Irrelgious Intolerance?

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“In polls, more than 90 percent of Americans have said that they would be willing to vote for a woman, a Jew or a black, and 79 percent would be willing to vote for a gay person. But at last count, only 37 percent would consider voting for an atheist.”

-- Nicholas D. Kristof for The NY Times

This statistical tidbit is actually from a discussion about the surge of atheism, including Richard Dawkins' latest atheist tract, "The God Delusion." As Kristof quips, "If God is omniscient and omnipotent, you can’t help wondering why she doesn’t pull out a thunderbolt and strike down Richard Dawkins." In spite of the import of the statistic above, Kristof is arguing against a sort of fundamentalist secularism, "We’ve suffered enough from religious intolerance that the last thing the world needs is irreligious intolerance." Judging by that statistic, though, I don't think we have that much to worry about.

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Irrelgious Intolerance?

♠
“In polls, more than 90 percent of Americans have said that they would be willing to vote for a woman, a Jew or a black, and 79 percent would be willing to vote for a gay person. But at last count, only 37 percent would consider voting for an atheist.”

-- Nicholas D. Kristof for The NY Times

This statistical tidbit is actually from a discussion about the surge of atheism, including Richard Dawkins' latest atheist tract, "The God Delusion." As Kristof quips, "If God is omniscient and omnipotent, you can’t help wondering why she doesn’t pull out a thunderbolt and strike down Richard Dawkins." In spite of the import of the statistic above, Kristof is arguing against a sort of fundamentalist secularism, "We’ve suffered enough from religious intolerance that the last thing the world needs is irreligious intolerance." Judging by that statistic, though, I don't think we have that much to worry about.

xXx

Pretender in Chief

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IT turns out we’ve been reading the wrong Bob Woodward book to understand what’s going on with President Bush. The text we should be consulting instead is “The Final Days,” the Woodward-Bernstein account of Richard Nixon talking to the portraits on the White House walls while Watergate demolished his presidency. As Mr. Bush has ricocheted from Vietnam to Latvia to Jordan in recent weeks, we’ve witnessed the troubling behavior of a president who isn’t merely in a state of denial but is completely untethered from reality. It’s not that he can’t handle the truth about Iraq. He doesn’t know what the truth is.

-- Frank Rich for The New York Times

Mr. Rich's rant about Dubya's seemingly lost grip on Iraq, with this notion about completing the mission and how there is not a civil war, has inspired Monk to come up with a quip of his own: President Bush is our Pretender in Chief. Though, when presidents, kings, and dictators play pretend, it is usually a very tragic game.

xXx

Pretender in Chief

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IT turns out we’ve been reading the wrong Bob Woodward book to understand what’s going on with President Bush. The text we should be consulting instead is “The Final Days,” the Woodward-Bernstein account of Richard Nixon talking to the portraits on the White House walls while Watergate demolished his presidency. As Mr. Bush has ricocheted from Vietnam to Latvia to Jordan in recent weeks, we’ve witnessed the troubling behavior of a president who isn’t merely in a state of denial but is completely untethered from reality. It’s not that he can’t handle the truth about Iraq. He doesn’t know what the truth is.

-- Frank Rich for The New York Times

Mr. Rich's rant about Dubya's seemingly lost grip on Iraq, with this notion about completing the mission and how there is not a civil war, has inspired Monk to come up with a quip of his own: President Bush is our Pretender in Chief. Though, when presidents, kings, and dictators play pretend, it is usually a very tragic game.

xXx

Are You Wiki-Worthy?

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"I urge whatever Internet-snob wiki-geeks who deem our band 'non-notable' to look at their own lives," he fumed. "The Internet is about sharing and the point of Wikipedia is that there's room for everything."

That, it turns out, isn't exactly true.

-- David Segal for The Washington Post

Whoa, Wikipedia is getting picky. Unsurprisingly, a Canadian band got cut, referring to the quote above. I sense the creeping specter of elitism! Well, at least the Internet at large is still open to all, no matter how obscure, or how kinky and perverse - I love you, Internet!

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Are You Wiki-Worthy?

