In Pieces

Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born al-Qaeda "cleric", has met with some unpleasantness.

"We found his body in pieces," said Abubakr al-Awlaki, a leader of the Awalik tribe, to which Awlaki belongs.

Plotting acts of terror
proved a clerical error.

Faith Non-Healing In This Case

Read a story about some "faith healing" parents who let their home-birthed premature 8-hour old infant die.

Is there something in the Bible where it says medicine is bad?

I have read the New Testament stories of Jesus healing people through the power of faith.

But does He ever say
you need to keep away
from penicillin
when your baby's illin'?

There Ought To Be A Law

We have another little scandal going in Illinois. This time it's about the law school at the U. of Illinois.

An ongoing internal probe into University of Illinois law school students' test scores and grade-point averages has revealed misreported numbers in four of the last 10 years, according to the university.

‎"Misreported numbers." Nicely phrased.
Funny how so many scores were raised.

Mr. & Mrs. Bennet

Here I am with Yvonne Ambrose, who played Mrs. Bennet in Pride And Prejudice. She is super talented, and was great fun to work with. We had a good time portraying the couple, who spend a lot of time giving each other a hard time, even though they care for each other deeply. In a way, their antagonistic-but-loving relationship prefigures the relationship between Elizabeth and Darcy. I think part of Austen's lasting appeal is her ability to portray romances that involve reconciliation and accomodation without surrender of intelligence or wit.

"A rational creature, speaking the truth from her heart."

It's Elizabeth's line,
but also fits fine,

when speaking of Austen's art.

As It Turns Out

What a surprise.

An explosion of new technologies and treatments for cancer coupled with a rapid rise in cases of the disease worldwide mean cancer care is rapidly becoming unaffordable in many developed countries, oncology experts said on Monday.

They sell government medicine as a way to make sure everyone gets needed treatments. But it soon turns out to be something else.

A lack of care is a dreadful woe
when it's due to a patient lacking dough.

But denial of care is a-okay
when the government can't afford to pay.

Bland Acceptance?

Ann Althouse:

I've never understood why people who don't trust convictions agonize over the death penalty but blandly accept life imprisonment.

I've wondered about this too.

Wrongly depriving an innocent person of liberty may be an underappreciated outrage. The years lost are usually prime years. The person's life is typically devastated.

But I imagine such death-penalty opponents take comfort in the idea that they could partially rectify the injustice.

You can always unlock someone's cell,
but unexecution doesn't work so well.

Entrances

Our production of Pride & Prejudice has been going well. Attendance was thin on Thursday, but it was sold out on Friday, and I expect another big crowd tonight. The audience has liked the show, and giving us a fair amount of laughter as we play.

And then I will be done playing Mr. Bennet, a role I have enjoyed a lot. He's ironic, witty, and loves his children. Why wouldn't I like him?

The real drivers of the play are of course the young people. This adaptation sometimes feels like an ensemble piece, but the core remains the story of Elizabeth's romance with Darcy.

This production has a cast of 20 or so and a multitude of entrances and exits. For example, I have something like 20 entrances myself. Anyway, it can get confusing, and last night we had a case of one missed entrance causing another.

Basically, 2 actors weren't on stage who should have been. So they didn't say their lines. The good news was that the missed lines were not critical to developing the story. The bad news was that the next actor to enter didn't hear the lines she was waiting for, so she didn't come in either!

I was sitting on stage, "reading a book", with another daughter "reading a book", and "Elizabeth" standing silently. I realized this couldn't go on, so I said to Elizabeth, something like: "Didn't so-and-so say she was coming in to join us? Could you see where she is?" I spoke with a booming voice.

I think the audience knew what I was doing, because some people laughed; and the missing actress almost immediately appeared, because she heard me and realized she was wanted on stage after all.

A line in a play is like a domino,
carefully set to make the next one go.

Physics News

Ponder the common neutrino,
Which mostly travels unseeno;
Is it faster than light?
Can that really be right?
And what could that possibly meano?

Assessed and Stressed

Here's the lead from a Sun-Times story:

Cook County property tax bills are expected to go out the first week of October, and while Chicago and suburban landowners assume their property values have sunk, it may not translate to lower tax bills.

