Cultural and intellectual coherences, in some form, are essential, or we won't know what color lizard to wear tomorrow.

So then the surgeon loses patience, grabs the shotgun, shoots the bird with both barrels, turns to the pathologist and says, "Go see if that's a duck."

Not that it'd ever happen, but what if everybody were as un-hedgehoggy as WT?

Lines Upon a Tranquil Brow

Have you ever while pond'ring the ways of the morn,
Thought to save just a bit, just a drop in the horn;
To pour in the ev'ning or late afternoon
Or during the night when we're shining the moon?
Have you ever cried out while counting the snow
Or watching the tomtit warble hello....

Break out the cigars, this life is for squirrels,
We're off to the drugstore to whistle at girls?

- - Walt Kelly

Sometimes it feels as if we're in a "two cultures" problem much worse than what Lord Snow imagined, and the other culture isn't just ignorant, but hostile.

In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed woman is an evil witch.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,273875,00.html

'Sicko' Shows Michael Moore's Maturity as a Filmmaker
Sunday, May 20, 2007
By Roger Friedman
FOX NEWS
Filmmaker Michael Moore's brilliant and uplifting new documentary, "Sicko," deals with the failings of the U.S. healthcare system, both real and perceived . . . Unlike many of his previous films ("Roger and Me," "Bowling for Columbine," "Fahrenheit 9-11"), "Sicko" works because in this one there are no confrontations . . .
- - FOX NEWS film review

“I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
- - James A. Baldwin

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070506/NEWS0206/705060396

THE TENNESSEAN
Sunday, 05/06/07
Thompson: How a small-town character made the big time
Prominence followed colorful, conflicted teens
By BRAD SCHRADE
Staff Writer

LAWRENCEBURG, Tenn. — . . . a used-car salesman's son, a kid who by all accounts was an unimpressive student and who married before he graduated from high school after getting his girlfriend pregnant . . . They remember Freddie as the class clown — he was likable and smart, though not studious . . . Fred Thompson was most well-known for his ability to get a laugh. "Everybody's got a Fred Thompson story that went to school with him," . . . Thompson's former coach Garner Ezell, who attended First Street Church of Christ with Thompson's family, remembered a football game in which the youngster was injured and lay at midfield. "When the coaches got to him, he said, 'How's the crowd taking it?' " the coach said. "He was smart, but he was lazy. He probably could have been a straight-A student if he'd applied himself." . . . In the Class of 1960's senior yearbook, his picture bore the caption "Freddie Dalton Thompson." Printed with it was this saying: "The lazier a man is, the more he plans to do tomorrow." . . . After they graduated, Ann Barber Webb lost track of Freddie Thompson, the boy she recalls sleeping through class . . .

His shotgun marriage seem to have improved him though -- he moved out of his parents' house and into his bride's parents's house, and, under their influence, he managed to get through law school and get a job in D.C. with Senator Baker.

Of course, there are times when the best thing to do is to do nothing, and lets face it, nobody does nothing better than Fred Thompson does nothing:

On enforcing immigration laws against employers:
"We haven't enforced the law, in terms of employers. … For 20 years, we've not enforced the law, and that's a part of the problem. You can't enforce it all on the backs of the employers. People falsify information that they give employers and all that. That's not a solution to the problem." (Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes," 4/3/06)

On enforcing immigration laws against illegal immigrants:
"You know, if you have the right kind of policies, and you're not encouraging people to come here and encouraging them to stay once they're here, they'll go back, many of them, of their own volition, instead of having to, you know, load up moving vans and rounding people up. That's not going to happen."

I'm not sure Republican primary voters will vote for the Deputy Dawg approach to immigration law enforcement, but hey, they could do worse.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,258222,00.html

Transcript: Former Sen. Fred Thompson on 'FOX News Sunday'
Sunday, March 11, 2007

The following is a partial transcript of the March 11, 2007, edition of "FOX News Sunday With Chris Wallace":

. . . You know, if you have the right kind of policies, and you're not encouraging people to come here and encouraging them to stay once they're here, they'll go back, many of them, of their own volition, instead of having to, you know, load up moving vans and rounding people up. That's not going to happen . . .
- - Fred Thompson

This was immediately before Thompson said, regarding Iraq, "I would do essentially what the president's doing."