Is DC Now More Intellectual than New York?

Oh sure, Joel, flaunt those italics...

*SIGH*

Wait a minute! I heard that Dostoyevsky is dead. You can't slip one by me like that.

Jacques Derrida...I've heard that name. Goalie for the Maple Leafs, right?

I really don't want to see the end of the Woodstock kit, so I'm posting this.

Donovan Plans a University
Donovan the Scottish singer, songwriter and guitarist whose pop hits in the 1960s included "Hurdy Gurdy Man" and "Mellow Yellow," is planning to open the Invincible Donovan University, where students will practice transcendental meditation, The Associated Press reported. Donovan, 61, whose full name is Donovan Leitch, said: "I know it sounds like an airy-fairy hippie dream to go on about '60s peace and love. But the world is ready for this now; it is clear this is the time." He said the university would be in Glasgow or Edinburgh.

(NYT 10/30/07)

I can't be first, can I?

Didn't think so, stupid refresh not working.

Sure enough. Old Fyodor has been toes up since at least April.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/achenblog/2007/04/kurt_vonnegut.html#c1050247

No, so sorry, you're not.

Yes, Kerric, you can be first. The Achenblog is like a progressive elementary school: everyone can have a ribbon for first place. When I get back to the Shop Steward's office I'll have the staff mail you out your ribbon. You can have a gold star, too, if you want. We want you to have high self-esteem.

Washington has come a fair way culturally over the past 50 years. It's old subriquet as a "quiet Southern town" was pretty much on the mark up until WWII. Even into the '50's it was still pretty somnolent. The only semi-decent concert venue was the DAR hall, and the NSO was generally considered a second-class orchestra. Now we have the Kennedy Center, the East Wing, and the best Shakespeare theater company west of the Old Vic.

The Weekly Standard!?! I hope you washed your hands.

Gold star? Patooey! I'm still waiting for my @@#$%^ decoder ring.

Cultural endeavors (the creative arts) are about truth and beauty and excellence. Politics is the art of getting your way. They really have very little intersection. The phrase "Washington Think Tank" has always given me the creeps. It makes me think of conspiracy, rather than collaboration.

In reference to movies and politics, those Hollywood types testifying in Washington always seem like the person who wore the wrong clothes to the party or something, just out of place. But I recently saw a movie that I think had something to say about our current political situation: "American Dreamz." [Tagline: "Imagine a country where the President never reads the newspaper, where the government goes to war for all the wrong reasons, and more people vote for a pop idol than their next President."]

It is a silly movie; I'm not recommending it. But Dennis Quaid does a great job of portraying one theory of who G.W. Bush is in private.

So true, Joel. I hope this political jaunt of yours is just that. I would think it would change after the election! You must keep your Renaissance Man edge after all!

I must say, however, many on the boodle do a fine job of discussing artsy stuff. Very heady indeed. If I only had the time to digest it all. We need an index.

Like Rattlesnake Roundups and fried gizards on a stick, kb?

Blood Sucking Vampire Maggot Capitalist Running Dog Captain of Industry Decoder Ring, genuine gold toned metal, one size fits all, faux rubies for eyes, hummmmmmm? Ring a bell? Yeah, yeah, I know- the check is in the mail, the box is on the truck, and um, the other one.

Or Rocky Mountain oysters.

Or snipes. Can't forget the snipes.

I added a few links to the kit, fyi.

Napoleon III wrote a scholarly biography of Julius Caesar. Unfortunately, it didn't prepare him to mount an effective Gaulish response to the invaders from Germania. He should have known about those giant flaming meatballs that Russell Crowe flung at the barbarians.

When I was a high school kid in the culturally southern portion of Delaware, the newspaper, Motown music, and most of the TV came from Philly, and that's where the cool colleges seemed to be (a couple of them turned me down, so I ended up in the Endless Mountains).

Baltimore had Johns Hopkins, which seemed like it would be stuffed with pre-meds, so I didn't apply.

Washington had important grad and professional schools at Howard but otherwise seemed a backwater.

You could, however, roam all over the Capitol building's incredible interior, elegant in the older parts and like an indoor version of Philadelphia City Hall in the wings. I figured Congress would have remodeled the building, had the new House office building not been derided as overpriced and tacky. The zoo was nice. And Great Falls.

"The phrase "Washington Think Tank" has always given me the creeps. "

Whenever I hear think tank, I think of one of those dunking tanks, where everyone gets to throw a ball. Its kind of how I end up feeling about politicians after they have outstayed their welcome.

I came across this on that Arts and Letters page.

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12222

The book promises to be an interesting read.

"NORMAN PODHORETZ: God help us if we follow that counsel."

Was he banging his head on the table? He'd just been strafed by Zakaria.

Refusing to abandon the Woodstock kit, I propose a March on Washington

Post.

"What do we want?
Italics.
When do we want them?
NOW!"

kbert,
Every morning I always forward my daily memoranda to the Washington Think Tanks from my home office. I hit the little brass handle, and ffwwoosh, ggurggle, pssst, away it goes.

