"Baby-faced dork who was never all that smooth with women"

Here's a piece from the archives, good enough for a laugh. Best line: "Weiner pals who have known him since he arrived in Washington a decade ago recall him as a 'baby-faced dork who was never all that smooth with women.'" Priceless.

Also got this pic.

Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin, two women to avoid if seeking dating advice. You gals sure know how to pick 'em.

Hey Ohioans, what's in your neighbor's wallet?

You can find out if he or she works for a Federal, State or Local Government (*) institution. Just go to the Buckeye Institute website and click the proper sub-category on the left side.

Or, of course, you could download their iPhone app which allows the same thing. This is useful when you are waiting in line at the post office and want to know how much that slowpoke behind the desk is getting paid to bitch at customers. In fact, a recent press release from the Buckeye Institute shows that searches on USPS salaries are the most common among the federal salary searches. Interesting.

(*) - Actually I don't think they have all the localities in their database yet. But the do have some major cities (Cleveland, Youngstown, etc.) and pretty much all the school districts which are most interesting to me anyway.

"A real mother of a blow out"

I guess Michelangelo was pretty western, huh.

I like it

I always wondered if Dr. Seuss wrote this for the Stones. The lyrics remind me of some of his books. He was still alive in 1974, you know.

Rep versus Rev

Donohue asks the question "What if Rep. Weiner were Rev. Weiner?" Excerpts:

Priests who engage in lewd conversations with teenagers are suspended from ministry for committing a "boundary violation," and are charged with sexual abuse. But Rep. Anthony Weiner can send pornographic images of himself to young girls and he is free as a bird. Indeed, the majority of New Yorkers say he should not resign.

Joe Garofoli of the San Francisco Chronicle says Weiner's "biggest sin may not have been sexual"—it was "lying." Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine says that "Lying is unforgivable," but has no comment on his sexual offenses. Joan Walsh of Salon confesses that "The lying is what disturbs me." S.E. Cupp's article in the New York Daily News is flagged, "The disgraced congressman should resign, but immorality has nothing to do with it." Similarly, Leslie Savan of the Nation wonders, "How can you be so stupid?"

...

In other words, if the guilty party were Rev. Weiner, he would be sanctioned by the Catholic Church's "zero tolerance" policy. But because he is Rep. Weiner, there are no penalties. As usual, it's not the offense that matters—it's the status of the offender.

Yeah, yeah, yeah... William Donohue is always going on like this. Only... he's absolutely right. We'll call the policy in effect for House and Senate Democrats the "infinite-tolerance policy", infinity being the opposite of zero.

The only insight I have on the Weiner apology is that the line "In addition, over the past few years, I have engaged in several inappropriate conversations conducted over Twitter, Facebook, email and occasionally on the phone with women I had met online," is meant to alert all the cool people that he can do better than Gennette Cordova.

31 Resolutions for the Summer Months

A Priest and friend of mine just sent me this. It works for kids and adults.

31 Resolutions per month for the summer months

Here are some suggestions for resolutions that can be lived, one each day, during the summer months.

Hint: you can switch the order! Another hint: you can do more than one each day!

Another hint: you can make some other special resolutions that you know will please God and others.

