After Christmas I was up late on Christmas night, and the twins were squirrelly. After I
finally went to bed, I was awakened a couple of hours later by awful
gastric distress, which absorbed my attention for another few hours. I
finally got to sleep and, upon awakening, spent the day watching
football and not eating. I've recovered, and today we took the children
to the park and to dinner at a fabulous restaurant which defied my
epicurean expectations and re-molded my palate with sophisticated,
challenging and luxurious fare. I speak of course of Chili's.  ¶ 19:21 0 comments

  Christmas Day Our 4-1/2-year-old twins are now old enough to really understand Christmas as a holiday, at least the Santa part of it. They are undoubtedly shaky on the theology of it, as I haven't explained it to them in a way that I think they understand, or perhaps I've never really explained it to them. Don't worry (those of you who are Christian. I'm not, but it's important to me that they know who Christmas is actually named for), next year they will be fully apprised, for I will be able to measure their apprehesion of the story of Christ by something other than the blank stares they give me when I try to explain anything containing abstractions to them. It's not that they don't understand, it's just that I can't tell whether or not they do because they can't recapitulate what they've heard back to me in a meaningful way. And, of course, I suck at explaining anything to them that is in the least difficult, because I'm not good at starting at Square One, no doubt in large part because there are very few things I understand from Square One. "How does the milk get onto the cereal?" would be a good example of a Square One question I could handle, but even that requires the restrictions of 1) No followup questions, and 2) an utterly literalist (but simplified) explanation-no metaphysics, physics (gravitation and/or fluid dynamics) or philosophy. But these issues aside, the kids are now fully invested in the season. Our littlest (21 months), now understands more of what's happening, or at least can be made excited by the holiday, as she has her sisters to inspire her, an advantage that the twins lacked.

So. The tree looked great, the kids were excited, a great friend came into town on Christmas Eve to visit, and another for Christmas dinner, the dinner went well, and we're all tired.

Christmas Dinner:
Prime Rib
Yorkshire Pudding
Broccoli w/ Hollandaise Sauce
Mashed Potatoes & Gravy
Pumpkin & Pecan Pie

I made everything but the Pudding, as it is the speciality of the Missus. It was all good, but the gravy was runnier than I would've liked.

Christmas Presents I Got:
From the Missus:

Slippers. The cool lined Moccasin ones. Man, I really needed new slippers.
Tour Of Duty: Kids In the Hall DVD
The Office: The Complete First Series DVD
Waiting For Guffman DVD

Not a bad haul at all.  ¶ 19:18 0 comments

  Cheap & Mean For No Good Reason It's late, and I want to listen to something melodious and musical.
Until then, I'll listen to Genesis.  ¶ 12:23 0 comments

  The Contract Thing William Kristol and Robert Kagan have written an article in the Weekly Standard (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/481yjxxw.asp) that criticizes the Bush administration for its "petty" refusal to allow contracts for the construction of Iraq to be awarded to Germany, France, and Russia. This is a legitimate position, I suppose, but what got me thinking was one of the underlying suppositions. Namely, that the U.S. should be "magnanimous" in victory, and not "reward friends and punish enemies".

Magnanimity in victory is indeed an important quality for the civilized victor. However, it rests on the idea that the magnanimity is extended to one's defeated enemies on the battlefield. It is interesting that Kristol and Kagan refer in passing to the nations who blocked the U.S. in the Security Council as "friendly governments", while referring to the Administration's plan to "punish enemies". I don't think they meant that France, Germany and Russia are our enemies in the same way Iraq was, so I think he is conflating two concepts: the concept of ostensible allies who act against our interests (in this case, in direct opposition to our goal), and actual enemies who defy us militarily.

