Category Archives: Travel

Once a sailor, always a sailor: McCain hopes bill to eliminate bills will help enrich strippers

OK, to be fair, he was set up. But he rose to the bait, and had fun with it:

(CNN) – If Congress passes the COINS Act replacing the $1 paper bill for a coin, the U.S. government may be able to save billions in printing costs at the expense of a little more jangle in the average consumers’ pockets. But what about the strippers?

That’s what The Hill newspaper asked one of the bill’s co-sponsors, Sen. John McCain, in a piece published Thursday. The question came from a separate 2011 story where the publication suggested strippers could suffer in a bill-less economy, with G-strings and garter belts far less accommodating of cold metal.

For his part, the Arizona Republican responded in stride in a Capitol Hill hallway.

“Then I hope that they could obtain larger denominations,” McCain reportedly told The Hill.

According to The Hill, the 76 year-old McCain started answering questions from another reporter before a smile spread across his face and he shouted down the hallway to The Hill, “Fives, tens, one hundreds!”…

Hundreds? Bada-Bing!

You know, if this bill passes, and the senator wants to determine whether it’s having the desired, um, stimulative effect on the economy, I’ll be glad to help him with the research. But only if he’s buying; I hear the drinks are pretty pricey in those dives.

But seriously, I like the idea of this bill. When I was in England, I thought it was great that I could make small purchases — postcards, newspapers, a cuppa, or a bottle of beer from an off-license — with pound and two-pound coins. They were very handy.

But dollar coins have never caught on in my lifetime. And you know why? Because we haven’t produced a dollar coin that anyone could respect, much less love. Not since the old silver dollars, which by the time I came along were already collector’s items that your grandma gave you for your birthday and you stashed them safely in a dresser drawer where they still reside to this day.

I’m not going to get into the politics of choosing Susan B. Anthony and Sacajawea as the “heads” side of these coins; that’s neither here nor there. People would use dollar coins with Alfred E. Newman on them, if the coins themselves were substantial and respectable.

Instead, our mints have produced these light, cheesy things that look and feel like they’re inherently worth less than a copper penny. They look and feel like something you’d get out of one of those old machines in arcades that squished a penny and stamped your name on it. And you can’t distinguish them from quarters in your pocket.

By contrast, the pound coin has heft, and thickness, and a good tactile feel to its surfaces. You can immediately distinguish it when you reach for one. As for the two-pound coins — they’re amazing. They are so distinctive, so substantial, you’d think they were crafted by the dwarves in Middle Earth in time out of mind. It even appears to have Elvish inscriptions on it.

Craft something like that, and America won’t miss the dollar bill.

Maybe we could use some of the money saved by eliminating the paper ones to make these coins something Americans would actually want to use. For a change.

How about a ‘not a sports nut’ button? Or ‘no celebrity gossip’?

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Note the hypertext link in the upper right-hand corner.

The Guardian today is providing readers online with a “Not a Royalist?” button, which they can click and get less coverage of the royal baby that’s on the way as we speak.

Which is really kind of irritating. I mean, what a time to bring politics into the thing. Oh, the Duchess is having a baby, so let’s grouse about how we hate the monarchy… Like labor isn’t enough of a hassle as things are.

There a certain sort of Brit who suffers from a kind of Jacobin insecurity, who feels compelled to signal to the world at every opportunity that While you may think everyone in what you imagine to be Jolly Old England is all gaga over this baby, and gets misty-eyed about the royals in general, I, for one, am not one of those sheep. I am a forward-thinking modern. Apparently, some editor at The Guardian is that sort of Brit. Michael Palin used to do a pretty good job of sending up that type of pretentious twit.

It bugs me because… hey, we know The Guardian’s political leanings, but it’s still a newspaper, and a good one. And saying to readers, we’ll give you news according to your personal political prejudices kind of undermines what remains of the idea of the newspaper as something that embodies the idea that there is such a thing as news that is news regardless what you think of it.

A newspaper should stand for Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s dictum that “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

It’s the political nature of this that bugs me. Left and right in this country, and probably in that one, can already wrap themselves in a cocoon that contains only facts that fits their own prejudices, and that is why we’re so polarized today. It’s a very destructive thing. Newspapers, to the extent that we still have them, should be islands on which we can stipulate that certain things are news whether we want to hear about them or not. They should be touchstones of reality, a place where we can check in once a day and agree on a few basic points before spending the rest of the 24 hours arguing.

Now when you get beyond politics, I’ll admit that there’s a certain appeal to this idea. For instance, it would be great to be able to hit a button that would immediately reduce football coverage to a reasonable level (at least when it isn’t football season), or do the same with celebrity gossip.

To me, not being one of Her Majesty’s subjects, celebrity gossip is the category into which royal babies fit. At least, at the level of coverage we’ve seen. The birth of the first child of the first child of the prince of Wales actually is news, of the “take note of” variety. We just don’t have to go on and on about it.

But that’s a matter of taste, not politics.

I don’t know how many takers there are for the “republican” option among The Guardian‘s readers today. Even if you click on the “not a royalist” button, when you scroll down you see that the top story is “Royal baby: Kate admitted to hospital for birth – live coverage.”

And I don’t think that means people are necessarily “royalists.” They’re just interested. It’s not a political statement. Unless you’re just really, really pretentious.

