Friday, July 29, 2005

PSA

Many awful things conspired to keep the large-livered one from fulfilling his blog obligations ("blogobs") this week, mainly a tenant revolt that required the utmost brutality to put down.

Also, I criminally misunderestimated the amount of great material out there on Palmer College and chiropractic in general. So I'm late on my post; don't have a stroke, man. There'll be a super-enhanced post this weekend.

Anyway, here's a book cover for my fellow Friday night shut-ins:


Turn Blue, You Murderers is one of ten sedate thrillers featuring the hilariously hard-boiled "Pete McGrath." Other titles in the series:

Kill Him Quickly, It's Raining (1966)
An Ear For Murder (1967)
The Flight of the Stiff (1967)
We, the Killers (1967)
Dead Upstairs in the Tub (1967)
Slit My Throat Gently (1968)
Lie a Little, Die a Little (1968; AKA Cry Uncle)
Another Day, Another Stiff (1968)
Death of a Hippie (1968)

My favorites? The Flight of the Stiff and Death of a Hippie, though others more fastidious may prefer Slit My Throat Gently.

Thursday, July 28, 2005

"Nobody likes a drunk Indian"

Pirate Ballerina links to an RMN report that the CU committee investigating Ward Churchill might consider complaints about the preface Churchill wrote to a posthumous book by his wife, Leah Renae Kelly. Kelly's family have said that the preface contains (what else?) many inaccuracies.

Somehow I stopped myself from reading this preface, but I did notice that for a Churchill production it's surprisingly ill-sourced; only 185 footnotes, well below the Churchill gold standard of 400 footnotes (per unit of writing) for real scholarly rigor. He's always boasted about his skill with primary sources too, though, and it was his wife, after all, so the Kellys are probably overreacting.

Leah Kelly's book, In My Own Voice: Explorations in the Sociopolitical Context of Art and Cinema, doesn't exactly sound like a beach read, either. In fact a glance at the chapter titles had me ready to take the gas pipe: "A question of internal colonialism," "Nazi cinema: A comparison to Hollywood westerns," "Through the lens of cultural despair," and, most fittingly, "Boredom or death."

I'll take that second choice.

Update: I used the "drunk Indian" quote from Churchill's preface as a title because as far as I know it's the only indisputably true thing he's ever written.

Update II: Here's a li'l linky to a Canadian First Nations Assembly resolution last year in support of the Kelly family (members of a Canadian tribe) against Ward. Are there any Indians left who aren't out for Ward's sc--who don't dislike Ward?

Update III: Churchill watchers should have some sympathy for poor Leah Renae Kelly. Whatever her problems (including her pathetic Marxism), she didn't deserve to be treated as most of us would guess Ward treated her.

Update IV: Answer to question in update II: No. (via Ward Churchill is a Fraud)

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Old school(s)

Like most people, Drunkablog has often dreamt of visiting the Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa. Last week, driving back from Illinois, he finally "seized" the opportunity to do so. And Drunkablog readers will caper in glee, because the "Fountainhead of Chiropractic" is as bizarre as anyone could hope. Too late for that tonight though. Instead here's a few other schools in Davenport, which has some nice ones:


Like Davenport West High School, which, oddly, shares
a building with. . .


The Davenport West Young Men's Christian Association. That's probably illegal or something, huh?

Here's St. Ambrose College:



And finally, Davenport Central High School:




These schools, by the way, are all on the same street.

Update: Don't forget! Tomorrow! Drunkablog salutes the Palmer College of Chiropractic!

Now that's gooood radio

Hugh Hewitt, Frank Gaffney, and Hussam Ayloush, spokesmuslim for CAIR.

Hugh had Hussam on yesterday, too.

Monday, July 25, 2005

Drunkablog review: Museum of "Great He-Mancipator" draws laughter, tears

The NYT hated it, the Wapo liked it but on the travel page, and Andrew Ferguson rejoiced because it pissed off snooty historians.

The new Lincoln Library and Museum in Springfield truly works hard for the cutting-edge special effects some reviewers have trashed: an "historian" conjures ghostly visions of the 19th century; Tim Russert reviews the presidential campaign commercials of 1860; a map tracks four years of Civil War military movements in four minutes; and a movie projects Lincoln's life three or six screens at a time while 6000 giant speakers flatten the convolutions of one's brain.

