Unintended Profundity

Thursday I was reading the Paul Krugman article on whether after all of the rhetoric (which has been heard since Truman) health care would become a reality with a new administration -and this was at the end of the article:

Before Bip ...

who knew the imagination, wit and clarity with which silence could speak. The silence, now mute.


'night, Marcel [my emphasis]


Almost 27 years ago, our eldest had been with us only a couple of months and we brought her everywhere, including a Marceau performance at the Northrop Auditorium at the U of M (the M being Minnesota).

We had excellent seats and, thanks to Mr. CJ, I even got to keep mine for the entire performance.

Young, naive, new parents we brought our daughter many places and she'd never been bothered by anything. She placidly observed the goings on when awake and serenely slept through the rest.

Awake albeit sleepy as we we took our seats, she was unperturbed by the tremendous applause that greeted Marceau's appearance on stage and a moment later was fast asleep. However, several minutes into his performance the spontaneous (but repetitive) eruptions of applause startled her and she let her displeasure be known.

Mr. CJ (bless him), knowing the amplitude of my anticipation of this performance and the near fanaticism of my appreciation for Marceau, took our wee one from me and went to watch the performance on a video monitor outside of the hall.

The applause was so thunderous and frequent that our babe was not able to get back to sleep until the car ride home so Mr. CJ never returned to his seat. Now I'm not going to suggest that this is the only reason Mr. CJ and I are still together today but ...

Marceau was, as always, amazing and I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to experience his genius in person. What a tremendous loss. 'night, Marcel.

It Comes But Once a Year

Yes, it's 9/11 once again but while I don't mean to diminish the personal loss of many Americans, as a country we have lost much more in the days, months and years that have followed. We've been in a downward spiral since December of 2004 when our first stolen presidential election was legitimized by five and 9/11/2001 was merely one point of many along this destructive path.

What, no Turkey?

Well, at least none with any feathers (that we know of). Yes, Bush made another surprise visit to Iraq sans any Commander-in-Chief-gear lest you think this was some kind of propaganda in advance of the September Report.

The meetings were held at Al Asad air base rather than in Baghdad because Mr. Bush wanted to see first hand the progress in Anbar, he said, though the president is not scheduled to leave the base, a sprawling complex far from the province’s population centers.

Yes, Bush was over heard saying, "I wanna see, well not exactly see, don't wanna get that close to my progress. But feel, I wanna be able to feel the progress. I wanna be close enough that the progress can osmosificate^TM through me. I'm feelin' it now".

Reports are that, unfortunately, he didn't make it to the restroom before his progress exploded over everyone.