Taking care of business in Memphis, eating at Pete & Sam’s

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As previously mentioned, I was in Memphis over the weekend. It was quite a trip — seven of us (all adults; the little ones either traveled separately or stayed home) packed into a minivan. All the way there Friday, all the way back Sunday. Except for a couple of brief stints while I wolfed down some lunch in the passenger seat, I was the driver the whole time.

We were there for a wedding, and being out-of-towners, were invited to the rehearsal dinner Friday night. It was at my favorite restaurant in the world, Pete & Sam’s on Park Avenue. It’s my favorite mainly because of the great memories of many dinners there with my wife’s family over the years. It was my father-in-law’s favorite place, and he took the whole crowd there whenever we were in town. Mr. Sam used to come over to the table and chat with him whenever we did.

It’s just a very, very Memphis place, for Memphians. The opposite of touristy, it doesn’t attract the kind of clientele that, say, the Rendezvous does, or even Corky’s.

It’s an Italian place, so it may seem odd that it would be a favorite of mine, since I’m allergic to almost everything on the menu (can’t have cheese, can’t have pasta, and even their famous spinach has egg in it, so I can’t have that). But they have this great item on the menu called “Beef Tender,” a steak that comes in a hot, deep metal dish, and you can’t even see the meat because it’s submerged in a wine sauce with mushrooms. It’s awesome, and it’s preceded by a salad with the best house Italian dressing anywhere.

The place was established in 1948, and if it’s been redecorated since, you can’t really tell (although the little mini-jukeboxes that were once in the booths have been gone for awhile). It’s really, really old school. For whatever reason, the place has never gotten a liquor-by-the-drink license, so everybody brown-bags. Fortunately, there has long been a liquor store nearby (in Tennessee, you can only buy wine at a liquor store, not in a grocery). When I say it’s a place for Memphians, I’m not sure all Memphians know about it. But most Italian, Irish and other Catholics seem to. It has an ethnic feel. There are always large family groups there, with multiple wine bottles crowding the table. See the picture, below, that I took of a nearby table that had not yet been cleared away; I took it late one night on a previous visit in April.

Not all customers are Catholic, though. Some, for instance, are aliens. I mean, like from outer space. I once ran into Prince Mongo of the planet Zambodia, someone well-known to Memphians although not as famous elsewhere as Elvis or Al Green, at Pete & Sam’s. Photos of better-known celebs line the wall behind the cash register. Ed McMahon appears twice.

I learned on this trip that, sadly, Mr. Sam passed away last year, just a couple of years after my father-in-law (his cousin Pete was only a partner for six months back in the ’40s, but Mr. Sam kept the name). One would have thought he was immortal. Some robbers shot him in the gut on Christmas morning in 2000, when he was 76. He was soon back behind the register, and three months later was climbing on the roof fixing the air-conditioner, according to The Commercial Appeal.

By the way, Doug Ross will back me up on Pete & Sam’s being a good place to eat. He’s been spending a lot of time in Memphis on business lately, and I’ve been trying to keep him well fed. He’s tried both Corky’s and Pete & Sam’s on my recommendation, and he’s enjoyed it.

Beyond Pete & Sam’s, we didn’t have time to do much Memphis stuff (I never got to Corky’s for barbecue, for instance), but on Saturday afternoon, while the ladies were hanging at the pool, the twins were getting ready for their roles as flower girls and my younger son was taking a nap, my older son and I played tourist for a couple of hours. We dropped by Graceland for the first time in many a year, and went by Sun Studios — where the above photo was taken.

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Memphis looms large in the family legend, and I think it’s spiritually important to make contact with these touchstones now and then. Mind you, I’ve never taken the tour of Graceland. That wouldn’t seem right. Elvis himself didn’t invite me into his house. I haven’t even been on the grounds since right after he died, when the family was still living there — his uncle Vester was sitting out on a folding chair by the famous gate greeting people who came from all over the world to file by the graves. It was more of a pilgrimage then than a tourist thing.

But I do like to go by and see the place. Before my family moved to the Memphis area when I was 18, I only knew one thing about the city — that it was where Elvis lived. I don’t think I could even have told you it was on the Mississippi River.

I’m feeling kind of wistful now that we’re back in SC. I don’t know when we’re going to get back to the Bluff City. Since my parents-in-law died, we only get there for weddings, and while we’ve had a nice string of them the last couple of years (nieces and nephews), there’s not another on the horizon currently — no “save-the-date” cards on the fridge.

So Friday night’s Beef Tender is going to have to hold me awhile.

Guess where I’ve been today?

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Sorry not to be posting the last few days. I’ve been traveling, then just stopping by home long enough to pack for the next trip.

These pictures show where I was earlier today, taking an hour or so to play tourist…

Would you like a 3D print of fries with that?

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We don’t have flying cars yet, or time travel, but I’m encouraged to see that NASA is at least working on this…

NASA can send robots to Mars, no problem. But if it’s ever going to put humans on the Red Planet, it has to figure out how to feed them over the course of a years-long mission.

So the space agency has funded research for what could be the ultimate nerd solution: a 3-D printer that creates entrees or desserts at the touch of a button.

Yes, it’s another case of life imitating “Star Trek” (remember the food replicator?). In this case, though, the creators hope there is an application beyond deep-space pizza parties. The technology could also be used to feed hungry populations here on Earth.

