What we missed this weekend

The coughing and hacking over here continues, but a quiet weekend helped me to get caught up on email, where one question was asked twice: “Anchoress, why didn’t you go to CPAC 2010.

Oh, gosh, I could answer that so many ways: that attending it with a rousing case of bronchitis would serve no one well; that I don’t really self-identify as a “conservative.” That lots of “pure” conservatives like to agree with me that I am “no true conservative.” (What is the difference between Republicans and Democrats?)

Those would just be excuses, though; I’d have loved to have gone to CPAC, if only to join in singing the praises of Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, who was deservedly recognized for his excellent work.

The truth, however, is that like a cheap wine, I do not travel well. Beyond that, the idea of wandering through a convention center amid 10,000 people gives me immediate heebiejeebies; I am deplorably bad at meeting and greeting; names and faces do not gel. I clumsily don’t always “get” facial expressions and social cues, so I end up mystified and uncomfortable while people all around me seem to know what’s going on. Like a feral blogger, I have almost no social skills at all and when allowed out in public, things end badly (no deaths, but plenty of injuries) and so I am better off on my own and separate.

And besides, who needs to go out when the highlights can be seen online? I’ve learned to love the edited experience:

Watch the whole speech here

Other stories you might have missed this weekend:

Victory in Iraq: a noble victory given short shrift

As they came to line up earlier that morning, the men thanked us and clasped their hands over their heads, striking a triumphant pose. Some of the women cried. The kids were on their best behavior.

The gunfire began that afternoon. Insurgents started to shoot them. My unit ran to the road and formed a protective position between the killers and the citizens going to the polls. As we scanned the palm grove in front of us, bullets cracked and whined, then mortars start thumping around us. My squad pushed into the palm grove. I stayed on the road, overseeing their movement and coordinating the heavy fire from the Bradleys.

The firefight ebbs. The mortar fire ceases. A few last stray rounds streak past. A cry from behind causes me to turn. Lying in the road is a young Iraqi woman. I run over to help. She’s caught a round just below her temple. Her stunning beauty has been ruined forever.

She cries, “Paper! Paper” over and over until the ambulance arrives to take her away. An old lady emerges from the schoolhouse-turned voting site, sheets of blue paper in hand. She gives one to the wounded girl, who clutches it to her like a prized possession even as the ambulance carries her away.

The ballot was her voice. All she wanted was a chance to exercise it, just once, before she died.

You got yer Camelot and yer gridlock, or yer Watergate and Vietnam. And yer “broken” governments. Templates: no thinking required.

The Miserable Outlook on Jobs: Prepare for your college-graduating children to boomerang back home; mine did.

Climategate Fraud: “Okay we admit it; the seas are not rising!” Not that they have to worry about Americans finding that out, if the press has anything to say about it. Were we “blinded by science”? Not all of us were. Also, How Al Gore Wrecked Planet Earth

While the US Press largely ignores the fraud exposure, the Euro-left gets mad.

Health Costs Control: “They only studied dead people”.

Political Theater: Don’t know if I’ll have the stomach to watch

The underedumacated proles: Elites are feeling bitten. The proles are feeling put-upon.

“Reconciliation” launches a far-left legislation landslide: We don’t need no stinking representative government.

Gays and Conservatives getting along: it doesn’t surprise me; the people obsessed with controlling the narratives, though, are gobsmacked.

John Yoo and Jay Bybee: The partisan smear campaign fails, but succeeds in its way, as they usually do. Meanwhile 9 Justice Department worked for who?

Clamping Down on the Internet, only a matter of time.

Alice in Wonderland: can’t wait to see it, but am I the only one who thinks that as the Mad Hatter, Johnny Depp looks strangely like Elijah Wood?

Also want to see this film

Finally: In defense of rote memorization: I concur.