The Rittenhouse Review

2007-07-04T00:45:00.000-04:00

SO LONG, FAREWELL
Auf Wiedersehen, Good-bye The sun has gone/ to bed and so must I/ So long/ Farewell/ Auf wiedersehen/ Goodbye/ Goodbye/ Goodbye/ Goodbye! - From "The Sound of Music," Rodgers & Hammerstein

Jim died last night, and I'm lost. Who do you talk to about losing your best friend when the person you lost is your best friend? I only hope he's right about this heaven thing, and that angels were there to greet him at the door.

His friend Susie told me something I didn't know about him: He loved "The Sound of Music" and, much to the horror of the onlookers, once sang the entire score with her sitting outside Tangier, the bar where they met each week for Drinking Liberally.

I kind of like the image of Jim singing and dancing until he's just out of view, going somewhere else to sleep. Sweet dreams, Jim. I miss you so much already.

- Lynn Haddock

2007-03-14T21:11:00.001-04:00

OUT OF CONTROL
Out of Their Leagues, But in Whose?

What is obviously most incredibly unbelievable about the latest Bush administration scandal -- that surrounding the proposed Saturday Night Massacre of every single U.S. attorney around the country -- is that the two "minds" behind the effort, the utterly incompetent, even back in Austin, Alberto Gonzales, and the quintessential Avon Lady, Harriet Miers, were considered by this very White House to be Supreme Court material.

Unbelievable. And yet, well, "par for the course," trite as that sounds, are the first words that come to mind.

I can hear the words about Gonzales already: "resigned in disgrace." Then again, I used that same phase here a few times in reference to former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and, surprisingly, it never caught on, despite the plain merits of the matter.

2007-03-08T20:04:00.001-05:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, H.F.
Thursday Bulldog Blogging

I know you've seen this photograph here several times, but it's a favorite of many readers and this is a special occasion: the, I don't know, 38th maybe, birthday of my friend H.F.

Actually, her birthday was March 7, but she lives in Australia, so what with the time change and the International Date Line, that means it's really today. Unless I'm mixed up and her birthday was really the day before yesterday, which seems a bit more likely if possibly also incorrect.

Oh, what the heck. Either way, Alles gute zum Geburtstag, Helga. Mildred sends smooches to Kelly, with an added messy slobber for Alan.

[Post-publication addendum: March 7th also was the birthday of another web notable,Mrs. TBogg. The house basset hounds, Beckham and Satchmo, were right there with the appropriate photographic greetings, the younger and more salacious Beckham licking his lips rather like his daddy and the beleaguered Satchmo looking like, well, the Satchmo we all know and love, who is kind of over the whole thing, whatever that might be.]

2007-02-21T13:36:00.001-05:00

NOW AND THEN
The Importance of Being a Linguist

Today's news:

President Bush instructed the nation's new spy chief to focus on finding more recruits with the language skills and cultural background to collect information on al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

Yesterday's news:

Nine Army linguists, including six trained to speak Arabic, have been dismissed from the military because they are gay.

The soldiers' dismissals come at a time when the military is facing a critical shortage of translators and interpreters for the war on terrorism.

Will anything change going forward?

2007-02-15T15:33:00.001-05:00

MISS A WEEK
Miss a Lot

You spend a week in that special hell on earth known as influenza and you miss so much. (By the way, when you hear Jean Smart and the other celebrities going on about how "It's not the common cold. It's serious.", well, they mean it.)

William Donohue, he of that fringey Catholic group in New York that nobody outside the media listens to or has even heard about, had a temper tantrum, again, though this time he at least kept his previously proudly trumpeted anti-Semitism to himself, and a couple of bloggers left the John Edwards presidential campaign.

This woman I continue for reasons unknown to call Anna Nicole Simpson, even though her name is something else, died. Pandemonium ensued.

Salon hired boy genius Glenn Greenwald as a daily blogger, and then blew that credibility by hauling Camille Paglia out of the loony bin to a collective response of, "Oh, her again?"

And Dan Rubin's Blinq went dark, as he's moving to a columnist position in the Philadelphia Inquirer's local news section. Rubin's alter-ego or whatever he is -- they swear they're not the same person -- Will Bunch of the Daily News, soldiers on at Attytood, thank God.

I'm going back to bed.

2007-02-15T14:30:00.000-05:00

ODD WHITE HOUSE FURNISHINGS
A Copy of TV Guide on the Nightstand?

I've begun reading The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, by Barack Obama, and so far it's quite good: Sen. Obama is obviously a very thoughtful man and he writes with a great deal of civility, which no doubt will impress the punditocracy.

I haven't encountered any revelations or much about him I didn't already know. In fact, the most surprising thing I've learned so far is that there's a widescreen television set in the Lincoln Bedroom. You know, the famous one in the White House. He says so right there on page 44. Isn't that strange? Sen. Obama thinks it's weird too.