Very beautiful Pieces today, moving and important for people to read.

Beasts, I was enjoying the Naomi Wolf fiasco thru Insty, but thank you for linking to the Horde--too rich a brew for everyday reading for me but I love them. And here there's Ace posting on Saturday which he rarely does, and in the comments references to his shelving troubles of yore and his fasting foolishness....a treasury, I say!

clarice, the same thing struck me, using ratf@@@er as a term of art, argued for in a note! OL, TC, Jack, and GUS, my dad was brought up in Kansas City and then Raytown--does that count? When I was about seven, I met my greatgranparents there, a Methodist minister of 93 and his wife of 92.

AB--no offense taken! I think we all hate mission statements--and would need to hear from rse how such insidious instruments became basic to institutions, especially educational ones, to our national disgrace (though I bet they swarm in Europe too). The Veranda, Dock, Ledge, and Cellar can live without boilerplate!

I wouldn't like the Dock if it had a "mission statement"--those things are poison! Better without!

TK and Ext--super props for those limericks! And Beasts's argumentum ad misericordiam was a brilliant jab. He's off on one of his pleasure cruises, but have to give credit anyhow!

Yep, lyle, it is a good one: "The election of Donald Trump instead of Hillary Clinton is support for the notion that God looks after fools, drunkards, and the United States of America." Discuss.

MM, you have mail!

Bubarooni--I am so very sorry about your dog. We all know this deep sorrow--and yet we get more dogs--probably because God made them for us. And yet also the grief--God made that too, I think. Pin, that was great about the precursor to Moriarty--but he didn't have the elite background you expect of Moriarty--in fact, he was for quite some time a low American hood. But very interesting! I didn't know anything about him. narciso, great summary of what's great about Framley Parsonage--the Duke of Omnium is a Whig, roughly a Democrat, and so that's bad. You will love Lucy and also the Dr. Thorne romance, if you can call it that. MM, loved very much the Ward background (the turn-of-the-century cat artist). Very, very interesting, and right up my alley (meow!) as it were...

narciso, you will love Framley Parsonage--though those were different days about how debt and bills were handled--when you judge our very faulty hero for being a clergyman who foxhunts and gets caught up with the freespending aristocracy, it's good to remember that Trollope loved fox-hunting and in the season would hunt at least three times a week. Very good exposure of shysters here--and also a terrific heroine who makes a grand dame cave. Next you can try my favorite outside of the Barchester novels, Can You Forgive Her?

Been having trouble posting, but what an interesting day! The Italian shift in the high mountain snows signals perhaps a very interesting avalanche (I sound like Comey, or Libby with his aspens).

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I think by 2021 Trump will need to show his generous spirit (which he truly has--there's plenty of evidence) to pardon Obama and Hillary Clinton, particularly for the good of the nation. That this will make them both writhe is just gravy.

The Daughter of Time is a very good mystery--and all done through reading and research (our hero is stuck with I think a broken leg in the hospital for weeks and just wants to find out about Richard's true character). I also loved both the Ian McKellan film (brutal!) and Looking for Richard (which mixes the actors' view of the play with a performance--heady, but very interesting). I don't remember any of these three hitting the "tents" theme, however, as the forces behind them may not have been the outdoorsy types.

JimSunnyvaleCA--first, lovely riposte to the NYT at your 2:41, and second, Richard III as a camping goods store makes perfect sense, as these quotes from Act V, Scene iii make clear: KING RICHARD III: Here pitch our tents, even here in Bosworth field. My Lord of Surrey, why look you so sad? SURREY My heart is ten times lighter than my looks. KING RICHARD III My Lord of Norfolk,-- NORFOLK Here, most gracious liege. KING RICHARD III Norfolk, we must have knocks; ha! must we not? NORFOLK We must both give and take, my gracious lord. KING RICHARD III Up with my tent there! here will I lie tonight; But where to-morrow? Well, all's one for that. Who hath descried the number of the foe? See? He had tents--where did he get them? QED.

Jack, when you catch up, I adore Auden, and that Brewster is also great. I will keep that particular Auden for class--I can think of more than one place at which this will be useful. Pin--yours is a sordid explanation--the original tale has the nicety of fate (the oracle at Eleusus, his hometown, had foretold he would die by a falling object, so he took to hanging out outside, and thus subject to utilitarian eagles--who were violating the categorical imperative). Again, my son thought this story was bosh--but is yours more plausible? He was at this point rather an old man...

