Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is always pleased to have other titles heaped upon his august person. Basil Seal has (so far) heaped the best one upon him.

Recently, the gracious Mrs P didn’t so much bestow upon your Maximum Lader another title; as make him part of a very elite fraternity, the (Roman) Catholic Boys for Art. Well… Actually your Maximum Leader was just seen entertaining the other (Roman) Catholic Boys for Art on his ham pillow - but the connection is tenuous enough for your Maximum Leader to run with it. The real (Roman) Catholic Boys for Art - hereafter RCBfA - are Messrs Seal, Elk and Fiendish. It is unclear as to Mr Cusack’s final status in that group; but your Maximum Leader would hazard a guess that the good Mr Cusack is likely a charter RCBfA member. Your Maximum Leader probably is, at best, a lesser associate member. His Catholic credentials are not quite up to snuff you know…

Anyhoo… The delightful Mrs P (who by the way, is celebrating 16 years of connubial bliss with Mr P this weekend) has, for the purposes of entertaining the RCBfA, been regaling her readers with “art stories.” Alas… Your Maximum Leader doesn’t have any “art stories” to share with you all. He’s not a particularly artistic fellow. Not much for dancing, prancing, or singing either. This is not to say that he is not a lover of “the arts” - for he is. But he is an observer, critic, and sideline-stander. (All the easy things to be…)

But… All these “art stories” from Mrs P (as well as the commentary on statuary by Messrs Seal and Elk) have gotten your Maximum Leader to thinking about statuary in the fair city of Washington DC.

Now once upon a time, your Maximum Leader was lucky enough to have a great professor in college. Richard T. Couture was a character (in addition to being a learned man). Richard was a very well traveled man. All the great cities of the western world he’d visited - as well as many of the great cities of the East. Surprisingly, he’d never traveled much to Washington DC.

Well… Perhaps not all that surprisingly. You see, your Maximum Leader has spent the majority of his life living in the greater Washington DC area. And he’d have to say that Washington has only become a world class city in the past 15 years or so. Sure DC has always had “the government” and the Smithsonian; but other than that… Not too much.

Anyhoo… Richard didn’t visit Washington much. One time, your Maximum Leader convinced Richard to visit DC and see the sights. While your Maximum Leader was giving him the nickel driving tour of the city Richard commented that “There is one predominant architectural and sculptural style in this town.”

“Really? What style is that?” replied your Maximum Leader.

“Totalitarian Gothic,” Richard stated flatly…

Stop for a moment, if you will, and think about the age of the totalitarian builders… Those were the 1930s. Who were the totalitarian builders? Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini. Think of the buildings and sculptures of those times. Some people call it “Socialist Realism.” Your Maximum Leader (thanks to Richard Couture) likes to call it “Totalitarian Gothic.”

Of course… Building at the same time as Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini was the Works Project Administration and all the other alphabet soup agencies of Franklin D Roosevelt’s administration. Many of the imposing edifices of Washington DC date to these federal construction programs. So do the statuary that adorn the buildings.

Compare for yourself if you like. Stalingrad (Volgagrad) vs. DC. Or these. DC vs Moscow.

Now, having introduced you all to Totalitarian Gothic, your Maximum Leader should tell you that not all sculpture (or building) in Washington DC is in the Totalitarian Gothic style. Oh no. There are plenty of other buildings and statuary styles to go around.

One of the most monumental buildings in the city is Union Station. The main (and monumental) terminal entrance to the station was designed around the turn of the last century by Daniel Burnham. It’s large vaulted ceiling is inspired by the Baths of Dioclietian in Rome.

But it is not the ceiling that is the focus of your Maximum Leader’s comments. It is the statuary below the ceiling. The statues of the Roman soliders.

You see, Louis Saint-Gaudens was commissioned to do the sculptures of the Roman Centurions which would adorn the building. The story goes that Saint-Gaudens sent a model from his studio to the commissioners responsible for the building. The statue was supposed to depict a “historically accurate” Roman Centurion. Helmet, breastplate, cape… And in the “all together” below the waist.

Now… First off, any student of the period knows that Roman soliders didn’t march into the heat of battle wearing nothing below the waist. That is just stupid. Everyone (and your Maximum Leader believes that it is truly a sample set of everyone in the whole world) knows that men like to protect their private parts. So the idea of soliders not protecting that area is just artistic whimsy.

Well… The model caused something of a stir. The building commissioners told Saint-Gaudens that the “all together” below the waist wouldn’t do. So the final centurions were crafted standing behind their shields. The rumor is that if you look carefully from certain vantage points you can see behind the sheilds… Your Maximum Leader has never tried to frankly. And for your edification, here is a brief recounting of this story - along with a photo of one of the centurions.

