The Corner Cases

As clear cut evidence of having too much time on my hands, I've been looking into the fringe candidates for President -- the hopeful, hopeless little twerps who sign up to run for the leadership of this country, without a penny of superPAC money or, in most cases, a clue about the issues on which they nevertheless fearlessly take stands. What's sad is that most of them won't even be awarded the "footnote to history" acolade -- they won't get that far, even. Here's a sampling.

Name	Kathyern Lane (yes, that's really how she spells it)
Party	GOP (she says she flipped a coin)
Qualifications	Claims to have taught herself Japanese
Positions	Repeal Obama Care; drill for oil anywhere we damn please; build lots of nukes; reduce taxes; improve and expand the H1-B program (which, somehow, in her view, will increase jobs for Americans.)
McLuggage Index	Certifiably Insane

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Name	Roger Gary
Party	Libertarian
Qualifications	None
Positions	Few concrete stands that can be identified, except "keep government out of my hair." Wants TSA to stop molesting people (his phrase) at the airport.
McLuggage Index	A waste of oxygen

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Name	Jimmy McMillan
Party	The Rent is Too Damn High Party
Qualifications	Has appeared as a panelist on "American's Dumbest Criminals." Funnier than Al Sharpton.
Positions	Obama is “a good-looking young guy, and I’m a handsome old dude. So there’s gonna be some competition there.”
McLuggage Index	Highly amusing to watch; has no policies worth mentioning. Web site appears to be down.

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Name	Danny Woodring
Party	Independent
Qualifications	Well, at least he doesn't like the Tea Baggers
Positions	The usual crap; cut taxes (but still fix the roads and improve education,) oust the immigrants, "restructure" the H1-B visa program, and do something, not entirely clear what, to defense spending.
McLuggage Index	An excellent example of why you can't and shouldn't elect political outsiders; everything looks so simple when you're on the outside looking in.

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Name	Vern Wuensche
Party	GOP
Qualifications	He's run a construction business
Positions	Typical small-time, small-mind conservative stuff. His profile on the GOP site, which I assume he or his campaign supplied, contains this unusual statement: "Vern’s inner toughness is a consequence of his modest beginnings plus the difficulties he regularly faced in surviving his business which he was never able to take to the next level. Every five years or so one dishonest individual would wipe out his accumulated capital without any chance of recovery since the legal costs would always exceed the recovery amount." No idea what that's all about.
McLuggage Index	Appears to be a moron.

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The news from Florida

The giant Lego man is now in the sole custody of the Chairperson of the Sarasota Chalk Festival.

Oh, and some Republican won something. Or else one of them lost ...? The one who wants to be president of the moon, I think.

Leave the damn wolves alone

I thought I was just being paranoid, but I'm not alone. If you haven't seen "The Gray," please don't.

Time to play: Who's talking about whom?

"His record is one of failed leadership. We don't need someone who can speak well perhaps or can say things we agree with, but does not have the experience of being an effective leader," he said.

That quote could be either Mitt Romney talking about Newt Gingrich or Newt Gingrich talking about Mitt Romney. Which do you think? I had to read the article twice to be sure.

Turns out, it was Romney, talking about Newt.

Playing around with polenta

I said I was going to try to get somewhere with polenta this winter, and here's mark III -- cheese polenta, sliced and stuffed with a cold chicken, steak, and Lancashire mince and fried. Oh, and a duck breast with some orange sauce.

I blame Margaret Thatcher ... somehow ...

Do not, ever, under any circumstances, show up in my office for an interview, dressed like this. Just don't.

And for God's sake, see somebody about that edema around your knees! It can't be healthy!

Another one gone - down to three lunatics and a jackass

Rick Perry is out. That leaves Newt, Paul, and Santorum, plus the other guy, oh, what's his name? Romnix? Something like that. The score so far.

"Stay off, Cazzo!"

Recently read

All over the map, as per usual. Just a few highpoints:

• Italy Dish to Dish Monica Sartoni Cesari and Susan Simon; A handy pocket-sized reference to Italian menu terms, by region, with a scattering of recipes as well. A present from friends, and lots of fun to work through: "Huh. So that's what that means."
  
  
• The Fox Wars: R. David Edmunds and Joseph L. Peyser; a very well-researched chronicle of the wars fought between the Fox or Mesquakie Indians and just about everybody else in late 17th and early 18th century Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, and other parts of the bloody old Midwest. Those who wanted the scalps, individually and collectively, of the Fox included the Sioux (sometimes;) the Chippewa (virtually without a pause;) the tribes of the Illinois confederation; a batch of mercenary, Christian Iroquois; and the French. In all senses but one, the Fox lost. They did, however, manage to avoid complete extinction, and what's left of 'em live in Oklahoma, now.
  
  Like the Arikara wars and the Mojave Wars I wrote about a while back (or more accurately, I wrote about books about them,) the real question was which side was more treacherous and bloodthirsty. Neither of the contestants showed any redeeming features at all -- at best, the Fox were consistent in their refusal to toe the line, but also consistent in being completely untrustworthy. The book shows its frank bias toward the underdogs, here, using the word "unfortunately" every time the Fox made a mistake or were roundly defeated. Otherwise, a good piece of work, sadly disposed of by the library who had it. But now, it's become mine, mine, mine, forever to be lovingly housed in the growing Joseph St. library of military arcana.
  
  
• Wabash 1791: St. Clair's Defeat; John F. Winkler; An Osprey Campaign book about the drubbing the Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Ohio tribes gave to an American army, attempting to enforce the results of the American Revolution, that is, "Mine, mine, mine!" Osprey's usual workmanlike quick coverage of the troops engaged, the locations, and the outcomes, along with some great maps. Happened not too far away, too, down in Indiana: 40 24 45.77 N 84 46 43.07 W.
  
  
• Things that make us [sic], Martha Brockenbrough; One of those hateful, smug little books that consist, mostly, of wry letters written by the author to various public figures and agencies, and their fatuous and bureaucratic replies. In this case, the author, who by her picture and attitude seems to be about twelve years old, has appointed herself Chief of the Grammar Police. In that capacity, she goes on and on about all the old saws we've heard a million times: the passive voice, that and which, jargon, malapropisms I have known, and so on and so on. Worth all of the $2.98 I paid for it from a remainder house, if only for the refreshing fit of pique it engendered.
  
  
• Thurber's Dogs, James Thurber; A lovely colection of the old Master's words and drawings on the subject of dogs. Although I knew it existed, it was one of the few Thurber collections not in our library, and so it was a very welcome present. Highly recommended, whether you like dogs, Thurber, or both.
  
  
• The Complete Book of Knots, Geoffrey Budworth; I had exhausted the book I already had on knot tying, and so this was a second course. Very good, if you like sitting around with a length of paracord, trying and re-trying to tie a particular knot. I happen to.
  
  
• Still reading: The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food, Adam Gopnik; other, more violent and less cerebral books intervened, but I'll get back to Gopnik soon. So far, I agree with him almost without reservation.
  

Too nutty even for the GOP

Even the craziest of the crazy-right Republican candidates can't stomach the Ron Paul "tear it all down and don't replace it" approach to life.

The photo in this article shows Gingrich with his patented "I'm way, way off my meds," grin, watching Paul make a fool of himself again. Takes one to know one, I guess.

Another one gone

Jon Huntsman is out of the GOP race. The link is to my score card, posted here previously.