Let Brown Do It For You

On a recent bidness trip, I was able to bide some portion of the lengthy flight times by enjoying Father Brown: The Essential Tales by G.K. Chesterton:

G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown may seem a pleasantly doddering Roman Catholic priest, but appearances deceive. With keen observation and an unerring sense of man’s frailties–gained during his years listening to confessions–Father Brown succeeds in bringing even the most elusive criminals to justice.

This definitive collection of fifteen stories, selected by the American Chesterton Society, includes such classics as “The Blue Cross,” “The Secret Garden,” and “The Paradise of Thieves.” As P. D. James writes in her Introduction, “We read the Father Brown stories for a variety pleasures, including their ingenuity, their wit and intelligence, and for the brilliance of the writing. But they provide more. Chesterton was concerned with the greatest of all problems, the vagaries of the human heart.”

While I've long admired Chesterton's non-fiction writing--in particular Orthodoxy (one of the best works on belief ever penned) and his biographies of Saint Francis of Assisi and Thomas Acquinas--I haven't sampled his fictional works until I picked up the Father Brown collection. Not surprisingly, it more than lives up to expectations. Chesterton's depictions of the characters that Father Brown encounters and the settings these stories play out in is masterful. His work with Father Brown is in some manner a combination of the elements of mystery offered by Arthur Conan Doyle in the Sherlock Holmes stories imbued with a dose of the wit and wry observations of English social life as captured by P.G. Wodehouse. There's are also not so subtle messages on morality and the true nature of man from a person in position to understand both better than most.

Killer name for a coach, dude . . .

With Jerry Kill being announced as the new head coach for the Minnesota Gophers football program, the countdown begins for the next Minnesota coach to get the axe. Other than the guy who got swept by the Yankees in the playoffs, it's not looking like a good year for head coaches in the State of Minnesota.

(Todd Richards, I'm looking at you.)

Helen of Dearborn

One of the big brains over at Powerline noted the other day that America's Crazy Old Aunt, Helen Thomas, remains an unrepentant anti-Semitic old bat, trotting old that old "Joooos-run-the-world" and nobody is allowed to criticize Israel, blah, blah blah. More here and here.

What struck me however, was not only the standing ovation she received from the Dearborn, Michigan, crowd at the "Images and Perceptions of Arab Americans" for her hate, but also the sculpture of her (ponder that for a moment) unveiled at the Arab American National Museum. Lets be honest, as we search for the elusive moderate Muslim majority, we keep stumbling upon moments like this with supposed "moderates" honoring a nasty, hateful, disgusting old anti-Semite hag like Helen Thomas. No doubt she will continue to be honored by our friends in the Religion of Peace. Sorry, but a sculpture honoring Helen and a standing ovation is not being "moderate."

Meanwhile, the search for the elusive moderate Muslim majority continues.

Northern Alliance Radio Network

The Northern Alliance Radio Network is NOT back in full effect this morning, LIVE at 11AM (central). Due to a clause in the fine print of our employment contract, in times of emergency we are compelled to cede the airwaves to the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Therefore, beginning at 11:15, you will be treated to the NCAA basketball game of the week, likely to be North Carolina vs. Kentucky.

It should be treat for all NARN fans, as I understand both clubs feature a highly conservative offense and a strong commitment to defense. Their positions on tax cuts, abortion, and photo ID requirement at the time of voting are yet to be determined.

The true story, because of a programming conflict on KYCR (NDSU Football) the Salem empire needs to clear a NCAA basketball game on WWTC. The game starts at 11:15am and will last about 2 hours. This means that NARN 1 will NOT have a show this weekend. NARN 2 (Mitch and Ed) will start immediately following the game, probably around 1:30pm.

The Northern Alliance Radio Network, and NCAA basketball, are heard locally on AM1280 the Patriot. Streaming LIVE worldwide at the web site. Call in and join the action at 651-289-4488. Don't you dare miss it.

Beer of the Week, Special Edition

Chad the Elder is out on assignment this week, traveling in the Orient. His exact location is classified. Let's just say if you read any news reports about an Imelda Marcos press conference being interrupted with an ironic shoe launch, you might be very familiar with the perpetrator.

As you no doubt have noticed, Chad has not posted a "Beer of the Week" for this week. Therefore, I'm assuming he's either without an Internet connection or incapacitated after sampling untold gallons of the local brews for next week's entry.