Texas-based Systems and Materials Research Corp. has been selected for a $125,000 grant from NASA to develop a 3-D printer that will create “nutritious and flavorful” food suitable for astronauts, according to the company’s proposal. Using a “digital recipe,” the printers will combine powders to produce food that has the structure and texture of, well, actual food. Including smell…

Obviously, the food would not be created out of thin air. The “toner” on this copier would have to consist of the chemical building blocks of the actual food items. The story doesn’t really spell out why that’s such an advantage, but I’m guessing it’s because powders containing those compounds are more easily stored.

But still… you would have to have the water that would flesh out the food, and… I don’t know why this would be an improvement over Tang.

But it sounds cool.

Personally, I want a 3D printer that would print diamonds out of coal dust. Or make a really convincing 3D print of Christina Hendricks. Just as a for-instance. I think that would be highly marketable.

The thoughtful hedonist: Russell Brand on Thatcher

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You probably don’t want to watch it with your mom, or with your children for that matter, but I have seen few things funnier in recent years than Russell Brand in “Get Him to the Greek.” From his first line, “I’m Aldous Snow, the rock star,” his embodiment of an out-of-control hedonist is so devastatingly spot on, you come away convinced that that is who he really is (of course, his personal biography isn’t that far distant from Snow’s).

But messed up as he may be, he’s a bright guy who can actually be fairly thoughtful (interestingly, there were flashes of that in the Aldous Snow character, tucked among the Jeffrey-induced outrages). He showed that in a piece he wrote for The Guardian a couple of days back. Excerpts:

One Sunday recently while staying in London, I took a stroll in the gardens of Temple, the insular clod of quads and offices between the Strand and the Embankment. It’s kind of a luxury rent-controlled ghetto for lawyers and barristers, and there is a beautiful tailors, a fine chapel, established by the Knights Templar (from which the compound takes its name), a twee cottage designed by Sir Christopher Wren and a rose garden; which I never promised you.

My mate John and I were wandering there together, he expertly proselytising on the architecture and the history of the place, me pretending to be Rumpole of the Bailey (quietly in my mind), when we spied in the distant garden a hunched and frail figure, in a raincoat, scarf about her head, watering the roses under the breezy supervision of a masticating copper. “What’s going on there, mate?” John asked a nearby chippy loading his white van. “Maggie Thatcher,” he said. “Comes here every week to water them flowers.” The three of us watched as the gentle horticultural ritual was feebly enacted, then regarded the Iron Lady being helped into the back of a car and trundling off. In this moment she inspired only curiosity, a pale phantom, dumbly filling her day. None present eyed her meanly or spoke with vitriol and it wasn’t until an hour later that I dreamt up an Ealing comedy-style caper in which two inept crooks kidnap Thatcher from the garden but are unable to cope with the demands of dealing with her, and finally give her back. This reverie only occurred when the car was out of view. In her diminished presence I stared like an amateur astronomer unable to describe my awe at this distant phenomenon…

The blunt, pathetic reality today is that a little old lady has died, who in the winter of her life had to water roses alone under police supervision. If you behave like there’s no such thing as society, in the end there isn’t. Her death must be sad for the handful of people she was nice to and the rich people who got richer under her stewardship. It isn’t sad for anyone else. There are pangs of nostalgia, yes, because for me she’s all tied up with Hi-De-Hi and Speak and Spell and Blockbusters and “follow the bear”. What is more troubling is my inability to ascertain where my own selfishness ends and her neo-liberal inculcation begins. All of us that grew up under Thatcher were taught that it is good to be selfish, that other people’s pain is not your problem, that pain is in fact a weakness and suffering is deserved and shameful. Perhaps there is resentment because the clemency and respect that are being mawkishly displayed now by some and haughtily demanded of the rest of us at the impending, solemn ceremonial funeral, are values that her government and policies sought to annihilate…

Rough stuff. But then there are bits like this:

When I awoke today on LA time my phone was full of impertinent digital eulogies. It’d be disingenuous to omit that there were a fair number of ding-dong-style celebratory messages amidst the pensive reflections on the end of an era. Interestingly, one mate of mine, a proper leftie, in his heyday all Red Wedge and right-on punch-ups, was melancholy. “I thought I’d be overjoyed, but really it’s just … another one bites the dust …” This demonstrates, I suppose, that if you opposed Thatcher’s ideas it was likely because of their lack of compassion, which is really just a word for love. If love is something you cherish, it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one’s enemies…

I found it interesting because it gave me insight into the attitudes of a young Brit growing up in the Thatcher era — someone whose life wasn’t politics. I think he probably speaks for a lot of people in his generation, those who aren’t inclined to engage in the execrable “Ding-Dong” celebrations, but aren’t at all interested in fitting her with a halo, either.

I was also intrigued by the bits of communitarianism that crept into the writing of this young man best known in this country for playing a narcissist, such as “If you behave like there’s no such thing as society, in the end there isn’t.”

I share it as something from an unexpected quarter that broadened my understanding a bit.

House of Cards: A political fantasy in which a South Carolina congressional district is represented by a white Democrat

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That — what I said in my headline — is what struck me first about the American version of “House of Cards.” Kevin Spacey’s character is a powerful congressman who represents South Carolina’s 5th District. At least, he’s from Gaffney, and that’s in the 5th District. (The Peachoid features prominently in episode 3.)

