Last June we talked about a Washington D.C. police initiative under which cops at at military-style checkpoints would stop drivers entering certain neighborhoods, demand to know their business, and expel them if they could not answer in a satisfactory manner. Via Howard Bashman, who is incidentally made of awesome, I see that the D.C. Circuit ruled today that this practice violates the Fourth Amendment.

Well, duh.

It cannot be gainsaid that citizens have a right to drive upon the public streets of the District of Columbia or any other city absent a constitutionally sound reason for limiting their access.

As near as I can figure out by reading the opinion, the District argued that because the cops weren't looking for particular criminal behavior, they didn't need particularized reasonable suspicion to stop cars. That sort of argument takes talent.

(Edit: As Eugene Volokh points out, since the context was an appeal of a preliminary injunction, the Court actually found that the practice was probably a violation, not that it actually was.)

Remember Ashton Lundeby? He's the young chap who was arrested in North Carolina and moved to federal custody in Indiana, leading to widespread bloggy supposition that he was being held without charges and counsel by our increasingly totalitarian overlords and would be made a secret nonperson under the fell provisions of the PATRIOT Act. People supposed this largely because that's what his mother said, and because actual familiarity with federal criminal procedure (particularly as it applies to proceedings against juveniles) is obscure and frankly dull. Even when facts emerged suggesting that what he was experiencing was not post-PATRIOT-Act tyranny but straightforward application of federal criminal procedure in the wake of bomb threat allegations, the internet's scribblers continued to mutter darkly.

Now the other shoe has dropped. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Indiana has announced Lundeby's indictment for making a bomb threat against Purdue University, and confirms that they were first required to proceed against him as a juvenile until they could secure a court order that he be tried as an adult. This explains, as I suggested earlier, why there were no public filings against him, as federal juvenile proceedings are sealed.

Via the terribly useful PACER, I see that his arraignment on the indictment is today. Thanks to PACER, here is the indictment. That indictment asserts that Lundeby, in the company of a dysfunctional gang of internet assholes, was enaged in "swatting," which is making false threats or emergency calls in an attempt to trigger a massive and chaotic police response, sometimes by SWAT teams. As we frequently document here in the course of documenting behavior by police, that's the sort of situation in which trigger fingers are itchy and people get shot. So if it's true, fuck Ashton Lundeby very much.

By the way, all of the federal statutes under which Lundeby is indicted existed before the PATRIOT Act and were not substantially altered in a manner material to this indictment by the PATRIOT Act.

On another note, thanks to Above the Law, I see that somebody in the public relations office at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois needs to exercise better email discipline.

What lessons can we take from Ashton Lundeby? Well:

1. If you want to know why a person was arrested, and how the arrest when down, that person's mother is not always the most reliable source.

2. As I have argued before, the media knows jack shit about the PATRIOT Act, and too many people accept assertions about its terms uncritically.

3. Read, and think, before you OMGWHF. It's good to be concerned about the PATRIOT Act and other federal power-grasping. It's bad to be knee-jerk ignorant about it. Our leaders passed it without knowing what was in it. We can do better than them.

Several people liked a word I coined. So I submitted a definition to Urban Dictionary.

Such is fame on the internet: meretricious, ostensibly exclusive but actually easily accessible, and doomed to eventually 404-error obscurity. Yet I like it.

Pitiful humans.  You probably thought you rule the world.

The colony may be the largest of its type ever known for any insect species, and could rival humans in the scale of its world domination.

What's more, people are unwittingly helping the mega-colony stick together.

If Japanese researchers are correct (and who would know better about vast alien menaces than the people who discovered Tyrannosaurus Gojiro in its unnatural habitat?), most of the ants in the world are part of a single, colossal mega-colony.  And it's still growing.

Despite the best efforts of government and multinational corporations to make the human species more ant-like, we'll never catch up.  The only solution is space travel.  And even that may not work.  According to the Japanese, we created this hive in the first place.

