I read Douglas Coupland's The Gum Thief during the past week.

I found his writing fun, full of unexpected turns of phrase and fresh observations.

The epistolary structure of the novel was perfect for a blog reader.

There's an egg for Lucy tonight.

I've long thought there would have been no place for me in Lyman's life had he a daughter.

What birds choose to talk about.

While Charlie was confined to his cage he would often walk upside down from the top. That gave me an opportunity to play with his toes.

Now a new and often heard phrase here is "I got toes."

Another observation is that candidates sound an awful lot like parrots.

I watched most of the debate last night between Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama.

I have to wonder if Obama adopts that arrogant "teacher's pet" pose around Michelle Obama often. My guess is no. It makes me want to thump him.

Hillary looks good in turquoise jewelry. She carried her own smugness, too. She reminded me of Barbara Walters all evening. Did she watch tapes?

At the end of the evening, as Ms. Clinton began to rise, Mr. Obama pulled her chair away as a gentleman should. That will play well in the south. It does with me.

But I read a comment somewhere that the courtesy underscored her status as a woman and was effectively a putdown.

What's the matter with people? I'm all for handsome, elegant men working the chairs for me.

Happy anniversary, chere!

It's a special kind of face that looks like Magic Johnson, Manuel Noriega and Claudia Schiffer (67%). Must be all the right parts in the right places.

I do have an 83% match with Beyonce Knowles, and I'll take that anyday.

(Thanks, Jordana. Click anywhere on the panel to do your own.)

Radley Balko says that the mild growl against the Time headline (see below) is so much PC.

Let's try another major headline: "External auditors review La Raza finances: Spic and span."

UPDATE: Mr. Balko responds this way. Which is none.

Peg Britton emailed me yesterday evening to tell me she'd just seen Parrots in the Land of Oz on PBS.

So I checked the local Louisiana Public Broadcasting schedule. I woke at 2 a.m. this morning to catch the show. It will air again at 2 a.m. on February 3.

There was a segment on the Australian Eclectus, which is Lucy's close cousin. The show focused on one pair they'd been watching for some time. The female has seven of those handsome green boys servicing her, both sexually and bringing food to the nest during confinement. However, 19 of 24 chicks they've observed were offspring of the same mate.

What she might not know is that he attends four other females, too. Which might explain why he roams a territory of 40 square miles searching for food.

It would seem that Lucy's, ah, sexual proclivities are in order.

There were segments on budgerigars, galahs (finally heard that pronunciation), a few cockatoos (destructive to farm crops), cockatiels, some parrots who survive on the southern coast. The Palm cockatoo rated a long segment because it is the oldest parrot in Australia and uses a tool -- the male uses a stick to beat on the nest. Apparently the female can tell by the sound whether a nest might be worth looking into. Then he sometimes shreds the stick into the nest for nesting materials.

The show was worth an hour in the middle of the night. You might prefer to use a recorder. Thanks, Peg.

Likely true. Can't you hear the snickers in the background?

UPDATE: One of the problems with the headline was the ambiguity of "Obama's Rout." That could mean the rout by Obama or the rout of Obama.

I won't accept that the rarely used "rejiggers" was innocent. It cleverly combines the pejoratives "jig" and "nigger" to describe the result of a racially charged contest in which African-Americans played a large role.

As Mr. Van der Leun suggests, one of the editors was probably feeling his or her oats on Saturday evening. Or do the editors of Time not keep up with the news?

How funny!

Tony Woodlief would be proud of that boy.

Some months back, my brother's doctor revised his diagnosis from histoplasmosis to sarcoidosis. Not before he'd spent $1200 on antifungal medication.

My brother landed in the hospital again this weekend suffering from dehydration and anemia, after several days of fevers and sweats.

Another round now of CT scans and bone marrow tests, with the addition of a GI scope for ulcers -- caused, if they exist, by the prednisone used to treat the sarcoidosis.