Indeed, that district was represented by a senior white Democrat, John Spratt, just a couple of years back. But that was before the Tea Party, before the Republican Party cemented its hold on the entire delegation — except for Jim Clyburn, whose district is secure because the GOP doesn’t want those black voters in their six districts.

Have you seen the series? It’s the first original series on Netflix, and in keeping with the new national watching habit that that service helped foster, they’ve given us the entire first series all at once. I appreciate that. That is, I would appreciate it if the series had proven to be as addictive as “Breaking Bad,” or “Homeland,” or “The Walking Dead.”

But it didn’t. Netflix had hoped it would, that the series would give it the kind of cred as a content producer (because it is such a hassle negotiating with others to use their content) that “The Sopranos” gave HBO. But this is no “Sopranos.” Nor is it a “Mad Men.”

First, it’s not original. It’s based on the 22-year-old British series of the same name, starring Ian Richardson, whom I will always think of as Bill Haydon in the original BBC production of le Carre’s “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.” The first season co-stars the lovely Susannah Harker, who five years later played Miss Jane Bennet in the definitive production of “Pride and Prejudice” (the one with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. (Hey, did y’all recognize her in “Zero Dark Thirty”? Jennifer Ehle, I mean. I knew I knew her, but I didn’t realize who she was, with her hair down and all, until the credits. And can you tell my caffeine is starting to kick in? I’m writing this at Barnes and Noble, with a cuppa the black stuff from the Starbucks across the parking lot — I prefer it to the “proudly served” version served here — and since I don’t drink it much since my ear thing started, I’m feeling it. Sorry about the digressions…)

Let’s focus in on Ms. Harker’s character, because I think it will help define why I don’t like the new American series as much. Oh, the production values are better; you can tell more money was probably spent making it look good, and the technology’s just better now than it was in 1990. But it’s not as engaging. My wife and I watched two episodes a night for two nights, then stopped. Last night, I proposed going back to it, and my wife OK, but as I called it up, said with disappointment, “Oh, you mean the American one…?” So we watched the last of the first season of the original.

But back to Ms. Harker’s character. She’s much, much more engaging than the extremely irritating little girl (which I mean both literally, in the sense of stature, and in the sense that our governor uses the phrase) played by Kate Mara in the Netflix version. She’s also more believable. It is far more credible that this is a person who would be able to keep a job. OK, so she eventually gets fired, but she kept the job for awhile.

Yeah, I get it. Mara’s supposed to be the brash “new wave” of electronic journalism, sweeping aside the conventions established by the old-timey ink-stained wretches. And maybe that offends me because I’m pretty sure I’m as adept at blogging and social media as her character is, and even if I’m not a grownup, I know how to act like one. Obnoxious is obnoxious. Then there’s the fact that we’re asked to believe that Spacey’s character — who has Robin Wright waiting at home, and no end of young lovelies walking the halls of Congress — would be attracted to her. She was cute in “Shooter” several years ago, in a waiflike sort of way, but both physically and in terms of personality, is about as cuddly as a hedgehog in this.

By contrast, Susanna Harker’s character in the original series, which debuted when she was 25, draws you in. Even though, or perhaps because, her tragic fascination with Richardson’s character makes me think of the refrain of Elvis Costello’s “You Little Fool,” you can’t help caring about her. You see why, for instance, her editor loves her hopelessly. Oh, and for any young people who think, “Well that was made in the olden days before women were set free and allowed to have sharp edges,” I’ll point out that it was 20 years after the leading edge of the movement that produced today’s allegedly liberated generation. (Sorry, but y’all didn’t invent independence and assertiveness.) Harker made her soft and vulnerable, but she also made her real. I found myself wishing she were a little more cynical and tough-minded, to keep her out of trouble, but at least she doesn’t come across as cheesy and contrived.

Why is this difference important? Well, because the main problem with the new American series is the utter lack of a sympathetic character. Everyone is horrible. It doesn’t have to be a soft, vulnerable young woman — any sympathetic character would do. This sort of thing doesn’t bother everyone. And indeed, a really excellent series can get overcome that flaw, as I think “Breaking Bad” does — I keep watching in horrified fascination. But normally, the lack of a likable character will ruin any work of fiction for me. As much as I enjoy Tom Wolfe’s old New Journalism — especially Acid Test and The Right Stuff (his only book in which one could detect a hint of admiration of his subjects) — I hated Bonfire of the Vanities. Brilliant writing, interesting Tory social commentary, but everyone in it was so contemptible, like loathsome little bugs being fried under Wolfe’s magnifying glass.

Eventually, I’ll watch the rest of the new version, if only to see if it ever does anything interesting with the supposed South Carolina connection. But so far, I’ll have to say that it doesn’t live up to the ambitions that Netflix had for it.

Whoa! I missed the part about ‘Peace in our time’!

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MunichAgreement_

As I said before, I didn’t catch all of the president’s speech yesterday, and something rather important got by me:

The WTF moment for me in Obama’s second inaugural address, delivered Monday at noon, was his use of the phrase “peace in our time.” This came during his discussion of foreign policy, and in such circles, that phrase is a synonym for appeasement, especially of Hitler by Neville Chamberlain in September 1938. What signal does his using it send to Iran? I hope he was just using it to jerk Netanyahu’s chain.

