Michael Arth is a long shot gubernatorial candidate for Florida, but at least he has a sense of humor in his campaign biography, which opens thus:

Michael Edward Arth was born near Liverpool, England at a U.S. Air Force Base on April 27, 1953. In 1955 his parents moved to New Mexico. This was followed by a move to Midland, Texas where he was taught at a parochial school by the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, all of whom were named Mary, but none of whom were immaculately conceived. His own mother however was born on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, but named Evelyn Yvonne instead of Mary.

The family genealogy is known quite well in the far distant past and the recent past, but it is the chain of ancestors in the middle that is less certain. More than 3.8 billion years ago his ancestors were rather rudimentary life forms that either immigrated to Earth on an asteroid or were cooked up in the primordial soup. Leaping forward to modern times, it appears that his mother is a mixture of black Irish and American melting pot, including perhaps some Native American. A family genealogy traces her side of the family back to some Irish kings, including “Art Boy Cavanaugh” and Dermot MacMurrough Kavanaugh, who was the 12th century scoundrel from Leinster who sold out the country to Henry II of England in order to save his tee-na-na from a neighboring tribal chieftan who wanted revenge for kidnapping his wife. The same genealogy also claims that the family’s ancestors came to Ireland from Greece in the 2nd century.

Enjoy.

Hubbard posted this at 12:43 PM EDT on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 as Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, Humor

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A couple of weeks ago, I was thinking to myself that we’d gone a little too long without a national Republican coming forward and admitting adultery. I thought about making a post on it, but then I realized that I’d invariably make semi-libelous guesses about who it would be.

In all honesty, the first guy who came to mind as a prime candidate was John Ensign. A guy who did not cross my mind was Mark Sanford. It’s sorta a shame, but always delightful to hear Democrats proclaim from on high that having an affair is, by itself, cause to resign.

Apollo posted this at 6:49 PM EDT on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 as Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, I don't know--but it's a Tradition, Lord, What Fools These Mortals Be!

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After the Palins’ over-the-top reaction to Letterman’s joke, Letterman apologizes. I’m no fan of canned outrage, but since canned outrage isn’t going away anytime soon, I’m pleased to see it work in favor of a conservative. One can hope that this is the beginning of the end of the utterly meritless and shameless treatment that Sarah Palin and her family have received.

But let me also say that Letterman’s apology is one of the most sincere sounding that I’ve read in a very long time. And it comes a full week after his bad joke, when he could have let the whole incident slide on into the oblivion of television’s memory.

In an age where “I’m-sorry-that-you-were-offended” apologies are par for the course, it’s pleasing to see someone apologize by actually admitting that he was at fault, and by stating that he will try to mend his ways. In an ideal world, this wouldn’t be noteworthy; people would routinely accept the blame for their wrongs, and say that they will try to do better in the future. In that ideal world, we wouldn’t congratulate people on apologizing correctly. Indeed, only in a world turned upside down would we congratulate Letterman on describing exactly how classless and bad his joke was.  But we live in that world turned upside down, and we should applaud the better to help guide others toward the best, and, perhaps, to eventually right the place.

How do we do that without encouraging more bad behavior? It’s a difficult question; I wouldn’t have applauded as his audience did, but I suspect my standards of behavior are different from the average late night show audience member’s.

Apollo posted this at 9:46 PM EDT on Monday, June 15th, 2009 as Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, Journalism, Pop Culture Is Filth

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Rick Brookhiser summarize WFB’s life lessons:

Writing: Swing for the fences. Why not? We don’t remember the cautious because we never read them in the first place. 
 
Politics: Do the right thing, even if all liberalism disagrees, or all conservatism. The risk of independence is that you will be wrong, but the only way never to be wrong is never to think or decide. 
 
Personal: Be generous. Bill was a self-oriented, even narcissistic man, but one of the ways he expressed himself was by showering favors on others. This is a hard one for me.

It’s a good interview, so read the whole thing.

Hubbard posted this at 12:48 PM EDT on Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 as Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, The Right Words

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Mark Levin is the author of the #2 book on Amazon, the host of a popular radio show, and a contributor to NRO’s the Corner.  After Rush and Dick Cheney, he’s probably the most important conservative thinker today.

He is also a human cancer:

CALLER: I just wanna say, Obama is a lot smarter than you folks give him credit for. You guys were on a roll, I have to admit, with all those tea parties. Everything was rolling along, the Republicans were gaining momentum. And he managed to change your entire conversational focus. And you let those three hundred thousand people —

LEVIN: My God. He’s so smart. His own party voted against him on Guantanamo Bay. How stupid was that, Cindy? His own party refused to fund the closing of Guantanamo Bay.

