NB: This is nearly a complete repost of the entry for October 21, 2009.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader will be lifting his glass today to toast Admiral Lord Nelson and the hearty tars of the Royal Navy as he celebrates the 204th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar.

On this day in 1805, Lord Nelson led the fleet into combat against the combined French and Spanish fleets off Cape Trafalgar. By the end of the day the Franco-Spanish force was destroyed or driven to port. Any hope Napoleon had for invading Britain was dashed that day. The battle also resulted in about 100 years of complete naval supremacy by Britain over the seas of the world.

The late and very lamented hero of the hour:

Lord Nelson.

Nelson’s plan called for the fleet to be divided into two columns. The two columns would be sailed (under tremendous fire) into the Franco-Spanish line in a way that would bisect that line in two places.

Before the battle Nelson’s flagship, HMS Victory, flew the following signal:

England expects that every man will do his D - U - T - Y.

And over the course of the day, every British sailor did his duty.

During the course of the fighting Nelson was killed by a sniper.

Nelson’s body was preserved in rum and returned to a joyful nation who interred the hero in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.

Your Maximum Leader hopes that all you Anglophiles (and lovers of the fruits of the Anglo-Western tradition that we continue to enjoy in the US) will remember the great service done on behalf of civilization by Lord Nelson and the men of the Royal Navy over two hundred years ago.

Two years ago when this post first ran, there was some discussion in the comments as to whether Trafalgar was (as you Maximum Leader billed it) the greatest naval victory in the history of the world. Among the other contenders were: Salamis, Actium, Lepanto, Tsushima and Midway.

Your Maximum Leader will let you all decide which of these famous battles might be the greatest naval battle in the history of the world…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader must be behind on reading some of his favorite blogs… He just read this great little post over at Athens & Jerusalem entitled Fantasy Football Edition.

Reading that post both filled your Maximum Leader with self-satisfaction and self-loathing. On the one hand, he recognized almost every name on the list and why they were listed in that position. But on the other hand, the two names he did not recognize made him feel stupid and uneducated.

Of course, Winston Churchill would likely recommend himself for all three cabinet positions for which he is recommended…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader didn’t post anything on September 11. He didn’t watch much of the saccharine and overly melancholy memorial services on television. He remembered our dead from that day and those who have died around the world in our fight against terrorists since that day.

Many others commented in meaningful ways on or about that anniversary. Many said things with which your Maximum Leader could agree. But deep down your Maximum Leader started to wonder when exactly our nation started to thrive on the melancholy?

Please do not mistake that question for callousness to the families of victims or servicemen and women. (Your Maximum Leader has a number of relatives on active duty who have served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.) But it seems as though our media coverage of the event was seen through eyes that focus on the sadness, the loss, the pain. There seemed to be an air of helplessness and woe that pervaded everything broadcast. When did quiet respect and solemnity become equated to restrained mourning and lamentation?

Perhaps your Maximum Leader is having a hard time writing down his impressions of the anniversary. He perceived that the undercurrent of all the coverage was helplessness and even defeat. There didn’t seem to be anything uplifting about the coverage of the day as seen through the media.

Is this an outward sign of PC/secularism? Is it that without the ability to appeal to either religion or at least some sort of universal theism or morality that we can’t try to remember the dead in an edifying manner?

Your Maximum Leader doesn’t know. But what he does know is that he has moved on from the melancholy remembrance of September 11, 2001. He has resolve that we should track down and destroy the expanded networks of enemies our nation has around the world. He is respectful of the dead and holds them in his heart. But he is not wallowing in pity, victimization or sadness.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader yells out “Rabbit” at you all. (Since it is the first of the month.)

Your Maximum Leader is a bachelor this week. His lovely wife and kids are at the beach, and he is alone in the Villainschloss. He will be consuming the finest meats and cheeses in all the land! He assures you since he went to Wegmans a few hours ago and purchased himself (modest) quantities of the finest victuals for himself…

Sadly, while unloading the meats and cheeses from the car, he hit his knee on a corner and fears it is swelling badly. He is beginning to hobble some. He’s got ice, but the pain is really something…

Speaking of pain…

Your Maximum Leader was introduced to a new drink (new to him at any rate) this weekend. It is a Painkiller. Ingredients: 1 part pineapple juice, 1 part orange juice, 1 measure coconut cream, 1 part rum. Mix with ice in cocktail shaker. Garnish with nutmeg. It is very very tasty. He has now made himself one (and served it in a tiki mug from the official supplier of tiki mugs for the MWO - Tiki Farm).