I also simply didn’t understand what he meant by “a world without boundaries.” But my immediate thought was, No, right now we need boundaries — like those meant to keep Iran out of Syria and Pakistan out of Afghanistan…

Yikes. You know, there are certain phrases that anyone with an understanding of history would be careful to avoid. Such as “Mistakes were made.” “I am not a crook.” “It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”

And of course, “peace in our time.” What was the thinking on that? Did the president think that his base would like the sound of it, and not understand the profoundly disturbing historical allusion? Hey, it was politically popular when Chamberlain said it, although Britain woke up later.

I just don’t see how a line like that appears in such a formal speech by accident. And no other explanation is excusable.

That’s an association you don’t want. And for another thing, it doesn’t fit well with the president’s ongoing aggressive drone war. That suggests cynicism. As in, the president gave the gift of peace to four al Qaeda militants on Monday…

Oh, and another thing… since when did people who right for Foreign Policy start using such expressions as “WTF”?

Paul Ryan: The Deerslayer, policy wonk version

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OK, you know veep candidate Paul Ryan is a major policy wonk. One thing you might not think of him as is a good old boy. But a magazine with a name that sounds like a stutter — Deer and Deer Hunting — is aiming to set you straight. See this release:

Republican vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan opens up to Deer & Deer Hunting Magazine about his love of the outdoors.

“Bowhunting is my passion,” said Ryan to Deer & Deer Hunting’s Editor Alan Clemons. “Studying the strategy, preparing food plots, the strategy of where a dominant buck is living or will be moving and then being in position to get a shot, that’s really exciting.”

Ryan talks more about his childhood, being a father and balancing his hunting and Capitol life in an exclusive interview with Deer & Deer Hunting. The column will be in the October issue of Deer & Deer Hunting and will be available on newsstands September 4.

If you’d like to learn more about the interview, I can provide you with the pre-released interview, a press release, a copy of the magazine issue or any additional information you may need.

For more information on Deer & Deer Hunting, please go to www.deeranddeerhunting.com. For any questions, please do not hesitate to ask.

I didn’t get to read the whole story because I didn’t want to give the mag my email address and have a whole new batch of emails to delete (I’ve made that mistake too many times in the past). But I confess to being curious as to whether the piece contains any other quotes as, um, interesting as “Studying the strategy, preparing food plots, the strategy of where a dominant buck is living or will be moving and then being in position to get a shot, that’s really exciting.”

Yeah, OK. I thought he only got that excited about cutting Medicare costs.

Of course, I’m a bit of an old hand with a bow myself. One day when we were in England last year, we were strolling in Hyde Park and came across a sort of carnival, which had a booth called “Robin Hood,” which enticed marks to shoot an arrow at balloons. Sure, it could have been a trap set by the sheriff, but I couldn’t resist. I immediately laid down my five quid (the real Robin Hood would have loved to find a fat friar carrying that on him), gave my camera to my wife to record the moment, and took my three shots. Unfortunately, my wife thought the camera was set for still photos rather than video, and merely aimed it at me, pressed the shutter release, and turned away.

So it was that she missed when I actually burst one of the balloons. But the great tragedy was that she missed my next shot, which split the previous arrow… yeah, that’s the ticket…

OK, so that last part didn’t really happen. But I did get one of the balloons. Of course, I’m sure that doesn’t match the excitement that Ryan speaks of. But that’s OK by me.

Take THAT, ye oppressor of good Saxon yeomen!

Nice job of repairing the ol’ Special Relationship there, Mitt. You trying to restart the War of 1812?

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Well, you know how that awful Obama person went and insulted our Cousins across the water by dissing the Churchill bust?

Fortunately, Mitt Romney, a.k.a. The Mighty Mighty White Man, hopped across the pond to set things straight.

Above was the result. That’s from The Sun. Very lively newspaper industry they still have over there. Here’s more on the subject.

Anyway, the White House has really, really been enjoying this. And and at least one of Romney’s likely supporters is highly dismayed:

As Charles Krauthammer, who is probably Obama’s most vitriolic foreign policy critic on the right, put it, Romney really didn’t have to do much more than show up for the trip to be a success. Instead, he opened his mouth and undermined both of his goals. Whatever the right might say about the Obama administration damaging the “special relationship” between the U.S. and U.K., Obama has never caused an incident like the one Romney did yesterday. As an exasperated Krauthammer remarked last night, “All Romney has to do, say nothing. It’s like a guy in the 100-meter dash. All he has to do is to finish, he doesn’t have to win. And instead, he tackles the guy in the lane next to him and ends up disqualified. I don’t get it.”

Of three political rules broken, two involved SC

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National media may get South Carolina wrong, but on the whole, I find the British press more readable. So it was that I enjoyed this piece in The Guardian, which took a hard-eyed look at political precedent.

You know how analysts over here like to say things like “If Obama wins/loses re-election, it will be the first time that a Democrat ever did so in a year ending in the numeral 2,” or some other such meaningless nonsense — as if every election weren’t distinct, and decided on the basis of millions of reasons scattered across the electorate.

It’s political analysis on the level of sports color commentary — Well, Tim, if he swings at this and misses, it will be the first time that an American League right-hander, facing a left-handed reliever in the bottom of the seventh with men on first and third, has ever, yadda yadda.

