Friend Ham o' Bone2 thinks this country is no longer center-right, but Dick Morris predicted last night that both houses of Congress will fall into Republican hands in '10 due to the leftward lurch of the O'ministration. I find Morris' prediction hard to believe, but it would certainly show the country is very centrist and possibly even center-right. The fact that if there was a Tea Party party it would have most favored party status seems to show something.
Steven Riddle inspired me3 to pick up my volume of stories titled Samuel Johnson is Indignant by Lydia Davis and I wondered what took me so long. Her clear, limpid prose is full of wry surprises. I read it through dry itchy eyes the color of burnt sienna. (Joking about the color - I just wanted to say 'burnt sienna'. Can you tell I'm being influenced by the "Big Book of NBA Basketball" with it's pointless asides?) I think I have an allergy or pink eye or some combination thereof.
Interesting link on the experience of Russia in going from command economy to a free market version, and how the chief architect is remembered.
Tuesday night I done dragged my arse out in the cold, dark night to pick up my in-laws and drive 'cross town to dinner at Buca de Becca, an Italian joint with a mesmerizing maze of rooms containing thousands of pictures of everything Italian but with a special emphasis on things Catholic. The place is eccentrically irreverent: a bust of Pope John Paul II pops up in a glass box at the center of one table. A cardinal's mitre is framed next to a picture of Pope Paul VI. A large poster of a priest yawning while hearing a confession, maybe Betty Duffy's but I really tend to doubt that. On another wall is a young Sophia Loren, legged in black fishnet.
We wend through all these pictures and memorabilia to the kitchen, where there was a table with a family of four eating. An odd thing to see. "That is motivation to keep the kitchen clean," says one member of our party, which was Steph's small church group, some twenty or so with spouses.
1 - Not that the Republicans are any better at principle of course. I always thought health care was something the Repubs should've tackled when they had a majority since they were no doubt fully aware that if they didn't do something, the Dems would come in and do it worse. (Of course, the Repubs got into it by passing the prescription drug bill, which only made us more dependent on the drug of government, literally & figuratively.) Perhaps the Repubs thought that if they started down that slippery slope of health care reform, it would end up in socialized medicine. Perhaps they didn't care. Perhaps Bush should've executed the Iraq war better. Perhaps...
2 - Hambone, by the way, is to pessimists what Sugar Pops is to sugary cereals - the [insert a fancy Latin phrase for 'the prime example' Not sine qua non but... Bob the Ape, can you help?].
3 - Steven has reincarnated himself as the Mark Shea of lit bloggers, offering a bonanza of fecundity. Will he find fame in the blogosphere yet? How much readership overlap is there between Flos Carmeli and Momentary Taste? These and other questions prompt us as the world turns.