Poor guy. He has never been ill before. Prior to all this he'd spent an overnight in the hospital with a broken arm when he was 12 years old. And he is a lousy patient. Big baby.

Gary Farber is upset that more people haven't linked to his posts on Andrew Olmsted.

I was told early by a neighbor to stay out of it. Not regarding Mr. Olmsted, but another mother's son and sister's brother who was at risk.

I need to tame this aloe -- to break it up into separate plants in separate pots. I don't know how to do that properly.

Today, I think I'll try this soup.

UPDATE: Ummm, that's good. Thanks, Chris.

I made a few changes. Since I don't have a slow cooker, I browned the sausage, onions and celery together, added everything else up to the beans, carrots and pasta, then simmered the soup for an hour or so.

Then I added a couple of cups of frozen baby limas beans rather than canned kidneys. After 10 minutes or so, I added the carrots and simmered until done. Then added the precooked pasta.

Lyman wants more carrots, as do I. But it's a keeper, too.

The ongoing search for a good fish taco recipe led to a trial of the recipes here.

Though they were nothing like the catfish tacos at Mainstream Fish House in Dallas, they were crunchy and tasty.

The coleslaw would be interesting as a side with other foods, too. We'll use the tartar sauce for salmon croquettes tomorrow.

Into the "keeper" file with these.

Let's go visit Mike the Tiger.

Hunh. Look at that.

But where is Mike? There he is, silly cat.

Good on Mr. Kucinich.

There are threads of suspicion about the New Hampshire results cropping up on even the most staid of blogs based on contrasts between hand-counted and machine-counted ballots.

If Mr. Kucinich is willing to pay the expense to put those results to test and suspicions to rest, he'll have done a great service during this election cycle.

Of note in the story, however, is Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlon's statement:

Scanlon said his office had received several phone calls since Tuesday, mostly from outside the state, questioning the results. New Hampshire's voting machines are not linked in any way, which Scanlon says reduce the likelihood of tampering with results on a statewide level. Also, the results can be checked against paper ballots.

"I think people from out of state don't completely understand how our process works and they compare it to the system that might exist in Florida or Ohio, where they have had serious problems," he said. "Perhaps the best thing that could happen for us is to have a recount to show the people that ... the votes that were cast on election day were accurately reflected in the results. And I have every confidence that will be the case."

At this hour last Wednesday it was about 31 degrees. Today it is 71.

I'm amused that so-called "progressives" insist that a rich Southern white boy is the only way to go.

Let's pit Michelle Obama against Chrissy at Kevin Drum's site:

Hillary did a lot in changing the perception of First Lady from pottted plant to one who reached out and traveled and promoted the rights of women and children especially. She worked hard on healthcare. (hardwork being a foreign concept to Obama) Her extreme grace under unceasing pressure and criticism from rabid haters on the right and in the press (like Matthews) was remarkable. Now she faces it from rabid unthinking mobs on the left. Ungrateful sob's.

Posted by: Chrissy on January 5, 2008 at 5:20 PM | PERMALINK

All the hoopla about the Iowa caucus, and I don't see one blogger mentioning Michelle Obama.

What a terrific asset to any campaign: south-side Chicago Princeton grad, Harvard law grad, mother of two girls, elegant dresser, and career woman in her own right.

Here she is in an article from Vanity Fair.

If John Edwards insists that he's closer to women, and Hillary insists that she's closer to blacks, Ms. Obama might go ballistic.

Ahem.

I've never had a single thing against Dick Clark. Far as I know, he put together a bunch of teeny-boppers I couldn't understand or follow as a little girl, then went on to another kind of fame.

Tonight, as I watched the ball drop in New York, the old gentleman appeared as though he'd been drug out of the box.

For that, the boomers have to account. It is a new millenium, after all.

We have a problem at home.

Charlie has remembered "Merry Christmas," but no amount of repetition can convince him to try "Happy New Year."

One reason is that the phrase has none of his favorite "k" or "hard c" sounds.

Here is an article about how to say "Happy New Year" in other languages.

Greek looks like a good one for him.