In this piece, Harry Enten demonstrates that this election, however it comes out, is destined to break all sorts of records — as does every election.

You should go read it.

But the part that jumped out at me, and that I want to share with you today, is this passage:

At least one of these rules, and likely more, are going to be broken in 2012. The conventional wisdom will be turned on its head: 2012 will indeed be a “unique year”. Believers of this idea can also point to the primary season for the uniqueness that is 2012.

Here are three of them that have since gone the way of the Linotype.

1. No Republican candidate had ever won the South Carolina Republican primary without winning either Iowa or New Hampshire – until Newt Gingrich.

2. No Republican had ever won the nomination without winning South Carolina – until Mitt Romney.

3. No non-Protestant candidate had ever won the Republican nomination – until Mitt Romney.

Yep, of the three unprecedented things that happened in the GOP primary season in 2012 involved South Carolina.

Sometimes, we even shock ourselves.

Stiff upper lip, mate: Coping with austerity in Britain

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On a previous post, Bud and Silence had an exchange about Britain’s austerity measures, with Bud painting a fairly dismal picture:

Check out the results of the austerity approach in Great Britain. It’s been a disaster with GDP declining a full 2 years after the US began to grow. They’re approach a full blown depression.

Well, I don’t know about all that, but I do know that when I was there at the start of last year, all the buzz was about the steep increase in the VAT, which took effect while I was there. Everywhere I went, businesses had signs out about sales and such that appealed to people’s worries about the tax increase. The newspapers were full of back-and-forth between Labour pols attacking the increase and Tories defending it.

Personally, I didn’t notice the difference — everything was a little more expensive over there than here before the increase, and I didn’t feel a few more few bob here and there. Besides, when you’re on vacation you don’t count pennies the same way — especially since pennies there are different from here to start with.

I did appreciate the sign in front of The Crown Inn in Woodstock (a short bus ride from Oxford). We went in and had lunch, and I enjoyed a couple of VAT-increase-free pints. But then, I would have anyway. It was (we were told) the oldest pub in town, and we got a nice table next to the fireplace. Cheers!

Her majesty’s a pretty nice girl…

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Be sure to click on this link to get to The Guardian's cool graphic.

“… and she’s been the queen for six-ty years” bahm bum-bum, boom…

Couldn’t have let the day go by without a nod to QEII. Happy Jubilee, Ma’am. Sorry I couldn’t have been there for the big day. Consider a pint of best bitter duly hoisted in your royal direction…

At least they didn’t show favoritism

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Rand Paul, with his family and a staffer, arrives at an airport during his 2010 campaign./photo by Gage Skidmore

Sounds to me like the TSA people did what they should in this case:

Sen. Rand Paul, an outspoken opponent of the TSA’s pat-down searches, says he was “detained” in the Nashville, Tenn., airport on Monday morning after refusing to undergo the search himself.

The news originally came via his communications director, Moira Bagley, who tweeted: “Just got a call from @senrandpaul. He’s currently being detained by TSA in Nashville.”

The Associated Press quickly followed up with the libertarian-leaning Republican with a phone interview, during which Paul explained that he had been “detained” by TSA officers after setting off one of the airport’s image scanners and subsequently refusing to submit to a pat down. As a result, he said that he missed his flight to Washington, D.C., where he was slated to speak at the March For Life later Monday.

A TSA spokesperson released a statement to Politico about its protocol in such situations, but did not refer directly to the specific incident. “When an irregularity is found during the TSA screening process, it must be resolved prior to allowing a passenger to proceed to the secure area of the airport. Passengers who refuse to complete the screening process cannot be granted access to the secure area in order to ensure the safety of others traveling,” said spokesperson Jonella Culmer.

Makes sense to me. If somebody’s making a point of being uncooperative with the established procedures for keeping terrorists off an airliner, being pulled off to a separate room is the very least that should happen.

If you want to fly on an airliner with other human beings, you should be prepared to be a big boy about it, and follow the rules.

Remembering the Air Florida crash in D.C.

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When I was traveling with Howard Baker in Iowa in 1980, before the caucuses, it looked like we were going to be iced in at Dubuque. We had flown in earlier in the day. I had been in the second plane, with a couple of guys from an NBC crew. It was a four-seater, and flying in from Des Moines, the pilot only had a tiny patch of windshield, about the size of my hand, that he could see through by constantly squirting alcohol on it. When I got out of the plane, I was trying to button my trenchcoat when the wind caught it like a sail and I started gliding across the frozen tarmac.

Later, I was scheduled to fly back to Des Moines in the “big” plane, which wasn’t all that much bigger, with Baker. We waited in the tiny general aviation terminal for more than an our while the wings of our plane were deiced, then deiced again, and again. Finally, we got in and took off. Someone told me that they only let us go because it was Sen. Baker.

Two years later, I realized that the aviation officials had done us no favors letting us go. I had no idea how very dangerous ice on the wings could be. Until the Air Florida crash.

Greetings from way, way, WAY on down South

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I’ll be missing the craziness in SC the next day or so, as I’m in Key West talking about it.

You know how the Tea Party and the Occupiers get really worked up about the coziness between politicians and corporations? Well, I’m at the nexus of that. Or one of the nexuses. Or nexi. Or whatever.

Or at least, that’s what the protesters would probably say.

