Congratulations Slave and Catrin!!!

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Manuel: Mets 'suspending' pennant race

NEW YORK -- Mets manager Jerry Manuel announced Wednesday night that, due to the urgency and gravity of the financial crisis on Wall Street, the New York Mets will be suspending their pennant race.

"This is just too important," Manuel said. "It's time to put country first."

It's unclear what "suspending" even means in this context, but Manuel hinted that it would likely include not playing the four games remaining on the team's schedule.

Jerry_3Manuel called on the Milwaukee Brewers to join the Mets in suspending their pennant chase as well. The Brewers and Mets are currently tied for the National League Wild Card berth.

Informed that Milwaukee intended to play the remaining games on its schedule, Manuel noted that he was "saddened that the Brewers do not share my ostentatious love and devotion to this great country."

"But," he added, "even if they win out, we'll still be tied in the loss column."

Asked if this wasn't just a crude stunt attempting to stave off a repeat of last season's late-September collapse, Manuel bristled.

"The finanical crisis is very grave," he said. "If swift action is not taken to restore faith in our financial system, then this will begin to affect the daily lives of ordinary Americans. It may become impossible to get a mortgage, or a car loan, or to pay your center fielder $18 million to hit a lousy .280. And do you people realize what it's going to cost us to sign Francisco Rodriguez this winter? Decisive action is needed to restore faith in our financial institutions and our bullpens."

Chicago Cubs manager Lou Pinella, whose team is scheduled to play the Mets tonight at Shea, said he had no intention of suspending the final game of their season series.

"This is the big leagues," Pinella said. "You have to be able to deal with more than one thing at once."

Pinella, whose team has already clinched home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, did agree to send Cubs slugger Alfonso Soriano to Washington to assist congressional leaders in finalizing the details of the bailout agreement.

Slacktivist

[Fugee]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

At some point in my life I'm going to join the Peace Corps. One of the very few regrets I have in my life is not joining up between college and law school.

Two of my neighbors went to Samoa with the Peace Corp about 20 months ago. Both were retired but on the young side of retirement and pretty excited about it. The husband had his own business so he is using that background. The wife was doing more community-type stuff. The wife came back after a year because she kept getting infections (every little scrape let bacteria in and her system couldn't fight them) and the doctors told her it would only get worse. Husband will be there until next June. Wife says it is a huge adjustment to go from living there back to our affluent society.

[Did you just call me Coltrane?]

Originally Posted by Fugee

Samoa

Poor Somoa. For me, its people are only known as doing the humpty-hump.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Did you just call me Coltrane?

Poor Somoa. For me, its people are only known as doing the humpty-hump.

from Pulp Fiction, it's people are doomed to being chubby.

[Replaced_Texan]

VH1 is airing "Rush Hashanah" this weekend.

In a victory for both Canadian prog rock and awesomely clever puns, VH1 Classic will ring in Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) with “Rush Hashanah”. The channel will air 24 hours of Rush on September 29th. The marathon will feature two of the band’s concert films, Rush In Rio and R30, plus music videos from the band’s past and present. “Rush Hashanah” isn’t all just pun and games, however: singer/bassist Geddy Lee, born Gary Weinrib, is the son of two Holocaust survivors. Lee’s parents actually met when they were interred at a labor camp in Poland and ultimately got married after they were liberated. So celebrate Rush Hashanah this year with Geddy and the gang on VH1 Classic.

Rush fans shold really appreciate this heads up from your admin. Because she hates Rush with a passion.

[Not Bob]

Interesting article by author Tom Perrota ("Election" is one of my favorite books) on Slate called "The Sexy Puritan." A snippet:

Caribou hunting aside, Sarah Palin represents the state-of-the-art version of a particular type of woman—let's call her the Sexy Puritan—that's become a familiar and potent figure in the culture war in recent years.

Sexy Puritans have been around for a while. Anita Bryant, the Miss America runner-up turned anti-gay crusader in the 1970s, was an early exemplar of the trend. The young Britney Spears, provocatively dressed and loudly proclaiming her virginity, is a more modern version, though that didn't turn out so well. Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the most conservative member of The View, has a bit of the Sexy Puritan about her, as does Monica Goodling, the former aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who admitted to engaging in improperly political hiring practices, including the dismissal of a career prosecutor Goodling believed to be a lesbian. (Puritanical footnote: Goodling is reputed to have been responsible for the draping of nude statues at the Department of Justice.)

