All posts tagged: Random DJB Thoughts

The Chattering Class and President’s Day

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Regular readers know I don’t delve too often into politics.  There’s just so many more interesting things to write about (such as the Nats finally landing a good free-agent in Adam Dunn – more to come on that in the near future). But today’s Daily Kos had a posting by Markos that hits on an issue that I think deserves widespread reading:  the cluelessness of the Chattering Class.  Or perhaps that’s too charitable.  The issue may be that they are working to protect their own interests instead of seeking the truth. This was all too clear during the campaign debates.  The instant polls were terrific because they showed – in real time and all too clearly – how out of touch the cable TV political commentators were with what the rest of the country was thinking.  As Kos says today, In 2008, those snap polls made fools of the talking heads until the last debate, when they finally shut their traps and let the snap polls determine the winners. Because according to them in the previous …

Lilly is Our Best in Show Every Day

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We all jumped for joy this morning when we opened the Washington Post and saw that Stump, a 10-year-old Sussex Spaniel, won Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club show at Madison Square Garden last evening.  That’s because we have a 12-year-old Sussex Spaniel, Lilly, who we consider our Best in Show every day of the year. Lilly came to us after life as a show dog, having won all the competitions her breeder thought possible.  The weekend before Thanksgiving in 2000 we went to a dog show to begin to get an idea of what type of breed we may want.  Like President Obama, I had been promising Andrew and Claire that we’d get a dog once we found a permanent home in Washington.  As seven-year-olds, they were searching the Internet nightly for information, and Claire would often bring printouts with pictures and information about a certain breed’s “kid friendly virtues” to the dinner table. Sussex Spaniels were not on our radar screen, but as we stepped into the main building at the show …

How Does One Dress for a Swim Meet?

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It is the time of year for the big end of swim season meets, where every swim team in the Mid-Atlantic states (or maybe it just seems that way) comes together for a giant swim team mash up.   This meet began at 8 a.m. and is being held at George Mason University – which I call commuter hell.  The entire campus is ringed by parking lots the size of Rhode Island. Because there are so many teams, the warm-ups began on Thursday afternoon…or at least it seemed that way.  Claire’s team bus left school at 6 a.m.; Andrew had to be in the pool at 6:30 a.m.  Lilly and I were up at 4:45 to take care of Lilly’s business and to get this show on the road. Well, it is cold at 4:45 in February so you have to bundle up and dress accordingly.  But at 9:34 with a “Natatorium” full of enthused parents and high schoolers, the place is heating up.  Now I wish I had my summer swim meet outfit of t-shirt, shorts, and …

Food Groups of the Apocalypse

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Sometimes you read a line that makes you laugh out loud AND hits you in the gut at the same time.  Writing in today’s New York Times, columnist Frank Rich had one for me.  After recounting the recent job losses and drop in new-home sales, he writes: What are Americans still buying?  Big Macs, Campbell’s soup, Hershey’s chocolate, and Spam – the four food groups of the apocalypse. Great line, unfortunately. More to come… DJB

President Obama Mocks DC Residents’ Response to Winter

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The blog DCist has a great post today with a video of President Obama mocking the people of Washington about their response to the weather.  His girls couldn’t believe that school was closed today (which was true for Andrew and Claire’s schools, which are just down the street from Sidwell).  One of the girl’s said that in Chicago they would have gone out for recess in this weather. The DCist response is perfect: President Barack Obama basically called District residents a bunch of wusses when it comes to dealing with snow and ice. We’d be offended if he wasn’t, you know, totally, absolutely correct. Sad but true.  Watch the video…it is funny. More to come… DJB

My New Favorite Off-Season Sport

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I just realized that I have a new favorite sport for the off-season (i.e., the non-baseball months of the year).  Hockey.  Yes, hockey.  I’m choosing to watch hockey games on television instead of basketball (especially given that interminable season that is pro basketball). And I’m hooked thanks to the Washington Capitals and their superstar Alex Ovechkin, the Great Eight.  (Ovechkin wears #8 on his jersey.)  He’s a terrific talent – fast and strong with a wicked shot – and he has the teammates to support him. A friend of mine from New Orleans once said Southerners had learned to like hockey because it was the closest legalized sport to cock fighting.  A good line, but the fighting is not what I find intriguing about the sport.   I just watched a game between the top two teams in the Eastern Division of the NHL:  the Capitals and the Boston Bruins.  Although this is just after the All-Star break in the middle of the NHL season, these two teams played at a speed and skill level that was breath-taking.  Incredible …

More on the Inauguration

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In searching the Internet this morning, I found a post on the Daily Kos’ Street Prophets section on faith that discussed the difference between the prayers of Rick Warren and Joseph Lowery at Tuesday’s inauguration ceremony.  I recommend the entire post, but I loved the ending enough to add it here.  Pastor Dan writes, As a Facebook friend says, “Rev. Lowrey is to Rick Warren as Mavis Staples is to Britney Spears.” Yep, pretty much. That’s a great line…and very true.  If you don’t know Mavis Staples, listen to the following video.  And the images are a poignant reminder of why so many people were quoted yesterday as saying, “I never thought I’d see this in my lifetime.”  More to come… DJB

Views of the Inauguration

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January 20, 2009 was a great day to be an American.  It was also a wonderful day to be in Washington.  And although I’m writing this from Santa Monica, California – I didn’t leave Washington until we had a new president. Claire was on the mall with friends and she took several pictures of the inauguration – including the one at the top of the post.  She reports that it was very festive, and this picture captures that spirit. Because I had to fly to California later in the day, and Candice was coming back from a long weekend in Florida, Andrew and I opted to go to Politics and Prose – the wonderfully independent and progressive neighborhood bookstore – to watch the inauguration with like-minded friends and patrons.  It was great.  The staff provided free popcorn, the coffee shop was hopping turning out the hot chocolate and lattes, and everyone was in a very good mood.  Andrew had on his Obama ’08 cap and we enjoyed the view and the company.  There were three different …

Random Moments from a Holiday Weekend

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Random moments of grace from the first half of a special holiday weekend here in Washington… Having the time to read the New York Times slowly.  Many Saturdays I’m so busy with errands I zip through the Times and the Washington Post.  I’m glad I didn’t yesterday.  Gail Collins has a sense of humor that I love, and the start to her Saturday column had me laughing out loud. Right now you may be asking yourself: How am I going to celebrate Barack Obama’s inauguration? You may, of course, have something else on your mind entirely. Like what the chances are that the next time you get on a plane, geese could fly into both engines. Or what the heck geese are doing in New York in the middle of winter when their relatives who worked hard and played by the rules had all gone south months ago. Or you may just be wondering how that rescue in the Hudson River would have gone if it had been led off by the Department of Homeland …

Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr.

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The Edge of the American West is one of those nice finds on the Internet.  As we head into the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend, I found their post on Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr. (Again) to be worth sharing. In the post, the writer Ari focuses on a King speech entitled The Other America that Dr. King gave weeks before his death.  Ari writes: By this time in his life, though, King openly expressed sympathy for those who embraced other means, for those who would not turn the other cheek: But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the …