I’m at the Senate President’s Forum, where top officers from state senates across the country get together with corporate types and talk politics. So far, I haven’t met any of the participants, as the first event is tonight. I’ve never attended anything like this before; it promises to be interesting. I’ll tell you what it’s like. (Our own Senate president pro tem, Glenn McConnell, isn’t coming. SC is to be represented by Tom Alexander.)

I’m here to participate on a panel discussion about the presidential election. I’ll be joined by David Yepsen, former chief political editor at The Des Moines Register (somewhere, there are senior political editors who still have newspaper jobs, but I seldom run into them) and now director of the Paul Simon Institute at Southern Illinois University; John Marttila, President of Marttila Communications; and Mike DuHaime, Managing Director, Mercury Public Affairs and former Chief Strategist for Chris Christie’s successful gubernatorial campaign.

My job, of course, is to explain politics in the state that everyone is watching this week.

I need to write some opening remarks, which I worked on a bit on the plane this morning, but have only roughed it out. When I get it written, I’ll share it with y’all.

I’ll also be doing some walking around. This is my first time to Key West.

: People here seem to be enjoying themselves.

: Things are VERY laid back here.

: A local landmark I found by myself on an initial reconnaissance.

: After flying down here, I find this Southeastern Freight truck. SE is located about a mile from my house.

: This is parked outside my hotel.

: This wider view shows the ENTIRE inside of the airport.

: Those are mannequins. I kept wondering, from the plane, why they didn’t move.

My (successful) Quest for George Smiley

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Outside Smiley's house on Bywater Street. No need to knock. George knows I'm here. And where's he going to go? It's a cul de sac. It's over, old friend.

I’d been holding this back for when the movie comes out, but now that it’s passed me by (although I look forward to its being at the Nickelodeon next month), I am much embittered and have decided to go public with the whole story — the Official Secrets Act be damned. See how they like it when it’s all laid out in the papers. Perhaps I’ll go with The Guardian; that should sting. Let Parliament launch an inquiry. Let them connect me to the notorious Rebekah Brooks, for all I care. (After all, I’ve done a freelance job for that same outfit, in the time since they cast me out.) I’ve been a good soldier, put in my time, watched and waited. All for naught. Here’s my story…

As you know, I went to the UK a year ago, ostensibly as a tourist. That wouldn’t fool a real professional, of course, but one keeps as low a profile as one can. I have my own tradecraft for this sort of thing — I make a big splash, publicize my whereabouts… what spy would do that?

It’s worked so far.

My mission — to find the Circus, and more importantly, George Smiley himself.

It was quite a challenge. George hasn’t been seen since 1982. And the original location of the Circus, now that MI6 has the River House (all mod cons, as Bill Haydon would say), is shrouded in service legend. It’s not something you’d assign to some probationer straight out of Sarratt.

First, we spent a couple of days settling in, establishing patterns. One assumes that tiny Toby Esterhase‘s lamplighters are everywhere, so you need to paint them a picture, let them get complacent. This we did — from Heathrow to Swiss Cottage (the very spot where General Vladimir would have been picked up as a fallback, had he not been killed on Hampstead Heath), then all over the city on the Tube, aimlessly. Trafalgar Square, St. James’s, Fortnum’s, Buckingham, the Globe, the Tate, the Cabinet War Rooms, the Tower, hither and yon in the City.

Finally, at the end of our third full day, after night had fallen, we ambled up Charing Cross Road, affecting to be interested in bookshops. We almost missed it, but then there it was — the Circus itself. There was the Fifth Floor, and even Haydon’s little hexagonal pepperpot office overlooking New Compton Street and Charing Cross. Quick, I said, get the picture. It took a couple of tries, the way these things do when you need to hurry. Thank heavens for our “tourist” cover; it excuses all sorts of odd behavior. Then on up the street, and an hour or so of browsing at Foyles to check our backs. Found a couple of decent-looking biographies of Lord Cochrane, but didn’t buy one. (They had shelf after shelf of naval history; it went on and on.) Then we wandered about in the West End, to clean our backs as much as possible, before heading back to Swiss Cottage.

One thing down. Hardest part to come.

By this time, I had decided not to risk the actual modern HQ of the SIS. Mix fact with fiction like that, and it’s like mixing matter and antimatter. Could blow you clear across the universe, or at least to Brixton, and who wants to go there, really? That’s why they put Scalphunters there.

We played tourist for another day. Then another. The Sherlock Holmes museum. A side trip to Greenwich, to stand astride the Meridian, and see the coat Nelson wore at the Nile. Back into town for the British Museum.

Then, it was our last day in London. Had to go to Oxford the next day, and check on Connie. Connie is high-maintenance. So it was do-or-die time. We opted to do.

We thought that twilight would be the best time to descend on George. Vigilance is low. Everyone’s tired then; time for tea and meet the wife. So we went to that general part of town. Spent several hours at the Victoria and Albert. Loads of statues and the like.

We took the Tube to Sloan Square, a good half-kilometer from Bywater Street, and went the rest of the way on foot. We entered the cul de sac as night descended (which it does before 4 p.m. at that time of year). There wasn’t a soul on the narrow street. Everything went smoothly. When we got to the part where Smiley lives, I tried to throw the watchers off by shooting pictures of houses other than his. In a way, though, they were all relevant. George lives at No. 9, of course. But the 1979 TV series was shot at No. 10. And No. 11 has a Banham security system, which the book describes as being on George’s house. No. 9 has an ADT system.