This takes us to contemplate what "enemy" actually means. Certainly the Axis Of Weasels actively undermined our efforts to remove Saddam, just as Hussein did. However, we did not face them on the battlefield, because they were not the enemy to be engaged, but our nominal allies who decided to thwart our effort to decisively defeat an enemy (that, it turns out, two of whom were conducting business with in violation of U.N. sanctions, and the third who wanted oil contracts preserved at all costs). So, in the sense of active warfare upon the U.S., they are not enemies, but neither are they our friends, even though they may still be our allies. But certainly they are not deserving of our magnanimity. That is to be extended to the honorable but vanquished foe on the battleground, and his countrymen, not to the chunks of perfidy that comprise the AOW. They may even have now demonstrated that they are our de facto enemies (or, to put it in a parlance diplomats may understand, "hold views permanently antithetical to our interests"), but they are still undeserving of magnanimity, because they are not ruined, just inconvenienced by not receiving windfall precipitated by actions they wholly opposed.

Those who worked so assiduously against the U.S. to prevent our foreign-policy objective do not deserve violent confrontation, certainly, but neither do they deserve to be enriched by contracts to rebuild a country whose people they risked nothing for. And if that sounds too high-flown and moralistic, then they also do not deserve to be rewarded simply because they worked so hard against an ally's request for help, and have cheered every setback against the U.S. And this latter position doesn't even need to be evaluated in terms of good of evil, but merely in terms of recalcitrance. Why should the U.S. reward those who worked for exactly the opposite outcome of what actually happened? It seems insane to me, but then I'm not a diplomat.  ¶ 17:17 0 comments

  It's A Bit Much, I Admit When I wrote this:

I took it as a criticism of my wife and me, regardless of why. You never once stopped to think that I might find it a bit insulting both to me and my wife that we registered, and thought it was useful to do so. And I do think you're being snobbish, it's just that the snobbery is intellectual rather than class-based. It's more that I think you are assaulting us on the grounds of bad taste, and mindlessly following a trend, neither of which has much to do with class. Springer is an example of bad taste and stupidity.

it was a bit over-the-top. It reads as if I was so hurt by JF that I was retaliating out of rage. In fact, I was mildly irritated, and the whole "yokel Springer" think was much more exaggerating for comic effect than a response borne of wounding. Forgive me, JF, that it comes across otherwise.  ¶ 19:16 0 comments

  It's Official: I Win Whilst visiting another site that Mr. F and I both frequent, I came across these entries. They were under pseudonyms, but I could tell it was JF:

No, there will be surrender [in the argument over wedding gift registries].

And later:

Err, that is, there will be _no_ surrender.

This is the clincher. Note that he is saying, "[I] err [in saying], that is, [that] there will be _no_ surrender.

Indeed you do err, Sir. Of course you meant the first statement was the correct one. Thank you for your rapid capitulation on this most contentious issue.
  ¶ 23:58 0 comments

  Wedding Gift Registries Are For Losers, But For More John Flory replies. My response follows.

I am base two, baby, George Boole can't mess with me, and not just because he's long dead. Sorry to the readership for the "Fisking style" of my reply, but it's more convenient to reply in this way. Italicized comments are John Flory's.

It's a pity, since blogwar has been declared, I gather.

Eh. It's more like a blogument, or a bloguibble. Oh wait-binary, it's all binary. War! I mean, you're the Rosie, and I'm the Tom Selleck! Granted, I am more the size of Rosie, but I don't want to be Rosie. So, we don't just disagree, you are Evil and I am Good. You are Falsity and I am Truth! BTW, we are all in BIG TROUBLE if I am actually Truth.

I will get around to answering because it's an interesting question and one that leads naturally to the discussion of the purpose of etiquette itself, apart from the specific forms it takes. But for now I have to limit myself to a couple of points. While I do argue that gift registries are not traditional, it is for the more or less obvious reason that they aren't.

Sure, I conceded that point, granted in a sarcastic way here, but in a less sarcastic way, over and over, in another venue.

It's not a judgment against them, they're just new. Of course people can have differing senses of how new a custom can be and still be worth calling traditional; Santa (as he is now) is somewhere around a century old. Giving diamond engagement rings, as a widespread custom, is about sixty years old. And gift registries are even newer.

Well, you were unclear on this point previously. It sounded very much like a straight "no tradition=bad", at least as far as wedding gift registries were concerned.

[snip points about Santa and wedding rings, as I agree.]