If we don't bring them with us, they'll surely follow.

(Via Tom Lawrence.)

In some cultures and some times, the family of a man of stature would be expected to pay compensation — possibly, though not necessarily, in the form of goats — if he sullied a woman from a good family. This tradition embodied the view that women (not to mention goats) are the property of men, and that damage to their value to men must be compensated.

There are still goats afoot. However, it seems that there are never enough around when you need them. Our brutal culture forces them into lives of crime or menial labor.

How fortunate, then, that our enlightened society has developed an alternative way to compensate a family when the scion of some noble house has soiled the reputation of a woman of gentle birth: his parents make tax-code-compliant gifts to the wronged woman, her husband, and her children.

Continue Reading »

This is not an original idea.  I believe it was proposed by one of the famous weirdo anarchists of the 70s or 80s, perhaps Robert Anton Wilson or Bob Black.  But as Wilson is dead, and Black has seen better days, I'll take up the call.

The United States Congress consists of two legislative bodies, the House of Representatives and the Senate.  What America needs is a third legislative chamber. Please allow me to explain:

It was the intent of the founders, as demonstrated through the Federalist papers and the writings of individual politicians, that the House would provide, in its republican way, a direct democratic voice for the people, where spending measures, taxes, and other "get it done now" legislation would originate.

The Senate, on the other hand, was intended to act as a brake on the House.  Senators originally were chosen by state legislatures rather than through direct popular election.  They were intended to be wise old men: former governors, experienced congressmen, old lions of the state legislatures.  That Senators were to take the long view, to restrain the foolish passions of the House, was demonstrated by their longer terms of office (six years as opposed to two), their responsibility for such longer term measures as treaty ratification and consent to federal appointments such as judicial nominations, and senatorial traditions such as the filibuster.

If all else failed, if a truly unwise or corrupt law got through both chambers, there were the additional checks of a Presidential veto and, after Marbury, judicial review.

It's obvious that this system has broken down.  Where once the Senate consisted of people like Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, and in living memory boasted members of the quality of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, people who actually took the long view,  today's Senators are almost uniformly mediocrities:  Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer, Joe Lieberman, John Ensign, Lisa Murkowski.  We just passed through a presidency in which the veto pen was lost for six years.  It looks to remain missing for another three.  The infrequency with which the Supreme Court strikes down any federal law that doesn't relate to abortion is remarkable.

What's more remarkable is that, while the House, Senate, and Presidency pass bills that none of them has read, the real laws that govern Americans' lives aren't even made by elected officials any longer.  Most federal law today is made by enforcement and regulatory agencies, whether it's the Internal Revenue Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Communications Commission, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or the Consumer Products Safety Commission.  Anyone who doesn't believe these agencies make the law has never been to tax court, or tried to broadcast amateur radio.

And in the meantime, laws pile up.  It's not that all laws are bad.  We're not base anarchists. It's that lawmaking no longer resides, if it ever did, with the people.  Conversely, the individuals who are responsible, under the Constitution, for passing these laws seem utterly ignorant of the law themselves.  The days when even an attorney could be described as "learned in the law" are long gone.  Today we have attorneys who specialize entirely in such arcane niches as regulatory permitting for power plants, or nursing home standards litigation, or Medicare fraud defense.  And the laws pile up.

Perhaps what America needs is an authority whose sole job is to get rid of outdated, ill-conceived, or just plain bad laws.  A few considerations:

