What's New?

Not much, What's new with you?

About the same.

Actually, there's a lot going on, but I stayed up way late Sunday night preparing for a meeting on Monday, and I've been tired all week. Mark, Steff, Mally and Owen were here when I got home Tuesday night. That was nice. Janett had made chicken salad and potato salad on Monday and there was plenty to go around, and lots of iced tea. After dinner she gave Malachy her big button jar and he poured them out on the floor and started searching for oddities, like those little barrel things Austrians close their loden coats with.

I had to edit the last paragraph, I called Janett Mom on one line and Mommo a couple lines later. I changed it to Janett and she. Sorry if I left an unclear antecedent.

Mark got to watch some Cubbies. Too bad the Orioles won. That reminds me of a guy named Ed I used to see at the bar who had a cool Orioles baseball cap, just that little bird on the front of the crown. Anyway, it was a nice evening.

Work's a drag and we didn't get to see Noah on his birthday.

The market's kind of interesting. We like it when the markets going down and it's gone down a lot in the last week. Being a bear has it's disadvantages, however. When the market's going up the bulls just assume it's going to go up forever. When the market's going down, we bears are always apprehensive about a bounce back up, and are continually stressed about whether to take profits or let it ride another day.

My techical guru (Tim Knight - his link is there somewhere over on the right) is really buzzed. He logged in with five posts today. Poor guy. Relax, Tim. OK, Love you, everybody.

A couple of pictures

Cataract Falls


Our new apartment - Where's Angel?

Who said it? - multiple choice

"One cannot help but think . . . this decision is not really about the detainees at all, but about control of federal policy regarding enemy combatants," he wrote.
He lamented that military and intelligence officials would have a lesser role in shaping policy toward enemy combatants than lawyers and "unelected, politically unaccountable judges."

a) President Bush
b) Vice President Cheney
c) Robert Novak
d) Chief justice Roberts

Sad, but true. It was Roberts.

Antonin Scalia chimed in:
Scalia called the judiciary "the branch that knows least about . . . national security concerns" and penned the darkest line of the court's 126 pages of back-and-forth: "It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."

Clearly, these right wing justices, Bush appointees, are more eager to defer to the president than they are concerned with upholding the Constitution. Who joined Roberts and Scalia in the minority? Alito and Clarence (remember him?) Thomas. Scary that these fascista are one vote away from a majority.

Compare their "Sieg Heil's" to Justice Kennedy's poignant observation that a primary purpose of the constitution and the court is to protect people fom illegal imprisonment by the government. That Kennedy even had to point that out is an indication of the threat to our democracy that the Bush appointees represent.

Regretably, Bush was elected by good Christian folks so he could appoint pro-life justices. How you doing with that abortion thing John, Antonin?

Columbus, IN

When Janett and I drove to Columbus IN to see her sisters over the Memorial day weekend, we got a headstart by driving to Lafayette Thursday night, where we ate a late dinner off the senior's menu at Ihop. I liked that a lot better than standing in line for half an hour on a Sunday morning to get an omelette.

The next morning, instead of getting back on 65 we drove south on 231 to enjoy the countryside. We went a little out of our way following the signs to Cataract Falls.
Janett got to try out her new camera getting nice shots of the "largest waterfalls in Indiana". I'll get a couple photos from her and post them.

South of Greencastle, maybe around Spencer the topography changed from Illinois flat to Kentucky hilly, and since it hard to farm on the side of a hill, it was woodsy with several state parks along the route. Driving through Bloomington was a nuisance, but coming out the other side was really nice. Heading east toward Columbus we drove through towns like Little Nashville and Gnaw Bone, which reinforced the feeling that we could have been further south than we actually were.

It was raining that day and we noticed streams and lakes were over their banks. Also a lot of fields hadn't been planted. Even for soy beans it was getting late. We figured the fields must be too wet for the tractors.

I guess they've gotten a lot of rain since then, including 10" in a single day this past weekend. I don't know where they'll put all the water. Maybe we should buy some soy beans.



.