Anyway, after doing what I could to distract any lamplighters in the vicinity, I had J (her workname — best watcher in the outfit, is J) quickly shoot a happy snap of me in front of No. 9. She was a bit nervous, because there were lights in the basement-level windows. She said people who lived there would wonder what we were doing. I muttered no, they wouldn’t: “They know exactly what we’re doing.” The thing was to get it over with quickly, so we did. Given the hurry we were in, I’m struck, as I look at the image, by how placid and dispassionate and, well, Smileyesque I look in the image. Like I was channeling him in that moment.

Then, it was back out to King’s Road and back to the Underground as fast as our legs would carry us, trying not to show that our hearts were pounding like Peter Guillam’s when he stole the Testify file from Registry that time. I was getting too old for this, I knew. As I looked up at the Christmas lights in the trees on Sloane Square, they were as blurry as the stars in a Van Gogh.

I can hardly remember the next couple of hours, but I can’t forget the stroke of luck that befell us later. Nothing short of a miracle, it was.

We had decided to case Victoria Station and its environs, because we knew we had to catch a coach there for the trip to Oxford next morning, and it’s good tradecraft to reconnoiter these things ahead of time. We got a bit turned-around there, and ended up touring the whole station before we discovered that the coach station was on the next block. On one aimless pass through the vicinity of the ticket windows, I looked up and there he was. George himself. Right out of the first paragraph of this passage:

He returned to the railway station… There were two ticket counters and two short queues. At the first, an intelligent girl attended him and he bought a second-class single ticket to Hamburg. But it was a deliberately laboured purchase, full of indecision and nervousness, and when he had made it he insisted on writing down times of departure and arrival: also on borrowing her ball-point and a pad of paper.

In the men’s room, having first transferred the contents of his pockets, beginning with the treasured piece of postcard from Leipzig’s boat, he changed into the linen jacket and straw hat, then went to the second ticket counter where, with a minimum of fuss, he bought a ticket on the stopping train to Kretzchmar’s town. To do this, he avoided looking at the attendant at all, concentrating instead on the ticket and his change, from under the brim of his loud straw hat…

Apparently, our appearance at Bywater Street had sent him on the run, but we had stumbled into him anyway. I left him alone, except for grabbing this picture. You doubt that’s George Smiley? Look at this picture, and this one and this one, and then tell me that. ‘Course it was him. Stuck out a mile.

But now that I’d found him, what was the point? He was just my old friend George. I could hear Toby’s triumphant voice in my ear: “Brad! All your life! Fantastic!” But I ignored him. I got the picture, and moved on. I didn’t even look to see whether he had left Ann’s lighter on the floor.

My mission had been accomplished, and then some… Why did I not exult? All I felt was the urge to polish my glasses with the lining of my tie. But I wasn’t wearing a tie…

: At Victoria Station, suddenly, there was George himself!

: A phone-booth sized loo at Sloane Square. Note that the building in the background looks eerily like the Circus.

: As I looked up at the Christmas lights in the trees on Sloane Square, they were as blurry as the stars in a Van Gogh.

: Outside Smiley’s house on Bywater Street. No need to knock. George knows I’m here. And where’s he going to go? It’s a cul de sac.

: This shot from inside the museum captured my mood as the do-or-die moment came.

: Getting lost among the statues at the Victoria and Albert, preparing to make our final move.

: These “Chelsea fans” affected to be interested in something else as they followed us to that part of town.

: After the Circus, we went underground, to the Cabinet War Rooms. These chaps are made of wax. Permanent stiff upper lips.

: Killing time, watching our backs at Foyles. They have two whole shelf sections of naval history.

: The Circus itself, looming darkly back behind the bus.

: I posed for the usual tourist snaps, so the important pictures would seem natural.

: Astride the Prime Meridian, in the rain. The real tourists were queued up to pose before a plaque, for some reason.

: Make like a tourist, keep the camera clicking…

: The coat Nelson wore at The Nile. He was a LITTLE guy…

: This lass tried to pass for “Mrs. Hudson” at The Sherlock Holmes Museum. Wouldn’t fool a child. When I tried to get her picture, she ran.

: On the way to Trafalgar to establish my tourist cover, I stopped at a Virgin store for a couple of cheap mobiles, just for this mission.

: There were many dangers on this mission; not all of them were this obvious.

: Longest queue in the world, waiting at Heathrow to get into the country. Trying following me in THIS, Toby!

Tasteful understatement on display

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My first reaction when I saw this was to flash on 1979:

Protesters Storm British Embassy in Tehran

But then, I had to smile when I read this blurb leading the NYT site:

In an assault Britain called “utterly unacceptable,” Iranian protesters entered the British Embassy on Tuesday, chanting “death to England,” pulling down a flag and ransacking offices.

Utterly unacceptable, indeed. And insupportable, I might add, if I may do so without being charged with rash hyperbole.

Oh, and by the way… the sun may have set on the Empire, but when all is said and done, I’m going to bet on the culture that says “utterly unacceptable” over the one that gets so whipped up by an ayatollah that it runs amok screaming “death to England” and destroying Her Majesty’s property.

And now, let’s drink to the King. Or to the Queen, if that’s all you’ve got.

Finally, my important discovery is recognized

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