CALLER: Yeah but you know he can just move those people over here anyway. He’s already doing it with the one guy.

LEVIN: Yeah, sure, he can do whatever he wants. Let me ask you a question. Why do you hate this country?

CALLER: No, I love this country.

LEVIN: (angrily shouting) I SAID WHY DO YOU HATE MY COUNTRY! WHY DO YOU HATE MY CONSTITUTION? WHY DO YOU HATE MY DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE?

You just said it. He can blow off Congress. He can do whatever he wants, right?

CALLER: Well, he seems to, he just moved (inaudible).

LEVIN: Answer me this, are you a married woman? Yes or no?

CALLER: Yes.

LEVIN: Well I don’t know why your husband doesn’t put a gun to his temple. Get the hell out of here.

We will not win so long as this kind of rhetoric is tolerated; on the off chance that I am wrong about that, will will not have deserved to win.  Levin’s bullying and tantrums — here’s another examples — toward anyone who disagrees with him are more emblematic of the Savage Nation than the conservative movement and certainly unworthy of an institution like National Review.  For God’s sake, don’t buy his books, don’t buy products from his sponsors, write National Review and ask them to stop buying his writing.  I am.

Substance matters.  So does tone.

Tom posted this at 11:55 PM EDT on Friday, May 22nd, 2009 as Conservatism, Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, I have seen the future. . .

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We long-time loathers of Arlen Specter have been told that him leaving the Republicans should be a sign that something’s gone wrong with the Right.  Hogwash.  Let the Democrats clean up this garbage from him now:

Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Democrat, said part of the reason he left the Republican Party last week was disillusionment with its healthcare priorities, and suggested that had the Republicans taken a more moderate track, Jack Kemp may have won his battle with cancer.

Mr. Specter, responding to a question from CBS’s Bob Schieffer over whether he had let down Pennsylvanians who wanted a Republican to represent them, said he felt his priorities were more in line with those of the Democrats.

“Well, I was sorry to disappoint many people. Frankly, I was disappointed that the Republican Party didn’t want me as their candidate,” Mr. Specter said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “But as a matter of principle, I’m becoming much more comfortable with the Democrats’ approach. And one of the items that I’m working on, Bob, is funding for medical research.”

Mr. Specter continued: “If we had pursued what President Nixon declared in 1970 as the war on cancer, we would have cured many strains. I think Jack Kemp would be alive today. And that research has saved or prolonged many lives, including mine.”

Good riddance.  (H/T)

Hubbard posted this at 10:39 AM EDT on Monday, May 4th, 2009 as Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, Politics, The Democratic Congress

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Notre Dame caused a flap when it invited President Obama (who might be more pro-abortion than any other politician in federal office) to speak at graduation.  To defend itself, Notre Dame released some talking points, including this:

- We have said from the start, that this invitation does not mean we agree with all positions the President has taken.  We do not condone the President’s positions on abortion and embryonic stem cell research.  We have crucial differences with him on issues of protecting human life.  Fr. Jenkins made that clear.

- But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t invite him to Notre Dame.  We can never change the President’s views unless he listens to us.  And how can we expect him to listen to us if we won’t listen to him?

- And President Obama won’t be doing all the talking. Mary Ann Glendon, the former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican, will be speaking as the recipient of the Laetare Medal.

- We think having the President come to Notre Dame, see our graduates, meet our leaders, and hear a talk from Mary Ann Glendon is a good thing for the President and for the causes we care about.

Professor Glendon has (rightly) hit the roof at being a fig leaf:

A commencement, however, is supposed to be a joyous day for the graduates and their families. It is not the right place, nor is a brief acceptance speech the right vehicle, for engagement with the very serious problems raised by Notre Dame’s decision—in disregard of the settled position of the U.S. bishops—to honor a prominent and uncompromising opponent of the Church’s position on issues involving fundamental principles of justice.

Finally, with recent news reports that other Catholic schools are similarly choosing to disregard the bishops’ guidelines, I am concerned that Notre Dame’s example could have an unfortunate ripple effect.

It is with great sadness, therefore, that I have concluded that I cannot accept the Laetare Medal or participate in the May 17 graduation ceremony.

Good for Ms. Glendon.  It Looks like this particular clusterbungle will harass Notre Dame for some time. . .

Hubbard posted this at 12:39 PM EDT on Monday, April 27th, 2009 as Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, The Right Words

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I’ve been seeing Kathryn Lopez link to this list of books that some people think “all” high schoolers should read before graduating. I’m definately with John Derbyshire on this. Back in high school I somehow got it into my head that I needed to read a bunch of Great Books in order to be smart. I read most of the stuff on that list (though I didn’t know of the list’s existence until a couple of days ago), as well as a few dozen books not on the list. I read a lot, honestly.

