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Even Later Than Usual!

Having realized it's this late, I'm going to say a few things and then go to bed, fo' sho.

1) I wore a bathrobe until 11:49 PM today, at which point I got dressed in order to try (and fail) to find some 240-hour establishment in the RI/southeastern MA area with Summer.

2) Andy says this:

My other suggestion, which I implemented and much enjoyed last year, is a list of EVERYTHING. It's sort of the opposite of Darnielle's suggestion about the ten best dance albums: instead of just weighing the comparative merits of Brokeback Mountain and Capote, juxtapose the best sunset you saw with the tastiest ice cream you ate with everything else about your year that was, in some way, good. Sure, sometimes it might be interesting to see what you thought were the top ten singles of 1997, but I'd wager that you'd be much more excited to reminisce about all the good times you had in a less exclusive fashion. Plus, any time you're feeling pessimistic or depressed, all you've got to do is pull out your list and realize how much you've probably got to look forward to. That beats arguing over idiotic minutiae any day.

It sounds like a good idea to me, albeit one that will undoubtedly consume more time and energy than I intend should I choose to implement it.

3) I watched some of President Bush's speech this evening, and while I agreed with some of his points (among them that pulling out of Iraq right now would likely be irresponsible, in spite whatever quibbles I might have with the general policy in Iraq (particularly the administration's insistence that interventionist policies have had no hand in fueling radical Islam and that a continuing presence in the middle east is essential to the area's stability) and the fact that we're there in the first place), I once again found the good overshadowed by the awful rhetoric. Black and white: "Yet now there are only two options before our country -- victory or defeat." Use of the President's own personal vocabulary, particularly "freedom," whose original meaning has been replaced with []. The good ol' boy: our allies are "friends"; "My most solemn responsibility is to protect our nation, and that requires me to make some tough decisions." Intimations that the international community's positive view of America would be more compromised by pulling out of Iraq than by certain other issues which have prompted that same international community to erupt in outrage in recent days: "We would abandon our Iraqi friends -- and signal to the world that America cannot be trusted to keep its word." My point: regardless of what the President says, how he says it is pretty atrocious and can certainly be misleading (although the link refers to VP Cheney, I believe the points transfer fairly neatly to the current issue) at times. I've considered several ways to end this argument but I think I'll leave it at that because I've spent more time than I intended trying to make sure my own rhetoric is substantive enough to satisfy my readers. Maybe tomorrow I'll find some sources, but probably I'll continue to work on Christmas things and study for Contracts.