In 2004, John Kerry, seeming fatigued, started a sentence with "I am here, speaking to you now," and this so unnerved me I immediately Googled the phrase. This is what it led me to:
http://faculty.oxy.edu/tobin/wsgs254/classes/sec.html
This so impressed me, that I voted for him.

DC is intellectual like Madonna is a Talmud scholar.

Oh those immature liberals. How they have screwed up our society.

Straw men, anyone? How about, "Battle of the Straw Men?
http://www.bookpalace.com/acatalog/WilliamsSiege.jpg
("Siege of the Masquers")

True politics is the process of governing. Unfortunately, the term has been debased to mean the process of gaining and maintaining power.

If held to its original meaning, it is indeed an art - a beautiful one at that. For true politics is the adaptive and highly creative process of sculpting a free and happy society. Its tools are laws, traditions, and institutions, and its raw material is the maelstrom of conflicting human desires.

It can be, and should be, an honorable profession worthy of fine intellects. For what better way to use one's mind than to improve the lot of all?

And although politics might not attract as many poets as one might wish, it certainly does draw its share of storytellers. Yet not all stories are worthy of being told, and not all storytellers are worthy of their tales.

Therein lies the problem.

Yeah, Zakaria really wiped up the place. He and his journalistic BFF, that Ignatius guy, seldom fail to impress me.

Rd, you said that well. Have we had that kind of politics in this century? Ok, I know the answer to that. In the last?

And for my final random comment, let me push back a bit on the term "Intellectual." Is the term reserved for those who routinely laugh loudly at French witticisms? Must one have read *all* of War and Peace to learn the secret handshake?

Or does being Intellectual mean you have mastered the ability to do Sudoku in pen, and be able to do logarithms in your head?

If this is the case than New York can keep 'em.

I view a true Intellectual as one who knows how to think. The term suggests someone who has the ability to ignore biases and preconceived expectations and follow a line of logical reasoning fearlessly to wherever it might lead.

And yeah, we could use a few more of those in DC.

dr - I think it has occurred in bits and pieces. But, sadly, not nearly enough. That whole "Cincinnatus Ideal" thing just hasn't caught on as much as some would have liked.

I don't know if I should be insulted or just ignore the statement made by ferret in the last kit. I truly don't know what it means. Ferret, would you care to explain?

The last time I visited DC, it looked like it may have seen hard times. I would like to visit again just to see the place where you guys have the boodle porching hour.

Well, I would draw on both paradigms in my definition of an intellectual. I think the true intellectual has a 'satiable curiosity, is absorbed by all the ways we have to be human; is well enough and widely enough read (including literatures in other languages) that he has at least attempted to read War and Peace (which really, all of us should read, it is simply a wonderful book) and maybe even some other classics, is somehow involved in learning about the big issues of the day; knows how to think but more importantly how to discuss and argue about what it is he thinks, has the sort of mind open to changing what he thinks in response to better information/arguments; is articulate and knows how to move from the particular to the general. And a bunch more.

Interestingly, while intellectual life and cultural life tend to group together in love-hate communities, I don't find that the culture-makers are often intellectual; artists make the culture, but seldom are of a particularly analytical bent; the intellectual comments on the work the culture-makers produce, I think.

"follow a line of logical reasoning fearlessly to wherever it might lead."

Oh, RD, how many people do that? Can you count them on one hand or two?

And Joel just *had* to go and mention Animal Planet. Just when I was finally getting over that whole "Flower" business.

http://animal.discovery.com/fansites/meerkat/flower/flower.html

Cassandra, I don't why you'd be either offended or inclined to ignore Ferret's post in the last kit. Care to explain?

I think I did explain. I have absolutely no idea what he/she is talking about. I believe I mentioned "gloom and doom" this morning, and the chance that perhaps my father, the person that named me, may have been slightly influenced when he did that bit of exercise. Just want an explaination, and perhaps putting it in not a good way. I am so guilty of that.

Well, I read it as follows (and I don't claim to speak for MoF, and I hope that rare Boodler will set your mind at rest):

"Old Gloom & Doom" was an affectionate josh and if it had been directed at me, I would have laughed out loud.

Saying that your father was prescient simply meant that MoF thought your Dad saw things clearly well before many others even had a clue.

I know the "drunk or sober" might have been an unfortunate choice of words, but you yourself had mentioned that he might have been somewhat influenced by toxins at the time; you can also read it that what your Dad said struck MoF as wise and clear-headed even if *Mof* had been drunk or not (as opposed to all those utterances we think profound when we're under the influence and later, not so much).

So all in all, I saw it as a supportive and friendly response to your post. Nothing to be offended about, and nothing to ignore through puzzlement. Just a friend responding to a friend.

Yoki, I'm signing off now, but is everything on for Saturday?

To the address I have on file, about 1 ish?

I'll check back later or in the monring.

Thank you, Yoki for the explaination.

Just goes to show how one's feathers may get up because of the unknown. Didn't understand the meaning, more than willing to acknowledge that fact, but should have been a bit more patient, and given the writer a bit more space. Again, I thank you.

Yes, dr. Sorry, I meant to post it here earlier.