Thankfully the museum also has what my fellow elderly might call real "museum"-type attractions like the"Everett copy" of the Gettysburg Address, too. All that stuff is covered in the links (and the MolineQuadCitiesNewsChannel8ActionNews website has a lot of happystories about the place too, if you feel up to it).

But there's one feature of the museum I haven't even heard mentioned that for certain of my readers would be the most interesting of all--its wonderfully "goth" treatment of Lincoln's assassination.


Love dead. Hate living.

A multi-room display begins with a few of the more charming (and printable) letters Lincoln received during his presidency ("If you don't resign we are going to put a spider in your dumpling and play the devil with you"), and then winds the enquiring visitor through such ghoulish bric-a-brac as:

  • a doll-sized effigy of Lincoln; the face flips up to show Lincoln's true "darkie" face underneath. Very evil-looking.
  • the fan Mary Lincoln carried at Ford's theater;
  • swatches smeared with Lincoln's blood;
  • a scale model of Lincoln's funeral train, the original of which burned in 1911 (scroll to bottom of page);
  • posters expressing the North's extraordinary grief over Lincoln's assassination;

  • an exact replica of the Illinois statehouse chamber where Lincoln lay in state (complete with full-size model of Lincoln lying in state);
  • one of Lewis Powell's prison hoods (all the conspirators were hooded throughout their imprisonment, the exhibit claims);
  • and finally, for swank, an extravagantly mounted copy of "O Captain, My Captain."

    Quite swell.


  • A few bad things

    The special effects in "Lincoln's Eyes." Screens slide dizzyingly in and out as giant "smoke" rings float by and 200-dB screams, gunfire and explosions echo through the theater. Worse, the Chief Designer of this torture chamber apparently has a soft spot for the movie The Tingler (1959), and tries to re-create William Castle's "Percepto" sensation ("scream for your lives!"). None of this noticeably enobles The Story of Lincoln.

    Display-card mistakes. I spotted two of the "the Lincoln's walked home" variety and a couple others in just the half-dozen displays on the main floor. Guess $150 million won't buy a proofreader anymore.

    Security. Absolutely nothing is allowed inside the museum. False teeth? Throw 'em in the pile. Prosthetic limb? Post office is right over there, pal.

    Well, they prohibit pens, anyway.

    Update: Here's the Indepundit on Barack Obama's speech at the museum dedication in April, in which he seemed to compare himself rather favorably to the Abe-meister. Drunkablog: sometimes on top of things.

    Update II: But not very damn often. Until today (8/2/05), I had assassination conspirator Lewis Powell's name as "Lewis Payne." He's the one who tried to slash Secretary of State Seward's throat, and engendered some sympathy after his arrest because he was so cute.

    Update III: About that last update. Look, Lincoln may have been gay, but I'm not.

    Sunday, July 24, 2005

    Spam poetry--just add punctuation

    He drink a Arab--
    Or drive, or stewed vandal.

    I draw go woollen, decimate,
    Of break is Maltese aerosol.

    To watch too turbid--
    I sleep, so aristocrat misjudge.

    Update: No rain on hypothetical whisk.

    Update II: Man, that is one deep poem.

    Thursday, July 21, 2005

    Sowelled-out II

    Bullet points from Drunkablog's cross-country drive:

  • Nebraska, often called the "Cornhusker state," frequently smells bad.


  • So does the "hawkeye state," aka Iowa.


  • But Iowa has one of the lovelier town names ever: Atalissa. Atalissa, Iowa.


  • Drunkablog visited the mostly very cool Lincoln Library and Museum in Springfield. Post to follow.


  • Years ago Drunkablog bought a biology text on The Free-living Lower Invertebrates just so he could tape a friend's picture to the cover. No Photoshop then.

  • Pres. Bush said just now that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts has profound respect for "the rulalah."

  • Is Bush French?


  • Listening to the Phil Harris and Alice Faye show on CD. Very funny. Jack Benny makes a guest appearance on the second show, when he meets Phil and Alice's two little girls, Phyllis and Alice, Jr.:

    Phyllis (after a few seconds' silence): Well . . . do something stingy.

    Jack: You're certainly your father's little girl, aren't you?

    Phyllis: Sure I am. Whose little girl are you?


  • In the same show, I think, Phil mentions the no-doubt fictitious book, The Rover Boys at Tehachapi.


