There are only 60,000 nuns left in the US Catholic Church.And the Vatican wants to start an inquisition into what’s left of the orders, ’cause some o’ them ladies just maybe ain’t been doin’ what they’re told.
Well, that’s just great. Thank you, Pope Benedict – you’re so evil, you’ve got me rooting for nuns. (It’s like in Return of the Jedi, when you realize Darth Vader isn’t really the real bad guy.)
Lera Boroditsky has a super-interesting essay at Edge on her work empirically testing the proposition that language structures thought. (Blërg – resisting urge to… blockquote…. sigh.)
So Boroditsky’s got some clever tests, including asking speakers/writers of a different language to arrange pictures chronologically (Roman languages tend to arrange chronology from left to right, Hebrew from right to left, and fascinatingly, the Kuuk Thaayorre in Australia do it from east to west), and testing incidences of adjectives speakers of languages with gendered nouns assign to those nouns – Germans think keys (male) are hard and jagged and bridges are slender and beautiful, where Spanish-speakers (whose gender assignations switch the nouns) correspondingly flip associations.
But… okay, look. I believe in this thesis. But the tests to my mind are not conclusive evidence. Here’s why.
You can’t get into a person’s head.
Is is that simple? It is.
Because (stay with me) all of these tests don’t show that speakers of different language think differently, but that they represent thought differently. The way we write changes the way we talk, and the way we represent thought in space. The way we talk also changes the way we write. And the way we talk changes the way we talk. You don’t have any evidence – at least, any evidence that doesn’t assume the premise – that Germans actually THINK bridges are more graceful or beautiful than Spaniards do – just that they’re more likely to use adjectives with feminine associations with feminine nouns. What this suggests immediately is that language is a complex and interconnected system where terms and kinds group together, and small linguistic changes actually trigger a series of different linguistic associations and values. It DOESN’T immediately prove that language structures thought – understood as something independent from its representation.
Because if language is the vocal and visual representation of concepts, then ALL of Boroditsky’s tests are instances of language. Language structures language. And once you assume unproblematically that language directly represents thought, then you naturally discover that thought and language are inseparable. Which is what was to be shown. But this is logically a tautology – even if its empirical specifics of how that tautology manifests itself are fascinating.
Let me reframe this, then. What I think these experiments show is that in moments where we may think we are simply registering our pure and unmediated experience of the world, we’re really on auto-pilot – language is in fact doing our “thinking” for us. But this kind of not-quite-thinking doesn’t automatically deserve to be called “thought” at all.
I don’t have any answers just yet, but I like Rex’s well-titled “The Death of Writing, The Rebirth of Words.”
(See Roland Barthes’s “The Death of the Author is the Birth of the Reader” and Jacques Derrida’s “The End of the Book, The Beginning of Writing”)
It’s silly to make a CD-length mix playlist in 2009. I stopped listening to CDs altogether when I donated my long-suffering 1996 Monte Carlo a couple of years ago. And curation with limits is out. Why limit yourself to a static 80-minute document when you can have your own blog – hell, your own radio station – curating music all year long? Why not just make a big “favorites” list for your iPod and stick it on shuffle?
So it took the following extraordinary circumstances to get me to put this together:
1. I’m secretly an analog dinosaur. I wrote papers on a manual typewriter until I went to college, and made cassette after cassette of 60, 90, and 120-minute songs I recorded from the radio from the time I was six or seven.
2. I keep all of my music on an external hard drive, which went kaput. I’ve had to scavenge data to my overloaded laptop – which means I mostly have only a few songs/albums that I really want to listen to available to me.
3. It’s hot, and it’s summer, so songs about heat and summer keep coming to my mind. And they’re (mostly) not the obvious ones.
4. There are a few really terrific albums that have come out in the last few months.
5. The death of Michael Jackson has me reaching around in my music archive a bit.
So here’s a playlist of songs preoccupying me for summer 2009. It’s titled “Melting Like Hot Candle Wax.” If you’re really slick, you know where that title’s from already.