Calgary BPH, chez Yoki, at the address you have, roughly 1:00-ish. I'll have some tea and something to nosh on, and then we can go on to dinner. Do you have a favourite Calgary restaurant you haven't visited in a while? Or may I cook for the family?

SonofCarl, we would very much like you to join us if you are so inclined, and also any other Boodlers.

dr, I will send you a private email with directions to chez Yoki, cell numbers, etc.

Can't wait!

I'm delighted there will be a Calgary BPH. Will you be working on the Secret Invasion Plans along with your tea?

We will be having a Charlotte BPH on Sunday if anyone cares to join us. Contact me at boodler [at] mac [dot] com for details.

Pretty soon the world will be All BPH, All the Time.

Scotty, sorry you're under the weather. Hope you get to feeling better. I've just finished a round of antibiotics. When they see me coming, out comes the prescription pad.

I hope all have fun on your bhp. There's even one in Canada, that's really far out. I'm closer to Charlotte, but won't be able to attend that one either. I will be thinking about you folks. Enjoy.

Night, boodle.

TBG, I don't know what you mean. *scuffing feet, looking around, whistling nonchalantly*

I must stop backboodling in the late afternoon. Joel always manages to get the wind up and posts a new kit while I'm chewing over the boodle.

This is the second time this week I've added to a dead boodle.

So, hi.

Hey, Wilbrod. Thanks for that post at the end of the last boodle. I just read it, and I appreciate knowing that exercise, not diet, is the important thing. I've been walking 2.5 miles most weekdays and haven't lost any weight that I can tell, but I do feel more fit and my right knee doesn't bother nearly as badly as it used to.

You're maintaining and maybe very slightly increasing muscle mass.

Sometimes you have to up the intensity a little, vary it, to get more benefits-- that could be because the bones don't remodel if they are already adjusted to the current workload.

Some of us seem to need HUGE amounts of exercise to lose weight and keep it off.

I lost 15 lbs in less than 3 months, but I was doing, I think a total of 24 stories of stairs a day, plus walking. The thinnest I've ever been since, what, 13?

Also, some evidence suggests that exercising for 30 minutes, then breaking for at least 15 minutes, and exercising again will work better than exercising for a full hour at a time-- because the body takes time to wind down its metabolism after exercise.

I'll be studying this more closely.

That sounds almost right, Wilbrod. Only, if I exercised for 30 minutes, and then took a break, I'd be sleeping away the final quarter-hour.

There is also new research into why the calories-in/calories-out equation doesn't work, for many reasons, most of them having to do with hormone-showers.

I look forward to reading the results of your research. If you can find a formula for diet/exercise that takes the extra weight off, boosts energy for doing the right thing, and then keeps the weight off in perpetuity, I'll sign up to you as my personal guru.

As Cow Town says, "I am so old" that when I saw "cell numbers" in Yoki's post, above, I thought of jails, not phones.

I do! I do! It's called a DOG!

You see, you go on walkies, you play tug, you pet and lower blood pressure, and you share leftovers so you never are tempted to eat too much. And you get lots of love and adoration for doing the right thing.

Can I come and be your guru now? I even have an Indian name all picked out for myself, and I'll have a turban as soon as I figure out how to tie it on.

I call dibs on Wilbrodog!

Robert Goulet died this morning awaiting a lung transplant.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21552081/

TBG, be extra careful up there. Those people are wily, and I think they're up to something.

SCC: Not TBG; you're going to Charlotte. Meant dr. But she's already been assimilated into the Canuckoborg.

Hah! Wilbrodog, someone I know on a dog-related list-serve signs off "If your dog is fat, you are not getting enough exercise." Precisely.

Sadly, my dogboysandgirl gets all the exercise they need, to the point that every time we go to the vet and they give us that giant print-out that says things like "body shape: ideal" and "dental health: ideal" I just feel more guilty.

If someone would place my kibble behind locked doors and measure a certain amount exactly every 12 hours, and then my walker came and made me run about off-leash for a minimum of 1.5 hours twice a day, and I had no choice, I'd probably have an ideal body-shape too.

Fortunately, my dogs have better dispositions and training than I do. If someone really controlled my intake to that extent, I'd probably bite him.

Oh, poor Robert Goulet. I remember seeing him on all those talk shows, with his wife Carol something (I think they got divorced later).

Michael Dirda reviewed a new translation of War and Peace:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/26/AR2007102601923.html

I wish I could go to the BPH's, in either place. I really need someone to set me straight on how to knit with 4 double pointed needles - talk about being all thumbs - but I can probably find someone locally. Anyway, it's fun to hear about boodlers getting together!

Ah, that's the problem, isn't it, Yoki? Since I retired, I eat less (MUCH less) because I don't eat out as often, and I exercise. But I still haven't lost weight. I blame it on hypothyroidism. Hence my desire for appropriate medication.

No, you wouldn't. You'd love being petted and stroked.

You'd just break into the cupboard when people are out and get other food instead. Or you'd learn to graze. I'm a grazer myself. A little whenever I want it, nobody's going to bother me or take my food away, nobody'll be pestering me to drive them anywhere.

If we're on the go, I can wait a little for my next snack, but at the end of the day is when I really eat.