1. Be nice to everyone I meet today, beginning at home.
2. Remember to tell God I love him at least once an hour.
3. Tell my mother that I am willing to do any job she wants me to do today.
4. Tell my father that I am really thankful for all the nice things he does for our family.
5. Call or write my grandmother and ask her how she’s doing (and tell her what I am doing).
6. Read a good book for at least one hour.
7. Keep a smile on my face all through the day.
8. Do that favor I have been putting off.
9. Say at least one nice thing to each person in my family.
10. Try to take note of the images of Mary in my home and say something nice to her.
11. Put order in my room, in my drawers and in the closets.
12. Thank my Guardian Angel for accompanying me all through the day and the night.
13. Call or email a friend and be sure to say something complimentary to him/her.
14. Resolve to go to bed on time and to get up on time without giving in to laziness.
15. Pray to my patron saint so that we become friends.
16. Make a schedule for the day so that I do what I need to do and don’t waste time.
17. Try to be on time for everything.
18. Do what I can to make the people around me happy.
19. Pray my morning offering very well and tell God: all I do I do for you and all for love.
20. Don’t forget to say thank you for all the nice things others do for me.
21. Make sure I don’t let any bad thoughts linger in my mind or imagination.
22. Think often –at least once every hour- about the fact that God is always with me.
23. Read a good book for at least two hours today.
24. Spend time playing with my brothers and sisters and show them that I enjoy doing so.
25. Listen to my parents and do right away whatever they ask of me.
26. Put on a good face even when I have to do something I don’t particularly like.
27. Pay attention to God and our Blessed Mother when I pray the Rosary and other family prayers.
28. Think of what I could say or do to my different friends to make them happy.
29. Pray for each member of my family and for each of my friends and for their families.
30. Try to think of others first and of myself last.
31. Don’t complain!

Thanks, Father.

Obama's Intellectual Stammer

This is such a slam, and so on the money. Meghan Daum opens up some serious ass-whoop, though perhaps inadvertently. My fave paragraphs:

But consider this: It's not that Obama can't speak clearly. It's that he employs the intellectual stammer. Not to be confused with a stutter, which the president decidedly does not have, the intellectual stammer signals a brain that is moving so fast that the mouth can't keep up. The stammer is commonly found among university professors, characters in Woody Allen movies and public thinkers of the sort that might appear on C-SPAN but not CNN. If you're a member or a fan of that subset, chances are the president's stammer doesn't bother you; in fact, you might even love him for it (he sounds just like your grad school roommate, especially when he drank too much Scotch whisky and attempted to expound on the Hegelian dialectic!).

And here's the money shot:

Obama's problem is not that he's an intellectual (for the sake of argument let's define it as someone who is scholarly, broadly informed and distinguished as a thinker). It's that he sounds like an intellectual. Unlike other presumed political brainiacs — Bill Clinton or Newt Gingrich, for example — he isn't able to bury his ideas behind a folksy regional accent or good-old-boy affectations when he wants to. Nor is he effective at "keeping it real" when he falls into traditionally African-American cadences that he clearly never used when he was growing up.

By speaking as though he hails from everywhere, he ends up being from nowhere. The result is that people look at him and see not a Hawaiian or a Chicagoan or even a black man, but a university man.

"University man." [he shivers.]

Google FYI

Here are some Google searches in which this humble blog appears on the first page:

• prayer for bad dreams
• Tony Esolen
• Cantate Domino Canticum Novum
• Rod Dreher
• Malcolm Muggeridge Firing Line
• Tintoretto Cristo Risorgente
• Christopher Cuddy

I guess the biggest surprises to me are the fact that I'm no longer on page one for "bald women" and that I am on the first page for "Rod Dreher", which lands on this page. It definitely shows a loss of web presence. I mean, where's his Wikipedia page? Somewhere, but not on page one.

Rogues + USAF = Great Performance

Forgive the minute-plus intro, the performance is worth it.



The Pipes don't always play well with other instruments, but here's an example of a great ensemble performed a truly inspiring arrangement.

The Truth Will Set You Free

I have a number of new readers here at Est Quod Est. Some no doubt are under some sort of illusion that this is a good blog and that I am a good blogger. Those of you fitting this description should read one of my many feeble attempts at humor Why I am a Bad Blogger from two years ago. You may find it illuminating and slightly funny.

Religious Art

"The Penguins Going to Mass"

This is a picture of "The Penguins Going to Mass". The big penguin with a "C" on his chest is Clumsy, an evil penguin with jet powered boots who is trying to kill the faithful Catholic penguins. The penguin on the right is a baby who is hanging out in the entryway.

The picture was drawn by Gideon, age 5.