  • Is there anything more entertaining than passing an elderly couple in a Lincoln and giving them a friendly wave, then letting them pass, passing them again and giving them a friendly wave, then letting them pass, over and over and over? Pretty soon they quit waving, then looking. Then they drive faster, then slower. Finally they pull over, almost swerving into the ditch. Fun for all!

    Update: Nebraska Pork Online?
  • Sunday, July 17, 2005

    Family splatters

    Apologies for the postal lackage, but Drunkablog's august presence was unexpectedly and precipitately required at a family gathering in Illinois, to discuss a subject Drunkablog found so fascinating that from now on he will devote his blog to it: corn.

    You see, Drunkablog's ancestors throve and grew full-'tarded on this land, this "central" Illinois, with it's babbling brooks and majestic cottonwoods and frolicking deer all long ago drained and cut down and shot so as to concentrate everybody's mind on what's really important: corn.

    Amazingly, Drunkablog and too many other descendants have somehow managed not to drink, gamble or whore away an exceedingly modest parcel of this land, ably farmed by our serfs. Occasionally, however, a meeting is necessary to settle disputes, mainly about what to do with our precious corn.

    But Drunkablog has finally been released from his obligations ("sell!") and dumped at the luxurious home of a sister in Springfield, Ill. who apparently has joined the computer age.

    So I can blog again. At least tonight.

    Since I drove out here, I guess you could call this a "road trip." Whoo-hoo. But I took pictures. Many pictures. Here, for example, is a picture of the road on which a portion of the road trip took place:

    Wednesday, July 13, 2005

    Can't-get-enough-ho-quo bonus post!

    Just a few more Alger book covers.



    These beauties are from the Syracuse University Library Special Collections Department's Street and Smith Dime Novel Cover Art Collection.

    Ho-quo reader request fulfilled

    A reader has asked that this week's ho-quo show pictures of, to quote the reader, "nekkid women." Drunkablog grants reader requests whenever possible, so even though the ho-quo is already posted, here are some nekkid (by Victorian standards) women engaged in something called, if I remember correctly, "water sports."

    Your cheatin' ho-quo

    Too busy to post an annotated ho-quo this week, so here are a few pics of book covers.

    Sunday, July 10, 2005

    Adjustment to adulthood

    A picture from an old intro to psychology textbook I picked up somewhere:



    Why is the poor man covering his face? Is he sad? Fatigued? Getting ready to go (as the cant phrase had it) postal? What's up, Bud? Why don't you tell me about it? You'll feel better.

    Never mind.

    Friday, July 08, 2005

    Moocher to thrive on Drunkablog bounty

    An old, old, old friend guests at the Drunkablog shack starting tomorrow. Posts will therefore be sloppier, stupider, and sparser than usual, even.

    Let's have a l'il drinkie . . .

    And extend a sloppy, overemotional Drunkablog welcome to our very first advertiser, Uncle Tom's Cabinetry!

    (Could there be a business with that name? Drunkablog is afraid to google it.)

    Wednesday, July 06, 2005

    Building cool-lapse

    The Rocky Mountain News has a time-lapse sequence of construction of the addition to the Denver Art Museum: Wing of change growing at art museum. Sorry about the title. (The Rocky's, not mine.) Earlier museum-addition post here (careful--it's scary).

    The ho-quo! In colour!

    Certain persons have been critical of the ho-quo recently, saying it's not funny. Anymore.

    I totally agree.

    Ho-quo of the week!

    "'How I wish I had had your advantages!' said Harry. 'How did you like your French schoolmates?'

    "'They wouldn't come near me at first. Because I was an American they thought I carried a revolver and a dirk-knife, and was dangerous. That is their idea of American boys. When they found I was tame, and carried no deadly weapons, they ventured to speak with me . . .'"--From Risen From the Ranks (cover) (1874).

    The picture of Milky and Bozo is from an interesting site called Detroit Radio Flashbacks. Milky (most disgusting clown name ever) was famous on early Detroit TV, as apparently was another clown, Oopsy. Oopsy and Milky. Think they ever hooked up with Clabber Girl?

    Update: If you need to look up "clabber," I already did.

    Tuesday, July 05, 2005

    One Shep, Two Sheps

    Being one of those writers nobody will hire (not in my case because I'm lazy and have no talent, but because, I'm told, I "smell bad") Drunkablog must try harder, so when I spotted this yesterday I had to investigate:


    A headstone, sitting between the entrance and exit ramps for Broomfield on US 36. I've been on this stretch hundreds of times and never noticed it. But decorated for the fourth (I assume) it sticks out a little more.

