Posted without comment...

For a leap of faith, that's the breaks

Devin Rose
Chicago Tribune
October 31, 2004

My aunt is finding her new church surprisingly entertaining. She recently told of a sermon that left the youth minister in stitches--literally.

Young and exuberant, he bounded across the stage of the sanctuary one Sunday with a gleam in his eye, preaching the power of faith.

"I have so much faith," he exclaimed, "that I know I would be OK if I were to leap into the congregation right now, because my brothers and sisters would catch me."

To prove his point, he leapt.

His brothers and sisters didn't catch him.

Instead, panicked by the body hurtling toward them, they parted like the Red Sea.

The young preacher emerged with cuts and a broken collarbone, and, surely, a touch of wounded pride.

But his faith was unshaken--as he told it later, God might be teaching him not to take himself too seriously.

Is this true?

The wretches who roam around aimlessly in gangs and kill people by throwing stones from a highway bridge or setting fire to a child--whoever these people are--turn out this way not because they have been corrupted by computer "new-speak" (they don't even have access to a computer) but rather because they are excluded from the universe of literature, and from those places where, through education and discussion, they might be reached by a glimmer from the world of values that stems from and sends us back again to books. -Umberto Eco, On Literature

Last month was National Novel Writing Month. Yeah, like there aren't enough poorly written novels around.

Napoleon was, in writing, at least, quite the Romeo, according to the new book The Linguist and The Emperor:

I have awakened full of you. The memory of last night has given my senses no rest... Sweet and incomparable Josephine, what an effect you have on my heart! I sent you thousands of kisses---but don't kiss me. Your kisses sear my blood. p26

David Flemming, Country Club Plaza in Kansas City. link

G.K. Chesterton on journalism:

We announce on flaring posters that a man has fallen off a scaffolding. We do not announce on flaring posters that a man has not fallen off a scaffolding. Yet this latter fact is fundamentally more exciting, as indicating that that moving tower of terror and mystery, a man, is still abroad upon the earth. That the man has not fallen off a scaffolding is really more sensational; and it is also some thousand times more common. But journalism cannot reasonably be expected thus to insist upon the permanent miracles. Busy editors cannot be expected to put on their posters, “Mr. Wilkinson still safe” or “Mr. Jones, of Worthing, not dead yet.” link

headlines

Nation's Poor Win Election For Nation's Rich x

Kerry Captures Bin Laden One Week Too Late x

Nation's Wildlife Fleeing To Canada

Self-Help Book Believes It Can Be A Bestseller Someday x

wdyt:
"Our nation may be bitterly divided, but at least our government can agree on being ultra-conservative."

"Now that the Republicans run Congress, the White House, and soon the Supreme Court, they'll just have to invent some new branches of government to dominate, as well."

"The fact that 48 percent of Americans voted for a boring placeholder like John Kerry is actually a really good sign for the Left."

I'm still not sure the election was won on abortion and same-sex marriage. When you think about it, in nearly every election since FDR's Fireside Chats--which helped begin the personality era of presidential politics--the friendlier candidate has won (Eisenhower over Stevenson twice, Kennedy over Nixon, Carter over Ford, Reagan over Carter and Mondale, Bush Sr. over Dukakis, Clinton over Bush Sr. and Dole, Bush Jr. over Gore and Kerry). Nixon's wins might be an exception, but even he learned a hard lesson in likability in 1960. (In the case of Truman and Johnson, neither they nor their opponents--Dewey and Goldwater--were friendly, so it wasn't the friendliness factor, but the macho factor.)

So if the presidential nominees had been Edwards and Cheney...

[Update: Slate on the gay marriage election myth; Louis Menand on why voters weren't sending a message]

This week in my B&C blog: October news and book review roundup. LINK/ARCHIVE

My Tribune language column today:
On the new book "Doctor Dolittle's Delusion," on why animal communication doesn't qualify as language.
temp link/perm.preview

Here's author Steven Anderson's page at Yale. Here's the full text of The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, and here's much more on the series. Here's the NYT on Anderson's book. Here's a clip from my story this summer on Rico the dog.