I haven't been able to find anything about the history of registries, but Judith Martin in 1980 called it a "business gimmick," which suggests novelty to me. At any rate I know that I have read tired jokes about duplicate or useless wedding gifts in stories from the mid-century. As far as I know, gift registries started with the stodgier variety of department store and originally focused on china and silver. The current practice is quite different even from that, obviously. If anyone comes up with a more extensive history, I'd be happy to read it. In any case, I really can't be at all apologetic about refusing to call traditional something that was called a business gimmick during my lifetime. But to repeat, not being traditional says nothing about whether it is a good practice or bad.

OK. I'm glad you cleared up your POV on tradition. I think, even though it's a "business gimmick", it is a useful one to wedding-goers, and the bride and groom, but I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that point. I don't care that they are a "novelty". I also think that one derisive comment by Judith Martin is hardly a conclusive condemnation.

The second thing, before I absolutely have to get back to my paper, is that class has nothing to do with it.

I figured it didn't, but it was hard to tell upon what basis that registries were evil, other than their newness. The "shopping off a menu" remark can be construed as class-centric, in the ways I delineated. But the point is withdrawn, or at least deferred.

Now that I think about it, I figure the whole practice is middle-class from start to finish, but in fact I hadn't thought about its class origins until D.G. complained in advance about my snobbery. I certainly don't care. The whole business about "toothless, gawking, bovine yokels" is not just satirical on his part but wholly made up and I honestly can't think why.

See below.

Well, one more thing. D.G. is badly mistaken about the importance I attach to this; I think he mistook the intensity of my dislike for calling novelties traditional, for my much lesser dislike of gift registries.

Well, I conceded the point about gift registries not being traditional, about five or six times, and you persisted in arguing the second point. While you mentioned in passing that you were not going to argue about this point, it did not stop you from arguing about it with me, ad nauseam infinitum.

This is baffling since I repeatedly told him that, because it would annoy people, I wasn't going to argue against using one, but I gather from his comments that he took the whole exchange as a class-based criticism of him.

I took it as a criticism of my wife and me, regardless of why. You never once stopped to think that I might find it a bit insulting both to me and my wife that we registered, and thought it was useful to do so. And I do think you're being snobbish, it's just that the snobbery is intellectual rather than class-based. It's more that I think you are assaulting us on the grounds of bad taste, and mindlessly following a trend, neither of which has much to do with class. Springer is an example of bad taste and stupidity.

This is also odd, since if anything he could boast of being actually capitalist through the side of the family that owns an honest to God means of production (a factory), whereas my family is at best a running dog of capitalists. But good grief, who cares.

The claim that I mistake the importance you attach to this is altogether your fault, IMHO. When you decide to argue something, you argue every point with ferocity. That doesn't mean that you are angry or mean or anything, just that you will argue any point until your opponent capitulates or it can't be argued anymore (because Time has ended and the Universe has collapsed, for example). I recognize this trait in you, as it has been attributed to/observed in me. And I don't think I'm "projecting". In almost all cases I take this as a compliment, in that you think I'm worthy to argue with. If you don't think someone is worthy, you stay silent (and I have really come to respect your opinion of who to engage and who not bother to). Though your style is casual, it is also evident that you want to win the argument. Who cares? You do.

I'll explain later why I think gift registries are not a good custom, but it really is nothing fancier than that they seem to me to diminish the real value of giving gifts. And yes, they do also seem like buying off a menu.

You're not obligated to buy from the registry. So don't buy from it, and give the gift you want to the marrying couple. Or give them money. Brides and grooms like money, too. After watching "Goodfellas", I wished my wife and I could've had a Mob wedding. We would've danced while everyone gave us thick envelopes of cash. Now that's how you start a life together.  ¶ 21:13 0 comments

  No, I Haven't Forgotten... ...what happened at Pearl Harbor 62 years ago today. I don't aim to
forget it.  ¶ 09:15 0 comments

  Wedding Gift Registries Are For Losers My pal Johnny F. has told me that he will someday soon post his excoriation of the very idea of wedding gift registries. And, as anyone who's read his posts will attest, it will no doubt be exceedingly well-written, logical, and call into light the relevant history of this common practice (I can't call it tradition or JF will yell at me). However, he has given me some preliminary data. One of the big problems he has with registries is that they embody the concept of "shopping off a menu", which seems to be one of the worst violations of the human spirit extant, and is unspeakably vulgar as well. A bigger flaw he will probably argue is that there is no tradition behind them, by which I understand means that the practice has not existed for 500+ years, or at least more than one generation.