And while we are speaking of alcohol… A person found this blog due to a post from a few years back concerning alcohol and an old and dearly departed friend and mentor of your Maximum Leader, Professor Richard T. Couture. The post was about parties and Fish House Punch. NB to Linda: Your Maximum Leader will be sending you an email soon.

Your Maximum Leader was going to write more… But he is going to make himself another painkiller and slink off to bed.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader must be channeling FLG today on the blog.

Readers of FLG’s blog will know that he (FLG that is) has a category labeled “Object Sex.” In the object sex department this little bit from the Huffington Post (via Jonah Goldberg): Hitler Gave Nazi Soldiers Blow-up Sex Dolls to Combat Syphillus. The money quote (ahem): “…the project was reportedly canned when soldiers refused to carry the dolls in fear of embarrassment if captured.”

This little tidbit comes from a book entitled “Mussolini’s Barber.”

Interesting.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader gets piles of enjoyment from reading FLG when his dander is up about Plato or Alexander.

Like this post for example.

Enjoy.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wishes all his Francophile readers (and any French readers he may have) a happy Bastille Day. May you day be filled with liberty, equality and brotherhood.

Of course, looking at his own blog, your Maximum Leader feels like something of a jack-hole for not wishing his own countrymen a happy 4th of July… He has no excuse. He was out celebrating himself and didn’t think about blogging. As atonement, your Maximum Leader will light off some leftover fireworks in honor of the taking of the Bastille. He’ll also swill some French wine too. He might even think about Mélissa Theuriau, Carla Bruni, Sophie Marceau, and a bevy of French women…

That will be punishment…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been away. He’d say he’s sorry about that, but it would be a lie. He’s taken a little vacation and then has been rather busy. So there it is.

By the way… Since it is the first of the month… Rabbit!

Since it is the first of July, Happy Canada Day to those of you in the great white north.

Your Maximum Leader might post some photos of his vacation here when he gets them all of his camera and phone…

And of course, we Americans will be celebrating the Glorious Fourth of July this weekend. It remains your Maximum Leader’s favorite holiday of all. This year he’ll be celebrating with some fireworks he bought while on vacation in Tennessee. And let us say that some of these fireworks are “difficult” to “obtain” in the great Commonwealth of Virginia. We’re watering the area around the launch site as a precaution starting today…

A friend of your Maximum Leader send him a little message containing some interesting tidbits. Your Maximum Leader can’t vouch for the accuracy of any of these items, but if they are true - or nearly true - they are fun.

There’s a 1-in-6 chance the beef on your backyard grill came from Texas. (The Lone Star State is the leader in the production of cattle and calves)
More than 155 million hot dogs will be consumed
68.3 million cases of beer will be sold this weekend (4th of July is the top holiday for beer sales)
There’s a 1-in-3 chance that your side dish of baked beans originated from North Dakota.
$111 million will be spent on popsicles alone this weekend

Your Maximum Leader is willing to accept the truthfulness of all of those except the popsicles one. That seems like an astronomical number for popscles. But it may well be true.

Your Maximum Leader may post more over the weekend if he gets a chance…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader owns a number of books that used to reside in various public schools throughout the great Commonwealth of Virginia. These books were either purchased by your Maximum Leader (or his friend Smallholder) when the books were going to be purged from the school library. Although some of the titles he’s purchased have turned out to be lamentable works of scholarship; all in all your Maximum Leader (and Smallholder) have felt that it was better that the books live out our natural lives on a shelf in a home rather than being reduced to pulp or landfill fodder.

When these purged books wind up on his shelf your Maximum Leader has felt he’s done a good thing. High school libraries are not places of scholarship. Libaries in high schools are for reference. The old and out dated should be moved to make room for the new. It seems to be in the natural order of things.

But your Maximum Leader feels very differently about college/university libraries. Collectively, colleges and universities libraries are the storehouse of the accumulated knowlege of humanity. Every college, big and small, plays a role in preserving the history of humanity. The good. The bad. The lamentable. The very poorly written. The classic. The obscure. All works have a place in the libraries of the world.

Your Maximum Leader loves the very smell of “the stacks” of a college library. The older the better. (NB: The book preservationist would likely say that the smell your Maximum Leader likes is decaying paper. Sad thought…)

Your Maximum Leader doesn’t think that a book that finds its way into a college library should ever be purged.