Your Maximum Leader hopes that Mrs P, a Finishing School Girl for Art, enjoys this post and continues to regale her readers with “art stories.”

Carry on.

I enjoyed being able to spend time with my kids and their playgroup this summer. My daughter’s friends and their parents are fun folks. Because the group was initially built around birth dates at the hospital, the mix of people is pretty random. We have raving moonbat liberals, squishy centrists, apolitical types, conservatives (one family named their child Reagan after the great man himself), and in Polymath, an honest to-goodness libertarian.

Politics are rarely discussed.

At one of the kidfests that took place on the farm, one of the mothers began going on about how we needed to do more for the less fortunate. I (cautiously, oh so cautiously) wondered about the efficacy of that approach. I expressed my willingness to pay taxes to help people who needed a helping hand as long as, and this is a big if, that help actually, well, helped. I also expressed concern that many of the chronically unemployed were unemployed not because of systemic oppression but because of poor personal choices and a lack of work ethic. Throwing more money at the unemployable, while not delivering a standard of living with which I’d be content, would make continued poor choices tolerable - and the poor choices would continue.

Another mom jumped in at this point and supported my contention that jobs were available for people willing to work. She and her husband own a restaurant and had been advertising for kitchen help. They were willing to train applicants, pay relatively well, and provide health benefits. They had had zero applicants after two weeks of advertising.

According to moonbat mom, that was irrelevant. She then gave us a “good example” of who she wanted to help. Her best friend, she said, worked at Burger King because she had low self esteem (not her fault) and didn’t have the self-confidence to try to get a better job. Since providing (adequately) for her children was impossible on a Burger King salary, my interlocutor argued that we should pay a larger share of her rent and give her more direct aid.

Now, when she phrased things in this way, I should have walked away. But the Smallholder you all know and love had to say: “Well, perhaps that additional ‘help’ won’t really be helpful at all; if your friend had to face the results of living on a Burger King salary, she would be motivated to find a better job. Need would overcome low self esteem. Having attained a better job, perhaps her self esteem would be raised. Besides, the low self esteem is not a problem created by society. I don’t think you can morally ask someone to pay more in taxes to support your friend with low self esteem.”

She teared up. “What’s a few more dollars in taxes?” She demanded, “People will just blow the extra few bucks on material trinkets or happy meals!”

Now, if I was a smart man, I would have walked away. She was in full-on “defend my best friend” mode.

If I was a clever man who thought quickly on my feet, I would have pointed out that if everyone stopped buying happy meals, Burger Queen would lose her job.

But I simply replied that her friend was unlikely to do anything but buy a trinkets and happy meals herself. In the long run, denying her those things would be in her family’s best interests.

The mom, now actually crying, mustered the worse insult she could imagine:

“You’re such a callous cold-hearted Republican!”

In today’s Washington Post, science fiction is reality.

I read it and thought “We are living in an age of miracles and wonders.”

If we are indeed living in the age of miracles and wonders, where are the lasers?

(In honor of Memento Moron’s musical geography posts - which I always enjoy but am never early enough to answer)

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees on the news wire that one Melinda Duckett has killed herself after taping a segment on the CNN Nancy Grace show. Now let your Maximum Leader state, up front, that he is sure that Ms Duckett’s family is likely quite shaken and griefstricken due to the disappearance of Ms Duckett’s son and her subsequent suicide.

But Nancy Grace?

Great jeezey creezey! Your Maximum Leader has never appeared on Nancy Grace’s program. Your Maximum Leader will never appear on Nancy Grace’s program. Indeed, your Maximum Leader has not watched a complete episode of Nancy Grace’s program. After a few minutes of watching Nancy Grace, your Maximum Leader wanted to either kill her - or himself.

Frankly, whenever it comes down to killing himself or someone else; your Maximum Leader always chooses killing someone else. When the MWO comes, Nancy Grace will be dragged out and shot - for the good of humanity and the TV viewing audience. That woman is completely insane.

Now your Maximum Leader does get angry when victims are “forgotten” or “aren’t heard” (to the extent that those cliches mean anything). But he would prefer to channel his anger into socially constructive avenues. He likes voting for tough prosecutors. He likes spending his tax money on the police. He likes community watch programs and involvement. He does not like ranting like a mad woman on CNN and coming off as only slightly sane.

