The lillier the liver, the bigger the gun

The Texas adventure of Dick "Dead-Eye" Cheney reminds me of the time, about three years ago, when Congressman Bob Barr accidentally fired an antique pistol in a lobbyist's home during a fundraiser. Ironically, Republican gun nuts seem mostly to be ignorant of proper gun handling. Unless, of course, you count R. Budd Dwyer. (Extra points to anyone who remembers that brainless unfortunate.)

This shooting of a 78-year-old man isn't going to win Cheney any friends in the senior community. Oh well, that won't be much of a loss to the VP, who actually prefers children; they're more flexible and easier to load into a trap machine.

"Pull!"

I say all chickenhawk gun fanatics are secret sadists. They should be boiled in oil. I was going to say fry them, but that would require tenderizing them first. Now wait a minute...that might actually be fun, especially if you get to wear Roman caesti while doing it. (Extra points to anyone who knows what a caestus was.)

Who's angry?

On a whim, I Googled the phrase "angry Muslims" and got back approximately 47,000 hits. For comparative study I entered the phrase "angry Christians," which brought back significantly fewer results: 747. ("Angry Catholics" returned 585 pages and "angry Protestants" 493.)

"Angry Jews" comes in at 550 pages.

The numbers spike again at "angry Hindus," at 1,840, and "angry Sikhs," with 1,300.

Examining angry Islam we find that "angry Shiites" and "angry Sunnis" are pretty much tied, although the Sunnis are statistically angrier, with numbers coming in at 538 and 656, respectively. (The number of angry Muslims in toto is undoubtedly skewed high because of the recent little "incident" of the Danish cartoons.)

In a rather distressing comparison, "angry Buddhists" logs in at 142 pages, while "angry Satanists" shows up on only 130 pages.

Atheists ("angry atheists" tallied 497 returns) are much more angry, according to my research, than agnostics ("angry agnostics:" 67).

Interestingly, more pages returned on the search phrase "angry druids" (814) than "angry pagans" (733).

Wrapping up this little exercise, we find that there are more pages with the term "angry Jedis" (35) than there are pages with "angry beatniks" (9). How there can be seven more pages with the term "angry beatniks" than the term "angry Zoroastrians" is beyond me. If my memory serves me, the Zoroastrians were a rather angry lot.

Finally, there are no web pages with the terms "angry animists" or "angry deists."

A true "waste of skin"

Lucky for me, there is no radio station in D.C. that carries Glenn Beck (at least no radio station I listen to). I don't mind conservative talk radio as long as it's not vitriolic. The problem is, for every George Will on the air there seem to be a dozen Becks. Conversely, I can't stand the angry liberal routine that seems to be cropping up more and more on Air America. Can't everyone get a grip? I mean, if you're going to insult someone, can't you do it with style? Can't you put a little thought into it?

Beck spent 15 minutes calling Jimmy Carter "a waste of skin." That's not a very useful description to begin with, but Beck hammered the phrase home, using it dozens of times. I never thought Carter was a particularly good president, but he's quite an amazing man. Certainly, I wouldn't call him a waste of skin.

Beck's tirade against President Carter has put me in a doleful mood. I'm amazed that a radio program hosted by someone with such a lack of tact and, let's be honest, imagination, can garner a significant listening audience. But maybe it's not the audience's fault; maybe they don't know better. Beck's show gives a lot of people an inaccurate idea of what intelligent political discourse should sound like.

Beck's intellectual proclivities seem to indicate a more useful career in manual labor or, even more apt, sedulous assembly work. I wish he would consider a more rewarding future, to the benefit of America, and leave radio.

Judt

Here is Britain's post-war Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee commenting on Stalin:

"Reminded me of the Renaissance despots--no principles, any methods, but no flowery language--always Yes or No, though you could only count on him if it was No."

This is from Tony Judt's fascinating new book, "Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945."

Here are a few other interesting tid bits (and I'm only on page 125):

Hungary, in 1945, had the worst monetary inflation in recorded history--peaking at five quintillion paper pengos to the dollar. By the time the pengo was replaced by the forint in August 1946, the dollar value of all Hungarian banknotes in circulation was just one-thousandth of one cent.

In the immediate postwar years, Britain was spending $80 million(*) annually to maintain its occupation zone in Germany. This included food to feed a desperately needy German population. As a result, the British government was forced to impose bread rations on its own citizens, something it was able to avoid for the entirety of the war. Hugh Dalton, secretary of the Exchequer, commented that "the British were paying reparations to the Germans." Now that's irony.

(* The amount is in dollars because much of this money came directly from U.S. loans.)

Crabby

Today's word:

cancrine (KANG-krin) adjective

1. Reading the same backwards as forwards, palindromic. For example,
"A man, a plan, a canal: Panama." (letter cancrine)
"So patient a doctor to doctor a patient so!" (word cancrine)

2. Crab-like.

[From Latin cancr- (stem of cancer) cancer + -ine.]

J.S. Bach's Crab Canon is an example of cancrine music.

That's an interesting word. I don't know of any other examples of "cancrine" music. I suppose cancrine music would almost have to be simple, one-note-at-a-time stuff. Just trying to hum an example puts me in mind of Gregorian chant.

I wonder, can societies be "cancrine?"

Music notes

Valery Gergiev and the Kirov Opera and Orchestra are coming to Washington later this month, to perform Turandot, Parsifal and Verdi's Requiem. I took a cab down to the Kennedy Center this morning to get the goods. Because I'm planning on taking Rebekah my first inclination was Parsifal, just for the spectacle of it. However, knowing of Wagner's penchant for lengthy operas, I wondered if that might be a bad choice for an 11-year-old. I asked the man at the box office, how long is it? His answer was, quote, "Five long-ass hours."

So, Verdi it will be.