Hello, my dears.
My apologies for being off the air. The Royal Wedding™ took a lot out of me.
It takes a while to recover from having seen Camilla cantering down the corridors of Buck House at 3am wearing only a toothy grin and a horse-tail-butt-plug, to say nothing of hearing what young Harry said when he found out he didn’t automatically get to sleep with Pippa Middleton. I won’t even mention James Middleton bringing out his maid’s outfit for another airing. Nice buttocks on that boy, by the way.
I know that some of you like my little stories – Hello, Corner Stone, I have a nice story about Ron and Nancy on the way, just for you – but in the meantime, I have been trying to think of some other kinds of posts to put up for your entertainment and edification.
This one is inspired by a gentleman on Daily Kos who complained about me writing about the Royal Wedding™ because, and I am paraphrasing him horribly to his detriment, Americans didn’t need to know about irrelevant rubbish.
Had I not been sleeping off six bottles of Krug and an ounce of finest Columbian, my response to him would have been that, setting aside the mindless frippery of the wedding itself, the marriage of the future king of one of America’s oldest enemies and greatest allies is probably an event that Americans should show a modicum of interest in, even if it requires them to drag their eyes away from yet another story about Donald Fucking Trump or Lady Googoo.
As <a href=”http://sarahproudandtall.com/2011/04/27/why-does-peggy-noonan-hate-america/”>Peggy Noonan might have said</a>, had she not just fallen off her chair and into a vodka-coma:
<blockquote>The whole world is on the train, in the airport, judging what it sees, and likely, in some serious ways, wondering why most Americans almost entirely ignore the rest of the world unless it’s a country they want to conquer, mine or fuck.</blockquote>
Anyway, in the rest of the world, Singapore had an <a href=”http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-08/singapore-s-election-watershed-may-loosen-political-hold-of-lee-s-party.html”>election</a>, and the ruling PAP flirted with disaster by accidentally allowing opposition politicians to win actual seats.
In Dusseldorf, the greatest annual celebration of European culture (assuming that by “culture” you mean big hair, skinny jeans, tortured vowels and women in lycra climbing out of pianos) is about to take place. The appalling entries of Portugal and Greece won’t bring them any joy. Terrifying that the countries that produced this (h/t Steep) and this could fall so low. However, at $25 million a pop to stage the competition, no country actually wants to win anyway, particularly those who are going to be forced into a two year recession as “the price” their population has to pay for wanting a flat screen tv, a roof with no holes in it and a cheap bottle of red on the table after fifty years of dictatorship.
What else? South Africa is fucked up:
A 13-year-old girl became the latest victim of “corrective rape,” South African media reported Saturday, as the trend of violent attacks on lesbians showed no signs of letting up.
as is North Korea:
The U.N. World Food Program is appealing for the provision of 430,000 tons of food to North Korea to feed 6 million needy people there. Some critics claim Pyongyang has been exaggerating its food shortages so that it can hoard food in preparation for its distribution on the centennial birth of its late leader, Kim Il-sung, the father of current leader, Kim Jong-il, which falls on April 15 next year.
People died in Syria, in Egypt, in Cambodia and Thailand but not, happily, in Sudan. The slide show at that last link is quite wonderful, by the way.
Grammy needs to pour herself a big drink and spend half an hour looking at more pictures of baby aardvarks.
ETA: Open Thread. Feel free to point out what’s happening in your part of the world.
[Sarah, Proud and Tall]
Steeplejack
Yeepers. That is one fugly picture. But cute.
Yutsano
IT’S A BEBEH AARDVARK!!
(I think it’s an aardvark. It could be an aardvark. Unless it’s something bizarre I’ve never heard of before.)
I sooo less than three you. :)
Brachiator
Golfer Severiano Ballesteros died, after a long, hard, brave stuggle against cancer.
The recent vote in the UK, in which the Lib Dems got the crap kicked out of them, is having all kinds of repercussions. Labour, which everyone thought was dead and buried, is trying hard to get people to notice them.