But, Nancy Grace doesn’t mind those things. Who really watches Nancy Grace? Really? I think that Jeff (of Beautiful Atrocities and Agent Bedhead fame) might have watched her once or twice. But he’s a smart, hip, fellow. He may mock her… But to mock does not require regularly tuning in…

One wonders if some overly ambitious lawyer will approach the Ducketts and convince them to sue Grace for some sort of trumped up civil wrongful death suit… Talk about irony…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader saw a political persuasion quiz over on CalTechGirl’s site and figured he’d take it.

You Are a “Don’t Tread On Me” Libertarian

You distrust the government, are fiercely independent, and don’t belong in either party. Religion and politics should never mix, in your opinion… and you feel opressed by both. You don’t want the government to cramp your self made style. Or anyone else’s for that matter. You’re proud to say that you’re pro-choice on absolutely everything!

Your Maximum Leader does have a libertarian streak. But he doesn’t consider himself a libertarian. He certainly isn’t pro-choice in everything - although he is probably more in favor of letting people do as they will within reasonable limits than you might think. That is to say that his is in favor of letting people do as they will until the Mike World Order. Then all bets are off.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader must grimly set upon the task of proving to you all that the end of civilization as we know it is nigh upon us.

According to The Economist, budget airline Ryan Air will soon be allowing cell phone calls in-flight. Air France is soon to follow. Before you know it so will Southwest, United, Delta, American, KAL, Lufthansa, British Airways, and all the others.

One of the last bastions of quiet (from the voices of others - if not from jet engines) is taken from us…

Bastards!

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has, and will for the foreseeable future, enabled comments on certain posts. He’ll do this on a case by case basis. He understands from our good friend Phin that whatever problems that existed between your Maximum Leader’s hosting company and his comments is now fixed.

Oh… And by the way… Has your Maximum Leader mentioned that if you have a blog or a web site that need some fixin’ up you need to call Phin and Sadie at Apothegm Designs. Oh yes… You must call them right away.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, like many Americans, has spend nearly four days of his life in an orgy of self-indulgence. Yes dear readers, he’s been watching football since Thursday night.

He did not watch all that silly dancing and “singing” stuff they called a kickoff party. No. He did not. He watched pregame shows on ESPN. The shows with the manly men talking about manly things. The shows with commercials showing men in humourous situations or scantily-clad women offering beer to slake the thirst of sweaty men.

h yes… The sweet, sweet NFL season has begun.

Of course, if you happen to root for the Green Bay Packers (like your Maximum Leader does) you are getting ready for a loooooonnngg year. Your Maximum Leader is a Packers fan. And his is a great Brett Favre fan. But, it was apparent to your Maximum Leader that Brett Favre is not the quarterback of the future, or the qb of the “now,” with the Packers. It pains your Maximum Leader to say this. But, so long as Favre remains with the Packers they will not be able to rebuild and move on. It just will not happen.

The Packers organization should make Favre an offer. The offer is this, the Pack will make subtle trade offers to only teams that Favre would want to play for. If any of those teams are interested then a trade can be arranged. When Favre decides his playing days are over, there is always a home for him in the Green Bay organization. (There is also a one day contract with Favre’s name on it so he can retire a Packer.)

The Packers need to make this move because Brett Favre will not. And frankly, he probably shouldn’t. He loves the Packers. The fans love him. And Favre can still play football. In the right environment Favre can still be a top producer in the NFL. Your Maximum Leader used to think (last season and during the off season) that Favre should just retire. That was rather selfish thinking on your Maximum Leader’s part. Since Favre wasn’t the future of the Packers, then no one else should have him.

Brett Favre’s inner competitor still has lots of fight left in him. He needs to play. But what he needs to do is play with another team where he might platoon the QB with a younger player and start the job of mentoring. This is not a role he can play in Green Bay. He needs to move on to do it. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t think less of Joe Montana because he went to KC for a few years. Montana is always a 49er. But those years in KC helped that KC franchise greatly as well as many young players.

Perhaps Favre could go to DC and platoon the QB role with the Redskins. While this isn’t the “mentor the young guy” senario your Maximum Leader just laid out; it could still benefit both the player and the team. God only knows that the Redskins have the cash. And they’ve stolen top names from the Packers before (Vince Lombardi anyone?).

If Favre would take a backup role there are few limits to where he could go…

Of course, then there are the hometown Redskins. Your Maximum Leader thinks that the ‘Skins have a big problem. An offense that doesn’t seem to know what it is doing all the time. Much hay has been made over the huge “700 page” playbook that the ‘Skins are using this year. The undercurrent of this playbook size comment seems to be that football players are dumb and can’t learn that much. While this might be true in many cases, your Maximum Leader has met and known a number of serious football players in his life. Not many of them would be rocket scientist material, or even post-modern literature professors; but when it came to football they were smart. Very smart when it comes to their millieu. A 700 page playbook is not the whole problem. What is the problem is practice and making sure you have the right players in the right roles.