Sadly… That is not the case as Professor Mondo details in a recent post. Here is the hardest part to read:

Finally, there was the sense that I was engaged in a kind of intellectual Black Mass, inverting the sacrament that I was meant to perform. I love my students, but I also love the worlds of literature and ideas; indeed, I show my love to my students by offering them these other things I value so much. These books, these ideas in them, matter so much to me that I’m devoting my life to the business of letting those stories and ideas survive another generation. But instead, I spent today making it that much less likely that a Mondovillian might encounter someone’s story or idea, even through a confluence of idleness and serendipity. Education is meant to help the mind grow, and I see libraries as symbols of the growth that has gone before us. Instead, I spent today making our symbol shrink. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was the opposite of what I do.

Go thee and read the good Prof’s piece.

After reading the piece it makes me want to call my alma mater and make a donation and specify it goes to the library fund…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader notes that today, April 12, is the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War (or the War of the Insurrection as the official US Army history of the conflict calls it).

Your Maximum Leader doesn’t stop to think of the Civil War often. He finds himself contemplating many other historical conflicts. He doesn’t think too much of the Civil War because the outcome never seemed to be in doubt. Perhaps your Maximum Leader is very blase about the conflict; but the only interesting point (militarially speaking - to your Maximum Leader) is how the Confederacy lasted as long as it did. For many years your Maximum Leader was willing to chalk up the Confederacy’s durability to the outstanding leadership of southern generals. Then he abruptly changed his mind and was willing to go with the ineptitude of Union generals. Now he feels that it was a combination of the two, combined with stubborness. As is often the case with democracies throughout history a total victory must be won before the fighting can end.

No matter why it lasted as long as it did, the outcome was never really in doubt. And so, your Maximum Leader doesn’t muse over the war.

Your Maximum Leader does mull over the issue of slavery and how slavery (and the Civil War broadly speaking) formed (and deformed) our republic - even to the present day. Your Maximum Leader is sure that the Civil War will come up again and again over the next four years; and he’ll comment as the moment is upon him.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees that Mubarak has resigned in Egypt. Your Maximum Leader is tenatively pleased. Mubarak is gone and now his Vice-President and the military seem to be running the show. All this has been done with minimal bloodshed and violence.

These are all positive signs.

Furthermore, so far the overthrow of Mubarak seems to have been accomplished by secular forces. This is another positive sign.

But forgive your Maximum Leader for not being too over elated…

You see, this is the first of many steps and one never knows how these things will turn out. Sure Mubarak is out, but his people and supporters are firmly ensconced in power. They can send the crowds home and get everything back to “normal.” Then how will they implement promised reforms? Will they be swift? Will reform be dragged out? How about those elections? Sure we’ve had mostly secular forces at work right now, but when you start to have every Egyptian voting for a new government will that government be secular?

To draw an imperfect analogy, after the Tsar abdicated and the Provisional Government was set up in Russia during 1917 didn’t people think the worst was past and the revolution set on a good and reformist path?

Then there was 1918…

Just sayin’…

In the meanwhile, may the people of Egypt celebrate this day. They have accomplished that which many thought couldn’t be done (or couldn’t be accomplished without great sacrifice of blood). They have every right to be proud of what has happened.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader, like many of you, has been thinking and observing and thinking some more about the situation in Egypt. Your Maximum Leader must be honest, he has no one clear line of thinking on the whole matter at all. He has decided though, since he has a blog, he’s just going to throw out some of those thoughts and see what sticks.

By way of a beginning, the Mubarak regime is oppressive, has been oppresive, and will continue to be oppressive if it remains in power in any way. Your Maximum Leader is pleasantly surprised by the (overall) restraint of the police and army up to this point. Apparently the situation is changing rapidly and pro-regime individuals seem to be escalating the level of violence today and one can expect in the future as well.

Your Maximum Leader isn’t sure how violent the situation will become. He frankly disregards anyone who says that they do know how the situation will proceed from here. Once these movements start there is no telling where they would go. (One doubts that anyone would have thought that convening the “Estates General” by King Louis would have lead to Napoleon eventually…) Your Maximum Leader certainly hopes that the situation will not devolve into mindless violence. It certainly could. It could also devolve into more “mindful” violence. By this your Maximum Leader means targeted killings of pro/anti-regime figures. Indeed, your Maximum Leader suspects (but it is only a gut feeling) that before all this is over there will be a number of very prominent dead Egyptians.

