One Wedding and Many Funerals

I’m not that big on other people’s celebrations, but I have to say I enjoyed the wedding we attended Saturday night in Baltimore—the nuptials between Angela and Steve, the son of the best man at my wedding and his wife, great old friends of ours. I know the newlyweds hardly at all, but I did congratulate them on not letting the gay marriage movement disrupt their wedding plans.

We didn’t know any of the guests very well, but I did have a long, interesting series of repartees with my table mate for dinner, the civil officiant who had pronounced the couple husband and wife. I got it off on the wrong foot by asking, “So are you a justice of the peace?”

“No,” she replied. “I’m a judge.”

That’s reminiscent of when I greeted new neighbors by asking the lady of the house, who said she works at the local children’s hospital, if she is a nurse and she replied as pleasantly as possible: “No, I’m a pediatrician.” Anyway, as we departed, the judge said, “I hope to meet you again.” Mindful of her job of dispensing justice to misdemeanants and traffic offenders”,” I replied, “I certainly hope not!”

What was remarkable about the wedding was its site, in an old Presbyterian church long since converted into a civil assembly hall, but erected on vaulted piers to enable its early congregants to be buried beneath the structure, but with public access. The grounds of the old church contain the burial plots of early Baltimore patriots from the Revolutionary War and War of 1812, along with a certain family named Poe.

Edgar Allan Poe died dissolute and without honor is his family’s home town and was buried in an unmarked plot in that very cemetery alongside his grandfather. (As I stepped away from his original plot, two blackbirds swooped over my head looking for a landing site to investigate worm life in the cemetery grass. An omen? I hope not!) As his fame grew, the Poe remains were moved to a more prominent spot at the corner of the block, adjacent to the University of Maryland Medical School, the oldest such institution in the country, which used the cemetery's public access to re-house the early occupants in anatomy classes, courtesy of a local historical figure known as “Frank, the Bodysnatcher.”

As the tour guide noted, Frank was just a capitalist who saw a need by medical students—and filled it.

So, if you ever are sightseeing in Baltimore—God knows why you would want to—skip the nation’s only dental museum, skip the commercially crass Inner Harbor, skip Little Italy and head over to the Westminster Hall catacombs. It’s really ghoul.

Buried beneath the church bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells



West Virginia dental impression



Catacombs


Oh, yes, the bride and groo-hoo-ooo-mm

D.C. Droppings -- XIII

Memorial Daze

The more awful our foreign policy is and the more we inflict terror on populations who don’t want to be democratic – and the more the public votes against such things—the more we as a country spew false love upon veterans and today’s “heroes,” the chumps who sign up to kill or be killed in order to get a college education. Or because they are too aimless to do anything else.

Of course, many young Americans sign up for the military because they feel they want adventure or they want to serve in a job that they see as heroic. But the only reason they see it that way is because civil society paints them as heroes, no matter what their cause or their actions.

You could not turn on the television or go anywhere in public this weekend without being drenched in phony bathos about our “heroes.” Memorial Day was once about dead veterans of the Civil War, then expanded to honor the dead of our good wars, the last one ending in 1945.

In my view, unpopular as it may be, there is nothing inherently heroic about signing up to do a job and then doing it. A lot of people face danger in their jobs, not the least of whom are teachers in urban public schools, traffic cops on pollution-choked city streets or drivers for fly-by-night interstate bus companies.

These soldiers kill for us in a war we all hate but we publicly revere them as gods? We all know why – it is a cheap way of looking patriotic, by honoring the troops but not the war. That is beyond stupid. If we didn’t honor them, if we had no Memorial Days, if we didn’t choke up publicly at every moment, if Marines didn’t lose whole platoons so that they would never leave a fallen comrade behind, then no one would sign up for future ill-begotten wars. We “honor” the troops because of a collective guilt about how Vietnam War veterans were allegedly treated upon their return. Except for the government itself forgetting their medical, emotional and financial needs, they were honored, or at least not dishonored, as is the canard spread by right wingers still fighting the wars of the Sixties.

Stop Him Before He Tortures Again

Which brings us to Cheney, the Dick. All that needs to be said about this sneering sniveling Valdemort is that he ducked service to his country five times. He wants Guantanamo to remain open, even though W. doesn’t.

But I wish someone would explain why Cheney is not there since he is the biggest enemy of our way of life.

When it was known we were torturing people, Cheney denied it , then said if we did it, it was legal and then said if it wasn’t exactly legal it was okay because the president had shysters on his staff say it was. And now he says violations of international law were not only effective but anyone who thinks otherwise is damaging our national security. Yet he also says it only happened three times or so and it was not his administration’s policy. So is he really saying, “Stop me before I torture again?

And if the secret CIA memos really do support the Cheney position that torture worked, how come they haven’t been leaked yet, as was everything else that made the war look good?

Needless to say, with the criminal-in-chief Bush unaccountably silent lately, it is Cheney whose patriotism must be called into question.

Coca Cola Health Plan

And what’s with Bill Clinton, from whom sleaze won’t adhere to the slime? He is a leader in global health and was governor of Arkansas, whose successor administrations instituted a tax on soda pop, in order to help curb the obesity epidemic. But now, the former billboard for junk food is speaking out against a move to apply such taxes in other states. How could that be? Oh, did anyone besides the New York Times mention, just in passing, that the Bill Clinton Foundation receives between $250,000 and $500,000 from Coca Cola?

Catch-2204 7832 6712 0095 Exp. 07/10

With Congress finally cracking down on credit card companies, the usurers will have to find new sources of revenue. And that means instituting fees and shortening the period in which you must pay. And that means a violation of that old Clinton chestnut about governing for “the people who play by the rules” because those of us who make sure never to carry a credit card balance will have to pay for the privilege of paying on time.

