Ladies! Put On Your Jemima Rags!

We here at Bloody Nib Manor are not particular fans of beauty contests. It is not that yours does not appreciate seeing beautiful women despite the fact that the ever lovely Lady Nib is the most beautiful woman I've ever laid eyes on, or that Lady Nib is jealous. Why should she be jealous of her lessers? Much of it just has to do with the fact that there's just no plot. But we don't begrudge those who enjoy beauty pageants. They are part of modern Western life.

Well, apparently the better minds in Canada know better than we do. This year's Miss Universe is from Canada and Toronto has decided that an appearance by her endorsed by the city would be an insult to the women of Canada for the reasons outlined in this link:sisu: Feminists and Islamicists, sisters under the skin. I'll be waiting for the Dominion to tell the tough broads in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland to throw away their toques and replaces them with scarves.

Invite Me Over and I'll be Your Buddy!

Talk radio is one of those things that is a never ending source of amusement for your faithful correspondent. The lengths that the hosts sometimes go to attract listeners are often outright comical. A left leaning host suddenly, once the mike is turned on, becomes an apologist for Leon Trotsky and a right leaning host suddenly discovers that he is a second cousin to Ferdinando Franco. The sense of self importance is sometimes unknowingly a self parody. And the sense of public influence among some of the talkers is often overblown i.e., "Through my talk show I helped elect/defeat George Bush/anti-abortion legislation." Occasionally if the target of a talk show hosts questioning and/or wrath offers to invite a host to the HQ of the target's organization the wrath is deflected under the guise that the target, by being "open," has shown the true "self" of his or her self or organization.

In the past couple of months two talk show programs have rolled up their wrath rugs after being offered special treatment by their targets.

The first concerns the John and Ken Show heard on KFI 640 AM in Los Angeles. They were invited to the Orange County Islamic Center to broadcast a program. During this time they went from accusing all Mohammedans of being towel headed terrorists with bombs in their overcoat pockets to maintaining that Islam is a peaceful religion and that no true Moslem would countenance overcharging for a gallon of gas, let alone flinging a bomb into a group of Israeli teenagers. The various fatwahs, condemnations of Israel and conspiracy theories put forth my Islamic imams, college professors and national leaders all evaporated like the morning fog on a hot summer's day. Terrorists were not "real" Moslems despite the fact that few, if any, Islamic bodies have categorically condemned terrorism in the US, Iraq, Israel, Great Britain or Indonesia. In the course of four hours the hosts perception of Moslems went from being completely bad to being completely benign. At the same time they held to their belief that the Catholic Church as a whole is an ignorant and destructive entity and that Evangelical Christians are idiots. All that in exchange for a little couscous and stroking.

The second example involves a man who calls himself Mr. KABC who hosts an evening program on KABC 790 AM in Los Angeles. Mr. KABC is a particular bugaboo with yours due to one of his most frequent retorts to data offered by callers, "Do you believe everything you read in the paper/Internet?" while using the same sources to buttress his own positions.

Mr. K read part of an article about Scientology from a magazine. The article was critical of the "religion" and featured a glossary of terms/questions/answers used by Scientologists that revealed the "religion" as the ridiculous entity that it is. Soon after reading the article the host was contacted by the local Scientology body and was offered a tour of the Hollywood facility (The Celebrity Center) and an in studio interview with one of the Scientology bigwigs. The result? Scientology was all of a sudden Scientology was less bizarre than the local Unitarian Church or Ethical Culture Society. The antics of the SeaOrg were ignored, Scientology's habit of nuisance lawsuits against critics weren't mentioned, the active attempts of recruitment of celebrities to try to legitimize their nonsense was not mentioned. (Ask yourself this question: Is there a Roman Catholic celebrity center? A Baptist one? A Hasidic one?) The host has yet to bother to investigate the history of Scientology from sources other than Scientologists. Scientologists are okay because they invited the host into the house and offered a spokesman willing to spend a few hours on the air. Meanwhile, the host considers devout Jews and Fundamentalist Christians as bizarre and stupid. Perhaps if they changed the name of their believers to Operating Thetans instead of "believers" they might get a break.