1. This authority would not have law-making power.  Its only responsibility would be to repeal existing laws, whether enacted by Congress, by regulatory agencies, or by Presidential Executive Order.  It would have no authority to interpret the Constitution, or to repeal any part of the Constitution.  At the same time, repeals by this authority would not be subject to judicial review (except to the extent it exceeded its powers by interpreting or repealing the Constitution).  If federal laws pertaining to marijuana use, or military regulations on gays in the military are repealed, Justice Scalia will just have to suck it.
2. This authority would have to be responsive to the people. We already have appointed judges who serve for life to tell us that laws Americans actually like, such as the death penalty for child rapists, are unconstitutional.  It would have to be elected, and representative of the American people.
3. This authority's purpose would not be to save actual lawmakers from responsibility for their own foolish or unconstitutional enactments.  If Congress passes a law that says old children's books must be burned, or declares a misbegotten war, or wastes trillions to save badly run banks, automakers, and unions from their own incompetence, or creates a new boondoggle like the Department of Homeland Security, that's their responsibility, and they'll have to answer to voters.  Therefore, the new authority would have no power to repeal laws until the fifth, or perhaps tenth, anniversary of a law's enactment.  This would also guard against corruption, as special interests affected by a bad law would have no immediate recourse to seek its repeal, other than through courts.
4. This authority would have to be broadly based, yet not have too many members. I'd propose that it consist of multiple representatives, drawn on geographically contiguous districts much larger than congressional districts.  Perhaps it would have thirty members, and whereas runt states of low population, such as Montana and Wyoming and Idaho, might be lumped together, California might be chopped into four districts: LA-LAland, NoCal, SoCal, and Inland Empire.
5. Since it would take a constitutional amendment, or more likely convention, to create this body, which I'd call The Tribunate (in keeping with the Roman pretensions of the Founding Fathers) but others might wish to call the House of Abolition or the House of Repeal, I'd propose that any member elected to the body be made automatically, and constitutionally, ineligible for election to Congress, the Presidency, appointment to a federal court, or federal employment other than through this body.  This would prevent Presidents, Senators, Congressmen, Agency heads, or powerful lawyers and judges from promising future favors in return for a member's decision not to repeal a law.

Finally, such a body might be good for the American Civitas. It would encourage the American voter, more than ever, to think about his options in voting rather than to press "straight-ticket," and to consider third, fourth, and fifth parties.  Based on the past ten years, I'm sure many Americans would feel more comfortable in their votes knowing that even if they chose a Republicrat for Senate, they could choose a Democrican for Tribune, or the House of Repeal, or whatever its called.

If America is the land of second chances, perhaps it's time that many of our laws had a second chance at oblivion.  It's a modest proposal, but it's mine.

Update: Welcome Corner readers!  Many thanks to Iain Murray for the link.  And per Grandy, see Ken's earlier post, proposing a tiered system in which Americans must elect between citizenship as "Grownups," with full rights, freedoms, and powers of government and contract, but also full responsibilities, or as "adult infants," free to flout contracts and the like, but treated as children under the law.  Unfortunately, this also would likely require a constitutional convention.

In his op-ed on Monday, David Brooks revisited the father of our country and paid wistful attention to the mythic figure's concern for dignity.

When George Washington was a young man, he copied out a list of 110 “Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior…."   They were designed to improve inner morals by shaping the outward man. Washington took them very seriously….  In so doing, he turned himself into a new kind of hero. He wasn’t primarily a military hero or a political hero.

What kind of hero was Washington?  Brooks adopts the words of a historian:

[Washington] "was acclaimed as a classical hero because of the way he conducted himself during times of temptation. It was his moral character that set him off from other men."

To be a political or military hero, one need only win; to be a moral hero, one must seem worthy of the victory.  By 1796, largely thanks to the efforts of Thomas Jefferson, the French neo-classical sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon had captured this dignity in stone:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolflawlibrary/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Houdon, George Washington, Virginia State Capitol, 1796

Here the gentleman farmer and surveyor, the commander and citizen, stands erect with chin up and rests his left arm on a fasces, a symbol of the Roman republic.  Washington's sword-bearing hand now guides a cane.  His weapon, the sheathed sword of state, hangs opposite on the symbolic post.  One can well envision this Washington declining to become emperor, as the story goes, and choosing instead to step down after his second term for the sake of this nascent democracy.