The average adult female needs 2000 calories and the average male needs 2500 calories. It takes a deficit of 3500 calories to lose one pound. One mile of distance at any pace burns 100 calories. The rest is arithmetic.

Spoken like a true man, yello!

One who never dealt with hormones.

Yes, walking alone isn't enough. Take the stairs if possible.

One, Stairclimbing can burn over 600 calories a hour, a huge difference.
http://www.acefitness.org/fitfacts/fitbits_display.aspx?itemid=124

But who's average, Yellojkt? Walking doesn't burn 100 calories alike if you're 80 lbs or 800 lbs; if you're an healthy person or somebody with cerebral palsy, whether it's downhill, on the flat, or uphill.

There are many ways the body can lower and adjust metabolism to resist the inevitable math of starvation. Mood and behavior also gets altered.

Heavy anaerobic exercise tends to increase metabolism for a while after exercise stops, which ups the calorie burn.

Slyness is correct about the hypothyroidism lowering her caloric needs. She might need 100 calories less per day to sustain her weight because of that; nobody's completely sure.

And the average calorie NEED for women is not 2000 calories. It's 1800 calories or less for most women with mild activity.

For me, I've actually had it calculated it was more like 1500 calories a day-- before including the hypothyroidism issues.

Now, upping exercise will drag me up into the normal calorie range; it's actually much easier than attempting to meet all of my nutrition needs at a low calorie diet (there's only so much salad I can eat, although I do like salad).

Female cross-country skiiers will burn 4000-4400 calories a day.
http://www.bsfnordic.com/education/female_skier_nutrition.pdf

So it's definitely possible, by upping intensity of exercise combined with a maintenance exercise schedule, to get some real weight loss done without adjusting diet (or even eating more).

But you have to keep it up and not wreck a good thing with improper diet, and not run a major energy/ body weight deficit especially pre menopause, because women are DESIGNED to store body fat, and the body will fight back.

Oh, oh! Peaver & Volohonsky! I have the 2001 translation of Anna Karina by the same duo (first edition!). I was so excited to read a new version (my previous favourite was the 1963 Oxford Edition).

Sadly, I don't really love it. It may be accurate, but it doesn't sing to me.

It took me months of trying to understand that maybe I'm just a crusty old woman who can't appreciate anything new, or maybe, just maybe, I know how literature should work and the old translation might not have been accurate, but it was correct, and the new one is both accurate *and* incorrect, and therefore it loses something.

Robert Goulet: Are you from the casino?

Bart Simpson: I'm from *a* casino.

Robert Goulet: Good enough. Let's go.

Awww.

I feel really sad about our Robert Goulet tonight.

I liked that commerical, too. One of the most fun singing personalities out there, he was.

Yoki, if the old translation was more fun to read, it's better. The original was a work of creativity, not a factual account, after all!

I'm the type that doesn't generally like the movie as much as the book.

LOTR was a welcome exception, but that was probably because I didn't like the books much except in places to start with; I liked the Hobbit best.

Goodness, Slyness, if you find those meds, will you please tell me about them?

A shame about Robert Goulet...

Watching the last of the Dem debate at Drexel, nothing earth-shattering.

I like the idea of lightining rounds, only I didn't notice any striking candidates when some of them went far over their 30-second limit. Sheesh.

I also see that one of the new solar panels installed on the ISS (for electrical power, of course) ripped when the astronauts unfurled them.

http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/071030-sts120-truss-reattach.html

Sheesh, do *I* have to fix *everything*? *sigh* My travel toolbox and I are ready to take the next shuttle up there, though I think I might just catch the next Soyuz and just bring a roll of duct tape. I think I can fix it with a good 300 ft. roll...

Speaking of space, I took the kids out to see the comet that's become visible to the naked eye over the past week. Looks like a mini-marshmallow hanging in the NW sky.

bc

Oh, wait, Kucinich admitted that he saw a UFO years ago. That was interesting.

I liked his follow-up comment that he's going to set up a campaign office in Roswell NM.

HRC is getting a little heat about not answering questions, not sure it matters at this point.

bc

Well, wcutt, I wish it would matter. Sigh. That carefully calibrated response thing she has going really gets on my nerves. Not that I've never seen THAT before...

It is sad about Robert Goulet, he always seemed like a class act.

Kuchinch is at least lightening up the daily political news.

To be on-kit, I'm not sure DC is all that cultured.

I mean, we just have half of all the cultural artifacts in America somewhere in our attic here, lots of National history within a stone's throw, museums and zoos that are like, free. We do have lots of ethnic restuarants from Afghani through Zanibar on the Water Front. Oh, and less graffiti on our subways.

But we don't use big words in our newspapers, because we're trained in acronym-speak, FYI, and clipped sentences.

Or all the military-trained editors within eavesdropping distance might shoot us for unStrunkly behavior in public.

And certainly, we don't have the right weather for any kind of culture. We should have long dry hot summers with lots of sunshine for cognition. We fail on the "dry" part.
Or we should have bitter winters with long nights to muse on the existential angst and cruelty of Mother Nature.

Instead, we are confined to long days inside cubicles, and our darkest thoughts linger on our jobs instead of Ma Nature.