Mr. K likes to describe himself as a "deist" by which, from listening to his natterings he means an agnostic. His understanding of classical deism is sadly lacking. So that may be why he gives Scientology a break. Scientology is a nothing for people who want to believe in something. But, if he bothered to do a little research he may have been able to spot that.

A New Link!

We here at Bloody Nib Manor know that you all love and regularly check the permanet links on the right side of this page. Well, your faithful correspondent has added a new one:Right Nation. What's different about this one is that it is an Italian blog. You can read it in God's language or in Italian. The guy likes the US! I'm still waiting for the French version.

This Is Interesting.

Everybody and his ugly brother in blogdom (a world which some insist calling the "blogosphere." Ugh! A future post will discuss this semantic problem) is linking to this story, so your faithful correspondent had better do the same or he will look like a prize chump:Michael Yon : Online Magazine: Gates of Fire. It shows that the Yanks in Iraq are a tough lot and that there is probably some rotten screenwriter trying to put a negative spin on this story so he can sell it to ABC. This story is pure John Wayne stuff.

Thanks, Michael!

Don't Talk to Strangers!

Imagine the unimaginable: you come home from work after receiving an emergency telephone call, to find that your house has burned down and that your children and the babysitter have been killed in the fire. Or perhaps you hear a bang late at night and come out of the house to find your dear son or daughter in a pool of blood after having been shot. Or your neighbor has been found in the living room of his house with a nose packed with Peruvian marching powder and his throat cut to the spine. After being questioned and consoled by the firemen and policemen you, while still in a daze of shock, are standing on your front lawn and a man or woman you don't know comes up to you with a microphone in hand and a videographer in tow and starts questioning you about what happened and how you feel. You feel punch drunk, but because you've been raised to be polite, you answer the questions put to you by the electronic intruder.

The next day you turn on the television and see the person who was questioning you roughly describing your situation. Then you see yourself in a state of extreme emotional distress babbling almost incoherently. And after fifteen seconds the news anchors are talking about the birth of a panda at a zoo. Your tragedy is worth fifteen seconds. Your loss is worth no more than the birth of a wild animal.

Or you pick up the phone one day and a voice says that a poll is being taken. They want to know if you think whether George Bush is an angel sent by God or the demonic spawn of Satan. You think about the question and decide that you are more unhappy with President Bush's performance than you are happy with it so you answer that you think Mr. Bush is, while mistaken in several of his actions, is no more demonic than the innocent babe resting in the bassinet in the next room. The pollster says, "I've got your opinion, thank you." A couple of days later you pick up the paper and read that 60% of the populace thinks Bush is evil and wonder, "Who would think such a thing?" Upon further thought you realize that you said that you did.

Think about it. In the above cases you made statements that were abridged, edited or assumed. Or your emotional state was taken advantage of. The people who asked you the questions made money by asking the questions. You made nothing. In fact, you may have even been made to appear ignorant, ridiculous, racist or sappy.

Years ago, while making the mistake of watching the local television news, there was a story about a family perishing in a house fire. The father was at work at the time of the fire. He rushed home. He was a recent immigrant from Mexico. His English was poor at best. A field reporter for the television station stuck a microphone in this poor man's face and asked, "Do you think this tragedy could have been avoided if you'd had a smoke alarm?" The poor fellow, confused by the question and in a state of extreme despair, answered "yes" despite the fact that he more than likely didn't understand the question. It was apparent that he only answered the question to get the geek with the mike away from him.

There was also the fad of the "how do you feel?" question. A woman survives the slaughter of her family by her PCP crazed husband. Minutes after she has made her statement to the police a "correspondent" shoves a microphone in her face and asks, "How do you feel?" She's still stunned and is trying to take in the enormity of the situation. All she can manage to say is something like, "I feel bad." As far as the television news broadcast is concerned, that's the end of the story. She comes across as a woman who did not love her children. She just "feels bad." That particular mode of questioning ended soon after a man had lost his family in a tragic incident and when asked by the news snoop, "How do you feel?" hauled off and punched the news guy in the snoot. The news, being the news, did not realize that by the punch the man was answering the question through action rather than words. He felt like he'd been blind-sided in a worse way than the newsman was. In each of the above instances the news person was paid to ask questions. The questioned were paid nothing.

