Don’t miss the latest post on Baghdad Burning.

What’s happening in the middle east is compelling, but if we let it make us blink, They win.

“I wasn’t really trying to feed the dumb animal,” Bush said. “I was just throwing stuff at him to get him to move and one of those things happened to be a fish.”

Ink is handicapped, in a way, because you can blow up a man with gunpowder in half a second, while it may take twenty years to blow him up with a book. But the gunpowder destroys itself along with its victim, while a book can keep on exploding for centuries.

 

-Christopher Morley, writer (1890-1957)

I don’t usually do cuisine on my blog. plenty of blogs are coughing up recipes as it is, don’t you think? But I’m going to share this one, because I can’t try it myself on my present diet, and I don’t want you to miss out on the self-evident bliss.

Pepsi: one 16 ounce bottle
Peanuts: one small bag

Open bottle carefully. Do not shake first. Place on horizontal surface to breathe, while opening package of peanuts. Add contents of peanuts bag to bottle of Pepsi. Serve chilled.

My Dad says he has enjoyed this fizzy, cruntchy delicacy since he was a kid. I’ve seen it before, on fishing trips.

Enjoy!

[photos from camera phone]

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or somewhere beyond the golden climes of Santa Barbara, you’ve no doubt heard about the upheaval in the snoozeroom of our local paper. The news-press is the oldest daily paper in southern California, published for 151 years. But it seems to have been drawn into the vacuum of moral torpor that has come, in my mind, to be indemic to institutions as the 21st century yawns open.

Some of the best writing on the news-press malestrom can be found, not surprizingly, in the LA times. Like this.

It’s too bad. Some of us native locals have made fun of the paper over the years, calling it the snooze supress and such, because not much happens around here. But that’s a good thing, and it’s less the case recently. It’s growing more common for SB to have it’s share of fresh hell to ponder. And I’ve always thought it was a fair fishwrap for a town this size.

So I hope the newly reconstituted staff can pull it out of the dive, before it spirals in.

* * *

Apropos of which, there was a terrible plane crash southeast of here last week. A family of four from SB. Two killed, mother and young boy. The father and another child survived, but they’re in for a long hard healing. The family dog was in the plane and disappeared. Today, he was found in a ditch near the crash site – alive. … Found by the same two teenage brothers who found the father/pilot last week, and pulled him away from the burning wreckage. Heroes.

I would link you to the story, but I can’t. The SB snooze-mess web site leaves a lot to be desired.

One of my greatest pleasures in writing has come from the thought that perhaps my work might annoy someone of comfortably pretentious position. Then comes the saddening realization that such people rarely read.

– John K.Galbraith, economist (1908-2006)

Go write your name in the snow!

Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor;–let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his childrens’ liberty. Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap. Let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.

— Abraham Lincoln, age 28,
The Lyceum Address 1838
Springfield, Illinois

This is not an unprecedented moment in America’s constitutional history. In war-time, presidents have over-reached before, and they will over-reach again. The over-reach is often for good reasons; and after 9/11, it’s understandable that some corners were cut. What this decision represents is therefore the re-balancing of the constitutional order, after the heat of the moment. Think of it as the moment when King George’s crown was yanked off his head. The Congress has tried a couple of times, but been foiled by “signing statements.” So the judiciary has stepped in. Other presidents have tried mini-coronations. What we are seeing is the end of the latest monarchical pretension.

 

Count no day lost in which you waited your turn, took only your share and sought advantage over no one.

– Robert Brault