We have sidewalk musicians, chess hustlers in parks, hot dog stands, waterfronts, and enough embassies to embarrass any city. And we ignore all of that.

Yeah, we're not ever going to be the Paris of America. We're more like the Vienna (which is actually inside the DC metro area) of the Hapsburg empire, an administrative city with very little charm and ooo! appeal. But who can think of classical music without knowing Vienna, then or today?
Or of international childrens' festivals without Wolftrap?

Yeah, New York's better. But we still have less graffiti on our subway trains, and a larger percentage of us know how to drive. Pfft.

a canuck bph. excellent. send pictures.

is it snowing up there yet?

Boo Boodle!!
Let me be the first to wish everyone a Happy and Safe Halloween.

Now it is time for the scarey story.
This is a true story that happened in the neighborhood I grew up in. There was an old man who lived alone in a house we all thought was haunted.he was a nice old man,but a little crazy at times. I think he had Shell shock from WW1. He always used to say very strange things to the neighbors and me( I was the paper boy). Well for weeks he was telling everyone when he went to sleep, he would see a ball with Five fingers sticking out of it hovering over his bed. This went on for over a month. He would tell me every night just after he went to sleep he would see it.Not really scarey but it would hover over his bed,a ball with five moving fingers. Well i would deliver his papers and no one was taking them in. I talked to his neighbor and he called the police. (Oh did I tell you he was older than dirt) Anyway when the police found him dead in his bed. There was a deflated ball on his blanket with five holes in it. They said he just died of old age. But that story still gives me the willies to this day.

'Morning, Boodle, and happy Halloween. To celebrate I just read a snyposis of 11 "Friday the 13th" films on Brijit (since I'd never actually seen any of thopse movies). But I do recommend Brijit.com.

bc, if you're going to take your travel toolbox to go into space to fix that ripped solar panel, I think you ought to call ahead first to tell them someone has to be home between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Happy Halloween all, just saw this article and it made me feel good. The story of a neighbourhood pulling together to keep a halloween tradition alive and to help their neighbour (kind of reminds me of the boodle neighbourhood).

http://www.thestar.com/article/272175

It's pumpkin day! I have nothing but happy memories of Halloween. In stark contrast to other family holidays, nobody ever got worked up over Halloween. It was all about dressing up and being silly and eating candy. Lotsa lotsa candy.

The Vast Padouk Estate is decorated and ready to go. Despite a shocking lack of interest by my offspring, I carved a large jack-o-lantern last night. And eventually I managed to stop the bleeding to my left hand. 'course the scariest part of this jack-o-lantern was the price. Twelve bucks for a hybrid squash? That's what I get for waiting till the last minute.

Only my daughter will be venturing out, and I suspect this is her last year. I shall serve as her trick-or-treating escort, in return for which I have been promised a modest cut of the take.

So if you see an awkward skinny spider princess at your door with a swarthy man lurking behind the forsythia bush, I implore you to do the right thing.

Dark chocolate, and lots of it.

bc, just remember to tape the SHADY side of the panel, hm??

:-)

*dizzy-again-from-ongoing-fumes-and-decamping-to-another-cubicle Grover waves*

Snuke - hope the fumes stop. Doesn't sound like a lotta fun.

My daughter is still trick-or-treating and this year is going as Barbie (her girl friend up the street has very short hair and is accompanying her as Ken).

I'm just glad she's not going as Skanky Ho Barbie, which is all you seem to find in the stores these days.

We live on a single-family street right next to a townhouse development. We get a few strays from the townhouses and of course the kids who live on our small cul de sac, but the townhouses provide way more bang for your buck so most kids just stay there (and mine go there; of course we used to live there so they know the neighborhood).

We have never been a store-bought-costume family. If we don't' make it or assemble it here, we don't wear it. It's a lot more fun that way. There have been some doozy costumes: black cat, bee, Pillsbury Dough Boy, Big Boy, C&P Telephone repairman, witch, rock star, I can't even remember them all.

No, tain't fun at all, RDP. The air's much nicer where I am now.

But no windows. :-(

And back on topic a bit. I guess I agree with Yoki's definition of an Intellectual as posted last night, not the least of which because it so very clearly excludes me. Well read? Multiple languages?

Not even close.

But my more fundamental point is to question whether or not "Intellectuals" are the best at establishing policy. And while they may certainly be, it isn't a given. Just because someone can intelligently discuss Slavic Poets doesn't mean he or she can think clearly about tax policies.

The association between being real good at Jeopardy! and being an effective problem solver is as spurious, I assert, as the association between being a thespian and military pundit.

I am sure we have all encountered startlingly intelligent and extraordinarily knowledgeable people who are, nevertheless, incapable of sustaining a logical discussion. Emotion, bias, and other psychological flotsam (or is it jetsam?) get in the way.

What we really need are clear fearless thinkers, and as Cassandra so insightfully points out, these are as rare as French rock stars.

C&P Telephone repairman?

Every morning I say, good morning friends, and each day I feel a little further from that happy greeting. It isn't your fault. Scotty I hope whatever is going on with you, ends, and you feel like your old self.