Watching the ‘Skins game, your Maximum Leader couldn’t figure out what the “theme” of the offense was. They didn’t seem to try to establish the run. They didn’t seem to try to establish a short passing game. They seemed to try a lot of different stuff and hope that something stuck.

So… It looks like your Maximum Leader’s teams, the Packers and the Redskins, are going to have long and unpleasant seasons. The Packers definately will. Indeed, if your Maximum Leader had to pick a number he’d say that the Packers could go 3-13 this year. (The can probably knock off the Lions twice and pick up one more game along the way.) The Redskins will probably be 9-7. (Though they might be 8-8.) Both the Packers and the Skins have seasons that look to be pretty tough.

If you have a (non-Dallas) eam that you think your Maximum Leader should pull for over some other team… Let him know… It might give him some comfort over the long season to occasionally root for a winner.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, like others, has been thinking about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Unlike many others, he has nothing profound or meaningful to say today about the attacks.

On one hand, your Maximum Leader finds the languid memorials and rememberances at which our political leaders attend are self-indulgent fits of melancholia which do little to ease the suffering of those who lost loved ones and even less to exhalt the memory of the dead themselves. The public memorials do nothing for your Maximum Leader, and frankly he wishes they would go away.

On the other hand, your Maximum Leader finds personal tributes and statements very moving. Very emotional. They still evoke the rawness of emotion that the attacks did themselves. Your Maximum Leader remembers the day very well. He remembers seeing the first images of the Towers hit. He remembers being on the phone with a friend who was in Crystal City and saw the explosion at the Pentagon through his office window. He remembers standing in a little cafe with about 100 others (in a room that might fit 25) watching the TV. He remembers the flood of calls coming to his office and women hurrying to get their children from daycare. (He lived in Virginia Beach then. Many women in his office had Navy spouses and by 10am the word had gone out… The fleet was to sail immediately… No ship was to be left in port in Norfolk. Crews were to report immedately.) He remembers seeing the buildings fall. He remembers Peter Jennings commenting on live feed of Arabs celebrating throughout the middle east that he (Jennings) could understand the feelings that caused those people to dance in the streets. (That was, by the way, the last time your Maximum Leader ever watched Peter Jennings report on anything.)

He remembers all of that.

He recorded and watched some of the documentary aired on CBS last night. It was harrowing. The images of the firefighters in their command post in the lobby of the South Tower trying to figure out what to do… The look on Fire Department Chaplain Mychal “Mike” Judge’s face praying the lobby as you could hear the bodies of those who jumped crash in the plaza outside the lobby. The sound of the building collapsing. Eventually, your Maximum Leader had to turn off the recording. He doubts he will be able to watch the rest of it.

Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure what to think of today. He feels that on the one hand we need to be a little more stoic and move on. On the other, it is good to remember that we saw the best of so many on a day so dramatically affected by evil. Perhaps it is best if we skip the public memorials and lamentations. Perhaps we should just each remember the day as we want, and offer our thoughts and prayers to those who need them - living and dead.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is gonna probably hang it up for the day. He realizes after perusing some of his favorite blogs he realizes that nothing he’s got today will come close to the animaversions of others.

Need proof?

Dr Rusty is (if your Maximum Leader might channel Stuart Scott) like buttah because he’s on a roll… You should go over to The Jawa Report to learn about a nutjob who the Florida Democrats have nominated for Congress, Geneva Convention Rights for the bad guys, and (your Maximum Leader’s favourite) the best lookin’ Stormtrooper around.

Your Maximum Leader thought that Skippy’s most recent is a classic. It captures everything that we love about Skippy. Politics, sex, and self-loathing.

The Hatemongers take academics to task.

and…

Mrs P is recollecting stories of ladies undergarment failures. (In church no less.)

Oh yes… Thanks to Buckethead your Maximum Leader now has this image stuck in his brain… Not the first image… The second…

That image almost requires a stiff drink…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was reading, as is his wont, Outside the Beltway yesterday. Of all of the items posted there, one drew his attention more than others. James Joyner wrote a bit called the “Professionalization of the Blogosphere.” In it Joyner does a little thoughtful analsis based on a post by Conn Carroll at the National Journal.

