Agnology - a study in human ignorance

It pays to be cynical: Are You a Republican or a Republicant?

Side note to self: need to figure out why so many trustworthy conservatives look to Thompson as the next Reagan, but I can't help viewing him as yet another mainline moderate. (Rudy McRomney to Rudy McRompson?) Have I waded in too deep to the poisoned pool of cynicism?

The strained courtship of the religious demographic continues not just in the GOP. Courtesy of our brothers at Sojourners.

“I have a deep and abiding love for my Lord, Jesus Christ,” says Edwards.

“I take my faith very seriously and very personally, and I come from a tradition that is perhaps a little too suspicious of people who wear their faith on their sleeves,” says Hillary.

I've seldom read a more literate or winning piece on foreign policy than this piece on Iran by Peter Hitchens. Almost reminds me of Evelyn Waugh's travel books. It also serves as a reminder that a short-sighted interventionism can often cause a far greater mess than the one it's trying to clean up.

It seemed to me to be a good time to go to Iran, a country currently moving toward the top of the Anglosphere’s list of Most Hated Nations. This list, frequently revised, is maintained by those who feel a pressing need for a national enemy and who have been bereft of a proper foe since the Soviet Union fell in on itself in a cloud of rust. Iran’s leaders, unlike several of the regimes chosen for the role of Chief Threat, seem to enjoy being feared and have encouraged their image by very publicly pursuing nuclear research, rather like a naughty boy teasingly juggling with his mother’s best china.

The best moment in the Republican debate -- a sign in the sky for Giuliani:

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Catholic, was just answering a question about his support for abortion rights, and the harsh criticism that position has drawn from a Rhode Island bishop. Then lightning struck right as he began, cutting off his mike. Moderator Wolf Blitzer of CNN reassured the candidates that it was merely lightning, but those next to Giuliani on stage moved away from him anyway.

"As someone who went to parochial schools all his life, this is a very frightening thing," Giuliani joked, before reiterating his position that he believes abortion is wrong but that the government shouldn't impose that view on women.

The lightning continues, but so far Rudy is still standing.

Watch it:

Neocon poobah Norman Podhoretz says Iran should be pulverized. Seems his first miscalculation appears in his first paragraph: bad tactics to assume one enemy is like another. How the strangely secular, Persian country of Iran is another Nazi Germany is beyond belief.

Although many persist in denying it, I continue to believe that what September 11, 2001 did was to plunge us headlong into nothing less than another world war. I call this new war World War IV, because I also believe that what is generally known as the cold war was actually World War III, and that this one bears a closer resemblance to that great conflict than it does to World War II. Like the cold war, as the military historian Eliot Cohen was the first to recognize, the one we are now in has ideological roots, pitting us against Islamofascism, yet another mutation of the totalitarian disease we defeated first in the shape of Nazism and fascism and then in the shape of Communism; it is global in scope; it is being fought with a variety of weapons, not all of them military; and it is likely to go on for decades.

Evelyn Waugh and his family.

What with the merciful unpredictability of genetics, genius is by no means always inherited. Look at the unhappy case of Siegfried Wagner (what a name to be burdened with!), who tried to emulate his father, Richard, as an opera composer, with no success. But then there are contrary examples of hereditary creative gifts: the painting Bellinis of Venice, the composing Bachs of Leipzig—and the writing Waughs of Combe Florey, whose story is told in this quirky, fascinating, funny, sad Autobiography of a Family, as Alexander Waugh's new book, Fathers and Sons, is subtitled.

From his review of "Evening":

...Lila is scheduled to be married on the morrow to the kind of a bore who (I'm only guessing) would be happy as the corresponding secretary of his fraternity. She does not love him, she loves Harris. I already said that. But what makes this Harris so electrifying? Search me. If he is warm, witty and wonderful on the inside, those qualities are well-concealed by his exterior, which resembles a good job of aluminum siding: It is unbending and resists the elements.

Oh, but I forgot: Harris has one ability defined in my Little Movie Glossary: He is a Seeing-Eye Man. Such men are gifted at pointing out things to women. Man sees, points, woman turns, and now she sees, too, and smiles gratefully. Harris is a very highly evolved Seeing-Eye Man. Not once but twice he looks at the heavens and sees a twinkling star. "That's our star," he says, or words to that effect. "See it there?" He points. Young Ann looks up at the billions and billions of stars, sees their star and nods gratefully. Director Lajos Koltai cuts to the sky, and we see it, too. Or one just like it....