Your Maximum Leader is a little torn about the demonstrations. He certainly understands and sympathizes with the aspirations of the crowds of anti-regime demonstrators. They want to end the oppression and enjoy a measure of freedom. Your Maximum Leader is torn about this for a number of reasons…

If for a minute your Maximum Leader thought that the anti-regime demonstrators wanted to establish a open, secular, western-style democracy he’d not be torn at all. But let us all be completely honest. The demonstrators don’t want that. (Some of them might, but he doubts that even 10% of them want western-style democracy.) They want to be rid of the oppressors and to have the opportunity to select a new government. If given that opportunity they will likely select some branch of the Muslim Brotherhood or other Islamist (or proto-Islamist) group to lead them. Egypt is not a participant in the development of the modern western world. As such we need to look realistically at what would come after Mubarak.

Since we can’t be sure what would follow the Mubarak regime - but can be sure it will not be a western-style democracy, your Maximum Leader is reluctant to throw the whole regime under the bus. (So to speak.)

While we’re being frank lets hit a few important things to remember. The Mubarak regime has been good to the US and has been good to Israel. We should all be for less oppression and more freedom in Egypt. But we shouldn’t be for a radicalized Egypt that will dramatically add to the unstable region and may be a net negative for the US (and Israel and Saudi Arabia and Jordan etc).

Your Maximum Leader recalls that way back in the early days of the G.W. Bush Administration (and before this blog), he was in favor of regime change in Iraq. He supported the invasion of that country. He supported the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and his sons. But back then your Maximum Leader wondered if Iraq was “ready for democracy.” He concluded they probably weren’t and speculated that the US should set up a strong, multi-ethnic, provisional government and stabilize the nation and then leave. If the Iraqis went down the path of democracy that would be great. If they didn’t, well then they didn’t.

(NB: Your Maximum Leader also speculated that the US could establish a Constitutional Monarchy that would share power with the Army and with a Parliament. But that was his own speculation. He knew that the US, in this day & age, wouldn’t go around establishing monarchies. Also, you can see how well your Maximum Leader’s support for regime change in Iraq turned out. We really screwed it up… So much so that your Maximum Leader, if he could go back and do it again - he would be less likely to do so again… Your Maximum Leader was in favor of regime change in Iraq in part because he thought that by “shaking things up” we could affect positive change in the region. He believed at the time that the Bush Administration had a plan for the invasion and stabilization of Iraq. As we’ve seen, they didn’t. If - in the context of time travel - the Bush Administration HAD a reasonable plan for invasion and stabliziation and exiting Iraq then he’d continue to be for regime change in Iraq. If - in the context of time travel - the Bush Administration was going to do the same thing all over again; then he would obviously not support regime change in Iraq. Because we didn’t have a reasonable plan that we could execute in Iraq, we screwed up our one chance to “shake things up” and affect positive change. There are no second chances in these sorts of things and as such US led regime change in the region is out of the question in any circumstance your Maximum Leader and imagine.)

With this in mind, your Maximum Leader tepidly supports regime change in Egypt. He doesn’t expect Egypt to become a western-style democracy overnight - or even in a few years. What he does support is a change in government that will be secular, less-oppressive, and acceptable to the most people in Egypt. Of course, what your Maximum Leader wants doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world…

Your Maximum Leader can’t say he’d be terribly displeased if Mubarak resigned (before September) and left the country (for Saudi Arabia or even the US) and left behind some sort of governing committee that would manage the nation until elections could be held. This governing committee would likely consist of some of Mubarak’s people, some of the demonstrator’s people, and some key army people. The governing committee (a provisional government of sorts) would draft a new constitution and set up the terms by which political groups could participate in the upcoming elections. The new constitution should be guaranteed by the Army with some understanding that it wouldn’t be changed/scrapped/horribly amended after the election outcomes are known. Frankly the Army can write itself some governmental role if it wants to.

The preceeding bit assumes (as your Maximum Leader indeed does) that the Egyptian army is run as a largely secular institution that is not insane and understands Egypt’s long-term needs and role in the region. In a way your Maximum Leader posits that the Egyptian Army is much like the Turkish Army. Assuming the Egyptian Army is a gurantor of a “moderate and secular” Arab state; then it should has a major role to play in the transition from Mubarak to something else.

Your Maximum Leader personally believes that most of the demonstrators want “someone other than Mubarak or one of his chief cronies” to govern them. At some level your Maximum Leader believes that if Mubarak and his chief cronies were to depart and be replaced with someone the Army likes that would satisfy the great majority of Egyptians now demonstrating. After 30 years the people of Egypt likely want “change.” They might not want dramatic change. They might just want some “change.”