News Update

It was Cinderella, not Sleeping Beauty in the picture with Noah. They look very happy together. I'm still hoping to find a postable version. Noah's wife Lauren protects her photos on her blog so they cant be copied, probably a good idea. Maybe I should do that.


Thanks Lauren

Wisdom from Kung Fu Panda

"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift. That's why they call it 'the present.'"

Yawn (Me, not you)

Well, we're moved in. And we're exhausted. No pictures of our new apartment yet. Not til we dig our way out from behind the stacks of Office Max boxes that surround us on every side.

I have three puts I bought last week, They tried to scare me out of my positions Thursday with a 180 point rally on the Dow, but I came home looked at the charts of the three stocks I'm shorting and none of them had shown scary strength, not even my old nemesis Gymboree - strange for a day when good retail numbers were supposedly behind the rally. I stood courageously on the burning deck and was rewarded by a 400point down day on Friday.

I think Noah should send me a copy, for posting here, of the photo he had snapped at Disney World this week, and I hope it will conclusively demonstrate for once and for all, despite the malicious rumors to the contrary, that Noan can be trusted around a Sleeping Beauty.

Baby Owen and me are tight. Check it out:

Bon Voyage, Kevin

Kevin White is leaving the position of Athletic Director at ND to take the same position at Duke. Notre Dame fans are elated, but restrained in their jubilation while waiting word of a successor's appointment.

The fans don't like KW because his idea of improving the football team is playing weaker competition. He's said the teams recent travails were due to scheduling, rather than to his hiring of Tyrone Willingham. When he was forced to can Willingham by the board of trustees he defended Willingham with the faint praise that he was a great football coach Monday through Friday. What? Maybe Tyrone wrote that for him - Chauncey-ish enough. Of course he'd had to make a hire in a hurry, because Notre Dame had just revoked their offer to George O'Leary when it turned out Kevin hadn't reviewed George's resume very carefully.

OK, we're a three and nine team - So is the way to fix that to schedule a few patsies and climb up to 7 and 5. Kevin seems to think so. Look at this:



Phil Steele ranks ND's 2008 schedule as the 67th toughest in the nation. That's disgusting. When I was a freshman I sat through a two and seven season. The next year they bought in Parseghian and the year after that the Irish were national champs. That's a great story, but it's not Kevin's story,

Kevin has another angle - it's financial. If you play a lot of second tier teams you can tell them we'll play you at Notre Dame but we're not coming to Podunk for a game. More home games, more money.

I hope the honcho's at ND canned Kevin because they were embarassed by his striving for mediocrity, I'm afraid they fired him because he screwed up the renovation of Rockne Stadium and they're going to have to spend million more fixing the foundations and they're pissed off about it.

Anyway I leave you with this

Little Ownie

Owen Andrew was delivered by ceasarian today at 2:02 PM. He weighs 9lbs 2oz and is 21" tall, and he has dark hair and is very handsome. Mother and baby are doing fine. Mark is very happy, and Mally is there for a visit now wearing his big brother tee-shirt.

Owen's on the way

Little Steffie is having her second baby this week, and she's told me his name would be Owen Andrew Stanger. She's very nice to me and allowed me to suggest names for her boys, and I recommended names of my mother's uncles. Her fathers name was John and there were at least two other brothers, Michael and Packie (Patrick), but I've always thought Malachy was a beautiful name, and Mally or Mal for short aren't too pretty for a lttle boy. And Owen, while a little lyrical is a good strong name. In twenty years I can envision Mally being the talker and Owen being the scrapper - like John and Bobby Kennedy.

Steffie's husband Mark was amenable to Malachy, since Malachi is a good biblical name. I don't know how she won him over to Owen.

One last note; Mommo met Malachy in her final year and said "Oh,I love it. Did you know my father had a brother named Malachy?" Yes, Mom, we knew.

I can hardly wait to meet Owen, Steffie. And if Malachy gets to feeling neglected he and I can hang out.

Quick Post

Here's a link to a very good article about ND and the rest of the college football world.

