So we decided to take the kids and their best friend to the movies. We went to the movies early like we always do, but the movie we wanted to see was all sold out, like all the other movies were all sold out, even though we went at 3 PM. We should have known because we couldn't get a table for tonight at any of our favorite restaurants for tonight, even though they havn't been nearly as crowded for the past several months.

Valentine's Day is a big deal in Chicago. Hopefully all the good restaurants will be booked up next year at this time, but I'm afraid they will not be. I'm afraid things will be worse a year from now.

Glennn is tormented because we Republicans seem so much more disciplined than his Democrats are. He makes it sound like we are johnny one note, but he is wrong. There are Log Cabin Republicans still - they are gay, most of them are very hard working businessmen, some have had horrible experiences with government, and some of them just think for themselves. There are strict Catholics who could never support a party which seems to ignore the horrors of abortion, and there are strict Orthodox Jews who also have lots of kids and think children are a big mitzvah (blessing). One woman I know insisted on having 5 even though number 4 almost killed her, because she was 5 of 5 and she wanted to welcome her own number 5 into the world. My hero, William F. Buckley, was a devoted sailor and a devoted Catholic, who drummed a fellow Catholic out of the Republican Party and sent Pat Buchanon to the fringe of the political universe where he belonged because Pat the rat is a bigot who hates Jews and Blacks. It's not an ideology to just want to be left alone to pursue prosperity and happiness, without the government taxing us to death and telling us what to do. Freedom is not an ideology.

One thing which may make Republicans seem more well organized than Democrats is that the Democrats are big into POLICY. They think policy is very important and they are always dreaming up wunnerful new government policies and programs which are similar to many past government programs and policies which have not worked. They keep thinking that this or that new policy or program really will do the trick, and the new trick is often as counter productive as the last trick and maybe even worse. So what we always seem to get is, instead of the progress progressives are always aiming for, more corruption, more waste and more cynicism.

Cynicism really irks a lot of us conservatives because we are really not the nasty, meanspirited people Democrat demagogues say we are, we are people who, warts and all, have a high regard for values and honor. Cynicism about graft and waste and dishonesty sends us into the land of bullshit, far away from the world we want to live in where we can still value honesty, hard work, enterprise, individuality, merit, responsibility and all the other virtues each human being can cultivate. Both conservatives and liberals believe in human progress and human dignity. I think conservatives are a lot less likely to pretend that top down organizations can and will promote progress and dignity. It is impossible to believe in a fairy tale, when, over and over top down fairy tails have been so horrible and destructive.

I am not surprised that many liberals and progressives have an empty feeling even in the wake of the amazing election of Barrack Obama. His election signals just how far this nation has traveled since the days of slavery and segregation, but it does not mean that the failed liberal-progressive remedies will suddenly start to work when they have never worked before, because liberal-progressivism never takes account of human nature, something our founders were very careful to try to do, Human beings are corrupt. We lie, we cheat, we steal.

Republicans do not have the kind of ideology most of you do, because ideologies are bullshit, They are ideas. We are not ideas, we are people and people have lots of faults, and it is far better to try to organize society so that we are not subjected so much to the faults and tyranny and whims of others when it is hard enough to live well or to just live as best we can on our own with no king or elite ruling class to enslave us.

I also post at "commentary" where most agree with me, and I do not like it when some of them resent "trolls" who visit and dare to differ there.

Every now and then, hopefully, our wonderful internet technology will promote a little understanding and peace in our fragile little world, my frems.

No more pork chops! I miss those pork chops, but, instead, I get wonderful Friday nights every week with home baked challa and candles and bruchas and kids who know Hebrew so good they are hardwired and will never forget it.