I like the Czech: "Stastny novy rok!"

::sigh::

How odd.

Lucy has another egg this morning.

I think I'll use the fried turkey left over from Monday night to make a variation of white bean chili.

We had a version at Ruby Tuesday's last week that was surprisingly tasty. They use navy beans. It had a good dab of cumin in it, but also something else that created an Indian underflavor. Coriander, maybe?

I've been a pretty good girl this year, so maybe you'll help me out.

What is the name of the song playing in this video found at Tim Blair's?

I haven't heard it in years and I like it.

Charlie is not cooperating this year, so here's a continuation from last year.

Merry Christmas, y'all!

I had a basket in my hand and was standing alone in the long, wide aisle between the frozen food cases when this song came over the speaker.

To be a dancer! It was the perfect time to hoof it up Gene Kelly-style.

Lucy has an egg this morning.

The drive home was pretty good, threatened only by a rain-front that we drove into on the edge of town. It was raining so hard that Lyman pulled off the road. There was no seeing ahead. Of course, plenty of cars bullied on, based on faith I suppose.

When we finally took the curve at Natchez Regional Hospital, we saw two ambulances taking off in that direction.

None of which is as bad as the snowy pile-up in Kansas. That was a nightmare.

I still have nothing for the boys' stockings. We weren't casually shopping at the coast. Unless they wanted a pack or two of #10 flathead bolts, we weren't in a place to buy.

Who is riding his crotch rocket up and down Perdido Beach Boulevard?

Ah, no one. That's the new refrigerator. That can't be right. We'll call GE when we get home.

Now that things are replaced and repaired (more or less) and tidy and clean, it's time for us to leave.

Our condo association is recommending that all owners replace their icemaker lines with braided steel ones to prevent water damage.

So we bought one. When the boy who delivered and installed the fridge turned on the water, the end popped off and the faucet sprayed him, the enclosure and the ceiling. Another trip to Home Depot.

We finally met our next door neighbor down here. We've talked and done business, but have never seen flesh.

This guy is so tall that he can reach up and bounce his fingers on an 8 foot ceiling.

He's from Michigan and married a Mobile girl. And he has dimples.

Into every life a little rain must fall ...

I decided to go with strap chair replacements on the balcony. These are from Dr. Strap in Florida. They look much better-built than the old chairs from Finkel Furniture, but we'll see how they do.

The old ones were placed here in 1984, but only saw hard use since 2001. Seven years isn't bad for the cost.

And they're comfortable.

Humpf. The refrigerator will come tomorrow morning.

We know they like this part.

Will they like the new stuff?

If everything tocks along as it's going, I'll consider this more than a successful trip. More like an early Christmas present.

The new refrigerator will be delivered tomorrow. It is about the same adequate model we have now, with no bells or whistles other than an icemaker. Maybe hurricanes will stay at bay (say Guantanamo), and this one will last a bit longer.

The new bedspread is in the house. I spent more on it than I like (not $3000), but it's in the right colors and fabric and it's HERE, which counts a lot for a non-shopper like me.

Overall inventory is good. Missing a soup spoon, which I'd guess had a ride in the garbage disposal as so many do. But even so, there are enough. As there are enough plates and bowls and such. Maybe another wine glass or three. The pots lack lids. I'll look for another set of those. And a new notebook for our collection of menus and attractions for guests.

Lyman has fixed the dripping kitchen faucet with the part we ordered from American Standard. He replaced the faulty dimmer switch. We'll fix the odd moisture droop in the popcorn ceiling in the living room today. Did you know that stuff comes in spray cans? Installed two light bulbs in closed ceiling fixtures. Sorry, no can do CFLs in those. There's a discoloration above the showerhead in one bathroom which a can of flat white spray paint will handle. New kick-down door stop.

Chem-Dry will come next Wednesday to clean the traffic areas of the bedrooms and take care of a few small spots on the blue sofa.

So all is well. We'll leave Friday or Saturday for home.

