Satire

A New Opera

Iowahawk first toyed with the opera form during the Clinton administration, resulting in the now-classic Il Scumbaggio (though it hasn’t been performed recently). He has recently penned another masterpiece, this time in French–Le Risibles.

You’ll particularly enjoy the finale grande–“The Age Of Eurabia”:

When Mahmooooud is in the Notre Dame
And prayer rugs line Versailles
Then this will please the Prophet
We’ll get hot chicks in Paradise!

This is the dawning of the Age of Eurabia!
Age of Eurabiaaaaa!
Eu-ra-bi-AH! Eu-RA-bi-ah!
Harmony and peace abounding
all the Jews we will be hounding
No more blaspheme or derision
Imams making all decisions
Mystic Qu

Media Criticism

Setting Her Straight

Emily Will says that Mary Mapes is living in an alternate reality, and that her book is rife with errors:

Mapes: Page 167: “Concerned, I asked her what the trouble was. She said she had done research on the Internet about President Bush’s military record and found that he had been in Alabama at the time those documents were written, so there was no way they could be true.”

Will: Book version is ABSOLUTELY FALSE. What did happen is that in our conversation on Sunday I outlined several problems with two questioned signatures, and with the typescript of the documents, including the superscripting and the proportional spacing, and I said that I had been researching online to determine the earliest date of production of typewriters offering those features.

Don’t book publishers care about this sort of thing?

General

Remember The Doughboys

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

Note that the number of WW I vets has dwindled down to a few dozen. Barring some miracle medical breakthroughs, in another decade they will all lie (at least metaphorically) in Flanders fields. Honor today the few who are still with us, and their compatriots who no longer are. And thank, silently or otherwise, those in harm’s way today overseas.

[Update a few minutes later]

Ralph Kinney Bennett has some further thoughts.

By the way, I’ll be keeping this post at the top all day, so if you come back and still see it, scroll down past it–there may be new posts below.

Humor

Foul Bait

I just got this email from a phisherman attempting to capture my Ebay information:

We recently have determined that different computers have logged onto your eBay account, and multiple password failures were present before the logons. We strongly advice [sic] CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD.

If this is not completed by Octomber [sic] 20, 2005, we will be forced to suspend your account indefinitely, as it may have been used for fraudulent purposes. Thank you for your cooperation.

(By the way, the URL for the frauds is at the domain: http://dsl-chn-static-045.45.101.203.touchtelindia.net/ in case someone else wants to turn them in to Ebay and the FBI.)

Note also that I got this email on Novober…errr…November 11. But maybe Octomber comes after that. It’s hard to know…

Social Commentary

Changing Times

I’m watching PBS (more specifically, KCET), and they’re doing a Veterans Day show hosted by Huell Howser, in which I’m watching a group of Civil War reenactors singing “When Johnnie Comes Marching Home.” It’s been a long time since I heard the whole song, and in 2005, one feels more than a little sympathy for them, wondering what has to be going through their minds as they have to sing “…and we’ll all feel gay when Johnnie comes marching home…”

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!