1. “Build Voice,” Dan Deacon, Bromst
2. “Two Weeks,” Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest
3. “Boyz,” M.I.A., Kala
4. “Summertime Clothes,” Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion
5. “Not A Robot, But A Ghost,” Andrew Bird, Noble Beast
6. “Another Sunny Day,” Belle & Sebastian, The Life Pursuit
7. “Summertime,” Galaxie 500, This Is Our Music
8. “We Could Walk Together,” The Clientele, Suburban Light
9. “Black Cab,” Jens Lekman, Oh You’re So Silent Jens
10. “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” Michael Jackson, Off The Wall
11. “Postcards From Italy,” Beirut, Gulag Orkestar
12. “Two Doves,” Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca
13. “Too Many Birds,” Bill Callahan, Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
14. “The City,” Dismemberment Plan, Emergency & I
15. “Here Comes the Summer,” The Fiery Furnaces, EP
16. “35 in the Shade,” A.C. Newman, Slow Wonder
17. “Summer In The City,” Regina Spektor, Begin To Hope
What music, old or new, are you listening to this summer?
See Books I and II here.
But now, O Muse, you must sing of how Sanford, so handsome and competent as to appear on television like unto one of the deathless Gods, and like them possessed by a lust both mighty and confused, came to this pass.
As Dawn rose from her couch beside Tithonus- harbinger of light alike to mortals and immortals- the press met in council and with them, State Senator John “Jake” Knotts, the lord of thunder. Thereon Knotts began to tell them of the many sufferings of Sanford, for while he was Sanford’s enemy, he also secretly pitied him away there in the house of the nymph Maria Belen Calypso.
“O Press,” said he, coyly, “and all you other gods of media that live in everlasting bliss, I hope there may never be such a thing as a kind and well-disposed ruler any more, nor one who will govern equitably. I hope they will be all henceforth cruel and unjust, for there is not one of his subjects but has forgotten Sanford, who ruled them as though he were their father. Now, if there were an emergency in this state of Carolina, there would be none who could rule in his stead; for our Constitution has invested the power only in him. There he is, lying in great moral suffering in Argentina where dwells the nymph Calypso, who will not let him go; and he cannot get back to his own country, for he can find neither ships nor sailors to take him over the sea. At least, this is what rumors have told – no one, not his wife Jenny nor even his loyal security retinue, knows where exactly he may be. Furthermore, wicked people are now trying to keep his only lieutenant governor Andre Bauer, who is coming home from Charleston, where he has been to see if he can get news of the governor, from exercising constitutional authority.”
“What, my friend, are you talking about?” replied Leroy Chapman, editor of The State, “does no one know where the governor is? Because we had heard that he was hiking the Applachian trail, where all princes of Hellas return to clear their head, relieve their burdens, and ejaculate their noblest utterances. Besides, someone should be perfectly able to protect Sanford, and to see him safely home again, before the press has to come hurry-skurrying back to meet him at the airport, or wheresoever he may be.”
When he had thus spoken, he said to his junior reporter Gina Smith, whom he had nicknamed, for reasons of his own, Mercury, “Mercury, you are our messenger, go therefore and tell Calypso we have decreed that poor Sanford is to return home. He is to be convoyed neither by gods nor men, but after a perilous voyage of several hours upon a plane he is to reach fertile Atlanta, the land of the Georgians, who are near of kin to the gods, where you will look for his car, and then surprise him with an interview. He will then take his car to his own country, where we will pay him more attention than he would have brought back from Minneapolis, if he had been named nominee Vice President and had got home without disaster. This is how we have settled that he shall return to his country and his friends.”
Thus he spoke, and Smith, who, I’ve just said, is sometimes known as Mercury, guide and guardian, scooper of Argus, did as she was told. Forthwith, in this telling of the tale, she did not merely look for Sanford at the airport, but she bound on her glittering golden sandals with which she could fly like the wind over land and sea. She took the notebook with which she writes down her interview transcripts or makes notes just as she pleases, and flew holding it in her hand over the Caribbean; then she swooped down through the firmament till she reached the level of the sea, whose waves she skimmed like a cormorant that flies fishing every hole and corner of the ocean, and drenching its thick plumage in the spray. She flew and flew over many a weary wave, but when at last she got to Buenos Aires which was her journey’s end, she left the sea, and the majestic coastline of Buenos Aires, city by the river called by the men of that land de la Plata, and went on by land till he came to the condominium where the nymph Maria Calypso lived.
