In My Own Country

 

From the Houma Courier:

Publicity hog that I am, I draw your attention to an article about me in the newspaper from a neighboring town. The reporter, Laura McKnight, did an excellent job with the interview and with the article. We seemed to hit it off right away, so I thought she might do right by me, and she did. I don't know about holding court with the world. I believe that I'm not quite there, yet.

Wait till I get hold of Abby, the photographer. I know Abby, and I told him to make me look beautiful, but he did not. I even look bald in the picture. Trust me, I have hair on the front of my head. It is white, but it is there. I won't be too harsh with him, since he was limited by what he had to work with.

UPDATE: Sorry, but I had to post another picture of me to show that I'm not bald. Peace to you, Abby Tabor.

Feast Day Of Dorothy Sayers

Dorothy Leigh Sayers was an English writer and scholar, born at Oxford in 1893, the only child of an Anglican clergyman. She studied medieval literature at Oxford (Somerville College), being one of the first women to graduate (1915) from that university.

Here (from memory) is the start of a poem from the former volume:

"Christ walks the world again, his lute upon his back,
his red robe worn to tatters, his riches gone to rack.
The wind that wakes the morning blows his hair about his face,
and his arms and legs are ragged with the thorny briar's embrace,
for the hunt is up behind him, and his sword is at his side.
Christ the bonny outlaw walks the whole world wide,
singing: 'Lady, lady, will you come away with me,
to lie among the bracken, and eat the barley bread?
We shall see new suns arise, in golden far-off skies,
for the son of God and woman has not where to lay his head.'"

She worked for several years writing advertising copy, until she was able to support herself by the sale of her books and stories.

James Kiefer.

Prayer

Almighty God, who gave to your servant Dorothy L Sayers special gifts of grace to understand and teach the truth as it is in Christ Jesus: Grant that by this teaching we may know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

I've read and reread the Lord Peter mysteries and The Mind of the Maker, but I have not read her poetry, nor have I read Are Women Human? Reading those two will go on my to-do list.

Thanks to Ann.

Perhaps Al-Zaidi Has Suffered Enough

From the Guardian:

Muntadhar al-Zaidi will go down in Arab folklore as the man who dared to throw his shoes at George Bush but his immediate problem is how to recover from the reprisals he suffered after his bold gesture. His older brother, Dargham, has told reporters Muntadhar suffered a broken hand, broken ribs and internal bleeding, as well as an eye injury, and is in hospital.

News reports from the scene described al-Zaidi "screaming", as he was dragged out. Perhaps, he was screaming from his injuries, rather than at Bush. Watch the video clip from the Guardian.

Now he's a cult hero all over the Arab world.

H/T to Juan Cole.

First Try At Creating A Human

 

Thanks to Lapin, who found this while cleaning out his office. He found another cartoon, which is very funny, but which I shall not publish.

"Barack Obama Defeats Barack Hussein Obama"

From The Onion:

In one of the most hotly contested and pivotal races in U.S. history, Democratic candidate Barack Obama emerged victorious on Nov. 4, beating out the one man who could have taken the presidency away from him, Barack Hussein Obama.
....

"I don't think we've heard the last of Barack Hussein Obama," noted political strategist Karl Rove said. "I have a feeling he'll be back in 2012."

Read the rest. PJ Hussein, take note.

O Adonai

December 17

O Adonai, and Ruler of the house of Israel,
Who didst appear unto Moses in the burning bush,
and gavest him the law in Sinai,
come to redeem us with an outstretched arm!

Latin

O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel,
qui Moysi in igne flammæ rubi apparuisti,
et ei in Sina legem dedisti:
veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.


Isaiah 11:4-5

But with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist,
and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

Antiphon sung by the Dominican student brothers at Oxford.

Text from Fish Eaters.

A Hole In The Sky

From the Daily Comet:

Some people saw Jesus. Others blamed UFOs.

Harkening to the popular Journey song, a wheel in the sky appeared over Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes early Saturday morning, a seemingly perfect hole punched though the sheet of clouds blanketing the sky.

Locals who phoned and e-mailed the Daily Comet and the Courier this weekend about the strange cloud formation did agree on one thing: “It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Raceland resident Sandra Ledet, who shared some spectacular photos with the Daily Comet.

Shawn O’Neil, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Slidell, identified the phenomenon as a hole-punch cloud.

“They don’t occur all that often, and they are usually caused when an aircraft intersects altocumulus or cirrocumulus clouds,” he said.

My son called us on Saturday to go outside to see the phenomenon. I tried to take a picture, but I was shooting too close to the sun, and mine did not come out. I've surely never seen anything like it. I confess that I thought UFO, too. I don't believe in them, but Hey!

Elizabeth And Lady Catherine In the Garden

For Doxy, who says in the comments to the JA birthday post:

But honestly...the scene between Lady Catherine and Elizabeth in the garden is the single best piece of dialogue in the English language, AFAIC. Every time I read it, I want to cry because I know that I will never write anything half that good.

I'd quote from the scene, but it's pages long. No one can write dialogue like Jane Austen. Her exquisite writing is enough to drive any writer to despair.

I'm Dick Cheney, And I Approved Water-Boarding

From the L. A. Times:

Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that he was directly involved in approving severe interrogation methods used by the CIA, and that the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should remain open indefinitely.
....

Cheney's comments also mark the first time that he has acknowledged playing a central role in clearing the CIA's use of an array of controversial interrogation tactics, including a simulated drowning method known as waterboarding.

"I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared," Cheney said in an interview with ABC News.

Asked whether he still believes it was appropriate to use the waterboarding method on terrorism suspects, Cheney said: "I do."

Shameless, with no moral compass, or a compass that is woefully out of whack.

Waterboarding involves strapping a prisoner to a tilted surface, covering his face with a towel and dousing it to simulate the sensation of drowning.

NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! The procedure does not SIMULATE drowning. It IS drowning. The torturers have to bring them back from drowning, resuscitate them.

Happy 233rd Birthday, Jane Austen!

Let's celebrate with quotes from her novels.

Everybody likes to go their own way--to choose their own time and manner of devotion.

Mansfield Park

If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out.

Mansfield Park

Nothing amuses me more than the easy manner with which everybody settles the abundance of those who have a great deal less than themselves.

Mansfield Park

Oh! Do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.

Mansfield Park

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?

Pride and Prejudice

Loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable; that one false step involves her in endless ruin; that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful; and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex.

Pride and Prejudice

She consoled herself for the loss of her husband by considering that she could do very well without him.

Mansfield Park


"I cannot be dictated to by a watch," is my mantra. I'm always late. Sometimes it actually pays off. Today I went to my doctor's appointment a tad tardy, and he saw me right away. I by-passed the second waiting room.

The image is from the Pride and Prejudice 2009 calendar, with illustrations by Hugh Thompson. If you'd like, you can buy a mouse pad and stickers there, too.