Your Maximum Leader suspects they will get “change.” He only hopes that they will not get too much change and become radicalized. He believes that the Egyptian Army can facilitate this change. He also suspects that the longer these demonstrations go on and the more violent they become the more inclined towards change the Army will become.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees on The Superficial, that The History Channel has decided not to air their 8 part miniseries on Jack and Jackie Kennedy. Apparently the miniseries wasn’t up to the rigorous standards of The History Channel.

What? Not up to their standards?

This is the same History Channel that runs all those great shows like “Ancient Aliens,” “Nostradamus Effect,” and “UFO Hunters”? Because you know there is all sorts of legitimate historical evidence of aliens/UFO’s…

Great jeezey chreezey… What is going on in the world?

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader doesn’t find himself in agreement with E.J. Dionne regularly. Indeed, it is, at the very best, a once in a blue moon type of thing. But E.J. writes a piece in the Washington Post today with which your Maximum Leader completely agrees. Like E.J. enjoins us to do, “Don’t Spin the Civil War.” The money quote:

After the war, in one of the great efforts of spin control in our history, both [Confederate President Jefferson] Davis and [Confederate Vice President Alexander H.] Stephens, despite their own words, insisted that the war was not about slavery after all but about state sovereignty. By then, of course, slavery was “a dead and discredited institution,” [noted Civil War historian James] McPherson wrote, and to “concede that the Confederacy had broken up the United States and launched a war that killed 620,000 Americans in a vain attempt to keep 4 million people in slavery would not confer honor on their lost cause.”

It is all about slavery. Lets not forget that.

Oh yeah, and about that whole Haley Barbour thing from last week (Clicky here to read more about Barbour’s “Citizens Councils” comments), your Maximum Leader thinks it will torpedo any chance of Barbour becoming President of the US any time soon. He may still have a fighting chance in the primaries; but your Maximum Leader thinks he could be done before he got started.

FYI - Some well-connected Republican party types your Maximum Leader knows have maintained that Barbour was going to be the dark horse candiate in the 2012 campaign. They cite Barbour’s access to big money and his success in fundraising as support for this belief. Your Maximum Leader still thinks that the Republican nominee will be Mitt Romney in 2012. If the economy stays crappy, and all signs point towards the economy staying crappy; then Romney can run on economic issues (his strength) and downplay the social-conservative creds needed to win primaries.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader hasn’t blogged much recently due to a chronic case of TV viewing. Of course when you have a new Panasonic Viera 54 inch Plasma TV you may want to spend your time watching it. If you want to know your Maximum Leader’s thoughts on his new TV here they come: this TV is awesome. Yup. This TV is completely awesome.

FYI… The first film he watched on his new TV, on BlueRay, in true 1080p HD was Zombieland.

Well my minions…

Your Maximum Leader has been completely infected by the bug again. The Venice bug. It has been in the forefront of his mind quite a bit over the past few weeks. He doesn’t recall if there was a particular trigger for the bug, but it is all-consuming.

For a city to which your Maximum Leader has never traveled Venice holds a strange manic fixation for him. He reads about Venice, he thinks about what he’ll do in Venice, he thinks about the future and past of Venice. This year he actually started worrying that when he finally does get to Venice that he’ll hate it or find something to dislike about it. But even those thoughts can’t keep him from thinking about visiting La Serenissima. He worries that Venice’s problems will ruin the image of the city he has in his mind.

Venice has so many problems and so few viable solutions to any of them. The first problem is, well, the water. As your Maximum Leader has highlighted on this blog many times (and he’ll do so again now), the acqua alta (or high water) is affecting the city more and more frequently and is getting higher and higher with each passing year. The high water yesterday was reportedly over a meter deep in St. Mark’s square.

Another problem is the over-commericalization of Venice. People (Venitians and outsiders) think that the city is becoming “Veniceland” and ceasing to be a city. They contend that the 20 million tourists that flood the city by day in the warm weather months are driving out reasonably priced apartments, grocers, and many of the people and businesses that make a city a city. The population of Venice has declined to between 50,000-60,000 (from a late 1950s popluation of nearly 130,000). Without some way of keeping prices down in the city more citizens will leave and eventually Venice could become a tourist city with the workers coming in by train or boat from their homes on terra firma and leaving after the tourists in the evening.