She found her at home. There was a large fire burning on the hearth, and one could smell from far the fragrant reek of burning cedar and sandal wood. As for herself, she was busy at her loom, shooting her golden shuttle through the warp and singing beautifully. Round her condominium there was a thick wood of alder, poplar, and sweet smelling cypress trees, wherein all kinds of great birds had built their nests- owls, hawks, and chattering sea-crows that occupy their business in the waters. A vine loaded with grapes was trained and grew luxuriantly about the back door of the condominium; there were also four pretty terrific restaurants grouped pretty close together, and turned hither and thither so as to make a kind of outdoor courtyard over which they flowed. It was really, really nice, even for Buenos Aires. Even a god could not help being charmed with such a lovely spot, so Mercury stood still and looked at it; but when she had admired it sufficiently he went and knocked on the door.
Calypso knew her at once- for all gods and journalists all know each other, no matter how far they live from one another- but Sanford was not within; he was on the sea-shore as usual, looking out upon the barren ocean with tears in his eyes, groaning and breaking his heart for sorrow. Calypso gave Mercury a seat and said: “Why have you come to see me, Mercury- honoured, and ever welcome- for you do not visit me often? Say what you want; I will do it for be you at once if I can, and if it can be done at all; but come inside, and let me set refreshment before you.”
As she spoke she drew a table loaded with ambrosia beside her and mixed for her a really tasty nectar and ambrosia cocktail, with just a little bit of lime and mint, so Mercury ate and drank till she had had enough, and then said:
“We are speaking as goddesses – and journalists – to one another, and you ask me why I have come here, and I will tell you truly as you would have me do. The State sent me; it was no doing of mine; who could possibly want to come all this way over the sea where there are no Starbucks full of people to offer me mochaccinos or choice cookies? Nevertheless I had to come, for none of us other reporters can cross the Press, nor transgress its orders. We say that you have here the most ill-starred of all those who fought before the state aid of President Obama and sailed home in the fifth month after having refused it. On their way home they sinned against Public Opinion, who raised both heckles and cackles against them, so that all his brave companions perished, and he alone was carried hither by wind and tide. The Press says that you are to let this by man go at once, for it is decreed that he shall not perish here, far from his own people, but shall return to his house and country and give us conferences again.”
Calypso trembled with rage when she heard this, “You gods,” she exclaimed, “ought to be ashamed of yourselves. You are always jealous and hate seeing a goddess (or god) take a fancy to a mortal man, and live with him in open matrimony, of the shacked-up, sometimes long-distance, sometimes quickly in the bathroom kind. So when the rosy-fingered pages sweetly enticed Mark Foley, you precious reporters were all of you furious till you went and defeated his reelection in Florida. So again when Ceres fell in love with Vitter, and yielded to him in a thrice ploughed fallow field, for thrice three hundred dollars, the Press came to hear of it before so long and tried to killed Vitter with their thunder-bolts. And now you are angry with me too because I have a man here. I found the poor creature sitting all alone astride of a keel, for he was lonely, and had no adventures, in the bubble of politics you made for him, while he himself was driven by wind and waves on to my land. I got fond of him and cherished him, and had set my heart on making him immortal, so that he should never grow old all his days; still I cannot cross the Press, nor bring his counsels to nothing; therefore, if he insists upon it, let the man go beyond the seas again; but I cannot send him anywhere myself for I have neither ships nor men who can take him. Nevertheless I will readily give him such advice, in all good faith, as will be likely to bring him safely to his own country.”
“Then send him away,” said Gina/Mercury, “or we will be angry with you and punish you.”‘
On this she took her leave, and Maria went out to look for Sanford, for she had heard the message. She found him sitting upon the beach with his eyes ever filled with tears, and dying of sheer home-sickness; for he had got tired of Calypso, and though he was forced to sleep with her in the cave by night, it was she, not he, that would have it so. As for the day time, he spent it on the rocks and on the sea-shore, weeping, crying aloud for his despair, and always looking out upon the sea. Calypso then went close up to him said:
“My poor fellow, you shall not stay here grieving and fretting your life out any longer. I am going to send you away of my own free will; so go, put some pants on, and use my credit card to buy a plane ticket, coach or business class, that it may carry you safely over the sea. I will put bread, wine, and water on board to save you from starving. I will also give you clothes, and will send you a fair wind to take you home, if the gods in heaven so will it- for they know more about these things, and can settle them better than I can.”