    So who's buried there? Civil War vet? Toothless old mountain man? Maybe a homesteader planted on the last bit of family farm. In any case, I thought, buried there is definitely a great post for the 4th.

    Had to work for it, though. I parked in industrial hell and ran across all six lanes of Highway 36 plus various kinds of skank ground to get to it. And there were these holes everywhere:


    Prairie dog holes, I think, but whatever they are, they're all over, and they're big. And it was dusk. Prairie dogs feed at dusk. Luckily the city or the railroad or somebody left a pile of metal hunks for the convenience of innocent passersby:


    Thanks, men of the railroad!
    Now I can brain the little bastards!

    So anyway, I risk my life reaching this tombstone and who's buried there?



    Freakin' Shep.

    Freakin' Shep (1950-1964) (and actually, just "Shep"). Out there 41 years, and people still bring him ducks and tennis balls to play with:


    So, having investigated as much as a guy afraid of prairie dogs could, I went home and googled The Story of Shep (tollroad dog version). Pretty good, but not as good, in my opinion, as The Story of Shep (crated sheepherder version), a far better-known tale.

    (via, convolutedly, Instapundit)

    Monday, July 04, 2005

    America's pastime

    The Drunkawife is at the Rockies game with some group of activist chicks or other. Before she left we had a brief conversation:

    D-a-W (with a heavy Russian accent): You are reedeeculous leetle man.

    Me: Huh?

    D-a-W: You are weak. Weak! You cry all times about thees--thees Deeng-Air. Why you so 'fraid of thees Deeng-Air?

    Me: Deeng-Air?

    D-a-W: Deeng-Air! Deeng-Air! Zee porple dinosaur!

    Me: Oh, Dinger, the evil Rockies mascot.

    D-a-W: Da, zat ees zee one.

    Me: Well, he's worse than Hitler.

    D-a-W: Oh, Heetler, Heetler! Alvays vith zee Heetler!

    Me: He must be arrested and tried for crimes against humanity.

    D-a-W: Nyet! Eet is I, Dronkavife, who shall, how you say?, leequeedate zis Deeng-Air.

    Me: You will?

    D-a-W: Da!

    Me: Thought you quit drinkin'.

    D-a-W: Da!

    Me: Yeah, me too.

    Update: Dodgers 4, Rockies 3 in 11. There's gonna be a bunch of people in my yard in a minute to watch the fireworks from Coors Field. Release the hounds!

    Update II: Drunkawife reports: Deeng-Air, someone teep heem off!



    Dino WMD: Dinger was
    ready for anything.


    For fireworks games they move people from the cheap seats
    to the outfield (easier to triage shrapnel wounds there).


    Then, boom.

    (photos courtesy the Drunkawife)

    Saturday, July 02, 2005

    Froma Harrop

    Just wanted to mention the most indignant-sounding name in journalism. Since this is a blog, though, here's a link to her latest column. No idea what it's about.

    Friday, July 01, 2005

    More Russian aggression

    Jamie Glazov "moderates" a Muslim participant into a coma in his latest symposium at Frontpagemag today: Muslims in France: a ticking time bomb?

    FP (Glazov): Sorry gentlemen, my eyes are starting to glaze over.

    When organizing this symposium, I thought about the term “ticking time bomb” and thought it was a given that it referred to the growth of the Muslim population in France and the dangers it poses. There is an obvious Islamist component here. Within this whole phenomenon lies a clear threat to democracy, freedom, individual rights (of Muslims and non-Muslims) in France, not to mention the rise of extremism and terror etc. As this discussion proceeds, it appears that several members on this panel believe that the ticking time bomb is the potential response that some French citizens might engage in to Islamist terror and extremism. In other words, Islamist terror and extremism is not the problem, but the response that might be made to it.

    Obviously we need to avoid alienating Muslims. It is clear we need to try to nurture a moderate Islam and to ally ourselves with Muslims who seek to modernize and democratize Islam. But to pretend that the threat to France posed by Islamism has nothing to do with the growth of the Muslim presence in France is mind-boggling.