Then about half way through Anna Karenina, it dawned on me that virtually everything I was reading was a crashing bore. In the ten years since that reading spree, the only fiction I’ve read that wasn’t assigned to me in a class was Tolkien. Turning reading into something I had to do completely killed my desire to read.  I think forcing any 16 year-old to read Virgil would have a similar effect; it’s simply more fun to watch television.

The negative consequences of forcing teenagers to read aside, I looked at the list, and I would actually advise against high schoolers reading most of what’s on there. Read the rest of this entry »

Apollo posted this at 8:47 PM EDT on Friday, April 24th, 2009 as Edjamacation, Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, Ourselves, Pop Culture Is Filth

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Lytton Strachey, debunker of Victorians, once argued that “discretion is not the better part of biography.”  Christo Buckley has apparently taken this to heart, airing a good chunk of dirty laundry in The New York Times about a visit from Caitlin Buckley and Kate Kennedy (granddaughters of WFB and RFK):

At some point, Mum turned to — on might be the more exact preposition — Kate, informing her that she (Mum) had been an alternate juror in the murder trial of Kate’s father’s first cousin Michael Skakel. Skakel, nephew of Ethel Kennedy, Kate’s grandmother, was (as you might be aware) the defendant in a sensational murder trial in Stamford several years before, for the 1975 murder of 15-year-old Martha Moxley. Having presented this astonishing and perfectly untrue credential, Mum then proceeded to launch into a protracted lecture on the villainy of Kate’s relative.

Leave aside the issue of Skakel’s culpability, for which he is, at any rate, currently serving a 20-years-to-life sentence. Over the years, I heard Mum utter whoppers that would make Pinocchio look button-nosed, but this one really took the prize, in several categories, the first being Manners. Why on earth would you inflict a jeremiad on an innocent 18-year-old girl, your own granddaughter’s best friend? The mind — as Mum herself used to put it — boggles.

Over at The American Scene, Alan Jacobs admits he hasn’t finished the essay, but says, “But if we don’t go on to learn just how much—oh, how much—Mum had done for which she bloody well needed to be forgiven, and therefore learn just how gracious and forbearing her son had become, I will eat every hat I own.”  Mr. Jacobs really should finish the essay.  Buckely writes about excoriating his mother, to the point where she wouldn’t open his letters any more.  The last words that would describe Buckley’s conduct towards his parents are “gracious” and “forbearing.”  Indeed, it is quite clear that Buckley regrets not being more gracious and forbearing.

A larger point of these things is the sometimes peculiar relationships between parents and children.  Even the happiest family has rocky patches, largely because families are still composed of human beings—and part of being human is making mistakes, saying the wrong thing, accidentally hurting someone, burning when one meant to singe.  Biographies have two related flaws: the first is to gloss away every unpleasant aspect of a man’s life, the second is to focus on nothing but the ugly.  What comes through with Chris Buckley’s piece is that yes, his parents had their flaws—but Pat Buckley was a remarkable woman who livened up most of her parties and dearly loved her son despite his flaws.  WFB had his weak points, too, but he was a good man who did great things. 

If there is a family trait,  all three Buckleys seem a touch stuck on himself (or herself).  It causes them to drive each other crazy, but they still love each other despite all this.  Christo Buckley has tried his best to write an even handed family biography; the excerpt shows that he is, in ways good and bad, his parents’ son.

Hubbard posted this at 12:01 PM EDT on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 as Belles Lettres, Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

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It seems like Vermont is going to do something sensible, namely decriminalize teen sexting. In the middle of the story, though, we get this:

Karen Salmansohn is an expert on talking with teenagers about smart choices. She writes books to empower girls, and says parents need to talk to their kids about the dangers of sexting — using their language.

“Don’t talk to them in language saying this is right this is wrong. That’s not going to get to a kid,” Salmansohn said.

“You have to talk them, you know what you think is cool isn’t so cool. You have to use the language of cool because that’s why they’re doing it.”

If the only thing standing between a teenage boy and pictures of his girlfriend’s boobs is the girl’s mother insisting that it’s not “cool,” I’m pretty sure he’s going to get the pictures.

Apollo posted this at 12:46 AM EDT on Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 as Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

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Michael Malone discusses various types of blog commentators.  A sampler:

The Skimmer - The commenter, usually sour, who reads only a headline or sentence of a piece, draws exactly the wrong conclusion, and then embarks on an embarrassing rant.