Sanford shuddered as he heard her. “Now goddess,” he answered, “there is something behind all this; you cannot be really meaning to help me home when you bid me do such a dreadful thing as to fly coach. Not even a well-found ship with a fair wind could venture on such a distant voyage: nothing that you can say or do shall make me get on board that plane unless you first solemnly swear that you mean me no mischief.”
Calypso smiled at this and caressed him with her hand: “You know a great deal,” said she, “but you are quite wrong here. May heaven above and earth below be my witnesses, with the waters of the river – and this is the most solemn oath which a blessed god can take- that I mean you no sort of harm, and am only advising you to do exactly what I should do myself in your place. I am dealing with you quite straightforwardly; my heart is not made of iron, and I am very sorry for you.”
When she had thus spoken she led the way rapidly before him, and Sanford followed in her steps; so the pair, goddess and man, went on and on till they came to Calypso’s condo, where Sanford took the seat that Mercury had just left. Calypso set meat and drink before him of the food that unadventurous Americans eat; but her maids brought ambrosia and nectar and delicious tapas for herself, and they laid their hands on the good things that were before them. When they had satisfied themselves with meat and drink, Calypso spoke, saying:
“Sanford, noble son of, um, Sanford, so you would start home to your own land at once? Good luck go with you, but if you could only know how much suffering is in store for you before you get back to your own country, you would stay where you are, keep house along with me, and let me make you immortal, no matter how anxious you may be to see this wife of yours, of whom you are thinking all the time day after day; yet I flatter myself that at am no whit less tall or well-looking than she is, for it is not to be expected that a mortal woman should compare in beauty with a super-hot Argentinian TV reporter.”
“Maria,” replied Sanford, “do not be angry with me about this. I am quite aware that my wife Jenny is nothing like so tall or so beautiful as yourself. She is only a woman, whereas you are an immortal. You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night’s light — but hey, that would be going into sexual details…”
“While all the things above are all too true — at the same time we are in a … hopelessly impossible situation of love. How in the world this lightening strike of Zeus snuck up on us I am still not quite sure. As I have said to you before I certainly had a special feeling about you from the first time we met, but these feelings were contained and I genuinely enjoyed our special friendship and the comparing of all too many personal notes…
“Nevertheless, I want to get home, and can think of nothing else. If some intrepid reporter wrecks my political future when I am on the way to the airport, I will bear it and make the best of it. I have had infinite trouble both by land and sea already, so let this go with the rest.”
Presently the sun set and it became dark, whereon the pair retired into the inner part of Maria’s condominium and went to bed.
To Be Continued…
Sotheby’s is auctioning a palimpsest manuscript of the New Testament (and parts of the old). It’s written in 8th-c. Greek, 6th-c. Aramaic, and overwritten in a 9th-c. Syriac script.
Apparently the sixth-century scribes who wrote it were living in what was then Judea, somewhere in present-day Israel. The document was taken to the Sinai desert in Egypt and stowed away for 300 years at a monastery called St. Catherine’s, at the foot of the mountain where Moses is said to have received the Ten Commandments…. Then in the ninth century, a new set of scribes dug through St. Catherine’s looking for parchment, which was very expensive in those days. They pulled pages from eight different books–six in Aramaic and two in Greek–and did their best to erase the original writing. They then turned the pages upside down and wrote over the ancient text in jet-black ink. The newer text, in Syriac, is a copy of instructions on how to run a monastery, originally written by a sixth-century monk named John Climacus.
This happened all the time, and was one of the best advantages of writing on parchment. It was expensive – anything made from animals rather than vegetables always is — but you could scrape the top layer off and use it again and again.
There’s a whole aspect of monastic discipline and spirituality that’s tied up with manuscript and parchment culture. Preparing vellum for writing was hard, physical work – and the scraping of the parchment became a kind of allegory for spiritual renewal and an ascetic’s soul. You’re literally mortifying flesh, scraping it clean, in order to fill it with wisdom and the words of God.
But at the same time, it was prosaic and practical:
“It was like using yesterday’s newspaper to wrap up your fish and chips,” says Bolton.