    The reminder to us that a fanatical Jew killed Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is an absurd distraction to this conversation. Sorry, I think the last thing the victims of Islam’s gender apartheid, and all the victims of Islamist terror, worry about at night are fanatical Jews. The homosexual Palestinians that flee to Israel to avoid their death sentences under PA culture for being gay, I assure you, do not live their lives in dread worrying about fanatical Jews. And trust me, when I go to sleep at night and worry about the world’s safety and future, I think about things like 9/11, about Tehran’s Mullahs having nuclear weapons, about Zarqawi and Bin Laden getting their hands on WMDs. The threat of fanatical Jews, I am afraid, does not loom large in my fears at night.

    The point about the Holocaust being “perpetrated by refined Christians” is a crock and the people who utter it know it is a crock. The Holocaust was not perpetrated for a Christian reason. It was not perpetrated by Christians acting out of loyalty to their faith and following their religious texts. The Holocaust’s evil was not perpetrated and legitimized, step by step, by references to verses from the New Testament. The Holocaust was the ultimate anti-Christian act that might have been committed by some people who happened to be Christian but who were violating the basic tenets of their religion. You cannot find anything in the New Testament that serves as a foundation for the legitimacy of the Holocaust nor can you find a reference to anything even close to justifying the acts used in carrying it out. And I am not going to waste my time here going over how Islamist terror finds its roots in Muslim texts. Go read Robert Spencer’s Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West.

    Do we support Muslims who want to reform Islam and democratize it and make it a religion of peace? Yes. Can we deny that when Osama and al Zarqawi refer to Surahs in the Koran to justify their violent acts that they are referring to real Surahs? No. The Muslim community is as diverse as any other group, culture and community? Please. When there are Muslim women from the Muslim world freely competing in sports and in the Olympics, get in touch with me. When they are free to become rominent intellectuals and critics in their own society and receive material and ultural rewards for being prominent dissidents, get in touch with me. When they are free, if they so choose, to engage in Muslim beauty pageants, get in touch with me. When Muslims throughout the Arab world start creating the most hilarious self-critical stand-up comedy routines, get in touch with me. When Muslims create heated and controversial talk shows, books and films, where free opinions startle and provoke thought on all limits, and the creators are not hiding in desperate fear of their lives, get in touch with me.

    Again, is there a fight happening for the soul of Islam? Yes. Must we support Muslims, like groups such as The Free Muslims Against Terrorism? Yes. But please spare me the absurdity of the Muslim community being as "diverse" as any other community. When Jews and Christians rise in its ranks and become members of it on many levels and realms, like Muslims have done in the West, get in touch with me. In the old Islamic empires, Jews and Christians who attained political influence were often the target of violence and resentment by Muslims. Today, Christians like Tariq Aziz, the former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, have risen in power only in states where Islamic law has been set aside.

    When you can name me ten fatwas, off the top of your head, made by ten famous Muslim clerics against bin Laden within this “diverse” community, get in touch with me. Yes, of course these fatwas exist, but why are they so few in number and what effect have they had on widespread support for Islamic terrorists within the Islamic community worldwide? Does this not say something about "diversity" in the Muslim community.

    Kindly also spare us the nonsense about the Islamic “tolerance” that was practised in medieval Spain. Newsflash: it never happened. Robert Spencer has meticulously delegitimized this myth in his Ch. 7, “The Modern Myth of Islamic Tolerance,” in Onward Muslim Soldiers.

    In any case, Dr. Ibn Guadi? Sorry, it’s getting a bit hot in here.

    Ibn Guadi ("an Islamologist at Strasbourg University and a researcher in Semitic Philology. He is a contributor to Figaro, Le Point and other journals. He has lectured at the Theological Seminary of Montpellier (France) in Islamic Law and Islamic Warfare during the Abbasside empire at Fez (Morocco) and has taught Persian, Arabic, Sumerian and other Semitic languages in Switzerland"): "I see."

    I see.

    Post: Churchill comments outrageous; let's give him lots of money!

    The Denver Post, calling CU professor Ward Churchill's comments advocating "fragging" officers "outrageous," says today that if CU can't get rid of Churchill for cause, they should buy him out: "Incoming CU president Hank Brown has said he doesn't want to buy out Churchill to make him go away, but if university investigators don't find cause for dismissal, he needs to be open-minded about it. CU is best off if Churchill goes away."

    Update: PirateBallerina has more of Churchill's extraordinary spouting (even for him) at the Portland event. Look, up to now I've liked the guy okay, you know? But when he starts talking about how "they" "killed the landlords, turned the landlords into a sport" (and we know who "they" are, right?), well, I have to part company with my brother Churchill.