We're very busy right now but that gives us a lot to talk about:

Baby Owen will be born this week.

Janett sees her sisters after 35 year separation

We have to move, don't we?

Bear market rally tops out (finally)

In case my previous post didn't move you

to try the link, here's "intimations" It's a poem everyone should read every couple years.

ODE INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD
I

THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;--
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

II

The Rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the Rose,
The Moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare,
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

III

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
And while the young lambs bound
As to the tabor's sound,
To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong:
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,
The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
And all the earth is gay;
Land and sea
Give themselves up to jollity,
And with the heart of May
Doth every Beast keep holiday;--
Thou Child of Joy,
Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy
Shepherd-boy!

IV

Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call
Ye to each other make; I see
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
My heart is at your festival,
My head hath its coronal,
The fulness of your bliss, I feel--I feel it all.
Oh evil day! if I were sullen
While Earth herself is adorning,
This sweet May-morning,
And the Children are culling
On every side,
In a thousand valleys far and wide,
Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,
And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm:--
I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!
--But there's a Tree, of many, one,
A single Field which I have looked upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone:
The Pansy at my feet
Doth the same tale repeat:
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

V

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But He beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

VI

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And, even with something of a Mother's mind,
And no unworthy aim,
The homely Nurse doth all she can
To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,
Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came.

VII

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,
A six years' Darling of a pigmy size!
See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies,
Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses,
With light upon him from his father's eyes!
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learned art;
A wedding or a festival,
A mourning or a funeral;
And this hath now his heart,
And unto this he frames his song:
Then will he fit his tongue
To dialogues of business, love, or strife;
But it will not be long
Ere this be thrown aside,
And with new joy and pride
The little Actor cons another part;
Filling from time to time his "humorous stage"
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,
That Life brings with her in her equipage;
As if his whole vocation
Were endless imitation.

VIII

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy Soul's immensity;
Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,--
Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!
On whom those truths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
Thou, over whom thy Immortality
Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave,
A Presence which is not to be put by;
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

IX

O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest--
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:--
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise;
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realised,
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised:
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
Are yet a master light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
To perish never;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!
Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

X

Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
And let the young Lambs bound
As to the tabor's sound!
We in thought will join your throng,
Ye that pipe and ye that play,
Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the May!
What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

XI

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
Forebode not any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished one delight
To live beneath your more habitual sway.
I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,
Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;
The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
Is lovely yet;
The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
1803-6.

The drunken librarian who wont shut up.

So someone described the internet. I had a drunken librarian experience today.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth century in England, suffrage was very limited, and property holdings were one criteria for the right to vote. The landed aristocracy had control of the upper house and a prevailing influence in the lower. They passed laws they thought to be in their own interest.

Laws of enclosure allowed them to expel tenant farmers from their lands and bring more efficiency to agriculture, making the land owners wealthier. The tenant farmers were forced to move to the cities where they lived in slums and provided cannon fodder for then British army of the empire, and eventually the work force for the factories as the industrial revolution progressed (which gave rise to the commercial class that eventually surpassed the land-rich aristocracy in wealth and influence)

Later they passed the corn laws which put high import tarrifs on grain imports, insuring high profits for them and higher costs for everyone else. Opposition to the corn laws and to limited suffrage were the causes of the reform movements in the first half of the nineteenth century.

So that's what I was reading about when I googled enclosure laws and got a reference to this article which is an essay in support of home schooling. Kind of interesting and featuring quotes from Intimations of Immortality and Tintern Abbey. I was seduced by a drunken librarian.

We didn't exactly celebrate Mother's Day,

but Janett seems pretty happy. We were driving back from a visit with Lauren and Noah and it was rainy and windy, so talking on the phone with Kim we cancelled plans for a cook-out at her house.

So Steffie wouldn't be too disappointed, we stopped at Meijers on the way home and brought her a broiled chicken and some fixin's, so she could have a nice Mother's Day dinner at home. Today, Steffy told Janett she got the white meat, Mark got the dark. Malachy told Mark he was scary. Did you think your Daddy was scary when you first saw him chewing meat off bones?