Our snowbirds will arrive from Michigan the weekend after Christmas. They've been with us since 2001. And they're cold.

I've been busy today, preparing for a short inventory trip to the coast which will entail buying a new refrigerator to replace the one we bought about eight years ago. The door has rusted along the gasket at the bottom. I see no way to repair it. We're talking flaking rust here, not the odd orange color. I knew this in May, but staggered through the summer.

I have two new strap chairs for the snowbirds. We'll replace four more on their rental checks. I have a bedspread ordered to replace the one that went missing in the master bedroom sometime in August.

We will leave tomorrow and hope to return on Saturday. Lyman's older son will look after the birds. The younger one will come in on Sunday. I don't have a thing for their stockings yet.

I feel hateful already.

The Louisiana Supreme Court will not hear Glenn Lipsey's appeal.

We drove around looking at Christmas lights last night. Good cheer!

Well I never.

Those dark bumps look to be seeds sprouting, too.

How much is whole turkey selling for in your locale?

I didn't check local whole birds, but smoked turkey necks, used by fat-conscious cooks for seasoning greens and such, are $1.89 a pound at the local market, ten cents less than hamhocks. Heck, raw turkey necks are 99 cents a pound.

That sounds outrageous to me. Of course, $1.99 for hamhocks sounds outrageous to me, too.

Today I'm cooking chicken and dumplings for the first time since September 2005.

I told Lyman then that it would be a long time before I made them again.

Yay!!!

Under certain conditions, the concrete under our carport would "sweat" and become slick as glass. The last time I went down this spring, I did a half-split, which broke the fall but pulled a groin muscle.

A couple of weeks ago, we applied the UCoat It kit that we ordered this summer.

Today is the right kind of day, and the coating works.

UPDATE: Jordana, here is a picture of part of the UCoated carport. On my monitor, the color looks right.

And there we are.

I'd say Sarah's is far more artistic than mine.

UPDATE: Oh, my. Is that ever good. I served it with fresh whipped cream and a couple of Louisiana strawberries.

Thank you, Sarah. And Happy Hanukkah!

For some reason, I own a 10" springform pan, but not a 9". If the recipe weren't layered I'd make do.

Off to Blankenstein's.

UPDATE: Question: If I bake this cheesecake today, and want to serve it Friday, is it all right to refrigerate it in the pan until that morning? This pan is non-stick.

Lucy visits Dr. Debbie today for a trim -- flight feathers, toenails, beak.

And for the first time since, oh, July, Charlie sang "We wish you a merry Christmas" this morning.

Lawyers for defeated sheriff's candidate Glenn Lipsey have filed a "writ of application" with the Louisiana Supreme Court, according to the Concordia Sentinel. The Democrat has more.

Our household has determined to institute turtle soup as a Christmas dinner dish. Michael asked for it for his birthday this past weekend.

I hope we can find more turtle for Christmas.

This Friday we hold the Christmas luncheon for the adults in the family. The menu is simple this year: boiled shrimp with cocktail sauce, green salad, shrimp sauce piquant(Creole) with rice, garlic bread and chocolate layered cheesecake with whipped cream. Sarah has a picture of the cheesecake at her place today. I found the recipe through her. Happy birthday, Mr. G!

I know that's two shrimp dishes, but Lyman's family loves shrimp, and anyone (including restaurants) would be proud to serve the sauce piquant from this book.

The family would only be happier if we'd fry some shrimp, too.

UPDATE: Hmmm, better change that "adults in the family." How about "parents in the family"?

Oh no! I was hoping LSU would play a nice, comfortable bowl game.

Now the Tigers will play Ohio State for the National Championship.

Sorta makes you homesick, don't it, Scott?

(Thanks, Mr. Reynolds.)

Your Score: Poppy Seeds

You scored 75% intoxication, 25% hotness, 50% complexity, and 75% craziness!

You are Poppy Seeds! You seem innocent enough, but you're dangerous. You sneak up on people with your seductive ways, hiding in plain sight. When you grow to your full potential, those who really get to know you just can't leave you alone - they're hooked for life.