Sexy Puritans engage in the culture war on two levels—not simply by advocating conservative positions on hot-button social issues but by embodying nonthreatening mainstream standards of female beauty and behavior at the same time. The net result is a paradox, a bit of cognitive dissonance very useful to the cultural right: You get a little thrill along with your traditional values, a wink along with the wagging finger. Somehow, you don't feel quite as much like a prig as you expected to.

I didn't think too much about Sexy Puritans as a type until I began looking into the abstinence-only sex-education movement while researching my novel, The Abstinence Teacher. I expected to encounter a lot of stern James Dobson-style scolds warning teenagers about the dangers of premarital sex—and there were a few of those—but what I found over and over again were thoughtful, attractive, downright sexy young women talking about their personal decision to remain pure until marriage. Erika Harold, Miss America of 2003 (the right sure loves beauty queens), is probably the best-known to the wider public, but no abstinence rally is complete without the testimony of a very pretty virgin in her early- to mid-20s. At a Silver Ring Thing event I attended in New Jersey in 2007, a slender young blond woman in tight jeans and a form-fitting T-shirt—she wouldn't have looked out of place at a frat kegger—bragged about all the college boys who'd tried and failed to talk her into their beds. She reveled in her ability to resist them, to stand alone until she'd found the perfect guy, the fiancé with whom she would soon share a lifetime full of amazing sex. While her explicit message was forceful and empowering—virginity is a form of strength and self-sufficiency—the implicit one was clear as well: Abstinence isn't just sour grapes for losers, a consolation prize for girls who can't get a date anyway.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally Posted by Not Bob

"The Sexy Puritan." . . . Monica Goodling

Now how does the "sexy" part apply here?

[Not Bob]

Ok, this is pretty amusing. From About Tom Perrotta:

1972—Precociously political, Tom campaigns for George McGovern in Pop Warner football uniform, along with teammate and teammate's hippie brother; trio is verbally abused by neighbors, many of whom belong to misleadingly-named Silent Majority. "Horse With No Name" tops the pop charts.

1974—In a stab at "Easy Rider" cool, Tom ventures out in a long-sleeved T-shirt emblazoned with the American flag, but his closed-minded peers react with scorn. His Seals & Crofts t-shirt and blue sheepskin jacket don't fare much better with the critics. Monty Python's Flying Circus makes first appearance on American TV.

Jesus, I'm old.

[Not Bob]

Originally Posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)

Now how does the "sexy" part apply here?

Please note that Mr. Perrotta used a modifier with Ms. Goodling and Mrs. Hasslebeck -- he said that they had "a bit of the Sexy Puritan about them." I'd give Monica that. Frankly, I find her more attractive than Governor Palin.

[Flinty_McFlint]

Originally Posted by Not Bob

Ok, this is pretty amusing. From About Tom Perrotta:



Jesus, I'm old.

What were the 1970's like?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Flinty_McFlint

What were the 1970's like?

Back then, the Mets didn't choke.

[Not Bob]

Originally Posted by Flinty_McFlint

What were the 1970's like?

Hmm. Fathers looked like this:



Or this:



Or this:



Except sometimes there was no father around, so there was just a mom, and you had families like this:

[Not Bob]

Originally Posted by Flinty_McFlint

What were the 1970's like?

Gas prices were high, so we bought these:



instead of these:



And we had good hair:







In short, it was a magical time.

[NotFromHere]

Originally Posted by Not Bob

In short, it was a magical time.

Magical?

[notcasesensitive]

Originally Posted by Not Bob

Please note that Mr. Perrotta used a modifier with Ms. Goodling and Mrs. Hasslebeck -- he said that they had "a bit of the Sexy Puritan about them." I'd give Monica that. Frankly, I find her more attractive than Governor Palin.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck turned out to be such a letdown. I cheered for her on Survivor (uh, yeah, that period when she ran around on primetime tv with basically nothing on - she had the sexy on display but the puritan under wraps) but now my hindsight taints my enjoyment of that season.