I don't know if class will be part of his argument, as he was somewhat non-specific on that point, but I can see a couple of possible arguments there. If the wedding registries are not common among the wealthiest among us, he might argue that, among folks of that class, it is probably because, when confronted with an impending wedding, the wealthy would naturally allow their good taste and discretion select the appropriate gift, which of course requires no "menu", or any such pre-fab limitation in the selection of a gift. The more common folk, in turn, should emulate this virtue. If the practice is common among the wealthy, JF can of course use the well-documented observation of Theodore Dalrymple that ideas trickling down from the wealthy can have disastrous consequences on the underclass. In this case, on any class which practices wedding gift registries. Dalrymple writes of these ideas coming from intellectual elites, but the principle is similar.

So, the only option left to JF is to get this horrid practice stopped. Its very idea must be burned, the wrongness of it immolated in the purifying fire of good taste. Perhaps as a cautionary measure, Jerry Springer should be brought in to piss on its ashes (yes, in my world, ideas can be burned, and give off ashes as a product of combustion), whilst toothless, gawking, bovine yokels who've been mindlessly following the practice, like my wife and I, look on, the garish and meretricious spectacle regrettably necessary to drive the point home into our pig-like brains.

But of course, that may take some time to happen, and JF will soon have a reckoning with fate. For alas, he is about to be betrayed by his very own fiancé! After his wedding he will weep at his defeat, the sight of all of those non-redundant gifts sickening him and impairing his Spirit. Where are the eight toaster ovens to be returned? It is a small price to pay for good taste, breeding, and non-programmatic-template-shopping! Why, O why, did we get a subset of just what we asked for? Humans are surely sheep! Why no nutcrackers or cuckoo clocks, or martini sets so ugly that Satan Himself wouldn't use them at a cocktail party? No waffle-iron cozys or ugly picture frames!? We would, of course, never use these things, and they would take up space in our home for at least a generation, being too embarrassed to show them and too polite to throw them out or sell them, lest their giver give us a visit, but they are the product of real thought and selection! Surely he will shake his fist at the heavens and cry, "Fie on this blighted World! Hey, what's that? Ooh, a gift certificate from Pottery Barn. Hmm. This wasn't in the registry, yet it required no thought or taste to give. I must meditate on that.". And so, the sting is lessened to the point that JF can go on with his life. In 20 or so years he may actually forgive his wife.

Of course, there's the teensiest chance that I'm misrepresenting his position...  ¶ 19:11 0 comments

  Thanksgiving & The Simple Life Thanksgiving dinner turned out well, if I do say so myself. The turkey
was pretty succulent, the side dishes were good, and, most importantly,
the gravy was good. I'm a stickler about gravy, as it is a simple thing,
but if it is made poorly, it almost ruins a meal. And I'm almost as
persnickety about mashed potatoes, as I can't abide bad mashed taters.
The fact that the gravy and spuds turned out well was very satisfying.

The dinner took a couple of days to make, if you count the baking of
pies the day before. As I sat down at the table after making a toast to
my guests and family, I said, "this is going to be a sweet 20 minutes".
It was best to acknowledge the brevity of the meal after the length of
its preparation, and just get it out of the way. The meal was good, and
it fortified me for the cleaning up afterward.

By the way, "Trading Places" is a great post-Thanksgiving dinner movie.

Tonight I'm watching the second episode of "The Simple Life", and it's
actually making me angry. I hope the dairy farmer who was forced to fire
the Useless Twins is well remunerated for all of the milk they wasted
and contaminated, and all of the complaints and possible lawsuits they
may have exposed him to. Of course, he agreed to be on the show, and to
hire the UT, so I guess it's partly his fault, but the producers
undoubtedly hard-sold and deceived him about what he would actually be
dealing with. However, I hope that his experience helps him and others
realize that they should not agree to be on reality TV shows. Now if I
could just agree to stop /watching/ them...  ¶ 20:11 0 comments