Monthly Archives: February 2012

There's a new posting up over at The Same Picture of Dave Coulier Every Day. Interesting.

John Dickerson on Rick Santorum. I don't mean to bring up Santorum so much on this site but he really is the kind of politician who appalls me: The kind that wraps his views, many of which promote intolerance and non-Christian values, in pages torn badly from The Bible.

In college, I debated a guy like that. He had all these bizarre views about sex and race — hateful stuff directed towards anyone with a better romantic life or darker skin. Instead of presenting them as his views and defending them on that basis, he'd found dubious quotes in Scripture via which he could argue that they weren't his views; they were the decree of God and/or Jesus. He was just the messenger telling us, as God had told him, that we were supposed to allow segregation in the classroom and never have sex if you aren't prepared to make a baby. He could not or would not defend his views on any basis other than that they came from The Almighty and to oppose him was to oppose Him.

I don't mind folks whose political views are derived from their religious views…and of course, everyone has the right to both.  I just think that if your political views make any sense at all, they ought to stand up on their own without hiding behind Faith.

Michael Kinsley discusses Rick Santorum. Personally, I think the Google definition of "santorum" oughta be what you settle for when nothing else seems satisfactory…though in his speeches lately, the one-time senator from Pennsylvania seems determined to make Dan Savage's definition stick.

I still think the Republican community will eventually settle on Romney for precisely the reason a lot of them now don't like him: That they don't think he's serious about all the rightest-wing promises and pledges he's making. Whoever the nominee is, he's going to have to back way off that stuff in order to woo Independents and swing voters, or at least wink to them that he's not serious about limiting their access to contraception or seriously increasing the wealth gap 'twixt rich and poor. Romney can straddle that line and Santorum can't.

Talking to my conservative friend Roger, I get the feeling that he at least would prefer Romney for the following reason. Like a lot of folks on his side of the aisle, he believes the country is a lot more conservative than polls ever indicate. He's long had this wish-dream that there'd be a serious candidate who was so right-wing he made Rush Limbaugh look like Al Sharpton…and that candidate, of course, would win in such a landslide that the liberals of America would throw up their arms in surrender and convert.

Every time a Republican loses — and I heard this a lot from Roger after McCain did — the mantra was "We'd have won if they'd nominated a real conservative!" Obama's looking harder and harder to beat…and while Roger would rather win with Santorum than Romney, he'd rather lose with Romney than Santorum, thereby keeping that dream alive. If Santorum does a Barry Goldwater, it would be hard to argue he wasn't conservative enough. It would be a cinch with Romney.

Down on Fairfax, south of Olympic, there's an area now known as Little Ethiopia because it contains around a half-dozen Ethiopian restaurants and one or two retail stores with Ethiopian groceries or gifts.  Back in the eighties and before, most of the buildings housed delicatessens and the largest was The Bagel, a very genial place with very mediocre deli food and not much of it.

People went to The Bagel for the waitresses, who were the friendliest in town.  Every time I went there, the place was full of older men who, I got the impression, went there every day to flirt with them.  (They were mostly older women — older than me, not older than the older men.)

There were two parts to the menu at The Bagel: Hot food and sandwiches.  Except at breakfast, they always seemed to be out of whatever hot food you tried to order.  I'd try to order the roast chicken and the waitress would say they were out.  So I'd try to order the pot roast and the waitress would say they were out.  So I'd try to order the brisket platter and guess what.  Finally one time, I just turned to her and said, "Let's do this the easy way.  Tell me what you do have."  She answered, "The chicken soup and any of the sandwiches except the turkey pastrami, and we're out of sourdough and egg bread."  Then she leaned over near me and said, as if she didn't want anyone else to hear, "The owner only orders the things people are buying.  No one's ordered turkey pastrami lately so the kitchen doesn't stock it."

"Well, let me think about what I want then," I said.  "In the meantime, I'd like a bowl of chicken soup and a bagel."

"Oh, I forgot to mention.  We're out of bagels."

I acted more shocked than I probably was.  "Out of bagels?  Isn't this place called The Bagel?  How can you run out of bagels at The Bagel?"

"We didn't run out," she explained.  "It's another thing the boss no longer orders."

Are we surprised The Bagel went out of business?  I'm not…but I still kinda miss the place, anyway.