According to the bylaws of the Beer of the Week line of succession, as of now, I am in control here, at Fraters Libertas headquarters, pending the return of Chad and in close touch with him. If something came up, I would check with him, of course. Probably.

I go into this assignment unprepared, so I'll have to review whatever brew I happened to have been sucking back when I logged in. Reminder, this Chad-free Beer of the Week is NOT brought to you by the hospitable folks at Glen Lake Wine & Spirits. If it had been, I'm sure I'd be reviewing something really good. But, as Donald Rumsfeld once said, you go to war with the beer you have, which I happened to have purchased at Beer Belly's Price Club located in Bayport.

You never know what you're going to get at Beer Belly's but you know it will be cheap. And that's the story in spades for this exciting new offering from Beer Brewery, located in parts unknown. Their new offering is called "BEER" and boy is it ever.

White can. Black lettering. Informative label detailing the number of fluid ounces of beer included in the can.

Alcohol by Volume: Unknown, but not strong enough.

COLOR (0-2): Piss yellow. 1

AROMA (0-2): Thankfully, doesn't smell like piss. Smells more like water. 1

HEAD (0-2): Not exactly sure what this means. 2

TASTE (0-5): Sublime, exquisite lacing. 9

AFTERTASTE (0-2): Absolutely none, perfect. 2

OVERALL (0-6): Liquid, wet, thirst quenching. Goes down really easy. Good for people looking for some alcohol with their water. Plus, if I drink enough of it, I start to slur my speech and stumble around the room. "BEER" may be the perfect beer to drink when you're having more than a couple of cases. 4

TOTAL SCORE (0-19): 19

Bad luck for Chad. He's out for one week in the 12 year history of Beer of the Week and that's the first time EVER a beer has earned a perfect score. That'll teach him to leave the house for important business or fun vacation or whatever he's doing instead of staying home and drinking beer every night. No shame dude, upon your return the "BEER" is on me.

The Elder Belches Back: I step out for a moment on a humanitarian mission to save endangered baby sea turtles and this is the thanks I get? Saint Paul going all Al Haig on me and staging a coup de biere?

All kidding aside, while I admire his efforts at filling the Beer of the Week gap and find his review quite good for a rookie, I should remind Saint Paul that the first rule of beer reviewing is to write the review sometime after the first, but before the twelfth beer of the evening. Consider this a lesson learned for all parties involved. Next time, Atomizer is in charge.

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now

Average guitarist Johnny Marr of The Smiths displayed his below average intellect by Tweeting his reaction to the fact that Conservative British Prime Minister David Cameron has gone on record suggesting that he like the "music" of The Smiths:

David Cameron, stop saying that you like The Smiths, no you don't. I forbid you to like it.

I'm a big believer in free expression, but I've got to side with Johnny Marr here. David Cameron is supposed to be an adult, a conservative, and the leader of Great Britain. Yet he likes a whiny and pretentious band than inspired a bunch of slacker losers to dress in black and wear eye liner.

WARNING: a blatant rip-off of a Steve Allen comedy bit follows

To prove my point, here are examples of actual lyrics from different songs that The Smiths wrote (note that despite the same theme over and over, each lyric is from a different song):

- I was looking for a job and then I found a job and heaven knows I'm miserable now

- And what a terrible mess I've made of my life; Oh, what a mess I've made of my life;
No, I've never had a job; Because I'm too shy

- And I've got no right to take my place with the human race

- Girlfriend in a coma; I know I know it's serious

- I am the son and the heir of a shyness that is criminally vulgar; I am the son and the heir of nothing in particular

- And the calf that you carve with a smile is murder; and the turkey you festively slice is murder

- So please, please, please, let me, let me, let me, let me get what I want this time

- Shoplifters of the world, unite and take over

- I know I'm unlovable, you don't have to tell me

NARN Interrupted

The First Team of the Northern Alliance Radio Network will be taking a rare and well-deserved day off this week. And for the first time due to forces beyond our control. We've been pre-empted!

Feels like we've hit the big time to me, like when Jason Lewis gets bumped for a Brad Childress call-in show or an episode of Dharma and Greg gets bagged due to war breaking out in Iraq. The real world intrudes while the talent sits back and enjoys some time off to recharge the batteries at full salary.

We'll be back next week. But what will our loyal audience be treated to on Saturday? Take the quiz below, answer to be revealed by Saturday morning at 11AM.