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"I urge whatever Internet-snob wiki-geeks who deem our band 'non-notable' to look at their own lives," he fumed. "The Internet is about sharing and the point of Wikipedia is that there's room for everything."

That, it turns out, isn't exactly true.

-- David Segal for The Washington Post

Whoa, Wikipedia is getting picky. Unsurprisingly, a Canadian band got cut, referring to the quote above. I sense the creeping specter of elitism! Well, at least the Internet at large is still open to all, no matter how obscure, or how kinky and perverse - I love you, Internet!

xXx

Imaginary Friends

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With all this self-referencing in the third-person, it occurs to me that Monk has gone beyond having imaginary friends to becoming imaginary himself, not that I am complaining. I would not have it any other way, all things considered.

xXx

Imaginary Friends

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With all this self-referencing in the third-person, it occurs to me that Monk has gone beyond having imaginary friends to becoming imaginary himself, not that I am complaining. I would not have it any other way, all things considered.

xXx

Aristocratic Gwyneth

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“I like living here, because I don’t fit into the bad side of American psychology. The British are much more intelligent and civilized than the Americans.... I love the English lifestyle, it’s not as capitalistic as America. People don’t talk about work and money. They talk about interesting things at dinner.”

-- Gwyneth Paltrow

I think this is just a small-breasted thing.

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Aristocratic Gwyneth

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“I like living here, because I don’t fit into the bad side of American psychology. The British are much more intelligent and civilized than the Americans.... I love the English lifestyle, it’s not as capitalistic as America. People don’t talk about work and money. They talk about interesting things at dinner.”

-- Gwyneth Paltrow

I think this is just a small-breasted thing.

xXx

A Good Nap

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At least I was able to get in a good nap today, to make up for last night. Pop is cloistered away in the TV room watching the Cowboys, and Monk got in almost a good hour of sound sleep. Very healing.

xXx

A Good Nap

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At least I was able to get in a good nap today, to make up for last night. Pop is cloistered away in the TV room watching the Cowboys, and Monk got in almost a good hour of sound sleep. Very healing.

xXx

Shattered Middle East Dreams

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Andrew Sullivan has some sharply pointed words for those neo-cons who are still pushing for the big win and the transformation of Iraq and the Middle East, with pehaps only an extra twenty thousand troops:

It's over, guys. Your beloved Bush administration botched this so badly it's irrecoverable. You enabled them. You never fully took them on when it would have counted... Your policy was sabotaged by a defense secretary who never believed in it and by a president too weak and out-of-it to rein him in. Get over yourselves and recognize that this dream has died. And we have to fight the nightmare we now face rather than pretend your dream is still even on life-support. That's the patriotic responsibility at this point. And no, I'm not impugning your patriotism. I'm asking you to place it before your shattered dreams.

Going by the president's words, it looks like we are going to see how far we can go with the 'stay the course' policy. But then his words are not always what they are cracked up to be, and this case shows how that can be a basis for hope sometimes.

xXx

Shattered Middle East Dreams

♠
Andrew Sullivan has some sharply pointed words for those neo-cons who are still pushing for the big win and the transformation of Iraq and the Middle East, with pehaps only an extra twenty thousand troops:

It's over, guys. Your beloved Bush administration botched this so badly it's irrecoverable. You enabled them. You never fully took them on when it would have counted... Your policy was sabotaged by a defense secretary who never believed in it and by a president too weak and out-of-it to rein him in. Get over yourselves and recognize that this dream has died. And we have to fight the nightmare we now face rather than pretend your dream is still even on life-support. That's the patriotic responsibility at this point. And no, I'm not impugning your patriotism. I'm asking you to place it before your shattered dreams.

Going by the president's words, it looks like we are going to see how far we can go with the 'stay the course' policy. But then his words are not always what they are cracked up to be, and this case shows how that can be a basis for hope sometimes.

xXx

That's Just Wrong!

Banksy, the wryly subversive British street artist, has added a new famous name to his list of the lampooned: Michael Jackson.

A new drawing by the Bristol native shows the ersatz King of Pop dressed as an old woman and kneeling with a candy cane in hand, opening the door of a woodland cottage in invitation for a young boy and girl waiting outside. The riff on Jackson (who was acquitted last year on child molestation charges) in the predator's role from the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale is one of four works by Banksy on display at an exhibition space called Santa's Ghetto that opened Friday in central London, according to the Times of London.