Pin! A bit back, but your point about Aeschylus should not be forgotten—told my 17-year-old the story and he was not impressed, saying there was no way that was true. I don’t assume that’s the case at all—after all, there’s this image of the tragi-comic event, admittedly from about 1800 years later--https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeschylus#/media/File:Death_of_Aeschylus_in_Florentine_Picture_Chronicle.jpg Clarice, also a bit back (10:13 am, where did the day go?) but I loved the elementary school aid prompt, “Decisions I Made.” The decision was prompted by the child identifying a problem. This child wrote “my sister socked me on the nose,” and then worked her way through a decision chain (she had to fill out three options) to get to the point of locking her little sister in a closet—for this child, obviously the way to go! So that’s funny. But (and a nod to rse) the graphics for this obviously mass-produced form is in fact troubling. Flanking the “Decisions I Made” title are two vaguely Chast-like heads. On the left, in the good shoulder angel position, is a nerdy glasses-wearing girl with wild hair; on the right, in the bad shoulder position, is a boy with a punk crew, dark sunglasses, and a black/white striped shirt (think an eight-year-old convict on the lam). This happens all the time—girls good, boys bad. I don’t like it. Jane, years ago I decided to be a hip professor and let my students have class outside, this at Trinity University in San Antonio, on a lovely spring day. We all settled in, and just as we’d started getting somewhere (say, with Auden), I realized I’d sat on a fire-ant nest. The horrible bites didn’t stop driving me crazy for at least a week. I am glad to know of the club soda solution, Jack. MM, you have mail.

Re the Louisiana parishes, I remember them chiefly because they figure in the Emancipation Proclamation--Lincoln lists those which are under Union control so as to make plain that slavery can continue in these places! Ext, that horrific plan out of Microsoft is Stalinist! For instance, "fresh blood" is a great phrase--will be sorry to have it expunged (as will vampire aficionados--I am NOT one of these).

Buckeye--so tomorrow is the day! You'll do great, but I know we are all praying for you!

Momto2, you are so very right about the spirits inspiring the majority at the hearing today! rse, thank you here and always for bringing the chosen verbiage with its devious intent to our attention--so even STEM isn't always STEM, as we are learning.

Many (rather late) happy returns of the day, jimmyk! Pin, your "The problem with plagiarism is eventually you run out of other people’s intellectual property" is dead to rights (plus very funny of course). So glad Willie Mays is alive, and also Hank Aaron (go Braves!) And Robin, I liked tote #1 so much I have another ordered for my mom for mother's day!

Just watched the Tiger Medal of Freedom presentation--all very nice, but interestingly Trump got one side of the fabric twisted (no big deal, easy to do), and then after Tiger's remarks, when his family comes up for photos, the first thing his mom does is to untwist the fabric! Moms!

It would be epic revenge from the beyond were "Margaret Thatcher" (what Biden yesterday said when he meant Theresa May, as a head of state who had called him to encourage him to stop that reprobate Trump) become the turning point against Biden's unholy ambitions. Plus neither May nor Thatcher heads of state--that was in both their cases Elizabeth R. Ig suggested that Comey is a "total squirrel"; not to disagree, but I also liked an epithet I saw at Ace's place yesterday: "bin raccoon."

Dove gray with mint green trim--but I see how it's a trick of the light. Gosh, since the 70s I have hated mint green. Jimsunnyvale, that prompt of Insty's, to party like a British cocaine-addled fish, wasn't bad! (lest one always carp...)

Man, what a day. Beasts, can't let your 9:38 AM go by without noting your totally accurate use of "begging the question"--hard to find nowadays. narciso, if we're dealing with Dr. Doolittle's imaginary animals, then the RINOs are obvious Pushme-Pullyus, while Mueller is obviously the Great White Snail--- Jack, in 1956 my mom and dad (then engaged) and my dad's brother were on an inflatable canvas raft and got way, way too far out from Daytona on a nice, but really pretty calm, day. Just as they were thinking of praying, along came a gargantuan wave that brought them all the way in, at least a mile--all three told and tell that story to this day. Clarice, loved, loved the Apelbaum entry--from Cromwell to our republic--very interesting.