Here's the point of all the above mess. There is no reason for the average citizen to answer questions put to them by the news media or opinion polls. There is no legal or moral obligation. There is no monetary obligation. When a news man or pollster asks a person a question the news man or pollster is being paid. The queried is paid nothing and risks being misquoted, edited, purposely misconstrued or being made to chose between opinions that one really does not hold.

My dear mother, the ever young Duchess Nib, was once asked to make a statement on film endorsing a supermarket. The endorsement had the possibility of being used in a television commercial. When approached with the offer Dutchess Nib asked, "How much will you pay me for this." The answer was, "Why, nothing! But you may be on television!" To which dear old Mum replied. "Being on television doesn't pay Mimi (the chambermaid)." Mumsey has always had an eye for the adding to the Nib fortune -- such as it is.

Now, think about it. News people are paid to ask questions. Pollsters are paid to ask questions. You, on the other hand, pay to ask questions of your doctor or lawyer or mechanic or beautician. Is there not something wrong here? In each of the above examples the questions refer to something that is important to one, not the world at large. The questions are not asked to make money nor out of idle curiosity or public entertainment. One asks questions for a specific purpose. But, let's face it, news is pretty much a form of entertainment these days and polls are useless because they are only a moment in time. You pay to ask questions that are more important to you than the questions asked by newsmen and pollsters are to the public at large.

So, taking a leap, if you are asked by a news man what you thin, how you feel, who you are, the proper reply is, "How much will you pay me for the answer?" If the answer is "Nothing," walk on. If a pollster calls you and asks your opinion ask the question, "How much will you pay me for the answer?", and the reply is, "Nothing. This is a poll.," the proper response is, "You get paid to ask the question. I expect to be paid for the answer. No jack, no answer. See ya at the track."

Don't talk to strangers unless they've got money for answers. Are your opinions or feelings worth any less than a movie actor's or hootchie momma singer's?

History Ain't Bunk!

There's a saying among the cosmopolitan types (and your faithful correspondent isn't one of those) that has a certain amount of truth. It goes something like this: " America is a place where 100 years is a long time ago. Europe is a place where 100 miles is a long distance."

When it comes to long histories, Europe falls somewhat short of India. The subcontinent seems to have a history that goes on for miles and years beyond Europe. And the Hindus in India have something that your average Eurotrash is sadly lacking, i.e., a long memory. Your average European would be hard pressed to name the places and years of the Siege of Vienna or the Battle of Lepanto, let alone the triumph of Charles Martel or Roland's battle against the Mohammedans. Contemporary Europeans seem to see the modern Islamic aggression as some sort of opportunity to enjoy discordant music and cous-cous instead as an eroding of European culture.

Modern Indian Hindus and Sikhs, after having suffered under the Mughals, are not so casual about the deleterious effects of Islam on a culture. This link may offer the Kumbaya crowd a little food for thought:Dhimmi Watch: Fitzgerald: Telling the truth about India

Some Aminals Is More Important

Grammar and spelling have never been the long suit of your faithful correspondent. There are times that one wishes that there were a Bermuda shorts dialect of the Queen's English. Pidgin may be a viable alternative but for the fact that one would be only understood in New Guinea or Burma or Shanghai. So please excuse the misspelling and grammar faux pas on the title of this post.

Now, to get to the point. A couple of weeks ago the ABC network national news anchor, Peter Jennings died. The news industry, being an oddly unified, while being diverse industry (think light: particle or wave?), and an industry that determines for us, the plebes, no matter what our societal status may be, lord or beggar, what we should know and care about, spent an inordinate amount of time covering and remembering a man, who, while a good reader and vaguely handsome, was really not much more than a puppet. He may have written some of his own news copy and he may have chosen what stories he wanted to report, but, let's face it, he was no Ernie Pyle, Edward R. Murrow or even Jack London (an under rated journalist if ever there was one -- read his reports of the London poor or the Russo-Japanese War).