Expecting lower property taxes just because your property is worth less? How naive! In fact, the school board pushed an increase through.

Your house's value has failed to soar.
In fact, it is feeling depressed,
But somehow this means that you have to pay more!
Who, indeed, would have guessed?

Time to Open

We made it through weeks and weeks of rehearsals,

Now let's open without reversals!

Sprints and Trophies

My trophy finally came
emblazoned with my name.

I do a lot of endurance events. I've run a lot of marathons. I've done 2 Ironman-distance triathlons. But when it comes to competitive standings in a race, I always do better in the shorter distances. My medals for placing are almost always "sprint" races, which often involve a 5k (3.1 mile) run.

I suspect that my muscles lean toward the fast-twitch side,

but I've trained them to go for the slow-twitch ride.

Tempting Fate

The military is highly respected in polls. Congress is despised in polls. This is not a good long term trend.

Countries where these things are true
often prove ripe for a coup.

I don't really think that will happen. But we're doing the wrong things right now. We need to upgrade the quality our national legislature.

We're short on politicians
with some solid long term vision.

Romo Plays Through

Now that's tough:

Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo played through a punctured lung in addition to a fractured rib Sunday, according to NFL.com's Michael Lombardi.

Surely his praises should be sung
for playing through a punctured lung.

And at the end, we shall ad-lib
something about that fractured rib.

I asked my organs - they all agree,
I shouldn't be as tough as he.

Shower on a Showery Day

We had a baby shower at the house today. Marsha gave it for a friend's daughter who is expecting in October.

I mostly steered clear.

The proud father-to-be attended, but otherwise it was a festival of women.

I hope the new mama got enough stuff!

You need a lot of equipment
to deal with a stork express shipment.

Driving Miss Daisy

I finally read the play Driving Miss Daisy the other day. I still haven't seen the movie.

The play won the Pulitzer, and the movie won Best Picture, but I like waiting at least 10 years before seeing something that won prizes.

I liked it. I practically heard Morgan Freeman's voice for the chauffer's character. He was in the play and the movie, and I can see where the role was perfect for his talents.

Structurally, the play reminded me a bit of Same Time Next Year. We see a relationship blossom across attitude-changing years of the 20th century, and some of the appeal of the story comes from revisiting the history.

Which in turn reminds me of Forrest Gump and the Billy Joel song, We Didn't Start The Fire, which also provide whirlwind history tours.

In a few years will there be a hit play
nostalgically looking back at today?

Endangered

Grizzlies have killed at least 3 people in the United States this year.

They are an endangered species, according to our law.
But you'll be feeling endangered, when the grizzly lifts its paw.

Madison Was Right

My wife and Gen La Greca have a piece up at the Daily Caller. It opens like this:

Constitution Day (September 17) commemorates the 1787 signing of the document that established the United States of America. But like the victim of a terrible accident, the government that was formed that historic day in Philadelphia is hardly recognizable today, and the heart that propelled it — the principle of individual rights — is on life support.

The article focuses on James Madison's thoughts on property rights.

He explains that our right to property is as untouchable as our freedom of speech, press, religion and conscience. In fact, he views the concept of property as fundamental, pertaining to much more than merely our material possessions.

Your other rights will soon be overthrown
if they can take away anything you own.

Be Careful

Gossip must be reported
straight to higher command,
so enemies may be thwarted
before they get out of hand.

Spin

When you're sitting at the top,
and it's time for the buck to stop,
don't forget to put the blame
onto someone else's name.

To Raise A child

It apparently doesn't take a village. An anthropologist reports on her research in an African village:

"There's a naïve belief that villages raise children communally, when in reality children are raised by their own families and their survival depends critically on the survival of their mothers."

When she says "naive" here, I agree, but not in the sense of a natural belief. I think the natural common-sense belief is that it helps a lot to have a living mother. We have a vast store of myths about orphans that make this point, as well.

It's a "naive" belief in the ideological sense - it fits in with the communitarian wish-list for human nature - that life in simple societies was somehow a noncompetitive paradise.

Look closely at "simple societies" in the present,
and learn that our past was often rather unpleasant.