Spend a Night at the Museum

I am pretty discerning about movies, and rarely do we venture out beyond the confines of the indie house that features quality films. But despite my general distaste for Ben Stiller (loved his parents, though!) I think Night at the Museum, and its new sequel Night at the Museum: The Battle of the Smithsonian are the funniest and best made movies I have seen in a long time.

It is a PG movie that, like the best satire, appeals to two different audiences at the same time. And the effects are pretty cool, too.

Home Improvement

Since Jan. 9, when we signed the contract to have an addition built on one side of our house and to have nine feet along the front of the house removed for a flagstone patio covered by a pillar-supported roof, we knew on paper how it might look.

What we did not expect was to leave our house yesterday morning with the front yard intact and to return at 6 p.m. to find the following scenes:

It won't be until July 9 when we see the final fruits of this project by our contractor, one Mr. B. Rubble.

Go, MoDo!

As is often the case, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, puts in one paragraph what it takes cable TV weeks to miss:

"The man who never talked is now the man who won’t shut up. The man who wouldn’t list his office in the federal jobs directory, who had the vice president’s residence blocked on Google Earth, who went to the Supreme Court to keep from revealing which energy executives helped him write the nation’s energy policy, is now endlessly yelping about how President Obama is holding back documents that should be made public."

Nerd Prom

That's what the call the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner each spring where several thousand media types bring famous guests to hear the president be funny.

A generation ago, I went, and even snagged a Cabinet secretary and a good table one year, and felt like the gawker that so many of the snooty newspeople really are at heart -- jocksniffers. A generation ago, the celebs were government officials. Now the celebs are really celebs. After some low-grade invitations during the Bush era, this year's dinner was chock full of A-listers.

In the past few years my son has replaced the Allen family as a representative at these affairs, where news organizations pay a grand or more per table and everyone dresses up for the spring soiree, hence the appellation "Nerd Prom." The younger Allen was seated at a table with Christian Slater, and I only know him from a small part on one season of "The West Wing," but apparently, despite being 40, is well known to the younger crowd and, apparently, to women. So, I didn't hear anything gossipy about the dinner.

However, I am pleased to report that President Obama is a great stand-up comedian. Yeah, yeah, he has the best joke writers available, but as we all know the secret to comedy is timing.

Here are some of his better one-liners: (Click the links below to judge for yourself.)

-"In the next 100 days I will learn to go off the prompter, and Joe Biden will learn to stay on the prompter."

-"In the next 100 days our bipartisan outreach will be so successful that even John Boehner* will consider becoming a Democrat ... After all we have a lot in common. He is a person of color... although not a color that appears in the natural world."

-"In the next 100 days we will house train our dog Bo. Because the last thing Tim Geithner needs is someone else treating him like a fire hydrant."

-"We had been rivals during the campaign. But these days we could not be closer. In fact, the second she got back from Mexico, she pulled me into a hug and gave me a big kiss. Told me I had better get down there myself."

--"Tomorrow is mothers day. I do have to say, this is a tough holiday for Rahm** because he is not used to saying the word 'day' after 'mother.'"

* -- Boehner is the Republican leader in the house and sports a permanent tan, making him a worthy successor to George Hamilton IV.

** -- Rahm Emanuel is the president's chief of staff, known for never mincing words. Emanuel lost is middle finger in a childhood accident, which caused Obama to remark on an earlier occasion that it rendered his aide speechless.

There is also always a professional comedian on the bill, and I have in the past seen a young Jay Leno and an old Mort Sahl. This time it was Wanda Sykes, who I do not think is funny at all.

But she did note that Obama is so protected by the news media he is never pictured smoking but is always portrayed bare-chested.

This event is worthless, but it is pretty much the Washington equivalent of Oscar night. Except the tinsel makers of Hollywood can't kill you.

Here, after the dinner, Obama meets with Rupert Murdoch:

Couldn't Have Happened to a Nicer "Guy?"

The last time I had reason to mention Manny Ramirez was in the 2007 playoffs. It was not a positive assessment, even though just last night I was watching him play baseball and marveling at his ability to hit one.

Today, he is in the news again, for having been caught taking a substance banned by baseball and suspended for 50 days. The substance was a fertility drug used by women.

So instead of "It's just Manny being Manny," we can now say, "It's just Manny being womanny."

Rain, Man!

Hi, Susan G., if you finally found the place. After 20 or 30 years, you asked how I was doing. Well, I am a curmudgeon on stilts today. I am an indoor person by nature, but I have gone bonkers now with the 10th consecutive day of clouds and rain. Oh, not biblical rain, but something every day.

All I really care about in the world outside my own brain is my lawn and garden, which is a fairly new thing for me, and I don't get all anal about them. But it would be nice to have a day -- a weekend, preferably -- on which to mow the lawn and police the garden and underbrush. But noooooooo. Cold and rainy for a week and a half, in which nonexistent bamboo grew six feet tall and through a webbed lawn chair left out back.

I successfully avoided Vietnam back in the day but now I have to find it in my own back yard.

There is always a however, however.

And that is that the rain that giveth bamboo and ankle-high grass, also giveth one the humbling reminder that no matter how little or how much gardening one does, plant life -- like children -- grow whenever they are good and damned ready.


Oh, did I mention we are spending the equivalent of a small Caribbean island's budget on remodeling and adding to Chez Allen -- planned for in good time, procrastinated in uncertain times and begun and being paid for in bad times. At least we can enjoy the new portion when it is supposed to be completed in mid-summer and not have to go anywhere and spend more money.