A great anti-sprawl song from the late great Housemartins. Yep, they were Commies - but they were talented Commies.

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You may have heard by now, but Andrew Sullivan got his lunch eaten by Hugh Hewitt on the radio today. Sullivan got caught in the usualy contradictions - i.e. how Sullivan could be opposed to judicial activism except when it comes to gay marriage, how he comes across as a tendentious fundamentalist in his attacks on fundamentalism, how he can be sure of anything if he says everything is in doubt, etc. - but the exchange that landed my jaw on the mat was this:

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Earlier today on Hardball, Great White Hype Chris Mathews talked about how much he admired the ads being run by black candidate for the Maryland Senate, Michael Steele. The ads were great, blabbered Tower of Babel Mathews, because “they are very non-threatening. With a black man, you almost have to make him like a child.”

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It’s pretty much the prime directive of the gospel: whenever you have done for the least of these, you have done it for me. I understand conerns about terrorists crossing our borders and detonating a bomb. We need more border enforcement, without question.

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There’s nothing wrong with being dull. Seriously. Were it not for dull people, others might not shine as brightly. If every leftist had John Stewart’s wit, we wouldn’t have, well, John Stewart. For every Mel Gibson there are - thank God - a thousand David Broders. Watching cricket, we learn the valuable lesson that sometimes in life, nothing…ever…happens…

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After 41 years, I finally met my grandfather.

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Word is, Pope Benedict is soon to issue a letter allowing priests to perform the traditional Latin Rite Mass. Expect the usual howling from Protestants posing as Catholics that it’s one more giant step backwards for this reaction pope and blah blah blah. Ignore Dowd, Dionee, Russert et al, and see what the fuss is all about:

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Over on his website, Andrew Sullivan wonders if he should link to or respond to reviews of his book. He decides to reply to ones that offer a “serious argument.”

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I suppose it’s not a woman thing. Pop music in general is crap today, even more conservative than classical. Let’s see, you’ve got your bubblegum bimbo pop - Jessica Simpson, Britney, and their imitators - your dumb-ass rap, your fifth-generation Sex Pistols wannabes. Shrug. It all seems spent the way “How Much is That Doggie in the Window” pop was in the 1950s - on the brink, ready to collapse, over.

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Is Iraq really that much of a disaster? Dick Morris recently said, “Iraq in a civil war is still a step up from Saddam.” Honestly, is a free, democratic and pro-America Kurdistan (name a single article you’ve read about that) along with a neighbor tearing itself limb from limb in tribal and religious warfare that much of a debacle, as opposed to a lying, scheming, yellowcake-bargaining Saddam gearing up for another invasion of one of his neighbors, with terrorists recovering in his hospitals? Iraq was suddenly set free, and free people can act like jerks.

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How I wish Howard Kurtz were a moron.If that were the case, it would be easy to dismiss the Washington Post and CNN media reporter as mentally impaired, and thus not responsible for his own idiocy. But Kurtz is not dumb. It’s just that his liberal bias makes him say some really, really dumb things.

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They were my favorite books from the time I was twelve. And yes, the movies have now come and gone. But still I find in them a metaphor for our current situation. An evil that rises in the East, and few people willing to fight it - even among our allies. A dangerous weapon whose use must be prevented. An enemy - or Enemy - who does not want the will of the people to rule. And among us “a fear that would still the heart of me”:

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Tonight at Maryland’s beautiful Spanish Ballroom (originally built in 1933), the 92 year-old swing dance legend Frankie Manning will do his stuff (www.gottaswing.com for info). It’s interesting to ponder: during a depression, Jim Crow, and a World War, black pop culture gave us Duke Eillington, Ella, and Frankie Manning. Today, with unprecedented opportunity, wealth, and freedom, we get…Jay-Z, P. Diddy and Al Sharpton.

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Mr. Cooke offers some nice, level-headed ideas about Christmas. Here’s my two cents, in case anyone attempting to secularize the holiday this year tries to throw Irving Berlin at you:

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In the wake of the Foley mess, it’s a good idea to remind oursleves what sex is for. Today Pauline Media issues a new translation of the Mt. Everest of love:

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Last night Bill O’Reilly asked Michelle Malkin why the Left is so full of hate. Michelle, who is brilliant, cited the bad influence of liberal teachers and some other usual supects. She’s right, of course, but I think things go much deeper. Paradoxically, the more wealthy, successful and tolerant America becomes, the more the Left hates it. Welcome to the toxic world of pathological resentment:

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Andrew Sullivans’ book The Conservative Soul is out today, and he says on his website he hopes it is just the beginning of a conversation. He hopes to enage in every criticism that comes in:

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Rod Stewart took this masterpiece, slowed it down, covered it in syrup, performed it on VH1 and made a million dollars. Van wrote the thing, and his version is still untouchable. And the video! Just a montage of What Matters: love, children, the natural world, the cross.