But we got the whole nine yards about a man who was on the radio in Canada as a child, who's mother hated the US and who had been married four times for no good apparent reason except that perhaps he got bored by his wives.

The death of Peter Jennings is a sadness for his family and fans, but, let's face it, in the long view his death will make no difference for the heritage of the nation. The same holds true for most of us. Our families may mourn. A few friends may shed tears. But in the final analysis, most of us really haven't contributed to culture to the point of having seemingly endless hours of television and radio, and gallons of ink spent on telling the world what great fellows or ladies were were. We may have contributed to the concrete world (building in some way, or engineering), but culturally we've contributed nil. Nobody remembers the stone masons of Notre Dame, or even the architects, but people remember Thomas Aquinas and Hildegard of Bigen (sp?) let alone the journal keepers of the time.

This past week the American fiddler Vassar Clemens died at the age of 77. Clemens started his career as a bluegrass fiddler and went on to expand into a jazz and rock fiddler. He was, in a sense, the American Paganinni. He played uniquely American music on his instrument. His work added the grace notes to recordings by Jerry Garcia, the Dirt Band and innumerable bluegrass bands. And the American musical scene has lost a talent that is, in the foreseeable future, is irreplaceable. And result from the news industry has been --- an obit on the back page of the LA Times.

The irony is that years from now people will be listening to recordings of Clemens playing Will The Circle Be Unbroken? or Orange Blossom Special while catching their collective breaths at his virtuosity while having less idea of who Peter Jennings was than Richard Harding Davis.

Rockin' Out

One of the many failings of the California educational system that your faithful correspondent is a victim of is the appreciation of music. Kindergarten and the first grade were dedicated to the learning of rhythm via cowbell and tambourine. But to paraphrase Mr. Darcy, "Any savage can play rhythm." The fifth grade was a short experience with the trumpet. And other than the singing of rather inane songs like "My Grandfather's Clock" I was left on my own by the wiser and greater minds of the professional educationists.

The result is that during my adolescent and young adult years I drifted toward the popular dreck such as Mountain, Jimi Hendrix, Quicksilver and Led Zeppelin. As I grew older those particular artists and bands seemed rather simple. They all had good licks, but their ouvre' was lacking. I don't mean the lyrics. Most lyrics are pretty silly. Even operatic lyrics, which make Italian, German and Russian opera listenable; one has no idea of how silly the words are. One listens just for the music of the voice and the instruments.

As I grew older I began to appreciate the Grateful Dead, bluegrass and baroque. When asked what kind of music I like I reply, "The Grateful Dead, bluegrass, Vivaldi and Bach." To which the questor will say, "But Lord Nib, those are incompatible musically." To which yours replies, "I'm musically ignorant. But there is a similarity in all."

And, after years of pondering this seeming problem I think I've come up with an answer that will satisfy the musicologist. The answer is depth. The average rock band has four lines of attention. Actually three. Bass and drums, lead guitar and rhythm guitar. Each of the three depends on the two others to make sense. The Grateful Dead had sometimes two lead guitars, a bass guitar blazing it's own trail, two drummers, often playing counter rhythm, and a piano trying to keep up with it all. The result was a music that could be appreciated for the melding of disparate elements or appreciated for each element alone. The same holds true for bluegrass. Traditionally in bluegrass each instrument is given a place to shine with short solos, but when the bands play as a band there is no pride of place taken by any instrument. The guitar is just as important as the fiddle or mandolin or bass, and yet each is capable of standing alone. What is "Wipe Out" without a lead guitar?

Vivaldi (often called the Red Priest because of his red hair and the fact that he was a priest) and Bach (the triumph of Protestant music) have a depth, for your's truly, that results in the listener almost drowning. There is so much going on that it's almost like watching the workings of a clock.his results in that which results in this which results in this other thing and the final result is three o'clock and it's a almost a miracle that all the activity ended up to make some sort of sense. While listening to the different parts of a Bach or Vivaldi piece one can almost hear three or four different pieces of music; the violins, the recorders, the harpsichord and the whole.

