: the Editor, Mr. Woode, did not finish that last sentence in time for the paper to be set up in type, owing to a sudden fit. The management apologizes for the truncated nature of this week's editorial and hopes to resume a full and open discourse on the health of the state in the weeks to come. -- R. Ludwig Charles, Publisher.)

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The Woode-Charles Intelligencer and The Scio Township Farmer's Voice is supplied with funds to continue its crusade for the rights of the businessman, the farmer, and the landed gentry by the kind offices of The Odd Town Tavern, where the sons of liberty and justice repair once a week to refresh themselves, seek enlightenment, and draw up lists of names for the coming week's tar-and-featherings.

To the barricades, Comrades!

I have a long-standing personal rule against getting worked up over local political events and processes. Think globally, act ... well, not so much, has always been my motto. But this is one that will get me up and out of my bark-a-lounger (a comfy chair shared with a dog.) As if things weren't bad enough around here, the absolute last thing we need is a bunch of rickshaws competing with the buses, bicycles, demented pedestrians, squirrels, robot-armed garbage trucks, orange cones, potholes ... um, and what else? Damn, there's something else that's supposed to be able to use the streets ... hell, my memory ... Oh, yeah! Motor vehicles!

Unbelievable.

And before someone points out that Grand Rapids and Lansing have already tried this, let me just say, "I rest my case."

An old parody

There's been a certain amount of Lincoln talk in the media, it being well-nigh his birthday and all. Reminded me of the following, from the old Wood-Charles News Service, back around 1995 or so.

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APOLOGIES TO CHARLIE RYAN AND "HOT ROD LINCOLN"

Well, you heard the story of the '94 race,
GOP got right in the Democrats' face.
While the lib'ral commies was a-sittin' round thinkin',
They got outflanked by the Party o' Lincoln.

They got Lincoln voters, but they really screwed up
Should've bought Newt a Labrador pup.
'Stead of doin' all that civil rights trashin'
And lettin' the Kansans go on Darwin bashin'.

They lost their grip late one night,
Challenged Reno to a hell of a fight,
She said I'll give those boys a tweakin'
If the Council's office don't quit leakin'.

An' all of a sudden in the blink of an eye,
There was all these subpoenas a-flyin' by.
No more voters near or far,
They was all stuck in the mud with Kenneth Starr.

Well, they busted 'em all and threw 'em in jail.
Called the Reverend Moon to go their bail.
Uncle Sam said, "Gonna drive me to drinkin'
If you don't quit votin' for the Party o' Lincoln!"

Screwups, world wide

As President Obama publically admits that he "screwed up," WRT Tom Daschle, another world leader's staff are saying more or less the same thing, except they're using less secular terminology. "Surely, mistakes have been made in the management of the Curia, too, I want to say this explicitly," Cardinal Walter Kasper of the Vatican has been quoted as saying.

How do you get to be Pope, especially a German Pope, and not understand the international flap a holocaust denying bishop would provoke? It all makes me think of a line from some war film, don't remember which one, where a commander is trying to command something, and his troops or pilots or whatever keep undisciplinedly chattering on the radio. "God dammit, I want me some radio discipline!" he yells.

If you can stand it, here's the interview with Bishop Williamson. Besides all else, he appears to be doing a "Depends on what you mean by" thing on the word "anti-semitism."

A contrarian view

Or, ok, just plain contrary. John Updike died this week, and we're going to see page after page of encomia. Fine, the man's dead -- if you liked his work, ok, but in the immortal tradition of this medium, I just can't hold off on being the voice of opposition.

For what it's worth, I am not a member of the Updike fan club, and I'm baffled by the repeated assertions that he was some sort of great American novelist. His prose was like fingernails on a blackboard, his sole resort seemed to be alliteration, and his characters were the most unlovable, unremarkable crew of non-entities in recent literature. The idea that there is something tragic (let alone noble) in the lives of suburban malcontents did not resonate with me. Still doesn't. Sorry.

My mother once said that you shouldn't read Dickens until you're forty. She was right about that, and I would add the advice that you should probably hold off on Updike for a few more years past that age -- like another hundred or so.

Go ahead, ask me about Tom Wolfe.

Lucca bans non-traditional restaurants

Not quite sure where I stand on this issue; having been to and loved Lucca, I'm torn between agreeing with the Govt and with the outraged foodies.

Yeesh, re-badged Mini-vans

I don't typically find much of merit in the New York Times' automotive writing, given that they don't employ the varsity squad in this category, nor do they really seem to care all that much about cars -- not surprising in a newspaper centered in a city where driving a car, much less owning one, is essentially an act of insanity. But they did manage to get off a few good ones at the expense of Volkswagen, a company that richly deserves to have a few good ones gotten off at its expense. Lines like "... handling is looser than WaMu’s lending standards." for example. Have a look if you enjoy snarky car reviews.

An archival post

Here's a piece resurrected from the Wood-Charles archives, undated but probably from 1995, given the reference to Gingrich and Boy's Town. Just seemed like a reasonable thing to re purpose, in light of this week's inauguration.

GOVERNMENT BY FILM REFERENCE

Ann Arbor: Time was, Presidents and other popular entertainers would attempt to capture the public imagination with clever analogies and pithy epigrams. Franklin Roosevelt told the nation, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself and whether I'll live long enough to keep Churchill from getting us into a war in Indochina in twenty years or so." Richard Nixon said, "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more," and of course, he was eventually right.

But now, it seems as though the thrust and parry of highly-paid speech writers is giving way to a new political pontifical paradigm: the film reference. During his infamous orphanage phase, Squeaker of the House Newt Gingrich suggested that Americans might remember the classic film, "Boy's Town," to understand what he was talking about. Later, he told his college class that the baseball strike could be settled quickly if the players and owners would just pray together and see "Field of Dreams." Whether Gingrich really defines reality in terms of a series of bad movies (after all, Nixon ("Patton") and Reagan ("Bedtime for Bonzo") did), at week's end it seemed likely that we'd see other political figures reaching for filmic metaphors. Within days, this was demonstrated.

For example, a spokesman for Senator Robert Dole, explaining the Senator's views on health care reform, told reporters to go see "A Fistful of Dollars." Dick Armey, explaining subtle changes in the contract with America, urged voters to attend a special screening of "Plan 9 from Outer Space." And it was rumored that Phil Gramm, Gingrich, Norman Schwartzkopf, Arnold Schwartzenegger, Charleton Heston, and the popular musical performers, the Harmonicats -- all likely Republican presidential candidates in 1996 -- were seen at various Washington theatres showing "Dumb and Dumber" and "The Jerky Boys."

Morris Dancing with the Stars

I meant to post a brief piece on Morris Dancing, which was recently admitted to the International Folk Snarking Society's pointless activities hall of fame, but in the course of doing some research, I came across this image which just about sums it up. Nothing I could say would do more than cloud the issue.