Here's more on the Endings items: First Idea, parrot tongues, and bilingual brains.

Inflections
• As if voting weren't confusing enough, a sign yesterday said "Voting Enterance." (Is that syllable added in common pronunciation? I'm not sure.)

• "These restrooms are for accessible use only," a sign said in a hotel lobby. So I looked for an inaccessible one.

• Manny Ramirez on why the curse of the Bambino didn't stop the Red Sox: "You make your own destination."

• One of Jay Leno's Headlines, from an ad: "Going away? Don't Want To Leave Your Dog In a Canal?" (Sure don't. Wet dogs reek.) He also had an ad for "Frosted Shredded What."

• The NYT: "Music critics have a word for ... this knee-jerk backlash against producer-powered idols who didn't spend years touring dive bars. Not a very elegant word, but a useful one. The word is rockism, and among the small but extraordinarily pesky group of people who obsess over this stuff, rockism is a word meant to start fights.

• I want to look into the transitivity of the verb "quit" in British English versus its American intransitivity: "[Hostage] calls upon Britian to quit Iraq." (There's that line from The Raven: "Leave my loneliness unbroken! Quit the bust above my door!")

• The Trib on people with the last name of Frankenstein.

• Previous column and inflections

I've said it before and I'll say it again: What more does a president have to do to lose re-election? How do you look at President Bush and say, "Job well done. Please do more of it"? I guess the difference was the macho factor: "I have more testosterone in the fight against terrorists, and I don't like the thought of gay guys doing it."

But the harsher question goes to Kerry, the second-straight underachieving Democratic nominee. How do you lose to this guy, after these last two years? How many more vulnerabilities can a challenger ask for in an incumbent? Kerry should be prepared for even more Democratic hatred than Gore got--at least Gore won the popular vote.

Take a look at the last four Democratic losers: Kerry, Gore, Dukakis, Mondale. All aloof elitists, all vastly ineffective communicators. As was said last night, the Democrats are mostly a bi-coastal party, and desperately need to become a national party again.* You don't become a national party--you don't wade into that sea of red states--with Hillary Clinton. You might do it with John Edwards, but he doesn't make up the gap in the macho factor, especially not against Rudy Guiliani. You could do it with Barack Obama, but he won't be ready until '12 or '16, and will probably start out as a VP nominee.

There is just one consolation in all this: Now Bush will have to clean up his own mess. It wouldn't have been fully fair to ask Kerry to hoist us out of the hole--in Iraq and in the economy--that Bush dug. Bush will have to sleep in the bed he made. And he'll have to face, on a daily and public basis, his failure.

One last thought: will the Democrats pipe down now about the Electoral College? It nearly won them the White House this time despite a two or three percent deficit in the popular vote.

David Brooks registered his apt misgivings about both Bush and Kerry yesterday. William Saletan has a reality check for Democrats this morning. Nicholas Kristof in today's NYT on why the working poor vote for trickle-down Republicans. (Update: what went wrong, what won't work next time, and more on the "God gap" here, here, here and here. And Slate on how to move to Canada.)

* - States that Clinton won in 1992 and/or 1996 that neither Gore nor Kerry carried (with the exception of Gore's sort-of and squeaker wins in FL and NM): Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Montana, Ohio, Nevada, New Mexico, and West Virginia. (response/more results)

Look at how little these percentages budged after four years. Kinda makes you wonder, what's the point of all those ads, sound bites, conventions, debates, and most of all, all those polls?