The conventional wisdom about George Washington is that he was all three: a great general, a beloved statesman, and a prudent, self-governing man.  Nowadays, we still have victorious generals and accomplished politicians.  But dignity, the quality that demonstrates wise self-regulation, has vanished from the scene:

…the dignity code itself has been completely obliterated. The rules that guided Washington and generations of people after him are simply gone.

Brooks mentions a few politicians who have become all too familiar to us in ways George Washington never was.  He has a point; it is difficult to think of any figure in the public square who maintains that sort of dignity and commands that sort of respect.  To find a suitable analog, we have to turn to contemporary fiction.  Science fiction.  Interlarded with heavy doses of science fantasy.

We have to turn to Admiral Adama from Battlestar Galactica.  As the BattlestarWiki explains:

Adama has the rare combination of qualities that make up a good leader: insight, the ability to naturally command respect, a common touch that enables him to relate to the enlisted personnel under his command as well as his officers, intuition, intelligence, a strong belief in his own abilities, and the ability to take the advice of others. These qualities are reflected in the fact that personnel of all ranks aboard Galactica hold him in high regard….

Sure, Adama has his issues.  However, he keeps them in his quarters and always presents a dignified face to his people.  He believes that they deserve nothing less than a steady hand at the helm.  And sure, there are those in his fictional world who question Adama.  There are even some who rebel against him.  But most are fiercely loyal to him.  Even some sleeper agents planted in his crew by the enemy find his character so compelling that they choose to stand with him, come what may.  This loyalty attaches neither to Adama's military victories nor his political maneuvers, but to his virtue.  One close colleague explains the allegiance of Adama's people this way: "They're doing it for the old man!"

When it comes time to stir up dissent, Adama's insidious adversary, the community organizer Tom Zarek, compares Adama's return to that of a Greek god: "Zeus has returned to Olympus."  The comparison is cynical.  The gods are capricious, mad with power, and all too human; their dignity is a sham.  Of course, in the world of Battlestar Galactica, most humans believe in these gods.  The humans are hellenistic polytheists, while the robots and cyborgs are monotheists– an intriguing domain for thematic development in the series.  So when Zarek compares Adama to Zeus, neither man believes in Zeus but both understand that most of Adama's followers do.  Aiming to offend, Zarek implies that Adama is imperial rather than democratic, the de facto god of his people.

Here, the comparison between perceptions of the real George Washington and projections of the fictional William Adama becomes strained.  For it was quite reasonable to present the founding fathers of the United States by way of Roman republican iconography that reinforces our most cherished political values, representative government and the rule of law.  Right?  But no crackpot would ever, ever compare Washington to Zeus.  Certainly not in earnest.  Certainly not in the form of a gigantic, fantastically expensive, state-commissioned sculpture intended for display in the nation's most hallowed halls.  Right?  RIGHT?!

Not so:

The plot thickens, but I need a drink.  Let's continue in a separate post.

Based on visits to a number of federal courthouses I have long suspected that the people who run and man federal security are, to put it charitably, absolutely incompetent.  No, not just absolutely incompetent, but "Security at the federal courthouse in The Matrix incompetent":

My experience with the Federal Protective Security Service, here in the hinterlands outside Washington, is that its agents tend to fall into two categories:  Gomer Pyles and Barney Fifes.

The Gomer Pyles are incredibly inalert and lackadaisical, waving me through with a smile or continuing to read the paper because I'm obviously a lawyer.  They provide this level of attention to everyone else, including guys who look like extras from the cast of Deliverance, or StormGruppenFuehrers in the movie adaptation of The Turner Diaries.  (I live in the south.  In New Jersey, the Gomer Pyles would wave through guys who look like Paulie Walnuts.)

The Barney Fifes, on the other hand, are hyperalert and on the lookout for anything that could constitute A FEDERAL CRIMINAL OFFENSE! including suspiciously metallic cufflinks and belt buckles, which I must remove and screen even though I'm obviously a lawyer, and cellular telephones, which must be examined because the photos of my nieces and nephews stored therein could be evidence of a crime.  The Barney Fifes also provide this level of scrutiny to old ladies who look like Clara Peller or Aunt Esther. Or who wear silly t-shirts.