And if Scotland continues on a path to independence, will Charles no longer be able to stable Camilla at Balmoral?
suzanne
It’s Mothers’ Day.
jurassicpork
If the bin Laden Affair proved one thing, it’s this: As long as you don’t have a cell phone, a landline or an internet connection, you can foil the biggest and most sophisticated intelligence-gathering apparatus in human history for over a decade.
Sarah Proud and Tall
@suzanne:
You’re right. Where are my fucking presents?
suzanne
@Sarah Proud and Tall: My undying admiration will have to suffice.
RossInDetroit
Hi, baby earth pig! Welcome to a really strange place!
Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937
The ad on the page says that Microsoft is helping the Dept. of Defense do what they do best. While I believe Microsoft Office is a form of torture, can you really kill someone with it?
Yutsano
Although looking at that little piglet is reminding me I need a haircut today. And the salon I go to is only open for a few more hours, so I’d better get a move on.
Sarah Proud and Tall
@suzanne:
From you, dear, that is more than adequate.
However, if my children bring me another of those damn fruit basket things, I’m going to lace the damn thing with rohypnol.
Brian S
Getting married. After 10 and a half years of cohabitation, Amy and I are getting married, largely because she got a wonderful new job that requires us to move to a place where I won’t have a wonderful new job, and she wants me to have insurance. The awesome-sauce part of our ceremony is that the friend who’s actually performing the ceremony is going to talk about how marriage is a social construct and that it’s ridiculous that we put such importance on it.
JGabriel
Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937:
True story. I met John Backus once. Earlier that day he had been working on some documents for a presentation, and complained about the unusability of MS Word. The father of computer programming, and even he couldn’t figure out how to use Word. Tells you so much about Microsoft.
.
Sharl
A fine post, SP&T, and of a kind that takes a lot of research to put together. I hope I’ll have internet access in whatever Home for the Violently Senile I am ultimately committed to.
I’ve been too depressed to look at my collection of Bahraini tweeters lately – or at least, what’s left of them. But gosh golly, I certainly hope that the leaders of my Glorious Star-Spangled Petro-Junkie Republic don’t find the cruel realities of that oil-cursed archipelago of former pearl divers too inconvenient.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
conquer, mine, or fuck could be the new version of fuck marry kill.
Comrade Luke
Cat update.
I gave her some Petromalt, and she ate about half of it. She’s still not eating her regular food, and it doesn’t look like she’s been dry heaving either.
But…
I found a corner of my living room that she’s turned into a Jackson Pollack painting. I don’t know when it happened, but there’s hair involved here too.
After reading this, I think this is almost certainly a hairball problem. I’ve had her for half a dozen years and have never had to deal with this, so I don’t know what to do about it other than wait another day to see if it passes and then go to the vet.
I just don’t know how serious this is, having never dealt with it before, but I think it’s a pretty big hairball.
Does it sound like I’m on the right track?
cbear
Sweet Jeebus, that’s a baby aardvark? I thought it was the illicit love child of Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee.
WereBear
@Brian S: Well, then CONgratulations???
WereBear
@Comrade Luke: Even if it is a hairball, it’s hanging on tooooooo long and might be creating a blockage at this point. Not eating is something you can’t let go on much at all.
Jade Jordan
You deserve torture for writing about the Royal Bore. However, the professional left is very forgiving. We can move past your transgressions.
I am finding it harder to forgive John Cole for mentioning the Royals, because he knows better.
MattF
The Japanese are still weird.
Loneoak
@Brian S:
Congrats, more or less. I was in pretty much the exact same situation and it worked out well. Oddly, the wedding was wonderful and the honeymoon sucked, a complete reversal of our expectations. Half the reason we decided to get married was my rich aunt was going to sponsor a trip to anywhere we wanted, we went to Bali for a month, and had a terrible time.
fhtagn
To my sorrow, but not complete surprise, my local library now has this on its new books shelf:
Mad as hell : how the Tea Party movement is fundamentally remaking our two-party system / Scott Rasmussen and Doug Schoen.
Interesting pair of authors, ain’t they?
Yutsano
@fhtagn: Oh I was already aware of that authorial abortion. Unfortunately it’s out there and folks will go out of their way to misinform themselves when it’s convenient for them.