I love the description of the appearance of multiple scripts in the document:
The resulting palimpsest looks like a pirate’s cipher for buried treasure, written in several mysterious scripts. The Aramaic writing, in a pale, faded brown, appears loose and fluid, with the odd curlicue swirling outside the margin. The black Syriac is careful, tight and slanting. It’s not exactly a key to a puzzle written in code, but it sure looks like one.
H/t to Gerry.
Salon’s Tehran dispatch, “The regime shows us movies”:
In Tehran, state television’s Channel Two is putting on a “Lord of the Rings” marathon, part of a bigger push to keep us busy. Movie mad and immunized from international copyright laws, Iranians are normally treated to one or two Hollywood or European movie nights a week. Now it’s two or three films a day. The message is “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Let’s watch, forget about what’s happened, never mind. Stop dwelling in the past. Look ahead.
Frodo: “I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish that none of this had happened.”
Gandalf: “So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”…
Who picked this film? I start to suspect that there is a subversive soul manning the controls at Seda va Sima, AKA the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting. It is way too easy to play with the film, to draw comparisons to what is happening in real life…
On the television screen, Boromir, human of Aragon, falls. He dies an honorable death defending the lives of his compatriots.
“In edame dare.” This is to be continued. The phrase has become our hesitant slogan, our phrase of reassurance. “In edame dare.” People are not going to let up so easily.
God. Wait until they get to the Battle of Gondor.
A Continuation of Book I…
Now when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Two or Two-Thirtyish, appeared, Sanford rose and dressed himself. He bound his sandals on to his comely feet, girded his flag pin about his shoulder, and left his room looking like an immortal god. He at once sent the criers round to call the people in assembly, so they called them and the people gathered thereon; then, when they were got together, he went to the place of assembly comb in hand- not alone, for his two aides went with him, for his wife would not go for fear of looking like Silda Spitzer or Dina McGreevey. Minerva endowed Sanford with a presence of such divine comeliness that all marvelled at him as he went by, and when he took his place at the podium, even the oldest councillors made way for him.
Sanford rose at once, for he was bursting with what he had to say. He stood in the middle of the assembly and the good herald Pisenor brought him the microphone. Then, beginning in media res, “Sir,” said he, “it is I, as you will shortly learn, who have convened you, for it is I who am the most aggrieved. I had not got wind of any trip to Appalachia about which I would warn you, but I do love hiking there. I used to organize hiking trips, actually, when I was in high school. I would get a soccer coach or a football coach to act as chaperone, and then I’d get folks to pay me 60 bucks each, or whatever it was, to take the trip, and then off we’d go and have these great adventures on the Appalachian Trail…”
Here Sanford began to ramble. Finally, he returned to the matter at hand. “But I guess where I’m trying to go with this is that there are moral absolutes and that the law of the gods indeed is there to protect you from yourself, and there are consequences if you breach that, even if you tie yourself to the mast and plug your security detail’s ears with wax so you can hear the sirens’ song. Killing the sun’s oxen is a consequence. This press conference is a consequence.
“My grieveance is purely personal, and turns on two great misfortunes which have fallen upon my house. The first apology is to my excellent wife, who was chief among all you here present in being dicked around with by me. She was made to tell a ridiculous story about my going ‘to be alone,’ ‘to write,’ ‘to be away from my boys’ on Fathers’ Day.
“I would also apologize to my staff, because as much as I did talk about going to Argos, Rome, or the Appalachian Trail — those were each one of the original scenarios that I’d thrown out to Mary Neil, that isn’t what — where I ended up. And so I let them down by creating a fiction with regard to where I was going, which means that I had then, in turn, given as much as they relied on that fanciful song of the bards, let down people that I represent across the Peloponnese. And so I want to apologize to my staff and I want to apologize to anyone who took in a poor wandering stranger who was secretly a war machine, anybody who lives in Carolina, for the way that I let them down.
