The English language is generally more flexible and expressive than most, but the German language has a lot of great words for concepts that are harder to describe in English. My recent favorite:
Backpfeifengesicht: a face badly in need of a fist.
Other examples of great German words include schadenfreude and schwerpunkt.
While it is possible to bleed in a wholly unanticipated way, at a time or place that leave one wondering which particular members of the Greek, Roman, and/or Norse pantheons one might have accidentally crossed, doing so is usually considered bad form.
Bleeding can be one of the most useful training tools built into the human body.
So remember: if you're bleeding, you've almost certainly done something wrong.
[This post brought to you by the Where the Hell Did That Come From? Coalition.]
South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, as everyone now knows, is back at home and work, after a mysterious disappearance of several days' duration. He claims to have had an affair.
I have an alternate theory.
Politicians can be outed as being gay, they can be busted on video doing drugs, they can be nailed in bribery scandals, they can even be caught having extramarital affairs... and yet all of these are politically survivable.*
But for a politician of any stripe with presidential aspirations, there's one thing that would be the kiss of death, and it would explain why he would claim to have had an affair:
Alien abduction.
Bear with me here. Think about it... what do we know about aliens?
1) They prefer kidnapping people from the South; given the incidence of abductions, their eventual nabbing of a sitting governor rather than a one-tooth-havin' moonshiner is a statistical certainty.
2) The governor flew in from Argentina. Aliens are notoriously inconsiderate as to where they drop off their abductees, so it's not entirely unanticipated that they might drop off the Governor somewhere away from home. He should count himself lucky that they dropped him in the Western hemisphere.
3) The most commonly reported aliens are known as "greys." Where better for them to pick up a human than the birthplace of the Confederacy, South Carolina? Confederate uniforms were — you guessed it — grey.
It makes perfect sense.
Any politician claiming to have been abducted by aliens can kiss his presidential hopes, and perhaps his entire career, goodbye.† Compared to that, marital infidelity can be thought of as an astute political move.
* Especially if you're a Democrat — the press has your back.
† Except for Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul.
[This post brought to you by the Andrew Sullivan School of Journalism. Prove me wrong.]
On the death of the young Iranian woman known as Neda:
I finally looked at her picture, and she looked familiar somehow. I think we have a statue of her in the harbor at New York. Delacroix caught a glimpse of her once on a barricade in Paris. She carried water to the cannon crews at Monmouth, and drove a chariot at Watling Street. She cut off Holophernes' head.She will be missed, but she will be back. She's that kind of girl.
Commenter "comatus" at Ace of Spades HQ.
Customers... can't live with them, can't have a job without them.
Juan(17:55:45): I was hoping to have a weekend with at least one day un-ruined
Russ(17:56:29): I see the ticket you just got
Russ(17:56:51): this isn't gonna be your weekend
[Nor, for the record, mine.]
After a few days of downtime due to my injured back (which is improving, albeit slowly, thanks for asking) I went back to work this weekend. The network was running pretty smoothly; there were very few problems I had to deal with.
I spent my free time furiously hitting "refresh" on Twitter's #IranElection search page.
Fascinating, and heart-rending.
Note to the Bush haters: that is what a stolen election really looks like.
Hot Air headlines points to a handy guide on how to track the Iranian uprising on Twitter and other social media.
'Round about midnight last night, as those of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook might have noticed, I blew out a disk in my lower back.
Yes, "blew out" is an overstatement; it's maybe herniated, but certainly bulging and putting pressure on the nerves to my right hip and leg. I'm OK when I'm sitting, but standing and walking is unbelievably — almost unbearably — painful.
Going down the stairs, feeding the cats, and coming back up last night was perhaps the single most physically challenging thing I have done in my entire life. I was tempted to cry like a little girl, but I suspect that if I had, my inner child would have showed up, slapped me around and told me to cowboy up.
[I have yet to attempt the same feat today... but there are three very annoyed-looking cats staring at me. I think they sense my vulnerability; I know if they were anywhere close to my size, I'd be lunch.]
As luck would have it, I had a repair done on a root canal last week; I was given Vicodin, which I didn't need at all at the time. It's coming in handy now, as is the brand new bottle of Advil, for its anti-inflammatory effect. At least, I hope they'll be effective today; they didn't seem to do much good last night.
Good thing this all happened on my days off from work. It's not like I have chores to do and errands to run or anything.
Homemade breakfast burritos for dinner.
What can possibly explain the music videos of the '80s?
Drugs. Had to have been lots of drugs.
Wait, no... that was the "literal version" of Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart — I've been LOLing over it since I saw it last week.
It's a good song, maybe even a great song, but forever mockable for its hyper-clichéd video. Which also, coincidentally, can be explained by drugs.
And for my brother, here's the literal version of Tears For Fears' Head Over Heels. Awesome.
Hurricane season begins today.
(Why yes, I have been stocking up on emergency supplies. Probably should have started a long time ago, but better late than never.)
Imperial Department of Hegemony By Force