I've made devil eggs this morning for the Bible study group. I wish I had a recipe that perhaps was lower in some of the bad stuff. I will search the web.

RD, my comment in regard to the statement you made about "fearlessly" was so profound. I was not nitpicking, just thinking if we have a good thought, how wonderful it would be if we moved on it. So many times we squashed them, the good thoughts, and think the worse. I am guilty so many time of that.

Morning,Mudge, Slyness, Scotty, and all.*waving*

The g-girl has her costume on this morning. She is an M&M candy. She was so perky this morning, even at the bus stop. Wrapped up like it was snowing outside. I'm trying to get her used to the weather and waiting for the bus. She's slow getting started, but once she gets started, the flies don't hang around.

I must tell you all because you are my friends, that so much of the time I envy your conversations and the things you know. I feel left out of that world so much of the time. And feeling left out, I strike back not so good. Please forgive me, and look over it. I am me, and I am stuck with me, but you aren't. I will try to be quiet when it goes over my head. Thank you for putting up with me.

I feel good this morning. It is Wednesday, Happy Halloween. Don't have the busy day today, just some of it. Do enjoy your day, and I hope the weather is good where you are.

I am a child of God,as you are too, and that is good. Bless each and every one of you and your families.

And that goes for you too, JA, and your family.

Where's Loomis? Hello, Nani, bet you still tell the best stories.

God loves us so much more than we can imagine through Him that died for all, Jesus Christ.

I used to work for Chesapeake(?) and Potomac Telephone Company as an information operator. My reason for being in DC.

I'm sure my life would have been so different if I had remained there.

bc, I wonder what that rip is going to cost the taxpayers. Especially what with the high rates that handymen charge these days.

I posted a new kit.

And the Department of Agriculture. Good jobs. Okay, I'm finished.

Mornin' all...

RD... your post about trick-or-treating almost made me fall out of my chair (though that could be meds).

Today I get to go to Little Bean's school to watch her in their Halloween parade. She's going as a purple-feathered witch.

Mrs. M. takes her out for trick-or-treating tonight and I get to stay home and give out the goodies. I'll be dressed as a devil-horned pirate in a housedress with steel-toed boots.

Put up a scarecrow in the front yard -- Bean and I had a blast making the Jack-o-lantern head for him. He's wearing a Chinese "coolie" hat and holding a rake. Then I strung up some fishing line from the house to the maple tree out front and hung some wooden bats I made (had to give the postman a heads up).

Anyway, we gots our candy and decorations and I'm looking forward to scaring the bejeezus out of the neighborhood kids tonight when they come knocking.

Peace :-)

Good Morning, Cassandra! I'm always happy to see you here, and thank you for the good wishes, a slight change of venue has done wonders.

:-)

New kit!

We're rotten with French rock stars up here. I think all the French people attract them, or generate them, or something.

Wow, finally got a widget! Blog going big time.

Darling--Jacques Derrida died three years ago. Don't hold your breath for too many more publications from the man. While I am a Jersey girl-turned-Washingtonian (I guess growing up 20 minutes outside NYC allowed a little bit of culture to seep into my existence), I must only hope that I am an exception with minimal company. Yet, your article worries me, as perhaps such jounalistic laziness or philosophic ignorance underscored your point that Washington should stick to the politicking. What a shame though-- perhaps some of our reporters and politicians could learn a thing or two from a great mind, such as Derrida. Washington has become so loathed across the country and world because of its intellectual stagnation in lieu of its unsubstantive rhetorical elevation. Men like Derrida, Foucault and Nietzsche are rolling in their graves thinking about the operation of our political capital today.

MC, it's humor. Do you really think anybody would seriously call Derrida "What's-his-buckets?"

That title properly belongs to Kissinger.

I guess this shows that elites can be snobby over anything. LOL

Thankfully there's good culture and good quality of life in many areas throughout the country. Perhaps that's threatening to some New Yorkers.

I am not sure MC didn't see the humor (I admit, I have a crush. Any Jersey gal whom starts her missive with "Darling" and then go on to name drop Foucalt--well, as a former Jersey boy it sets the heart racing knowing the sort of knuckle-draggers that usually proliferate there. I love my ex-state.). I think she reacting to what she saw as a dismissive "gee shucks" tone (it was hardly a joke). It's what the small minded do when they are too stupid, ignorant, lazy or scared to confront something new. Its not an attitude that needs to be in a major paper.

I seem to know a lot of people here who read literature and are pretty well versed in culture in genereal. I just ignore The Hill Clones.

Phrases I like:
what-his-buckets -- Jacques Derrida. :0
bon mots
East Coastish

Manichaean? A dualism heresy? I am confused.

You could have bandied about
post-modern or pomo
deconstructed
hedonistic
hegemonic literary theory....

Off to bike ride; promise to back boodle later. Will report on the English Department salt-mines reaction to the disrespectful reference to J.D.

Don't tell anyone, but I knew Derrida was dead, along with that other what's-his'buckets, Michel Foucault. I was just funnin'.

Derrida's dead? Then who's gonna play goalie for the Leafs?