My kingdom for a happy medium, something as vigilant, yet commonsensical, as security at a medium-sized airport.

Anyway, returning to the topic of competence, I'd long suspected these people were incompetent.  And my suspicion was correct!

[T]he GAO's probe included such troubling findings as a report that 73 percent of FPS contract guards lacked valid [X-ray and metal detector] certifications and a report that one security guard allowed a baby to pass through an X-ray machine — breaches in security he said make the country vulnerable to terrorist attack.  Lieberman said the guard, who was later fired, filed a lawsuit and won after FPS could not provide sufficient proof that he had been properly trained.  The GAO report found that a vast majority of security guards received no X-ray or metal detection training at all.

And they get no training in anything else.  Federal security employees, Senators such as Joe Lieberman are shocked! Shocked! SHOCKED!!! to find, are all but picked off welfare lines, given a gun and a badge, and told to look busy in case Jesus comes.  Or Joe Lieberman, as the case may be.

And it's an old problem, older than you might think.  While the annoyance of entering a federal building has only increased since 2001, the massive federal security apparatus, told to look busy but not trained in how to be busy, dates back to the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building attack by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols.

Fifteen years later, it's still easy to waltz through a federal building carrying explosives. But your cell phone will be impounded.  Why it's almost as though Congress, and the bureaucrats who serve them, cared more about the appearance of safety in federal buildings than the reality.  As though they were trying desperately to look busy.

In case Jesus comes.

At least that's Kimberly Block's interpretation.

The Squeeze Inn, known for huge mounds of melted cheese on its burgers, violates the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, [a] lawsuit alleges.

Kimberly Block, who says she has severly [sic] limited use of her legs, argues she suffered "embarrassment and humiliation" and that her civil rights were violated because of inadequate access inside the Fruitridge Road restaurant.

In addition to its cheeseburgers, the Squeeze Inn of Sacramento California is also noted for its cramped spaces and limited seating.  Get it?  "Squeeze in."  The restaurant is famous, having been featured on Food Network and in a number of other media.

The charm is evidently lost on Kimberly Block, who is suing the Squeeze Inn and its owner, Travis Hausauer, for alleged violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act, a well-intended law that has produced an unusually high litigation burden for small restaurants and businesses.  But one wonders whether Ms. Block visited the Squeeze Inn last November to order one of its famous cheeseburgers, or to just to get a settlement check, hold the onions.

Why?  Well according to a search on Justia, this isn't the first time Ms. Block has suffered embarrassment and humiliation so severe she felt compelled to sue a restaurant.  It's the third time this year. While Ms. Block hasn't yet filed enough suits to place her in the company of famous serial ADA litigants like Thomas Mundy, her lawyer Jason Singleton, like Mundy's lawyers at Morse Mehrban, has made an industry out of the act. No doubt Block will get there in time.

Of course if Block's suit is litigated rather than settled or defaulted, there's room for a defense attorney to move here.  According to its owner, Squeeze Inn had already altered its patio dining area to accommodate the disabled, making the outdoor area less "squeezy."  Did Block ask for a patio seat?  Did she order to go?

According to Block's suit, she's a longtime resident of Sacramento who routinely travels into the restaurant's neighborhood for business and pleasure.  So the question arises: what did Kimberly Block know about Squeeze Inn, and when did she know it?  Hadn't she heard of the diner famous for its packed seating and cramped aisles before she visited?

Or did she visit the restaurant not for a cheeseburger, but for the express purpose of suing it?

Unfortunately those questions may have to remain between Ms. Block and her consience, rather than a jury.  The owner says he can't afford the renovations Ms. Block demands (renovations which would, not coincidentally, remove much of the Inn's weird appeal), and insurance typically doesn't cover or defend ADA suits, for which defense costs are high.