In the over-commericalization vein, the costs of keeping up the city continue to skyrocket. Many people are complaining about how the city is auctioning off advertising space on scaffolding around historic buildings in Venice (including this ghastly ad for Coke - a product your Maximum Leader completely endorses - on the side of the Doge’s Palace). Sadly, your Maximum Leader isn’t sure that there are many other choices for preserving the city. With a dwindling tax-base you have to sell the assests you can to raise money to preserve the landmarks that draw in the tourists. The mayor of Venice, Giorgio Orsoni, earlier this year proposed a tax on tourists. The proposal was that every tourist who enters the city, but does not spend the night in the city, should pay a 10 Euro tax. The city would then spend the tax on keeping up the city buildings and services. Frankly, your Maximum Leader is all for this proposal. 10 Euros a person and 20 million tourists. Let’s say that 2 million of those tourists spend the night (which seems a little high, but he’s going with it anyway) that is still 180 million Euros in revenue gained. That seems like a reasonable visitation tax with a worthwhile purpose.

But even with all the talk of overcommericalization, sinking and crowds of tourists, your Maximum Leader feels the city is pulling at his soul. The city calls him to visit. He hopes that his visit will be like the one he recently read about on-line in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (although the piece is orginally from the New York Times - your Maximum Leader doesn’t read the NY Times as a matter of policy, unless he is in New York City). In the piece Rachel Donadio relates her first visit to Venice in many years. It is a great travel piece that your Maximum Leader will commend to you. Here is a taste:

I HADN’T been back to Venice in years when I found myself there on assignment. It was November; the city’s scattered trees had begun to turn brown. The light, as always, was beyond compare and there was a watery chill in the air. I loved it immediately.

Or rather, I remembered how much I loved it. Italy can do strange things to your perspective. Memories of a place become more real than the place itself. I had lived for years with the Venice of my recollections — traveling there at 19, drinking peach iced tea in the July heat, discovering Giorgione — and then last November I was back. I was older, so was Venice.

The visit whetted my appetite, and not long afterward I returned one freezing January weekend, armed with several sweaters, boots and a well-worn copy of “Watermark,” Joseph Brodsky’s marvelous prose poem about Venice in winter, which would be my guide. It is an emotional guidebook more than a practical one, but, I would argue, just as reliable. In Venice, maps fail. As everyone knows, to be in that floating city is to be forever lost and disoriented, as if in a labyrinth.

On that November foray, I had listened to a group of American college students talking as they wandered around near the Rialto Bridge. “I don’t mind if we’re, like, lost all day,” one told his friends. “Dude,” another replied, “I don’t think we have a choice.”

Goethe could not have put it better. Venice, as he famously wrote, can be compared only to itself. So many wonderful writers have captured Venice, from Goethe to Henry James to Evelyn Waugh, that it is all the more remarkable that in 1992 Brodsky, in “Watermark,” managed to create a truly original piece of writing about this cliché-worn city.

Your Maximum Leader read “Watermark” last Christmas. It is one of the most lyrical short books he’s ever read. Brodsky could really turn a phrase and capture a moment in poetic prose. If you can, pick up a copy and read it. It will take you a short afternoon (or a long one if you savor the words).

Anyhoo… Venice is on your Maximum Leader’s mind.

You know what other Italian thing is on your Maximum Leader’s mind? No? Well let him tell you. Mara Carfagna. Yes, the beautiful and talented Minister for Equal Opportunity in the Berlusconi government. Your Maximum Leader has read over the past year that Minister Carfagna had gotten a lot of press for trying to outlaw street prostitution and provide more protection for homosexuals and victims of rape. Right around Thanksgiving in the US your Maximum Leader read that Mara Carfagna (Bella Mara as the Italian papers seem to call her) was going to resign from her position. Your Maximum Leader had read about the ongoing garbage collector strike in Naples and the growing mountains of refuse in the city; but now that crisis had real impact to him. Carfagna was going to resign over the government’s inability to resolve that situation. Your Maximum Leader was going to lament that the world’s most beautiful government minister was going to resign over garbage. Apparently, and luckily for all involved, Carfagna and Berlusconi must have worked something out because she is going to stay on (for a while at least). If you would like a little news analysis on Mara Carfagna here is a nice piece in Spiegel International called: Neither Saints Nor Whores.

Well, that is about all the Italian stuff brewing around in your Maximum Leader’s brain right now. He’ll leave the blog now and check out some college football. Today he’s rooting for the USC Gamecocks to put the smackdown on Auburn (mainly because he wants to see TCU try for the National Championship) and the Virginia Tech Hokies in the ACC championship.

Carry on.