I'd just like to say Dostoevsky is my favourite author, and I've read just about everything from him. I've lived here in DC for the past 8 years, this is home, but grew up in Canada. I am happy.. and intellectual... but perhaps just a little odd... I am okay right?

Just call it an anomaly!

And Nietzsche, who could forget him? Played what? 15 seasons for the Packers. In 1959 they named him the greatest linebacker in NFL history. Ray Nietzsche, good old number 66.

And people don't think we Washingtongolese are intellectual. Hmmph.

No, DC is not more intellectual than NYC.

But more wrapped in a bubble of denial, ignoring reality.

That part is true.

Meant to say, welcome to the Achenblog, EL. We've got a fine selection of other Canuckistanis amongst our number-- Boko, Yoki, dr, Shrieking SDenizen, to name only a few. However, I'm a little worried about your admitting to being "just a little odd." If you hang around here long enough, you'll discover most of us are pretty darned odd. Most of the gang are over in the next "kit." (That's what we call Joel's essays up top. The comments section is called the "Boodle" and we regulars are therefore Boodlers. The terminology derives from the term "kit and caboodle," Joel's original term for the whole achenblog shebang.)

The next kit is the one called "It's All About Hillary." C'mon over and stop in and say hi to the gang.

EL, but you left. This is why there are no intellectuals in Canada. Unless of course you are from Toronto (where they think they are intellectuals).

Now if you moved back here (here being anywhere BUT Toronto...

And yes EL, and all the new commentors, do come and 'set a spell'.

What do you mean is Washington, D.C. NOW more intellectual than NYC? It's always been that way. I grew up in DC and have lived in NYC for the past 8 years, and I can tell you people here are significantly more stupid than advertised. People here aren't even close to as intelligent as people in the DC area. And I'm not talking about the elite versus the elite. I'm talking average citizen versus average citizen. The average New Yorker is as dumb as a post. Seriously. It's not funny.

People in DC are worldly. By that, I mean they are aware of a world outside their own. There is no such thing to New Yorkers. I've had to deal with these locals every day for years and it's taken a long time to realize that they aren't ever going to be smart. The only way I can deal with it is to realize that I must compensate for their intellectual shortcomings.

Sorry folks. I know the New Yorkers around here will grunt and moan and yell. That's their insight. He who yells the loudest is the rightest. Right? But no matter what they grunt, they are wrong. I've got nothing personal against New Yorkers other than having to deal with their lack of intelligence.

Um, sorry I'm late. Busy day. I can't weigh in on the relative intelligence and urbanity of D.C. vs. NYC residents. I'm in awe of them both. I just wanted to say "hello," and "Mo, where are you?" and, "Norman Podhertz reminds me of people I knew in college who tried to win EVERY political argument by drawing parallels between their opponents' positions and the political philosophy of the Third Reich."
.
That is all. Thank you for your kind attention.

Brooklyn, I admit I have noticed that particular narrow worldiness in New Yorkers who live in New York... even the ones who immigrated there from halfway across the world.

There was a study once that assistance dogs raised in the country vs the city did much better overall in service dog work, even in the city. The reasons were: more room to explore and play, more trips (short term) to town, and of course less 24/7 stress from noise and crowds.

Noise is very stressful to the brain and the body.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noise_pollution

For instance, never get yourself served at a restaurant right next to noisy train tracks. You'll get rotten service and you'll be jittery too.

Washington represents a national intellectual center, eh? Surely, you are joking, Mr. Achenbach! Fortunately, most citizen philosophers, artists, and writers have the good sense to avoid Washington, a known vortex of spin, hyperbole, and fear. Washington is more like the Bermuda Triangle, where good ideas are mysteriously lost, and bad ideas are constantly floated.

*Scratching head*

Have you ever been to Washington, DC, rmorris?

I can kinda see how rmorris and some others are being misled, Wilbrod, but I suspect a large part of the problem is that people are associating "Washington" with Bush and the other maroons in the White House, with the town as a whole. You and I have equal disdain for Bush as do the "outlanders." But what I think isn't well understood is that "Washington" has a second (and I'd say much larger) identity that well transcends whatever maroon is in the White House. Outlanders may not realize that to Washingtonians (and I include us suburbanites), the people in the White House are just "transients" passing through. We know this current batch is about to get thrown out on its ear, like a bad house guest. "Washington" will go on very well without them, thank you.

And I don't think people who haven't been here quite appreciate the breadth and depth of the cultural institutions, beginning with the Smithsonian (for all its current leadership faults).

I once made a DCite who had the gall to give his name as John Q. Public (whatever his name was), BA.

Since when, did a bachelors degree warrent inclusion in one's moniker?

POLITICAL AND FASHION CAPITAL

London, Paris are both political and fashion and financial capitals and are doing quite well thank you. Rome is not, but then again we have Milan which is neither a political or a financial capital.

If New York ergo Manhattan had remained the political and financial and become the fashion capital of the country ... the city would have been unstoppable and other four boroughs would not have their distinct character -- for better or worse.

And, I should admit, I'm both a Yank and a Canuck. Lol.

But I will attest to good grub eating at the recent Bite in Bethesda - and some good music there too.