Why is the NARN First Team broadcast being pre-empted this saturday?
	Presidential press conference
	Live coverage of MN Gubernatorial election recount from Beltrami County
	Live broadcast of Kentucky vs. North Carolina basketball game
	Extended edition of lead-in program for those really angry and confused about today's news
pollcode.com free polls

A Moment of Clarity

From August 12, DFL candidate for Governor Mark Dayton on the scourge of negative ads:

Just a day after he declared victory in the DFL gubernatorial primary, former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton called for an end to all negative ads -- including those from outside groups supporting him.

"I mean it," he said.

The call comes weeks after the Democrat-supporting Alliance for a Better Minnesota released an ad smacking Republican Tom Emmer for past drunk driving charges and a day after the Minnesota Republican Party smacked Dayton for his past Senate history.

From December 1, the soon to be certified as Governor Mark Dayton, on the benefit of negative ads:

Dayton, who is clinging to a 9,000 vote lead over Republican Tom Emmer in the still unresolved Minnesota governor's race, said if it had not been for the Alliance for a Better Minnesota, he would have likely come up short.

Fueled by labor unions and Dayton's ex-wife, Alida Messinger, the Aliance raised several million dollars to air television ads against Emmer. According to Factcheck.org, Messinger poured $500,000 of her own money into the effort.

"If it hadn't been for the DGA getting involved, with sort of the groups that were started in Minnesota, the Alliance for a Better Minnesota ... the definitions they did to the Republican, I wouldn't of had the chance to prevail," Dayton said.

"The definitions they did to the Republican" refers to the ad where the Alliance for a Better Minnesota exploited the mother of a child killed by a drunk driver to voice anti-Emmer ads, conflating her suffering with distortions of Emmer's voting record and drinking related charges Emmer faced over 20 years ago. It was a low point in the history of Minnesota elections.

Despite Dayton's contrived call for an end to negative ads, it ran throughout the election. I recall seeing it during the World Series just a few days before Nov. 2. Despicable. And that's not just my characterization. From MPR, candidate Mark Dayton himself during his August the press conference:

Dayton said he thinks the anti-Emmer ad crosses the line.

Over the line in August, to a subject of whimsy in December:

He said he teased his ex, asking her, "Did you ever imagine you'd be spending these two years of your life doing all this to elect your ex-husband governor of Minnesota?"

Mark Dayton, by any means necessary.

Saving Hope

These days you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a conservative pundit telling us that we are essentially doomed. John Derbyshire, Mark Steyn, and in his own humorous way, P.J. O'Rourke are among those who regularly warn us of the civilizationial decline, demographic collapse, and cultural catastrophe that awaits. In the December edition of First Things, James Nuechterlein takes issue with all this negativity on the right and also provides much-needed perspective on the proper place for politics among religious believers in a piece called Apocalypse No (sub req):

If the foregoing analysis is anywhere near correct, one is left puzzled as to why conservatives, despite the considerable evidence of the long-term success of their cause, seem so despondent. Conservatives are of course naturally attuned to the human propensity for folly and thus predisposed to mordant estimates of how things stand, but, even so, their insistently dark view of the current American situation seems somehow excessive.

It is important to emphasize at this point that the conservatism to which First Things adheres and with which it is primarily concerned is not political in the ordinary sense. Our conservatism is theological and cultural—in the tradition of our founding editor Richard John Neuhaus we regard ourselves as theologically orthodox and culturally conservative—and we impose no political litmus tests on our contributors (not to mention our readers).

Still, ideas and inclinations cluster, and it is an obvious empirical reality that theological and cultural conservatives are, far more often than not, political conservatives as well. (As evidence, note the high positive correlation between regular worship and conservative voting habits.) Which means, willy-nilly, that politics is not beyond our purview.

But there’s more than that. Orthodox religion keeps politics in its place. We know—or should know—that it is not primarily as political beings we were created and that it is not finally politics that commands our highest loyalties and concerns. Christians who are part of the Great Tradition understand that it is unwise to invest too much of themselves in the public square. As Fr. Neuhaus never tired of reminding us, the first thing to be said about public life is that public life is not the first thing.

Which suggests that we should be as wary of dystopian despair as we are of utopian enthusiasm. Politics provides neither final victories nor final defeats. Conservatives need no instruction in the dangers of inordinate optimism, but they might need some help with its opposite. The notion, widespread on the right, of an America irredeemably alienated from its founding principles and but a half step removed from abject capitulation to collectivist schemes has lost touch with where we are and with conservatism’s own best tradition of seeing things whole.