But best of all, the Grateful Dead, bluegrass, Vivaldi and Bach all sound fun in a serious sense. They are serious fun for both the musicians and the listener. They do not have the silliness of some of Mozarts or Van Halens stuff, the ponderousness of Beethoven or Led Zeppelin, or the absolutely pre-punk self regard of Wagner or the Doors.

My quartet depends on absolute musicianship and a sense of joy in music. They all, in a sense, sing and play odes to the triumph of Odysseus, the glory of God, the love of Christ, and the wonders of life. And who could ask for more? They are all complicated and the music of my quartet is complicated. And life is complicated.

They Can't Be Serious! Can they?

Apparently the European Union has decided to flex its muscle in Bavaria. Under the guise concern for the safety and health of Bavarian barmaids the gnomes of Brussels have deigned to ban the traditional Bavarian barmaids' costumes: Telegraph News Barmaids protest as EU plans cover-up in the beer gardens. As anyone who has downed a Saint Pauli Girl beer, or watched any travelogue of Bavaria knows, the traditional Bavarian barmaids' costume consists of a dirndle skirt, a soft black vest type of thing and a low cut white blouse allowing the customer a sight of the alps. The EU feels that such attire leaves the barmaids at the risk of skin cancer. One would think, from their reasoning, that Bavaria had the same sun intensity as Sydney, Australia or Miami, Florida.

The Anchoress has a thought or two on the matter:The Anchoress » EU wants to regulate cleavage. I think her idea that the EU may be folding to the Mohammedans on this particular matter is mistaken. If the EU were going to cave to the heathens it would outlaw beer gardens and bars altogether. I think what we have here is a bunch of bureaucrats wanting to (oddly enough) justify their salaries and positions. They are also safety Nazis. Is it not passing strange that they have not declared nude sunbathing illegal on the Riviera or Adriatic? The reason for the double standard is simple: it is easier to regulate businesses than it is to regulate individuals. The purpose of the EU is regulation. Therefore: no regulation no need for the EU

Your faithful correspondent has never been a particularly big fan of the Huns. This may have something to do with the fact that his great uncle was killed by the Hun during the Great War and his uncle was a dog-face during the Second War and the fact that yours worked in aerospace with a bunch of Germans during the 70s and 80s. But our Teutonic brothers have come up with a few good things: Martin Luther, Bach (and sons), Handel, Hayden and Bavarian barmaids. Let's hope that a German version of Spike Jones pops up to sing a song such as "In the EU's Face" based on Jone's "Der Furhrer's Face."

What next? The banning of blacklights at the Moulin Rouge and Follie Bergere's because blacklights produce ultra-violet rays and thus produce tans and thus leave the mademoiselles at risk of skin cancer despite the fact that no such incidence has been recorded?

Oh the horror! The horror!

From the Mouths of Babes

We here at Bloody Nib Manor have never been particularly big Joan Collins fans. This may be due to the fact that her movie career fell between the periods represented by Ava Gardener and Raquel Welch. It was a difficult time for sex symbols because Hollywood couldn't decide exactly what a sex symbol was: Stella Stevens or Elizabeth Hartman.

And your faithful correspondent, being a night shift worker, never saw an episode of Dynasty, so he never saw any examples of her television oeuvre. But she was, during the late seventies, the eighties and very early nineties, a presence on television because of her acting, such as it was, or various scandals. She was, I thought, an attractive woman, though she had rather wide-set eyes and played the vamp a bit too much. Her sister, the writer Jackie Collins, was, much more fun because she told dirty stories on the interview shows, and also because she wrote bad novels instead of acted bad novels.

Well, Joan Collins has smashed the cream pie in my mug by writing this:LP: BRITAIN DESTROYING ITSELF FROM WITHIN (by Joan Collins-non PC truth from a And for this Joan Collins has my eternal gratitude. Could it be that sex symbols of a "certain age", such as Joan, and the almost divine B.B. get it when the remainder of the entertainment industry, Europe and England don't?