Genine
@Brian S.
Congratulations! (Sorta?) :-)
Elie
@Comrade Luke:
time for the Vet my friend.
Elie
@Brian S:
Best wishes to you and your mate. Its always good to care about someone and to committ to that openly. That is all it is, ultimately, in my opinion. To me, the committment is everything. If you are lucky in this life, you don’t get that many people for which that committment is seriously contemplated. You are born without choice to your parents and you get your siblings by biology. You pick your spouse and it should mean a lot.
I present this poem in honor of what we always hope happens:
Your Blinded Hand — Tennesee Willams
Suppose that
everything that greens and grows
should blacken in one moment, flower and branch.
I think that I would find your blinded hand.
Suppose that your cry and mine were long among numberless cries
in a city of fire when the earth is afire,
I must still believe that somehow I would find your blinded hand.
Through flames everywhere
consuming earth and air
I must believe somehow, if only one moment were offered,
I would
find your hand.
I know as, of course you know
the immeasurable wilderness that would exist
in the moment of fire.
But I would hear your cry and you’d hear mine and each of us would find
the other’s hand.
We know
that it might not be so.
But for this quiet moment, if only for this moment,
and against all reason,
let us believe, and believe in our hearts,
that somehow it would be so.
I’d hear your cry, you mine –
And each of us would find a blinded hand.
Comrade Luke
@WereBear: Well, she just wolfed down some treats, so there’s that. And she drank some water.
One other thing. I had a heck of a time getting her to take wet food at all, and then all of a sudden she started eating it. The behavior I’m seeing now is what she was doing before, and now that I think about it, it coincided with a new case of food.
Does cat food vary from case to case that much, that there’s a batch she won’t eat?
stuckinred
Incredible drive from Blowing Rock to Asheville on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Mt Mitchell was fogged in on top and freezing but it was still fun. The magnolia’s are bloomin everywhere up there!
Elie
@Comrade Luke:
I dunno — I think I would want her checked out.
Is she using the litter tray and is she pooping and peeing?
Is her tummy rounded and firm or just “regular”. Cat tummies are not distended or firm usually…
Nutella
@Loneoak:
Really? What’s wrong with Bali? Or did you have a bad time for reasons unrelated to location?
Brachiator
@Brian S: Congratulations on getting … socially constructed.
Comrade Luke
@Elie: Bowel movements appear to be normal, and I can’t detect any tummie issues.
I just put some of her old dry food next to the wet stuff and she ate some of it. I’m hoping to avoid having to go to the emergency room on Mother’s Day, but I’m watching very carefully. I’ll be giving the vet a call first thing in the morning though.
JGabriel
NYTimes via Powder Blue Satan:
Yet another reason why I, as a city dweller, don’t drive and hate suburbia.
If you make a regular practice of piloting 3000 pounds of metal, plastics, and flesh at 50 miles per hour, you should not, while doing so, be always slightly distracted.
People like this fucking terrify me.
.
AAA Bonds
@JGabriel:
Then I hope you will either pay to have us all move to places where cars are not an absolute necessity, or write individualized notes to all of our bosses telling them that we shouldn’t be accessible by phone while in transit. Cheers!
JGabriel
@AAA Bonds:
In many states, it is illegal to talk on your cell phone while driving. So why would you want a note from me, when a body with much more authority — your state government — has already written it for you?
.
fhtagn
@Comrade Luke:
Yes. I’ve known cats to eat only one brand of food, and only one variety of that brand for months, and then suddenly refuse to touch it ever again. Usually after you convinced yourself that stocking up 50 tins of the damn stuff was the prudent, David Brooks/Andrew Sullivan/Burkean thing to do.
I have also seen cats eat dry food as a means of achieving hairball expulsion.
HOWEVER, this has gone on for a while, and I would worry about whether something else is happening in your cat’s digestive system. You might be seeing the first signs of something more serious. Fingers crossed, and maybe this just is a stubborn hairball, but I would advise a trip to the vet for a check-up, including thyroid, liver and lumps in the abdomen. Sorry to be so cautious, but better safe than sorry.
