Notepad

More things I probably should've gotten around to posting sooner.

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Of Falstaff, Abu Ghraib and bad apples:

KING HENRY V

We would have all such offenders so cut off: and we
give express charge, that in our marches through the
country, there be nothing compelled from the
villages, nothing taken but paid for, none of the
French upbraided or abused in disdainful language;
for when lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the
gentler gamester is the soonest winner.

From Henry V, Act III, Scene 6

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I think it's fair game to tweak Dick Cheney for dropping the F-bomb mainly because he's running on a ticket that's obsessed with the claim that it represents wholesome, 99 and 44/100ths pure values and that attacks John Kerry for being admired by decadent Hollywood types like Paul Newman.

But having said that, I didn't pile on Cheney's recent public use of the word because: A) I don't think somebody using that kind of language rules out their being a good and valuable public servant; and B) it seems dishonest to pretend that this was some kind of newsworthy event and that Dick Cheney doesn't talk like this all the time. I don't think I've ever seen a picture of Cheney where it didn't look like he was muttering this very phrase under his breath.

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Likewise, I didn't pile on the Jack Ryan saga much because I didn't want to seem to be condemning someone for how he gets his freak on. But, as Rivka points out here, that wasn't really the issue with Ryan.

Jack Ryan is a sick bastard unfit for public office. Not because of his sexual tastes, but because of how he treated his ex-wife. As Rivka puts it:

Jack Ryan's sex life has bearing on "how good or bad of a senator he could be," not because it's "kinky," but because he tried to force a woman to perform sex acts against her will. That's not kinky, it's abusive.

That's a crucial distinction that was too often blurred in most media reports on the whole Ryan implosion.

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The diagrams posted at www.threetwoone.org are almost as fascinating as trying to figure out the kind of personality behind a site that would feature such intricate diagrams of subjects as diverse as the Bush Dynasty, the War of the Roses and the Book of Genesis.

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This list of "The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made," according to the film critics of The New York Times, is a delightful waste of time.

I only seen 281 of the movies listed. But since they left out Fritz Lang's Metropolis I'm going to count that as 282.

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Eventually, someone from the Cartoon Network will realize that Fafnir and Giblets really ought to be made part of the lineup on Adult Swim.

This would entail getting a team of animators to create the Fafnir and Giblets animated characters, as well as, of course, animated versions of the Medium Lobster and Christopher Robin. At the very least, they could become regular guests on, say, Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

If the show became a hit, I could see them branching out to create animated versions of other blogs. Maybe a show called "Why oh why are we ruled by these idiots?" featuring a squiggle-vision version of Brad DeLong.

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John Leland of The New York Times goes where angels fear to tread and reports from the Creation Festival held every summer in Mount Union, Pa. Leland accurately calls Creation "the granddaddy of Christian rock festivals" (accurately except for the "rock" part — attempting to mosh to Michael W. Smith is just so sad).

The focus of Leland's report is on the subculture of Jesus Junk dealers who travel from festival to festival peddling their often-horrifying wares. Some lowlights from this year's crop of Bad Christian T-shirts: "Hardcore Christian," "Hetero-Boy" and "I Love Christian Boys." (Read enough of these and odd themes begin to emerge.)

But here's one T-shirt slogan you'll never see at Creation or any of the other events sponsored by Harry Thomas' Come Alive! Ministries:

"I starved and abused my foster kids and when my pastor finally noticed he said it was OK!"

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Newspaper Cat Blogging. The News Journal asked readers to send in photos of their fat cats. They did.

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This speech by Jim Wallis of Sojourners is really quite good. (Via Mike Todd.) The kicker is especially good: "We are the ones we have been waiting for." That'll preach.