“But the last is much more serious, and ere long will be the utter ruin of my career. The press, all the chief men among them, who thought I might work in the White House someday, are pestering my chief of staff to verify that I am a real, live, Republican. They are afraid to go to Mitt Romney, asking him to choose the one he likes best, and to provide interviews to them, but day by day they keep hanging about my office, sacrificing our oxen, sheep, and fat goats for their banquets, never giving so much as a thought that someone may desperately need a break from the bubble wherein every word, every moment is recorded — just to completely break out of it, and go off and have adventures, just fly different places around the world; get myself a job; carry a hundred dollars emergency money, and either find a job there with the locals and come back, or come on home. This is not justifying, because, again, what I did was wrong, period, end of story. But still… I mean, hey. It’s a bubble.
“No national political career can stand such recklessness; we Republicans have now no Reagan to ward off harm from our doors, and I cannot hold my own against it all. I shall never all my days be as good a man as he was, still I would indeed defend myself if I had power to do so, for I cannot stand such treatment any longer; my house is being disgraced and ruined. Have respect, therefore, to your own consciences and to public opinion. Fear, too, the wrath of heaven, lest the gods should be displeased and turn upon you. I pray you by Jove and Themis, who is the beginning and the end of councils, [do not] hold back, my friends, and leave me singlehanded- unless it be that my brave father George W. Bush did some wrong to the country which you would now avenge on me, by aiding and abetting these rumors, which are all true. Moreover, if I am to be eaten out of house and home at all, I had rather go ahead and caress some erotic curve of the hips in Argentina, for I could then take action to some purpose, and serve Meet the Press with notices that I’ve split the country to get my Johnson wet, whereas now I have no remedy.
“And so I’ve been back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. And the one thing that you really find is that you absolutely want resolution.
“And so oddly enough, I spent the last five days of my life crying in Argentina, so I could repeat it when I came back here in saying, you know, while indeed from a heart level, there was something real, there in Argentina with Calypso, it was a place based on the relationship I had as host of the feasts to the people of Carolina, based on my sons, based on my wife, based on where I was in my life’s journey, based on where she was as measured by the fates, a place I couldn’t go and she couldn’t go.
“And that is, I suspect, a continual process all through life, of getting one’s heart right in life. And so I would never stand before you as one who just says, by Zeus, I’m completely right with regard to my heart on all things.”
“But what I would say is, I’m committed to trying to get my heart right. Because the one thing that — (and here the goddess made his voice inaudible) — and all others have told me is that the odyssey that we’re all on in life is with regard to heart, not what I want or what you want but, in other words, indeed this larger notion of truly trying to put other people first.”
With this Sanford dashed his staff to the ground and burst into tears. Every one was very sorry for him, but they all sat still and no one ventured to make him an angry answer, save only Antinous, who spoke thus:
“Sanford, insolent braggart that you are, how dare you try to throw the blame upon us members of the press? It is the Republicans’ fault not ours, for they are very artful dudes. These eight years past, and close on twelve, they have been driving us out of our minds, by encouraging each one of us, and sending him messages without meaning one word of what she says. And then there was that other trick they played us. They set up a great tambour frame in the press room, and began to work on an enormous piece of fine needlework, with a picture of WMDs in Iraq. ‘Sweet hearts,’ said Rove, Cheney, and Bush, ‘Al-Qaeda is indeed dead, or at least sidelined; but still do not press me to marry again immediately, wait- for I would not have skill in needlework perish unrecorded- till I have completed an invasion of Saddam’s country, to be in readiness against the time when he might maybe attack us, or maybe someone else. He is very rich with chemical and even nuclear weapons, and the soccer moms of the nation will talk if he is laid out without a pall.’
“This was what they said, and we assented; whereon we could see them working on their great web of intelligence all day long, but at night they would unpick the stitches again, saying they were fooled by the CIA. They fooled us in this way for three years and we never found them out, but as time wore on and she was now in her fourth year, one of their aides who knew what they were doing told us, and we caught them in the act of trying to cover up their work with tortured confessions, so they had to get us to think that torture was actually okay, whether it really was torture or no.
“And when you’re not lying to us about war, you’re picking up undercover officers in airport bathrooms, frequenting prostitutes, having affairs with your staffers’ wives, or hitting on the underage interns. What are you guys, Democrats?