STATE Bush-Gore Bush-Kerry
AL••••••57-42•••••• 63-37
AK•••••• 59-28•••••• 62-35
AZ••••••51-45 ••••••55-44
AR•••••• 51-45•••••• 54-45
CA•••••• 42-54•••••• 44-55
CO•••••• 51-42•••••• 53-46
CT•••••• 39-56•••••• 44-54
DE•••••• 42-55•••••• 46-53
DC•••••• 09-86•••••• 09-90
FL•••••• 49-49•••••• 52-47
GA•••••• 55-43•••••• 59-41
HI•••••• 38-56•••••• 45-54
ID•••••• 69-28•••••• 68-30
IL•••••• 43-55•••••• 44-55
IN•••••• 57-41•••••• 60-39
IA•••••• 48-49•••••• 50-49
KS•••••• 59-37•••••• 62-37
KY•••••• 57-41•••••• 60-40
LA•••••• 53-45•••••• 57-42
ME•••••• 44-49•••••• 45-53
MD•••••• 40-57•••••• 43-56
MA•••••• 33-60•••••• 37-62
MI•••••• 47-51•••••• 48-51
MN•••••• 46-48•••••• 48-51
MS•••••• 57-42•••••• 60-40
MO•••••• 51-47•••••• 54-46
MT•••••• 58-34•••••• 59-39
NE•••••• 63-33•••••• 62-32
NV•••••• 49-46•••••• 51-48
NH•••••• 48-47•••••• 49-50
NJ•••••• 41-56•••••• 46-53
NM•••••• 48-48•••••• 50-49
NY•••••• 35-60•••••• 40-58
NC•••••• 56-43•••••• 56-43
ND•••••• 61-33•••••• 63-36
OH•••••• 50-46•••••• 51-49
OK•••••• 60-38•••••• 66-34
OR•••••• 47-47•••••• 47-52
PA•••••• 47-51•••••• 49-51
RI•••••• 32-61•••••• 39-60
SC•••••• 57-41•••••• 58-41
SD•••••• 60-38•••••• 60-39
TN•••••• 51-48•••••• 57-43
TX•••••• 59-38•••••• 61-38
UT•••••• 67-26•••••• 71-27
VT•••••• 41-51•••••• 39-59
VA•••••• 52-45•••••• 54-46
WA•••••• 45-50•••••• 46-53
WV•••••• 52-46•••••• 56-43
WI•••••• 48-48•••••• 49-50
WY•••••• 69-28•••••• 69-29

Total 47.9-48.3••••••51-48

Bush 50,456,002
Gore 50,999,897

Bush 58,874,321
Kerry 55,319,301

(more numbers from CNN/WP; speech tranx's; more 2000 numbers here, here and here.)

So, ladies and gentlemen, here he is, your commander-in-chief, Mr. Mission Accomplished:



(Well, at least it isn't this guy!)



Tom Shales this morning in the WP: "We finally figured out who [Kerry] looks like: Jay Leno's grandfather."



Update: (I lost the source of this, sorry):

There were about 115 million votes cast. There are
217.8 million eligible voters. That means that about
52 percent of eligible voters cast ballots. That means
that the president was re-elected by 27 percent of
eligible American voters. And that Kerry received the
active support -- that is, taking the trouble to vote
-- of 25 percent of eligible American voters.

"Bad politicians are elected by good people who don't
vote." (George Jean Nathan)

concession speech delivered by Dick Tuck, a
candidate for California assemblyman in 1964:
"The people have spoken -- the bastards."

• Etymology Today from M-W: tergiversation\ter-jiv-er-SAY-shun\
1 : evasion of straightforward action or clear-cut statement : equivocation
2 : desertion of a cause, position, party, or faith

The tergiversation of Ken's speech left his listeners confused about where he really stood on the issue.

The Latin verb "tergiversari" means "to show reluctance," and it comes from the combination of "tergum," meaning "back," and "versare," meaning "to turn." "Tergiversari" gave English the noun "tergiversation" and the verb "tergiversate" ("to engage in tergiversation"). "Tergiversation" is the slightly older term, having been around since at least 1570; the first known use of "tergiversate" dates from 1590. There's also the much rarer adjective "tergiversant" ("tending to evade"), as well as the noun "tergiversator" ("one that tergiversates").

• Previous E.T.