Link: The Which Spice Are You Test written by jodiesattva on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Mmmm, kolaches.

(Thanks, Tony.)

I'm picking out pecans this morning. I plan to make the recipe here.

They've been through a mechanical cracker, but they're small and some were missed.

These lazy, selfish parrots could be a lot of help here. But nooooo...

UPDATE: I think that we can increase the seasonings for household tastes. Otherwise a good holiday addition. Thank you, Diane.

Mr. Lipsey's appeal was dismissed.

Here is the court's opinion, written by Judge Ulysses G. Thibodeaux.

The Sentinel has excerpted the opinion here. It's a little easier to read.

UPDATE: My opinion, which is not that of an election lawyer, is that Mr. Lipsey was between a rock and a hard place concerning due diligence prior to the vote. If he had followed up on his allegations that some Concordia Parish Sheriff's Office employees were being forced to register to vote illegally, and to vote for Mr. Maxwell (beats me how their votes could be proved), he would have endangered some jobs and aroused ire among the very employees that he would have headed had he won. I suppose there could have been some surprise challenges on election day.

One of the requirements for holding a position in the CPSO is to reside within Concordia Parish, as is one of the requirements for voting in Concordia Parish. So each employee voter that he outed for illegal registration due to residency requirements was also holding their job against the rules*.

That's no way to make friends.

UPDATE II: Not just the state of Louisiana is loathe to overturn elections. Better to make your case and and have good turnout on election day. One of Mr. Lipsey's problems regarding fraud is that only something around 7,000 of 13,000 registered voters voted at all. He had a large excess pool to draw from.

On the other hand, in one of the elections Huey Long had control of, St. Bernard Parish turned out more than 3,000 votes in a parish with 2,500 something registered voters.

* There is nothing illegal about sheriff's office employees living outside the parish, Lyman says. A handbook requirement.

Nobody can carry on like an overwrought southerner.

This sheriff's race has brought on a lot of high emotion. The decision from the appellate court should be announced in the next few hours. The Democrat's story with comments is here. (I expect those comments to be closed anytime now.)

The Concordia Sentinel saw fit to publish an editorial condemning undocumented accusations by anonymous persons in local and national forums.

On one public local board, concordiaunderground.org, some people took exception to this editorial, and have defended their right to post opinions anonymously. To a degree, I agree with them. In a small region like this, there is occasion for reprisal against whistleblowers. What I haven't seen is a lot of evidence of legal wrongdoing.

But that's not to my point. My point is that Scarlett O'Hara herself might consider the following statement a little emphatic:

And this editorial has the gall to state that we should bare our throats with our true identities so the knife of corruption can slice into us without reason.

And it's just not as lyrical as this one.

UPDATE: I do think that southerners can sense their Shakespeare better than anyone else.

"Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew ..."

Check out this Volokh post for a fun geography game.

I had no idea that Patricia Cornwell is a lesbian.

Not that it makes any difference. I'll still be looking forward to new novels.

(Thanks, Mr. Blair.)

Fabio, Fabio. You're still a fine-looking man, but hon, you're 48. Isn't it time to cut your hair?

Samson you ain't.

(Thanks, Ms. Althouse.)

The Food Network was built on Emeril's popularity, but I won't miss him.

His show had become predictable and tedious.

Lucy laid an egg at 9:24 p.m.

Lucy is tired and tucked after seeing her big brothers.

I could never do a split.

Thanks, Nate.

You don't see much of this since Ed Sullivan went off the air.

Jason is reading Choke. It looks like fun.

FRESH VEGETABLE CASSEROLE

2 tablespoons margarine or butter
2 large onions, sliced in rings
3 carrots, sliced
1/2 medium bell pepper, sliced in rings
1/2 pound fresh green beans, long snaps
2 large tomatoes, peeled and sliced
1/4 cup chopped parsley
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon seasoned salt
1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper

In a skillet melt the margarine. Add onions and sauté until light brown. Place the onion, carrots, bell pepper, green beans, tomatoes and parsley in a greased 2-quart shallow casserole. Mix lightly and add the seasonings. Bake the casserole, covered, at 350 degrees for 1 hour, or until the vegetables are tender, stirring once. Serves 8.