So .... DC's not bad.

Just not an intellectual capitol, that's all.

Who cares????????? Most people don't!!!

We sit during "extended" Daylights Savings Time, our devices off by one hour, embroiled in a quagmire with nearly 4,000 young lives wasted, trillions of dollars in debt, listening to a gay toe-tapping Senator lie, reading of a Congressman hiding payoffs in his freezer, and asking if DC is "intellectual?" Compared to NY?? How about a single cell organism? "Are you smarter than an amoeba?"

My first encounter with a New Yorker was on a greyhound bus. She was loud and obnoxious so the first impression was not good.

The first state I landed in the US was Missouri. The people there are friendly. I liked them. After 3.5 years, I moved to the SF Bay Area. I found people there unfriendly and standoffish. After 2 years, I moved down to LA to go to grad school. I found people there worse than people in the bay area. Five years in LA, I moved back to this region and worked in a neighbouring country. People there are so arrogant that when I was offered a job in Bn, I couldn't leave fast enough. Here in Bn, the locals are fairly layback. On a daily basis, I interacted with people from 8 to 10 different countries so nearly everyone is a foreign.

I tend to rate a place base on the friendliness of the people there rather than how smart they are. After all smartness can't get you anywhere if you can't be friendly and civil to the next person. I have a niece who is very smart. She'd made friends in January but lose every one of them in March.

I guess that when an individual such as Mann penned out in a state of disbelief, a work such as Dr Faustus or Herman Hesse gave us his "intellectual satire" Magister Ludi they were attempting to point out the inherent danger when those who are intellectuals and artists becomes so lost in the clouds of their art or specialized field of expertise that they fail to comment on the real world in terms of what is factually going, then a great danger exists. Mann concluded (after WWII he dedicated the rest of his life to this), that they must do this as a matter of social responsibility or face the ugly reality of say fascism. When Mann looked at Democracy in the twenties it was in the guise of a great mental war he waged within himself (for Mann The Magic Mountain might be said to be "the turning") in a setting that occurs in the high mountains of Switzerland and when his hero triumphs to the tune of democracy as the superior and more human concept of government, he returns from the clouds to what is unfolding in fictional reality in the form of a great war (I imagine this great war was WWI that had just been fought, but as Mann wrote the Magic Mountain the funny little man with a mustache was busy creating the Nazi party. The Magic Mountain won him the Nobel Prize in Literature and reveals the mind of a man that once defended "totalitarianism" had now chosen to defend "democracy"). Twenty years later in Doctor Faustus a new great war was already being waged in reality and what this war consists in is in fact that the obedience of the intellectual class to allow the entire history of art, politics, history itself as well as biology to be rewritten and sewn into a synthesis (sewn so that is it is "seamless" , "mindless" but passionately addictive much like the opium dream world that now rules over us--from above) so as to form a "marketing product" sold to the German people as their ethnic truth and heritage(their form of manifest destiny was apparently a seamless unity of religious fever and genetic superiority--a bit like claiming to be the "chosen people" (an ancient theme and claim) or like having a posthumous reward in heaven for doing a fowl and disgusting deed here on earth) that if examined meets not the criteria of reality but rather the whims of the ideologists (the Nazis create their own image of themselves but in the guise of a rather false portrait of reality and through an abortion of the facts). That same abortion is obvious to anyone who wishes to look at the reality in our own nation today. I mean we have hidden away McCarthyism, the KKK, the murder of JFK, the murder of his brother, the murder Marin Luther King, of Vietnam (which apparently is supposed to viewed as having been a "good war" and politically "justified" when no such facts exist), our ugly role throughout Latin America and beyond and today we are guilty of politically sanctioned torture, murder, unjustified war, kidnapping, wide spread and random wire tapping of our own people, the end of habeas corpus, the end of the bill of rights, the destruction of our constitution by a man whose oath before stepping into office is to defend this constitution (the destruction of the constitution takes the legislative form of "the patriot act" as opposed to proper name "the traitor act" because those who follow it are traitors to the very essence and mind that created this nation)and so on and yet where is the force against this?
The 60's succeeded insofar as the record companies in their refusal to touch Rock'n'roll allowed art to express rebellion--it is that art, the world accepted in terms of "American Culture", because it was in fact uncensored by corporatism, but today there is no such art form--in fact there is no art period, we only have sellable and marketable "products" meaning the culture aspect in America is dead (As the American Hegemony of art and culture fades because it has become an all too obvious lie, so will economic and political hegemony collapse too but where will our position of military hegemony take us?) , and the intellectuals are silenced or ridiculed for their "intellectualness" and in their place we have the ideologists (or pseudo intellectuals a la Cheney and other twisted minds spewing out an abortion of reality that is being allowed to be sold to the public as "this is how it is". We have achieved precisely what Dostoyevsky appalled (for someone like Bush Democracy is a tool just a "religion and God" are merely an object whose utility is a means to some other "secret" end like totalitarianism) and which Dostoyevsky presents rather comically as well as seriously (in the philosophical sense of serious) in Notes from the Underground, but gee who is the main Character in that philosophical treatise that might serve us coffee in a cafe?

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