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A year before Benedict’s speech, the terrific Catholic journal Communio was on the case:

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I’m sorry, but when it comes to too many Muslims, the truth is not in them. Below is a link to a recent discussion between George Weigel and Nihad Awad from CAIR. This is beyond spinning - it is pathology.  Awad sits there, childishly telling lie upon lie upon lie upon lie. Mohammad never took up the sword! Jihad does not mean holy war! Islamic Nazis rioted because they are sensitive post 9/11! This is the kind of thing that, when you were 5, made your parents give up. They could accept one lie, as long as it was followed soon after by the truth. Two lies? OK, go to your room. Six lies? Ten lies? Time to call the shrink.

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I had forgotten about these guys. Their first album Cake is a masterpiece.

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The very tough and very brave Michelle Malkin is fighting censorship on YouTube:

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I don’t ask much of my liberal columnists. I do, however, expect them to not contradict themselves in 1,000 words.Gene Robinson, the Al Franken of the Washington Post, hates Republicans. Big surprise. In his new column, “GOP Bigotry That Backfired,” Robinson speculates that the fact the GOP may have given Foley a pass to “stunning cynicism” or “woeful incompetence.” Further, if the scandal involved a female page, it would not be such a big deal - because the GOP are rampaging, “rabid” homophobes.

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When the movie of the week about the Foley mess comes out, they don’t need to look far for the theme song:

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You’re thinking it even if you don’t say it: Are gay people perverts?

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On March 23, 1922, Edmund A. Walsh, a thirty-seven year old American Jesuit priest, arrived in Moscow. Walsh was part of a papal mission sent to Russia to provide relief for a devastating famine that had begun in 1921. What Walsh found was not only mass starvation, but religious persecution - in 1922 twenty-eight Orthodox bishops and over 1,200 priests were murdered.

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Adam Bellow is part of a cool new effort to organize and issue substantive blogs as pamphlets. Beautiful graphic design, perfect for us fogeys who stil like reading in bed and the bathtub:

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Even in my worst days as a drunk, there were things I did not do.

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My two cents:

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Terry Teachout has a good article about YouTube in the weekend Wall Street Journal:

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Michael Kinsley has just published a piece in Time, “Do Newspapers Have a Future?” He declares the end of newspapers - at least, in hard copy form. All is being lost in the tsunami of blogging and the internet. Yet don’t despair - “There is room between the New York Times and myleftarmpit.com for new forms that liberate journalism from its encrusted conceits while preserving its standards, like accuracy.” Furthermore:

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I had forgotten how great the band R.E.M. once were. After the bloat of late 1970s rock and the cheese of that era’s a.m. radio, it truly was a tonic when punk and New Wave came along. No 20-minute drum solos, no whiny guitar riffs, no wannabe soul-man Mick Jagger tropes. Just music with grace, power, beauty, and honesty. R.E.M. has a new retrospective cd of their early years out. They were never that good again. From 1985, when I was a sophomore in college and saw them for the first time:

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So now Mel Gibson is trashing the war effort. As reported on the Today show, New York Times and everywhere, he has called the death of American troops in Iraq “human sacrafice.”

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First of all, Let me say that Michelle Boorstein, the religion reporter for the Washington Post, is a nice person and an honest reporter. I believe she doesn’t consider herself biased. So the following critique is in the form of opening a friendly discussion, not of putting her down.Last April 28, Boorstein reported a story that was soon picked up by AP and local Washington radio and television. Fr. Gary Orr, a priest at Georgetown Preparatory School, was found guilt of sexual abuse by the Jesuit provincial in Maryland. The school itself had cleared Orr twice of the accusations, and couldn’t explain the discrepancy. Boorstein reported all of this straight, a simply 5 W’s piece.

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Who was the nun recently murdered by Islamic nutbags (yes Islamic nutbag is a redundancy)? There’s been a blackout in the media as to her life story and the manner of her death, of course. Imagine if a Muslim woman had been shot in the back by rabid Christian thugs. There would be gooey Today show features, roundtables with E.J. Dionne, Cokie Roberts and Jim Wallis, books, etc. Hollywood would already be in pre-production for the story, and gaseous jabberjaw Chris Mathews would declare a theocracy. Maureen Dowd would simply stroke out.

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