Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Al Schlaf
Published Letters: 60 Editor's Choice: 3
I speak as an Iowan who used to tune into Prairie Home Companion religiously, week after week.
Having lived in north central Iowa, being of German and Norwegian ancestry, married a second generation Scandinavian woman and nodded in recognition of much of the early PRC schtick, Gary (yeah, your given name, you poser) Keillor's angst just got to be too much. His little "Roots" excersion to Scandinvia with his long lost foreign exchange student lost love, dumping his main squeeze here for this Valkyrie hottie and then coming back, whining about how difficult it was living over there, only to take his rightful place back on NPR is just a bit to much for me.
This is not a movie I will even bother to wathc on cable.
As an Iowan for over 30 years and one who attends the Caucuses, I will be keeping an eye on Warner. I am not committed on anyone, at present.
Hillary. I'm sorry, but no way in hell. She is flat out unelectable as President. She would be much more effective staying in the Senate and setting her sights on becoming Majority Leader. It will be possible. Maybe not this year, but soon.
As to the Caucuses, I will be there. I will be trying to to keep the nutjob ideologues from spoiling our chances. Yes, you former Deanie Babies, I am talking about you and your ilk. Stop trying to be so noble and idealistic that you end up coming off like a bunch of gaaadam socialists and hurting any chance for real change.
an MILF thread on Fark.com within the hour.
I'm not surprised, neither by the fact it is happening nor by the lame excuses for it.
Unfortunately, some still just don't get it. Two words, folks: Caesar's wife.
about the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics is that there is Byzantine and then there is the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.
From the article: " ...when a man's son prostitutes himself to a member of Atia's staff, instead of accepting it, the man seeks revenge -- how else? -- by gang-raping the staff member. Yes, nothing restores honor to a family quite like forced sodomy.
As anyone who studied ancient Rome on anything more than a superficial level knows, to the Roman male, honor came from being an active force, not a passive one. this was true in politics and war, but especially in sex. The real man, in order to have respect and be honored, was a penetrator. To be on the receiving end was shameful. To recover his standing, he had turn around and be the aggressor. Just a little time spent reading Catullus will make this clear. When he starts off one poem with "Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo"--"Up your ass and in your mouth...", he is being very Roman.
On the whole, I just love this series. It has its errors, but it is about as close to the real thing as we are ever likely to get. The gritty nature of late republican Rome comes through, looking like what we would now call third world, is just perfect. No pristine, gleaming white marble, just fithy streets, brick everywhere and riotous color. Plus, ya just gotta love Pullo...
My brother had health insurance through his job, but that didn't stop them from denying his claim because the motorist wasn't properly insured.
Excuse me, but that really makes no sense at all.
I have have had over 20 years in insurance claims and I have never, ever heard of such a thing.
If some H&A carrier pulled this stunt, your brother, you or your family should have made a fast visit to your state's insurance commissioner.
I have had it with the Luddite, no-nothing anti-science nut jobs and their raw milk crap.
In the summer of 1973, when I was with an archaeological dig in Italy, some of the kids (18-20, I was the "old guy" at 24) came bouncing into the pensione in which we were staying with these paper gallon containers (think the little sour cream packets scaled up) of raw milk, going on and on how it was just sooo cool and "natural."
"Yeah," I answered, "just like TB and salmonella are natural." I then asked them if they knew just how clean the dairy farms this came from were, if they, nice East Coast preppies, had built up any immunities to the local bacterial strains and if they got some perverse pleasure in puking their guts out at 2AM from same.
Their purchases quickly went down the nearest drain.
Kids, sometimes, progress really is a good thing
OK, asparagus is my secret vegetable vice.
I love it.
As a kid, growing up in rural north central Illinois, we used to go across the two lane blacktop in front of our acreage to the cow pasture opposite and harvest wild asparagus for dinner. That spot is now the driveway of a fire station on a four lane concrete road.
Now I live for the days when the menu at my weekend job features asparagus sautéed in Gallic butter or my own asparagus stir fry at home.
OK, fuck "John from Cincinnati", "The Sopranos", "Deadwood" and the like.
Bring back "Rome" for a third season.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