From this book.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

I'll tell you our menu in Michael's words:

Spinach salad from the garden, chicken stuffed with rice and mushrooms, fresh vegetable casserole, maque choux, dinner rolls, and pork ribs in the oven for dessert.

When Lyman's sons come home to visit, they always bring loads of laundry.

There are never any sheets in there.

Well, whaddya know.

I don't like'em much, but I do have a couple of intricate stalks of silk ivy that I use in the living room. Some places want that organic frilliness. And they were some kind of dusty.

I used the salt method, in a kitchen garbage bag, and they're much better. Thanks, Sue D.

... and I need to get Huey Long back to the library.

We've had some drama around the local sheriff's election on October 20.

Resolution here. The Democrat has found it necessary to close comments on some stories regarding this election.

UPDATE: More here and here.

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Now that's a little scary.

(Thanks, Sarah.)

Mostly Cajun points out PC madness in publishing children's books.

Alkahest? (Free Rice)

I just found this picture of Charlie in the camera. I like it.

He appears to have had a bath.

All right. I give up now.

Does "kerf" mean 1) expert 2) hobo 3) notch 4) mushroom?

I'll go for notch.

This year, the next satsuma tree up the row is loaded.

Here is the picture of a pretty pink poppy that kitchen hand mentioned below, with a story.

Mine was one of these -- that tangerine one back there, with a white vinyl top. If you'll scroll down you'll see an example of the "deluxe" plaid interior.

My friend Sam named it "Wanda".

That's all bad enough, but I couldn't keep a water pump in it.

UPDATE: My next car was a totally gray Nissan Sentra.

"That's fine with me."

Ms. Althouse has something else interesting today.

Fact is, people need makeup on TV. How will they overcome the difference in appearance between regular and high-definition television while it lasts?

A commenter at Hit & Run said that on his HDTV, the only person near the stage during last night's Democratic debate who didn't look 150 years old was Mr. Obama.

UPDATE: One of the commenters at Althouse says that the pron industry is much dismayed by the higher resolutions.

Cutting edge? London? Aw shoot, they do that at Dimples ever night.

(Thanks, Ms. Althouse.)

Have you seen these?

Lyman brought a pack home this week. They do smell and taste like grapes, or to be true, like grape soda.

I have a request.

A few weeks ago I had a hankering for graham crackers. I bought a box of Nabiscos, and I've eaten most of them. They were dandy.

But what's better, and would be more wholesome for Janis and the birds, would be a nice homemade digestive biscuit.

I've found a few recipes. Do you have one that you use?

I'm with Dr. Taylor. Surely they're kidding.

Gail Collins of the New York Times sure enough doesn't like John Edwards:

Something weird is going on with John Edwards, who was cheerfulness incarnate when four years ago he was the moderate-Southerner-who-can-speak-to-the-Reagan-Democrats. Then he morphed into a sorrowful populist who thought we should vote for him because he cared the most about the poor. Now he’s running around like a rabid gerbil, telling people he should be president because he’s the angriest. Soon, he’s going to run out of adjectives to embody.

"A rabid gerbil?" That's unkind.

I've never tried to grow poppies.

Time to pick on Tony.

In this post he comments that men do not have good fits for jock straps, either.

So I suggest that you use the same water displacement technique. And let your engineers take it on. (I'd think there is some kind of codpiece with gel for professional athletes.)

It's near Thanksgiving, so the best vessel I can recommend is a turkey pot. Parts will fit, won't they?

I was wandering around the blogs at The New Republic, and found this post.

Go on, go on ... waste an hour or so.

UPDATE: Well, by golly, I thank Robert Graves for I, Claudius. Claudication means "lameness."

