AdamSmith

He has been, for him, bulking up lately. That shirtless shoot the other day -- woof!

My beautiful Origen...it is your own choice.

Echoing everyone's hearty congrats -- EXPAT, well earned! And carried off with that highest of Renaissance virtues -- facilita! (Making it look effortless. )

Long as we're piling on... TY knows he has my gratitude for -- like 9 years now? -- an email (and posting) friendship offering me support, advice, commiseration (e.g., of Boston's anemic escort scene -- right up til when I left town!), understanding. Beatification having begun, his canonization will shortly ensue.

Inclined to agree with Dersh on this one... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/alan-dershowitz/john-edwards-verdict_b_1560698.html

Seconding that! ...better even, if possible, than V's deathbed crack as the oil lamp momentarily flared up: "What, flames already?"

Unfortunate. Also suggests what ought to be a BBC serial, sort of Rumpole meets Yes, Minister: But, Solicitors...

Not even a credit swap derivative word. What in thunderation? Could this trend be some sneaking exercise in politically correct guilt assuagement? Just what cabal cooks up this list? I must inquire of my agent about the market potential for a spelling-bee variant of da Vinci Code. Something sinister is afoot, and on a large scale, as Lovecraft observed. In sum: Who has absquatulated with our spelling bee?

Could it be your brain (and other regions) NOT craving something that you SHOULD? Sometimes I find myself imagining you as a 3rd- or 4th-century Christian mystic bent on denying that (large portions of) the world really exist(s). See: Origen.

Heartrending. From The Independent... 'Hello mum, this is going to be hard for you to read ...' At 19, Rifleman Cyrus Thatcher was one of the youngest victims of the Afghan war. These letters – given to The Independent by his family – reveal the excitement of a teenager sent to fulfil his dream, and his maturity in confronting the possibility that he might not make it home In the spring of this year, the 2nd Battalion, The Rifles deployed to Afghanistan. Halfway through the battalion's tour, it has lost nine soldiers, with dozens injured. Of those to have given their lives, four were teenagers. Here Rifleman Cyrus Thatcher, who was 19 when he was killed by an explosion near Gereshk seven weeks ago, tells his own story, through letters home and the last letter he left behind to bid farewell to his family – his mother Helena, father Robin and brothers Zac, 21, and Steely, 17. Following are the words of a proud soldier described by his officers as possessing "a rucksack full of potential", and by his friends as a rascal always cracking jokes and helping to keep morale high. Most of all, they are the words of a young son to his mum, dad and brothers. 27 April 2009 Hello Mum I've just got your bluey [letter] (the 1st one) yea you are right it does get fucking hot, I can't work out wether I'm tanned or just burnt to fuck!! I've spoke to you on the phone so you no what I've been doing. I'm well proud of you loosing all that weight. Suppose you've got a pretty good insentive. We'v had the same shit maybe a month now. Everyday a Monday out here. You kind of loose track of days. I cant quite work out if its going fast or slow. This pen is shit its doing my head in!! Iv been thinking of loads of things and places to do, go and see. Me and Elliott are gonna go to Amsterdam after this. THINK WE MAY HAVE DESERVED IT!! It should be a good day (November 5th) [their homecoming parade]. On the 6th we can go Belfast Iv'e got loads of sad things I wanna buy ie Sky+ Big TV. Get the old man to help me rearange my room and help me fix my shelves. Im not the DIY type normally resort to celler tape or blue tack. HA HA HA. Hope everyones safe at home. Complete detox out here – water no drink. So my dance moves might involve a bit of stumbling when I return! Im coming home 2 weeks earlier now so that's kinda good, it might be worth Zac picking me up give me a bit of chill out time so I don't try stab a gobby civvi plus he's a good listener, sumtimes I wonder if he's listening or thinking of sumthing completely irrelivant. Well pass this round the family so they can all admire my extream spelling (infantry eh!). Lots of love to all the nearest and dearest. Love Ya!! Xxxx ...continued at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hello-mum-this-is-going-to-be-hard-for-you-to-read-1753008.html

Calvin Coolidge could not have said it better.

