Wednesday, September 20, 2006
I Blinked for Two Days, and Look What I Missed
I missed Talk Like a Pirate Day, a coup in Thailand, tax tweaks, and angry Muslims. I didn't miss a good cartoon or an undeservedly obscure anniversary.
I spent Monday, Tuesday, and some unmeasured fraction of the preceding weekend trying to persuade certain aging servers to serve properly. That's a statement about computers, not restaurants.
If your interests run to the restaurant variety and you don't mind the occasional coarse language and mature themes, check out waiterrant.net, which -- blush -- is one of my favorite blogs. This particular waiter observes, thinks, and writes well. But I digress.
While up to my elbows in high-tech hardware and operating systems, I missed some things. (In case you're wondering, I drafted Monday's post weeks ago and polished it last week.) To wit:
- Not only was yesterday Talk Like a Pirate Day. The Salt Lake Tribune actually opined like a pirate. I was unable to locate any evidence that the Deseret Morning News noticed the holiday, let alone found it inspiring. As regards your humble blogger, if I'm to take the day seriously next year, I'll need lessons and practice; perhaps I don't attend the right movies. (I could talk like a geek or an egghead without rehearsal, as you may know.)
- There was a military coup in Thailand. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was visiting New York City when the army commander declared martial law, revoked the constitution, and disbanded the parliament.
- Utah's Legislature met in special session, mostly to enact new tax plans, including a "choose your own tax" option with which my state legislator, John Dougall, was involved. They also did some transit-related things.
- Muslims Are Angry, this time with the Pope, who said something for which he later offered one of those non-apology apologies. (I hope for a stiffer papal spine than this.) Amateur and professional protestors gathered across the Muslim world, mugging for the cameras of al-Jazeera and its western subsidiaries, the BMA. On second thought, is it really news that Muslims Are Angry?
I didn't miss everything. For example:
- Constitution Day, the anniversary of the September 17, 1787, ratification of the US Constitution by the Constitutional Convention, was Sunday -- meaning that it was officially Monday, I suppose. These days, my suggestion that we really ought to celebrate it could be construed as partisan politics. Here's Rep. John Dougall's list of suggested celebratory acts. It's a good list, almost what mine would be, if you added Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, some recent historical writings by William Bennett, and an excellent book I recently acquired from the Heritage Foundation, and if you went slightly lighter on -- but did not exclude -- the Cleon Skousen and Ezra Taft Benson schools of thought, which make up about one-third of Dougall's list.
- I saw a great Scott Stantis cartoon on the op/ed page of the Daily Herald yesterday, skewering both fuzzy math and the federal budget. Then, as you see, I found it on the Web.
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Copyright 2006 by David Rodeback.
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