The Carroll piece, the salient portion of which is cited in Joyner’s post, states that the blogosphere is being more and more dominated by professionals. Professionals being defined as those with advanced degrees and in fields at least somewhat related to the content of their blog. Joyner goes on to say that this stands to reason as, at least in the field of political commentary, only those who have a passion for a subject (like politics) would want to spend the time commenting on that subject in the way that a regularly updated blog requires.

A salient point of Joyner’s piece is this:

Furthermore, I’m not sure why amateurism in the sense of not having a clue about the things one opines about is all that desirable. The lure of political blogs, to me at least, is that one often gets better insights from them than from the professional punditocracy. Many if not most of those who are regulars on the television and radio talking head circuit simply don’t have much to offer as commentators. They might be attractive and have soothing voices but most of them are just recycling the conventional wisdom. Many of us watched those shows and thought “I could do better than that!” but had no way to prove it.

Your Maximum Leader can certainly agree with that point. And it is that point that stirred around and around in your Maximum Leader’s mind. There was something wrong about it but he couldn’t figure out what.

Then it came to him. Amateurish.

Your Maximum Leader doesn’t often use the word amateur in the negative sense. To your Maximum Leader a true amateur is one who pursues an activity because he loves it. Afterall the root of the word amateur is the Latin “amare” which means “to love (something).” Bloggers are, for the most part, amateurs in the classical sense. We love whatever it is that we spend our time commenting upon. That could be politics, culture, sports, or… Jennifer Love Hewitt.

For the most part bloggers are amateurs in the sense that Olympic Athletes used to be amateurs. We have a passion for what we blog about (sometimes it is ourselves) and we want to comment upon it.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wasn’t sure if he was going to comment on the recent tragic (freakish if your Maximum Leader can use that word) death of “The Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (in which case you aren’t reading this) you have, no doubt, heard that the world renown celebrity animal handler/preservationist/tv star was killed by a stingray while filming a special on ocean life.

Your Maximum Leader must admit he loved watchin Steve Irwin. It was television that he could settle in for with the Villainettes and enjoy without worrying too much about content and themes. Sure, as a parent you had to warn your kids that playing with crocodiles and snakes is hazardous and would very likely get you killed. But, the Villainettes don’t like creepy crawly things - except on the TV.

Well… When the news broke it happened that Villainette #1 was in the bedroom with her parents. And the Today show on the tv. She cried. Now sometimes Villainette #1 is prone to dramatics. But a parent can tell when the tears are real and when they are forced. They were real.

It was a sad day in the Villainschloss when we learnt that Steve Irwin had been killed. We are sure that it’s been hard for a number of children around the world. But most of all, we all know it is very hard on his family. Indeed, it was due to the morbid curiosity exhibited by most of the world that your Maximum Leader was pretty sure he wouldn’t comment upon the death. But then he saw some clips of Irwin’s father on Fox News. And something moved your Maximum Leader to write a little obituary.

Steve Irwin was many things to many people. But to our family he was an entertaining figure on the television who did cause the kids to become more curious about their world. And that is a pretty good legacy for someone on tv.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wants you all to be glad that you are not near the Villainschloss right now. Your Maximum Leader’s progeny are rife with pestilence. The Wee Villain has been suffering through some viral malady. Now Villainette #2 is feverish and taken to bed.

Frankly your Maximum Leader has been feeling a bit peckish. He’s had a tickle in his throat for a few days. He isn’t sure if it is virus related or allergy related. Whatever it is, it is annoying.

Your Maximum Leader, Mrs Villain, and Villainette #1 are now on a quest to disinfect the whole Villainschloss. Clorox will be applied to all handles, switches, knobs, pulls, and oft-handled areas. Bathrooms will be cleaned. Sheets will be washed. Beds and towels changed daily. All in the name of making us feel better. Because frankly, none of this probably does much to keep the virus from getting at us…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees, amidst the reporting on Steve Irwin’s death, that there is some good news out of Japan. There is, finally, a male heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne. According to the news wires, Princess Kiko delivered via Ceasarian, a baby boy today. Princess Kiko is the wife of Prince Akishino, who is the second son of Emperor Akihito. The baby is yet unnamed, but already has a cool sword.

This is good news for the family; and it is good news for the government of Japan. It now appears as though the difficult debate about changing succession laws can be avoided.

Your Maximum Leader really doesn’t have a dog in the whole agnatic versus cognatic succession debate. He can understand the long-standing agnatic tradition in Japan. But going cognatic seems to be more in step with modern times.

As for your Maximum Leader’s heirs… Both of his daughters (the two eldest) are perfectly suitable heirs… It is too soon to tell how the Wee Villain will turn out. He has the requisite charm to be a Maximum Leader. We’ll see if he gets the villainous side dwn.

Carry on.