“The press, therefore, makes you this answer, that both you and the Republicans may understand-‘Quit dicking around with us, and we might not think that everything you tell us is a fucking lie’; for I do not know what will happen if you go on plaguing us much longer with the airs you gives yourself on the score of the accomplishments you made, and how you kept the country safe because Cheney is so clever. We never yet heard of such a Republican; we know all about Gonzales, Brownie, Miers, and the famous hacks of old, but they were nothing to Sarah Palin, any one of them. It was not fair of Palin to treat us in that way, making us think she was actually a serious national candidate; and as long as the Republicans continue in the mind with which heaven has now apparently endowed them, so long shall we go on calling you on your obvious bullshit; and I do not see why you should change, for you still get all the honour and glory, and it is we who pay for it, not them. Understand, then, that we will not go back to our lands in New York or Washington, neither here nor elsewhere, till you, your wife, your lover, your sons, your staffers, and everyone who knew anything about this has made their choice and given an exclusive interview and (we can hope) incriminating photos and juicy anecdotes to some one or other of us.”
To be Continued…
“The odyssey that we’re all on in life is with regard to heart.” – Governor Mark Sanford, June 24, 2009
Sing, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the school system of South Carolina. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own ass and bring his staff safely home; but do what he might he could not save his staff, for they perished through their own sheer folly in telling one lie after another to the Sun-god The Press; so the god prevented them from ever reaching better jobs in Washington. Tell me, too, about all these things, O daughter of Jove, from whatsoever liveblog you may know them.
So now all who escaped death in elections or by men’s room encounters had got safely home except Sanford, and he, though he was longing to return to his wife and country (on Fathers’ Day, no less), was detained by the goddess Calypso, who had got him in Buenos Aires, into a large condominium, and wanted to marry him. But as the days went by, there came a time when the gods settled that he should go back to Carolina; even then, however, when he was among his own people, his troubles were not yet over; nevertheless all the gods had now begun to pity him except Neptune, who still persecuted him without ceasing and would not let him get away with a bullshit story about just where the hell he’d been.
…
The press secretary was still singing, and his hearers sat rapt in silence as he told the sad tale of long hiking trip in the Appalachians, and the ills Minerva had laid upon the Republicans. Jenny, daughter of Icarius, heard his song from her room upstairs, and came down by the great staircase, not alone, but attended by two of her handmaids. When she reached the press corps she stood by one of the bearing posts that supported the roof of the cloisters with a staid maiden on either side of her. She held a veil, moreover, before her face, and was weeping bitterly.
“Douchebag,” she cried, “you know many another feat of Governors and Senators, such as poets love to celebrate. Sing the press some one of these, and let them write their stories in silence, but cease this sad tale, for it breaks my sorrowful heart, and reminds me of my lost husband whom I mourn ever without ceasing, and whose name was great over all the Carolinas and Sullivan’s Island.”
“Mother,” answered the governor’s son, confusingly also named Marshall, “let the douche sing what he has a mind to; staff members do not make the ills they sing of; it is Jove, not they, who makes them, and who sends weal or woe upon men according to his own good pleasure. This fellow means no harm by singing the ill-fated woes of the Republicans, for people always applaud the latest songs most warmly. Make up your mind to it and bear it; Sanford is not the only man who never came back from sex scandals, but many another went down as well as he. Go, then, within the house and busy yourself with your daily duties, your loom, your distaff, and the ordering of your servants; for speech is man’s matter, and mine above all others- for it is I who am master here.”
She went wondering back into the house, and laid her son’s saying in her heart. Then, going upstairs with her handmaids into her room, she mourned her dear husband till Minerva shed sweet sleep over her eyes. But the press were clamorous throughout the covered cloisters, and prayed each one that he might receive her exclusive interview.
Then Marshall the Younger spoke, “Shameless,” he cried, “and insolent reporters, let us feast at our pleasure now, and let there be no brawling, for it is a rare thing to hear a man with such a divine voice as this douchebag has; but in the morning, meet us at a full press conference that we may give you formal notice to depart, and feast at another family’s misery, turn and turn about, at your own cost. If on the other hand you choose to persist in spunging upon one man, heaven help me, but Jove shall reckon with you in full, and when you fall in Gannett’s forthcoming bankruptcies there shall be no man to avenge you.”
The press members bit their lips as they heard him, and marvelled at the boldness of his speech. Then, Antinous, reporter from the Washington Post, said, “The gods seem to have given you lessons in bluster and tall talking; may Jove never grant you to be a Presidential hopeful as your father was before you.”