These things are far from excluding each other. Just -- first things first!

Because it is not (yet!) practical to get much of a lap dance from your laptop. Never mind convincing it to come up and see your etchings.

The road of excess leads indeed to the palace of wisdom. But turns out the mortgage on that joint is pretty steep. Which is what Blake was saying in the first place, I at last realize.

Is that a good thing? Remember A Clockwork Orange.

Actually I love NC, this here Devil's Tramping Ground (pardon the synecdoche), beyond saying. Just that making fun of it is shooting fish in a barrel. And the reverse synecdoche too, of course: It is I.

Love it! If you can fix the Old North State, then the Hopeless Continent should be a snap.

Glad you saw fit to put "real" and "world" in quotation marks. Always relative concepts. As for Yankee, my 30 years in Boston might qualify me, if only just. But you know New Englanders are rightly stiff-necked about New Yorkers and New Jerseyites NOT hmmph! being Yankees. (The ball team notwithstanding.) NY/NJ denizens are in turn of course only too glad to reciprocate the disdain of their snobby provincial neighbors to the north.

I did take that vote personally. For the record, I registered in time to vote. But evidently I did not cast enough ballots. In seriousness, the education effort by the side against was pathetic.

Put it this way: The very Oedipus of reason crumbles beneath us. ...okay, Electra. But I will not stoop to Buick puns.

I'm with FourAces, Suckrates and RA1 in that a little Davey goes quite a long Wavy.

Was I allowed to compliment your shoes? I have seen (one pair of) the original Ruby Slippers at the tourist-trap Land of Oz at Beech Mountain, NC.

Please don't. The outcome could be embarrassing. ...This might be the place to disclose a state secret: Earlier this year I vacated NYC and moved back to NC. Envision Sylvester with his head vibrating from being gonged between two garbage-can lids.

Agree. The comparison goes a little far, but not altogether amiss to recall what Frederick Douglass said posthumously of Lincoln: "...Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent; but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined." http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=39

With Google as my guide, the Web seems to abound with references to such. This site particularly tickled me. Citing in part... ...Sexual freedom seems accepted in these towns. Just about every sexual arrangement one can imagine appears in graffiti. Here is an example of apparently homosexual references from the Suburban Baths in Herculaneum: Picture (Deiss 146) Apelles cubicularius Caesar(is) cum Dextro pranderunt hic iucundissime et futuere simul. "Apelles, chamberlain of the emperor, and Dexter had lunch here most pleasantly and fucked at the same time." (CIL IV #10677 from Fagan, 35) Prostitution was common... and recommendations were made: "If anyone sits down here, let him read this announcement first of all- if he wants to have a girl, look for Attice, charge 16 coppers, a high-class girl." (Lindsay, 242) This mention of prostitution from the Suburban Baths in Herculaneum describes a night out on the town: Duo sodales hic fuerunt et, cum diu malum ministrum in omnia haberent nomine Epaphroditum, vix tarde eum foras exigerunt. Consumpserunt persuavissime cum futuere HS CVS. "Two companions were here and, since they had a thoroughly terrible attendant called Epaphroditus, threw him out onto the street not a moment too soon. They then spent 105 1/2 sesterces most agreeably while they fucked." (CIL IV #10675 from Fagan, 324) And the women did not leave out their sexual advice: "If you’re a mere tot in size, stay on top, straight-backed and head up." (Lindsay, 242) "But no matter what, it’s right to let your hair down. And throw your head back. But if you sag and all that, face-down." (Lindsay, 242) And, these words of sex and love are mingled with the occasional and almost expected moralistic comment such as: "Ignore impure glances and do not give the glad-eye to someone else’s wife." (Brion, 135)... http://archaeology.uakron.edu/pompeii_site/Topics/graffiti/graffiti_frameset.html