7.28.2007 | Say Yes to a Full Pint

Sometimes you just gotta stand up and be counted. Seems like Nanny Britain has gone too far, by having a beer regulation but then not enforcing the requirement that when you buy a pint at your local pub, you'll actually get a bleedin' pint.

One may ask, what business is it of the government of a formerly powerful nation to worry about the measure of ale or bitters at a licensed establishment? Good question. Correct answer: it's exactly because Britain is toothless and has exchanged its manhood for dhimmitude that they get involved in nonsense like regulating, to a fare-thee-well, things like beer.

Evidence? You think the recent surrender to the Iranians was a fluke? Or the incessant worry that one of the poor royal princes might get shot at? Used to be, English monarchs were in front of the troops in the field, not whoring it up back home (can you tell I'm a republican Republican?). Good thing the Argentines don't ask for a rematch over the Falklands; they'd kick John Bull's ass all the way back to England.

Anyway, there's a group that isn't going to take this affront to British liberty (this is now a contradiction in terms, it seems...) lying down: "Say Yes to a Full Pint." There's also the related "Campaign for Real Ale." Oi, I'm in favor of real ale. But, how, exactly, has this become any kind of a problem?

As a side note, please understand two things: a) I love my British cousins, and, b) Brits generally drink much, much better beer than us Americans. I mean, Bud Lite? Natty Bo? Gah. But we don't need to have the insane regulations that permeate British life. If an establishment shorts me on a beer once, I'll mention it. If it happens the second time, there are lots of other places to get beer.

Perhaps for England, its the proximity to Ireland, which, as we all know, taught the English everything they need to know about brewing good beer and drinking it. Too bad the English are slow learners, and don't establish a free republic like the Irish.

| Obligatory Harry Potter Post

First, straight off, this: J.K. Rowling's latest book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is nothing short of brilliant. Yes, I suffer from having swallowed, practically whole, all six of its predecessors. In short, I've been suffering from Adult Onset Pottermania since the first book came out in June, 1997.

First, the obvious: this is a spoiler-free zone. Second, a complaint: why do some critics complain that the Potter series is suitable only for retarded children? Well, perhaps not quite so bad, but consider a sampling of what the uber-snob Harold Bloom had to say:

I have just concluded the 300 pages of the first book in the series, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," purportedly the best of the lot. Though the book is not well written, that is not in itself a crucial liability. It is much better to see the movie, "The Wizard of Oz," than to read the book upon which it was based, but even the book possessed an authentic imaginative vision. "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" does not...How to read "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone"? Why, very quickly, to begin with, perhaps also to make an end. Why read it? Presumably, if you cannot be persuaded to read anything better, Rowling will have to do.

I might have some choice words for Bloom; I knew snarky kids like him growing up in the Bronx. They mostly came from upwardly-mobile households and had been trained, early on, to look down on anyone who's father earned his living with his hands (as mine did).

Bloom, and perhaps most others who advise us from the academy, in stentorian tones, to not read children's books if we're able to read "literature," have, to be gentle, lost touch with the magic. Magic, not of the literal sort of the Wizards and Muggles world of Harry Potter, but of serving the very best purpose of a book: engaging the reader, getting him to enter a world beyond the limits of his daily grind.

J.K. Rowling has done that famously. My only request of her is that she continue to write. I. Want. More.

7.17.2007 | Football

Interesting piece at NRO by Geoffrey Norman today about the latest British invasion: Beckham, David, one each, plays what the euros call "football." Which we call "boring."

Ever since I raised my kids and took my son to play baseball, soccer was going to the The Next Big Thing. We were all touted on the virtues of soccer: the rest of the world's favorite sport, after all. How could we resist? Resistance is futile, we will be assimilated...

Never happened. Pele, the (apparently) great soccer dude from Brazil, came to the States. Who the hell is Pele? Could he block and tackle? Didn't think so. Who's playing the Monday Night Football game?

Likewise with Beckham. It won't make any difference how great a soccer star he is. It's still soccer. In baseball, we've got action punctuated by stillness (pitcher's windup, for example) that only accentuates the drama. In soccer, it's a bunch of wiry guys running around a grassy field.

Rather watch paint drying. Without a rooting interest, or a need to beat up anyone who doesn't root for your hometown team, why on earth would anyone watch soccer?

7.16.2007 | Nanny on the rampage

This kind of makes me nervous. Nothing that Mitt Romney says is objectionable, precisely. Yet taken as a whole, I get the distinct whiff of goody two-shoeness. Yes, not an actual word, but it's a feeling of having some overbearing nanny peering over your shoulder while you live your life.

Pornography, sex and violence on the tube and silver screen, vile "music" such as rap and hip-hop. the list of depravity to which we are exposed is virtually endless.

Then there's that "war on drugs," which has worked well to enrich the distributors of coke and other products whose impact on health seem far less than tobacco or alcohol.

As for enforcing any kind of public morality, let's make this crystal clear: this is not something our government should be about. Morality is best handled at the local level; the extreme local level: the individual. The sources for right behavior? The Bible is a great place to start.

Any time a public person such as Romney starts to fulminate about morality, watch out -- nanny is on the rampage. It's not just Romney, although as a Mormon he's well-situated to preach about living a clean life. It's just that I'd feel so much better about Romney if I didn't get the creeps whenever I'd go to a Mormon town out west, and see all the jack Mormons drinking, whoring, and, generally, acting just like the rest of us: but maintaining that oh-so-pure façade.

Let me be clear: Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, and many other denominations do very much the same thing. That's because we are all human, and, therefore, sin.

All I ask is that government not get involved in our private lives. Period.

7.14.2007 | NIMBY

Ah, the bloviating of insincere politicos. Pictured is one of the worst of the worst, the ultra-liberal Jim Moran (D-VA). Moran represents, among other places in deep blue Northern Virginia, Old Town Alexandria.

What is Moran doing in the picture? Doing what he does best: bloviating, this time against anything that furthers a lefty cause. In this case, the lefty cause is to have a pristine environment while still being able to drop by one of the ten thousand or so Starbucks in Old Town and order a double mocha fat free latte. And sip it in air-conditioned comfort whilst cruising the internet on free WiFi provided by public tax dollars.

Can you smell the hypocrisy? Hmm, almost as delicious as the aromas wafting from those Starbucks outlets. The focus of Moran's ginned-up ire is the Mirant power plant, which has become a crusade for the City of Alexandria (unofficial city motto: we can waste your tax dollars better than anyone else).

In a recent issue of The Weekly Standard, Jonathan Last has a brief essay on the battle royal being fought by the hypocrites to root out the power plant. After all, it uses coal (gasp!) and thereby pollutes what should be a perfect little community.

Mr. Last provides a brief overview of the lawsuits that the city has engaged in; losing all of them, because of simple common sense: the power plant was there a long time before Alexandria became an egotistical enclave of affluent hypocrites.

One thing I recall from the time I lived in Alexandria was that some residents of the high-rise condominium built right next to the plant would complain about how dirty the air was. Which one might sympathize with, except for one inconvenient fact: the plant was there when the condo was first built. It takes a certain kind of an idiot to complain about something that should have been evident before they moved in.

But, then, the people who complain the loudest about alleged environmental problems do tend to not notice large facts -- even when they move in right next door to a coal-fired power plant.