Ach!

Turpis Geminus Vexillum

Articles like this make me want to punch a wall... or just stop reading the news and move to a cabin in Montana.

Republicans face a tough political dilemma if they oppose President Barack Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor as the nation’s first Hispanic and only its third woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

It makes me desperate for the free time needed to search and search and search for articles with ledes like:

"Democrats face a tough political dilemma if they oppose President Ronald Reagan's nomination of Sandra Day O'Conner as the nation's first woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court."

or

"Democrats face a tough political dilemma if they oppose President George W. Bush's nomination of Alberto Gonzalez as the nation's first Hispanic to serve as Attorney General."

or

"Democrats face a tough political dilemma if they oppose President George W. Bush's nomination of Condoleezza Rice as the nation's first African American woman to serve as Secretary of State."

Just a hunch. These articles don't exist... at least not many.

So instead, I'll just read articles like this, buy some maps of Montana and hope the confirmation process works.

The Wolf!

I had an interesting talk with my son this morning over breakfast.

He was sitting, eating a pancake and putting syrup in his hair, and I was drinking "toffee" and standing, waiting for him to finish.

He looked up and said, "What happened, daddy?"

"Well... nothing happened," I answered.

"Why?" he said.

Shortly thereafter, he was called and offered jobs in both the Obama Administration and with the news staff of CNN.

Michigan's Next Attorney General

Here, in an online Lansing magazine, a great article on a man I've gotten to know in recent months and who will make a great attorney general... and hopefully more... for Michigan.

My Guitar Gently Weeps

An oldie, but a goodie.

The Muffin Man makes his melodious return to Mr. O. This time... a duet.

O loves his music. Not good music necessarily, but he loves the music.

Word To Your Mother

Translation: HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

You've Got A Point

Encore

Really, is there any better way to follow up the mastery of a powerhouse within the repertoire for organ?




------

MEMO

TO: LWMO visitors
FROM: Me

My apologies. I've just recently discovered some of the fun of iMovie, so future Mr. O may come with soundtracks and subtitles.

The Natural

Warning: Inside family joke about organs (the instruments).

My bride and I walked out of the church together on our wedding evening to a pretty famous and pretty cool organ piece composed by a guy named Widor.

A budding Widor himself, Mr. O loves the organ and takes a turn below on his homemade plastic instrument with an "arrangement" of his parent's wedding piece.



Actually, this is how it sounded the first time... before a little practice.

Cleveland Rocks

Research now shows: there's funny in the water in Cleveland.

A New Voice

Around the end of last year, Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, stepped away from his weekly column at the New York Times, and with him went the one reliably conservative voice at America's self-proclaimed newspaper of record.

Ross Douhat has replaced Kristol as the Times' token. His second column in the job appeared today, and it's a good one.

Douhat is conservative. He's young. And, unlike some of the older set of conservative writers who are content to mainly complain about the way it used to be, he's very energetic in his creativity and thinking about expanding the ranks of conservatism. Considering, it's a wonder the Times lets him subscribe to the paper, let alone write for it.

A nugget from today:

Political debates are often framed in binaries: Middle-of-the-roaders versus hard-liners, moderates versus ideologues. But American politics is more complicated than that. There are multiple rights and lefts, and multiple middles as well. So-called extremists can serve the country well. And self-conscious moderates can be intellectually bankrupt.

Specter himself is an almost too-perfect example of this point. The Republican Party will miss the Pennsylvania senator’s vote, but it’s hard to imagine anyone taking inspiration from such a consummately unprincipled figure.

His columns appear on Tuesdays.

The Real Thing

When it comes to "fider tucks," Mr. O saw the real thing today.

A long-time local discount store burned to the ground today. It sat about 1/4 mile from our house.

We took a little bike ride over this evening and took these.