The Trimmer – A commenter who initially stakes a strong position, and then under withering attack from other commenters, slowly backs off until he or she has completely abandoned that original position.

The Angry Man – We all know this guy.  His solution for almost any problem in the world is the summary execution, in as grisly a manner as possible, of every possible perpetrator.

Enjoy.

Hubbard posted this at 7:39 AM EDT on Saturday, April 11th, 2009 as Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, Random Bloggish Things

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Maxim has a peculiar article on cheating that recommends NOT telling your girlfriend that you’ve cheated:

Examine Your Motives
When a man cheats, even just once, there’s usually a problem in his relationship. “Men often stray if their sex lives are stagnant or they’re feeling neglected,” says Ruth Houston, author of Is He Cheating on You? “The other woman fulfills something that his current girl isn’t giving him.”

If the love is worth salvaging, you have to fix the problem or the issues will fester. “Ask yourself why you did it,” advises Weiner. “Then let your girlfriend know what you need from her.” But still, do not confess.

Of course, the relationship could already be dead in the water. “You may just be too lazy or scared to address the issues,” Houston points out. “So you sleep with someone else, trying to sabotage it, even if only subconsciously.” Or you just want to see what else is out there before doing anything drastic. But do yourself (and your girlfriend) a favor: Cut the cord.

What If She Finds Out?
Even if you’ve covered your tracks, your woman could discover your indiscretion. Assuming you still want to be with her, your best bet is to say how sorry you are, swear it’ll never happen again, and beg for her forgiveness.

Now is not the time to get into the reasons why you did it. “Wait a couple weeks before airing your grievances,” says Weiner. “She needs time to process the betrayal without being confronted with the mistakes she’s made.”

Finally, being cheated on can do a number on a person’s self-esteem, so you have to stroke the poor girl’s ego. Regardless, she will be pissed and might need space. If so, leave her alone until, fingers crossed, she forgives you.

Born to betray: Some men could be hard-wired to cheat. A study done on male twins at St. Thomas’s Hospital in London suggests that one in five men may carry a genetic “cheating” trait.

Certain peculiar things need to be observed in this particular article. 

1. First you wrong your girlfriend, and then you lie about it.  Given that even safer sex can spread venereal disease, lying seems selfish on multiple levels.  A betrayed person deserves to know, if only so she can schedule an appointment with her doctor.
2. Note that men aren’t assumed to be responsible for their actions.  If he cheats, his woman isn’t satisfying him.  So it’s really her fault that he’s cheating.
3. Men are assumed to be slaves to the genes.  Once, the devil made him do it; now, it’s his DNA.

All in all, it seems to be a rather appalling article, and one must wonder how any sane editor could have published such a sexist piece.  Men come off as childish.  We don’t expect children to be responsible for their actions, but shouldn’t grown men be responsible enough to admit they’ve cheated—or, better yet, not to cheat in the first place?  One would think that a magazine that caters to men would think through anything that assumed men were so pathetic.

But I’ll make a confession right now: this sexist article didn’t appear in Maxim.  It appeared in Cosmopolitan, and was about women cheating rather than men.  I switched the gender pronouns to make a point.  Go and read the original article, and ask if Cosmo is interested in female equality or if these ladies want to justify their cheating ways.

Hubbard posted this at 2:22 PM EDT on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 as Ladies, Gentlemen, and the Rest of us

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From the Big Picture’s spread on Afghanistan:

Afghan girls attend school on February 16, 2009 in the village of Sandarwa in eastern Afghanistan. Women’s education has been severely compromised in Afghanistan as a resurgent Taliban has practiced a policy of intimidation of female students. Women, who make up a significant proportion of Afghanistan’s population, have been killed, burned and threatened for attending school. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

That’s true!

Tom posted this at 12:30 PM EDT on Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 as Journalism, Ladies, Gentlemen, and the Rest of us

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50 good things to know (H/T).  I especially like this one:

35) “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” – Jim Rohn

Read and ponder.

Hubbard posted this at 11:30 AM EDT on Monday, April 6th, 2009 as Excruciatingly Correct Behavior

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Now I remember why I don’t like talking to leftist intellectual types who take themselves seriously. This is hilarious, beginning with stupidly calling someone racist, delving into catty personal attacks, and then having an insufferable meta-discussion about the nature of the list. It more or less reads like what I would script a leftist email group to say. Though the funniest thing – and something I wouldn’t have scripted – is how much Brad DeLong hates Dr. Sullivan (Ob/Gyn). Please don’t take that as an endorsement of Brad DeLong.

Apollo posted this at 9:16 PM EDT on Thursday, March 26th, 2009 as Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, Journalism

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