Warren Terra
Just be careful with your Baby Aardvark habit … apparently if you move on to baby armadillos, you risk contracting leprosy …
Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937
@stuckinred: The parkway this time of year is unwordly. I drove from upstate NY last week (dreary rain and no leaves on the trees) and spent a couple hours on the parkway, just North of Asheville (Merlefest 2011). The scenery was awesome.
Warren Terra
@JGabriel:
To the best of my very limited knowledge, ie as far as I recall hearing in the news, in no state is it illegal to talk using a cell phone while driving. A number of places make it illegal to hold a handset while driving, but hands-free devices are compliant – even though studies show that the danger from the distraction is essentially equal to the danger from the distraction plus the handset.
RossInDetroit
The other day I was forced to take a long conference call while on the highway. Just as I hit my exit the other cell phone rang. I exited driving with my knee while trying to sort out talking to 3 people. I thought “man, if I crash and die doing this I’m going straight to hell for stupidity.”
stuckinred
@Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937: Yup, we were in Boone for graduation. It’s 90 in Geogia!
JGabriel
@Warren Terra:
Sigh. Yet more reason to fear 3000 lb. hunks of metal zooming around at 50 MPH. As if there weren’t enough already.
All y’all are way more likely to die in a car accident than just about anything else except heart attacks & cancer. Yet most people insist it’s okay to drive around distracted. For pedestrians sake, people, focus when you’re driving. Focus.
.
Phyllis
@Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937: Oooh, Merlefest. You lucky f*cker.
Karen
I know Eurovision is cheesy and poppy and by singing in English, they lose their own nationalism but…I love it anyway. I will be on their website watching later in May.
Karen
@Comrade Luke:
I agree with the others here, get thee to a vet asap. It may just be a simple hairball problem but you want to make sure that your kitty doesn’t have a mass in their body. For such omnivorous creatures, kitties have such delicate tummies.
Studly Pantload
@Comrade Luke: Good, very glad kitty’s eating! But, for future reference, what WereBear said X10. If kitty doesn’t eat for more than a day, address this aggressively forthwith, as this can quickly lead to catastrophic liver failure. I don’t understand the “nine lives” meme; in many ways, kitties are fairly fragile critters.
4jkb4ia
Mavericks by 24 (Na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye!)
I guess “Kiss Him Goodbye” qualifies as a guilty pleasure. It is complete bubblegum for any non-sports-related use.
Archives:
OPR report hearing may be most worthless ever. Its purpose was for Leahy to call DOJ on the carpet. Feingold and Whitehouse did not even show up. (Whitehouse had to attend a funeral)
Anne Laurie
@Brian S: Congratulations! — on the new job and the big move, if you’re wary of accepting them on That Other Status Change.
4jkb4ia
I congratulate Brian S., although I have to then admit I didn’t read any of the other comments the first time. Marriage really is so unlike everything else.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Sarah Proud and Tall: Give me an email addy and I’ll send you my ecard that all my pals who are moms got from me. You can then email it to your own mother and/or -in-law next year on this day.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@stuckinred: That is indeed a sight to make a ridgerunner homesick.
Evolved Deep Southerner
@Commenting at Ballon Juice since 1937: I’m heading up to Arden for a weeklong dealie-do week after next. I hope the weather is as gorgeous then as it has been the last couple of days.
fhtagn
independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/julian-will-see-you-now-2281114.html
Just a little catnip for the Assange debate party-artists….
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Luke:
Not to freak you out any more than you already are, but the one time when our cats absolutely refused their food was when it turned out that Natural Balance had bought some melamine-laced rice gluten from China and used it in the food. We will never again make any cat eat something that it doesn’t want, especially if they develop a sudden dislike to something they used to love like they did with Natural Balance.
General Stuck
What’s with that fucking Pigalope?
asiangrrlMN
Ms. Sarah, I fucking love you so much. To hell with the age difference–will you please be my fake-mistress? And, I ask for forgiveness for the swear. You arouse so much emotion in me, I just can’t help myself.