Political conservatives who have not cut themselves off from Burkean sobriety will know better than to give in to the fantasy that all is lost or that the apocalypse looms just beyond the horizon. They might even, if they attend to the historical record, come to understand that it is liberals who have more to despair of than they do. But perhaps it is unrealistic to imagine that conservatives could so uncharacteristically succumb to hope.

What's Tagalog For Gatekeepers?

An opinion piece from today's Philippine Star (The Truth Shall Prevail) called Are media losing out to websites and blogs? by Federico D. Pascual Jr. contains the obligatory warning about the dangers posed by those wild and crazy bloggers:

DANGER LURKS: With their digital cameras and mobile phones, many budding journalists now compete in newsgathering and reporting.

One obvious problem, however, is the new electronic media's lack of conventional discipline and clearcut codes of conduct. The informal setup does not seem to be guided by a firm code and a delineation of legal responsibility.

Most times in the Internet, nobody knows the blogger hiding behind a cryptic username. The uploading of comments is instant and there is no effective way of verification of what is offered to be published. That is dangerous.

Where are the gatekeepers to ensure that bloggers have the "conventional discipline," "clearcut codes of conduct," and "effetive way of verification" that we've come to depend on from the traditional media?

The Dork of Cork

My weekly search for material for the award wining NARN "This Week in Gate Keeping" series occasionally yields items not directly applicable, but worthy of further exposure. What follows in one such instance.

Breaking news from County Cork, Ireland:

A popular Irish radio presenter issued a sincere apology on-air last week after reports that he allegedly committed an inappropriate sex act on an Aer Lingus flight.

Which raises the question, what sex acts on Aer Lingus are considered to be appropriate?

But it couldn't have been that bad, right? The guy was a radio professional after all.

The Irish Examiner recently reported that local presenter Neil Prendeville was seen to expose himself and masturbate while sitting in his seat, flying from London Heathrow to Cork on October 9. Mr Prendeville was seated between a male and female passenger at the time, the newspaper said. He was apparently stopped in his actions by the on-board Aer Lingus staff, who filed a complaint at the time.

He loves to fly and it shows!

Yes, "inappropriate" is one way to describe his activities. I wonder what could have driven this man to such erratic behavior. Was it an especially provocative in-flight movie? An especially provocative in-flight bag of pretzels? A misguided attempt to audition for a job as a TSA screener?

Did I mention he was Irish?

The radio presenter however stated that he had absolutely no recollection of the incident, having taken painkillers for a neck injury prior to boarding the 10.15pm flight, having previously consumed alcohol whilst in London.

Reportedly, this all happened while he was returning from a junket sponsored by the Irish Stereotype Reinforcement Advisory Board.

Hey, anyone can make a mistake. The important thing is to admit your errors, own up to your responsibilities, and make amends. Right Mr. Irish McSlappyPants?

"I apologise unreservedly to all concerned."

If he only would have stopped there ...

Mr. Prendeville says he has absolutely no memory of the flight, the Belfast Telegraph reports.

"If the reports in the Examiner are true," he said on 96FM, "and I can't deny that they are not, because I just don't recall, I would like to take the opportunity to offer my deepest apologies to the passengers on the plane, to the flight personnel, to my family… to my employers and my work colleagues and to all of the people of Cork. "

The 'if I did it when I was blacked out, I'm sorry' apology may be a new standard for bad apologies. Worse than the 'I'm sorry you feel that way' apology. Worse than the "was that wrong? No one ever told me that was frowned upon' apology. At least in these cases, the perpetrator admits he did it. Attempting to establish plausible deniability in the same sentence as apologizing necessarily invalidates the entire exercise.

Not that this excuse makes him a candidate for Irish Good Citizen of the Year anyway. The *best* you can say about him is that upon ingesting a few recreational chemicals, he drops into a fugue state and immediately drops his pants and starts adjusting the antenna in public. Not exactly a guy you want to invite to your next New Year's Eve Party.

Obviously, a story like this needs a happy ending.

Mr Prendeville described the incident as "a terrible personal experience", and advised the public not to mix painkillers and alcohol, due to the events of this unusual incident.

A good lesson for the kids. I hope to see this on a public service announcement or After School Special soon.

Separated At Birth

Controversial “journalist” Julian Assange and controversial “comedian” Bill Maher.