So while cheeseburger fans and lovers of whatever funky local character remains in Sacramento may be out of luck, their loss will be Jason Singleton's gain.  They'll always have McDonalds.

Update: See comments for more on Jason Singleton, and see this profile of the attorney from 2001.

Following up on an earlier post by Ken, we present more notes on the strange creatures we call "humans."

1. One might think that the memoirs of highly educated strippers, discussing their careers, methods, and insights into the psychology of the aroused men who throw money at them would be informative, or at least sexy and titillating.  One might be wrong.
2. We've written previously about Television Tropes, but for some reason it is still not the most popular site on the web among people between the ages of 25 and 45 who watch television, meaning the entire internet.  It should be.  If you've ever wanted to know why it is entirely logical that time travelers can defeat the star-spanning Dalek Empire to avert a cataclysmic future, but cannot kill an infant boy named Adolf who is defended only by an old Austrian drunk and a woman who suffers tuberculosis, TV Tropes explains.
3. From high to low, the Police Blotter of the Flathead Beacon, Flathead County Montana, dissects the annals of crime in a place so sparsely populated that criminals have to walk ten miles, uphill in the snow, to find others against whom to commit their offenses.  Dry, humorous, and recommended.
4. Is nuclear beer in our future?  One might think so from watching this ad for Taedonggang, North Korea's flagship premium lager, so expensive that only foreigners and people named "Kim" can afford it.  A North Korean news story on the beer (Taedonggang is the only product advertised on North Korean television) is striking as it depicts the beautiful freeways surrounding Pyongyang, the most peaceful highways in the world, unsullied by traffic because no one owns a car.
5. Packratt (not his real name) in Seattle had a very bad experience with the police.  Fortunately the web provides a novel form of revenge.  He compiles and disseminates data about crimes and misconduct committed by police officers.  In meticulous, exhausting detail.  Visit the news feed at Injustice Everywhere, and be horrified.
6. The Vatican Library has made its secret archives available online.  As any seeker of hidden knowledge would expect, there is a catch.
7. Eye of the beholder?  Russian artists Vitaly Komar and Alex Melamid took a worldwide poll as to what people find appealing in art, and created the results.  The answer?  Everyone, except for the Dutch, likes studies of solitary trees standing on a lonely northern beach. Everyone, except for the Dutch, hates abstraction.

What's wrong with the Dutch?

Terrifying image from an email the building just sent around warning us of traffic disruptions tomorrow from a certain memorial service:

Godzilla and Mothra have fuck-all on that. Aieeee!

It has recently come to my attention that I can't read.

Well, more specifically, I can't read political commentary the way it is intended.

Look, you wouldn't go to an opera and ask "Why the hell are you singing that instead of just saying it? And you've sung that line six times during this chorus. Why not sing it once?" You wouldn't read a haiku and draft an angry letter to the poet saying "You didn't finish. WHAT HAPPENS TO THE ORANGE BLOSSOMS NEXT!?!?!?????" You wouldn't watch Twelfth Night and grumble that it's totally implausible and that nobody would think Viola is a man even dressed that way. Nobody complains that Shirley Bassey doesn't divulge the entire plot to Goldfinger in the song of that name. That's because we've been raised and trained to suspend disbelief, appreciate the limitations of form and structure, and not impose our expectations about one art form on another.

I think that so much modern political commentary gets on our nerves because we're appreciating it the wrong way. We're looking for analysis and genuine insight. What we're getting is mostly preaching to the choir, opinion porn, and spittle-flecked rants. Hence political wonks spend a vast amount of time dismantling ridiculous opinion pieces, usually ones on the opposite side of the political spectrum. Take commentary about Governor Palin's resignation, for instance. You've got Maureen Dowd being Maureen Dowd, only more so:

As Alaskans settled in to enjoy holiday salmon bakes and the post-solstice thaw, their governor had a solipsistic meltdown so strange it made Sparky Sanford look like a model of stability.