Hard for me to fathom how measuring the weight of one's breasts would help with overall fit. I'd suppose my breasts weigh about the same as they did when I was 22. They just aren't in the same places.

But I do like this comment: "If men wore bras you can bet your life a bra would have been designed which fits, flatters and feels comfortable to wear!"- Leanne, Notts UK

UPDATE: I like the looks of this line.

UPDATE II: Now I'm thinking, how could I be so sexist as to agree with Leanne? Where are the women engineers looking to our comfort? They darned sure aren't designing shoes. And it is an engineering problem rather than a fashion problem, at least at my age.

Your Inner European is Russian!

Mysterious and exotic. You've got a great balance of danger and allure.

Who's Your Inner European?

Well, now. My inner musician is Tchaikovsky, and my inner European is Russian. A pattern develops.

(Thanks, Ms. Postrel.)

Hard to say what that means, but I'll expect a "cease and desist" letter from MENSA anyday now.

(Thanks, Possum.)

Oh, wow!

I might have to buy a couple of those for the sons' stockings.

(Thanks, Latino.)

Then maybe a couple of certificates for carbon credits to offset their auto use. Wouldn't that be cool?

I think that would be enough.

I've read up to page 690 of the nearly 900 page biography of Huey Long. At this point, he has become a U.S. Senator and is in conflict with FDR, which is showing in the home state.

But I want to go back (pp. 537-8), to where Mr. Long was organizing the race for his succession to governor of LA. Earl Long, as his brother and party organizer, thought the lieutenant governorship was his for the asking. His older brother disagreed. So the whole Long family took to the stump against each other, most aligned with Earl.

Mr. Williams writes this:

[Huey] would begin the story by describing a social gathering popular with rural Protestants -- an "all-day singing" at the church, with "dinner on the grounds." At such a meeting in Winnfield, he would continue, the mothers had laid their babies on a pallet under a tree during the dinner. As they were clearing the table, a violent storm suddenly broke. Each mother hastily collected her child. But there was one baby that nobody would claim, an ugly, squalling brat. Mrs. Long, unwilling to see the child abandoned, had taken it home and adopted it. "That was Earl."

So Huey Long said.

Thank you, Mr. Drum.

The most telling paragraph, considering the general tenor of Democratic comment in the blogosphere, is this one:

Many conservative Christian leaders say they can count on the specter of a second Clinton presidency to fire up their constituents. But the prospect of an Obama-Giuliani race is another matter. “You would have a bunch of people who traditionally vote Republican going over to Obama,” said the Rev. Donald Wildmon, founder of the Christian conservative American Family Association of Tupelo, Miss., known for its consumer boycotts over obscenity or gay issues.

That upsets the assumption of racism in the South, I would say. The Republicans he's talking about aren't black.

And help us, this was said in Kansas rather than Louisiana, not that it might'nt be: "“Obama sounds too much like Osama,” said Kayla Nickel of Westlink. “When he says his name, I am like, ‘I am not voting for a Muslim!’"

Like, Kayla, are you an ignorant xenophobe, or what?

It's such a pretty day, I ... cleaned my refrigerator!

That should be good for a day or two.

It's cool outside today.

Try for the first time a posole? Or go with tried and true Ally's Green Chili?

What to do, what to do?

C'mon, Tigers. Alabama ain't all that.

Now, Nick's something.

Oh, poor Sweeties, didn't I tell you to stay outside?

What an awful way to die.

I have moved on to this book. And I have a question for anyone who can answer.

The "Old Regulars" political machine in New Orleans refused to allow natural gas to be piped into the city, keeping the citizenry dependent on more expensive "artificial gas". What was this artificial gas? The author doesn't say.

And how about "Swords Lee" as a name? Beats "Ashley Wilkes" anyday.

UPDATE: In 1927, Riley J. Wilson was one of the candidates for governor of Louisiana. He grew up in poor circumstances and often talked of having to go barefoot as a child. Huey Long said, "I can go Mr. Wilson one better; I was born barefoot."