Then Janett and I went home and relaxed. We ended up having bacon and eggs for dinner even though Lauren had made a yummy bacon quiche for breakfast before we left Champaign. Then we watched a nice Masterpiece theatrer presentation and some news while Janett fiddled with one of her graphics programs.

So, that was a nice day coming on top of a nice visit. Lauren and Noah are doing well. They've both got new lap tops, and were having fun, Except for the couple hours Noah spent very frustrated trying to download drivers to go with Linux. My cousin John inspired him to renounce Bill Gates and all his works, especially Vista. I helped him personalize his laptop by going to the mall with him where he picked out a nice "hello Kitty" sticker to slap on the lid.

I'm OK with XP but like any good conspiracy theoristI wonder what all those applications I never use and can't find an explanation for our really doing.


I used the word so 4 times in that post. So, what do you think?

No, No, Noooo

Absolutely No. If Hillary were his vice-president, Obama would not survive his first term.

It's a lovely day,

sunny and approaching 70 degrees. It's Sunday but Janett and I were up at 6:30. We had coffee and dressed and drove to Lombard to pick up Kim. Ross was sleeping in but Kim joined us for the ride to the Convent of the Sacred Heart on Sheridan Road, for a memorial mass for Aunt Dean. The ride up Lake Shore Drive was beautiful with Lincoln park to our left and the lake on the right, with boats in the harbors at Monroe, Fullerton and Belmont streets. We arrived before the appointed hour, and stopped at a coffee shop down the street and had coffee and croissants before walking over to the Convent. More time to chat.

Jason and Dee and Noah and Lauren joined us at the chapel. Fr George Lane SJ presided at the Mass, and Sister Curry eulogized Aunt Dean. It was also an alumnae weekend at the convent and there were many folks there who remembered Dean from their time there, and it was very nice. Sister Curry was of the next generation of religious from Dean in the order, and I don't believe Fr Lane ever had occassion to meet Dean, although he had family ties to Sacred Heart and Barat. It was one of those times when you felt you had more to share than to learn about the person being remembered. But it was very generous of Sister Curry to invite us all to attend, and generous of Fr Lane to give of his time, as he may be one of the busiest men in Chicago. Five out of eight of my brothers and sisters were there, some with their children,(and their childrens' children)and we were all happy to be together.

The day made one nostalgiac for the times in the first half of the last century when the finest of the Irish Catholic families would produce children who at the age of eighteen or twenty would know they loved Jesus more than the world and would enter orders like the Sacred Heart or the Society of Jesus.

And yesterday Jason and Dee's son Joey made his first Holy Communion. Steffy and Kim and Ross and Lauren and Noah were there with us, and Jason's friend Jim from high school and of course all of Dee's family. Joey was handsome in his navy blue suit, with one of the those white arm garters,(pennants?), little Italian boys wear for their first communion. Dee's mom had gotten it for her grandson, Dom, fifteen years ago, and it had been packed away. It was touching because it evoked the presence of Dee's Mom at the event, and because Dom was there, handsome in uniform, now a staff sergeant in the first armored division. Then Dee treated us to a feast at Pescatore's in Franklin Park. I told Dee afterward it was becoming my favorite restaurant based solely on the parties her family throws there.

So, this weekend glows, and it feels like one of those moments I wouldn't mind living forever.

Oh, here it is

Mickey Kantor: You decide

Responsibility in Posting

Clinton's people are saying the tape was doctored.

Maybe Cantor called Carville a useless white nigger and somebody switched it around.

Also when reviewing the results from Indiana, he did not say Those people are shit, he said Those people are shitting, and someody cut off the last syllable.

Also, at last report, the clip has been removed from YouTube.

Hillary Crashed YouTube

Before I could link to her top campaign adviser Mickey Cantor, sitting in a meeting with Carville and Stefanopolis, calling people from Indiana "useless white niggers"
I wonder if she can keep it down past Tuesday

If something happens at 3AM

Clinton threatens to 'obliterate' Iran if Israel attacked

Maybe we should let her sleep