On the shore of Lake Lucille, with wild fowl honking and the First Dude smiling, with Piper in the foreground and their Piper Cub in the background, the woman who took the Republican Party by storm only 10 months ago gave an incoherent, breathless and prickly stream of consciousness to a small group in her Wasilla yard. Gobsmacked Alaska politicians, Republican big shots, the national press, her brother, the D.C. lawyer who helped create her political action committee and yes, even Fox News, played catch-up.

Isn't that far less irritating (which it is, whether or not you like Sarah Palin) if you see it as poetic self-indulgence and abandon the attempt to criticize it as serious analysis? Andrew Breitbart, naturally, takes it seriously and very angrily, and responds with artistically comparable bold brushstrokes of overgeneralization:

Primarily motivated by a desire to keep abortion "safe, legal and rare," female liberals in the media have carte blanche to do and say anything.

But since Mrs. Palin, a mother of five including a boy who was known to have Down syndrome before he was born, is a potent symbol of the pro-life movement, she is considered an enemy of the sisterhood.

Read either of those seriously, and you'll be pounding your keyboard and screaming "CITE? CITE? MOTHERFUCKER, WHAT'S THE CITE FOR THAT?" But once you read Dowd and Breitbart not as commentators but as poets or lyricists, your blood pressure will improve. It's better for you, and it's fairer to these simple artisans.

Having said that, I'm sure I'll be methodically fisking someone else's silly column before the end of the week. I don't know if it's art, but I know that I hate it.

The blog TYWKIWDBI — reliable source of the amusing, intriguing, and odd — just posted some screencaps and musings about one of my top five favorite movies, The Lion in Winter. TYWKIWDBI argues reasonably that such a dialogue-driven movie contrasts sharply with our modern tastes. This is true, and I think that it's not just dialogue versus special effects, but also pacing. I love the flick, and the banter is sharp as a knife, but the pacing is much more sedate than most modern movies. That's a director's choice, involving not just the raw material of the play but the music, scene transitions, and cinematography. It's not something you can watch after a big dinner, or you'll be drooling into the couch cushions. But 41 years later, though, it's still a marvel. And what a cast! Peter O'Toole, Katherine Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Dalton (looking eerily ageless), and Nigel Terry are all terrific. Netflix it, if somehow you've never seen it.

About half our comment spam is premised on the notion that one of us — either me or you, Gentle Reader — is both impotent and hung like a gnat, and desirous of changing those circumstances through pharmaceuticals purchased over the internet from people pathologically incapable of spelling.

Increasingly, the other half of our spam is framed as praise of our writing: "Well said, good point!" "I am subscribing to your RSS feed!" "This is very well put!" "Great blog", and so on, with the putative comment author's link serving the marketing function. This half of our spam presumes that I am a narcissistic dolt.

I think I'm substantially more offended by the second group. But then, I am turning 40.

This morning, while wearing my figurative deacon hat, I was privileged to assist with administering communion. I held the wine while one of my favorite pastors held the bread, and we intoned "this is the body of Christ, broken for you," and "this is the blood of Christ, shed for you", respectively. It's a powerful experience for a believer.

However, I am what I am. Therefore I could not help but notice in some small part of my mind that the diversity of the faithful extends to their approach to communion. Some take such a tiny pinch of bread that they can't dip it in the wine without getting their fingers wet. Of these, some are oblivious; other walk away visibly pondering the correct remedy. Suck you fingers? Wipe your hands on your shirt? Ignore it? On the other hand, some congregants tear off such a hunk of bread that it appears they are about to mop up an unusually saucy bowl of penne al'arrabiata, and walk off, cheeks bulging, nearly staggering with the effort. This was the 8:00 service, attended mostly by our senior members, who have been taking communion for more than a half-century. I would expect them to have gotten the hang of this by now. Yet if I were to plot it on a graph, with rip-off-half-a-baguette on one end and take-a-crumb on the other, it would be a nearly flat line, not a bell curve.

We're an odd bunch, all of us, but beloved nonetheless.