-- Geoff Boucher for The Los Angeles Times

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That's Just Wrong!

Banksy, the wryly subversive British street artist, has added a new famous name to his list of the lampooned: Michael Jackson.

A new drawing by the Bristol native shows the ersatz King of Pop dressed as an old woman and kneeling with a candy cane in hand, opening the door of a woodland cottage in invitation for a young boy and girl waiting outside. The riff on Jackson (who was acquitted last year on child molestation charges) in the predator's role from the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale is one of four works by Banksy on display at an exhibition space called Santa's Ghetto that opened Friday in central London, according to the Times of London.

-- Geoff Boucher for The Los Angeles Times

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Twittering

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Monk has got his post count back up, and it actually does seem to elevate the mood, being more on the look-out for something remotely worth noting, or even just trying to contrive a somewhat interesting sentence or phrase in which to note the trivial.

We even have seven posts today open to the world at large, but this is mainly thanks to having a good news day.

But we are happily achieving that twittering effect. Michael Kinsley had written about Twitter.com, in which people post a brief, single sentence relating what they are doing. Your username is given, and then you type and post what you are doing. Monk at least has a better imagination than that, but it is a good guide to buck up his efforts, to keep that pulse beating with some potential of vitality.

xXx

Twittering

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Monk has got his post count back up, and it actually does seem to elevate the mood, being more on the look-out for something remotely worth noting, or even just trying to contrive a somewhat interesting sentence or phrase in which to note the trivial.

We even have seven posts today open to the world at large, but this is mainly thanks to having a good news day.

But we are happily achieving that twittering effect. Michael Kinsley had written about Twitter.com, in which people post a brief, single sentence relating what they are doing. Your username is given, and then you type and post what you are doing. Monk at least has a better imagination than that, but it is a good guide to buck up his efforts, to keep that pulse beating with some potential of vitality.

xXx

The Allure of Pussy

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It had been a long time since Monk broke double-digits on comments to a post. Of course, it would be the one with Britney's pussy, but I understand. It is hard to beat the allure of pussy. God really knew what he was doing with that. I only wish he was more inspired when he made me.

xXx

The Allure of Pussy

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It had been a long time since Monk broke double-digits on comments to a post. Of course, it would be the one with Britney's pussy, but I understand. It is hard to beat the allure of pussy. God really knew what he was doing with that. I only wish he was more inspired when he made me.

xXx

That Comfortable and Fast Reader

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Perhaps the last horizon on his reading life, that Monk may have some reason to hope of attaining, is to be able to read to himself comfortably and with some steady efficiency. On his last library trip, Monk was actually enjoying some of that ease, but the book was "Fade to Blonde," which is a very easy read.

It is just that Monk is struggling tonight. He is too tired to read aloud anymore, and he is taking in "Citizens" seated with his feet propped on his writing desk, and it is slow and torturous going. One supposes that Monk will never be that comfortable and fast reader turning the pages steadily with some quickness, but it would be nice to, say, double his rate and ease. It is almost like he is retarded, and it is physically uncomfortable of eyes and brain. But Monk is also truly tired, in spite of that big nap, and he would actually like to go to bed now and call it an early night, save for Bo's final rounds.

xXx

That Comfortable and Fast Reader

♠
Perhaps the last horizon on his reading life, that Monk may have some reason to hope of attaining, is to be able to read to himself comfortably and with some steady efficiency. On his last library trip, Monk was actually enjoying some of that ease, but the book was "Fade to Blonde," which is a very easy read.

It is just that Monk is struggling tonight. He is too tired to read aloud anymore, and he is taking in "Citizens" seated with his feet propped on his writing desk, and it is slow and torturous going. One supposes that Monk will never be that comfortable and fast reader turning the pages steadily with some quickness, but it would be nice to, say, double his rate and ease. It is almost like he is retarded, and it is physically uncomfortable of eyes and brain. But Monk is also truly tired, in spite of that big nap, and he would actually like to go to bed now and call it an early night, save for Bo's final rounds.

xXx