The French are true romantics. They feel the only difference between a man of forty and one of seventy is thirty years of experience.

I am tempted to take this logic and apply it inductively to prove that all ages of men are in the same equivalence class. But then, I’d hate to be taken for a math geek.

-c

In the meantime, here’s a quick quote of the day from FDR, talking about his economic advisors. Gotta love it!

When asked about the economic advisors to the campaign, he pointed to his suit coat and said, before replying, “Do you see these buttons on my sleeve? They don’t do a damn thing, but fashion says I’ve got to have them, so I do.”

– Franklin Delano Roosevelt

-c

Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in hand, totally worn out and screaming “WOO-HOO what a ride!”

Now one of Clinton’s Laws of Politics is this: If one candidate’s trying to scare you and the other one’s trying to get you to think; if one candidate’s appealing to your fears and the other one’s appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope. That’s the best.

Huh, given the tenor of Hillary Clinton’s campaign these days, I have a feeling this new Clinton is writing her own rules. Me? I support what Bill said back in 2004, which is why I am not voting for fear-mongering Hillary.

-c

Lackhead here. I haven’t posted in a long time, mostly due to being overwhelmed by my upcoming trip to Tours, France, and spring climbing season. I’m sure the entire Interwebs have missed my virtual smiling face these long weeks (should that be “has missed”? Is “Interwebs” plural?). I have toyed with doing a Friday News Roundup, collecting links that I’ve stumbled upon in my week’s journey, but is anybody but me really interested in why McCain is a neocon? Yeah, thought so.

But, whilst traipsing across the Intertubes this morning, I read a post by Steve Benen, one of my blogo-faves, noting yet another LABCAR (“Ludicrous Assertion by Bush, Contradicting All Reality”):

First, the majority of our defense spending is devoted to the war in Iraq. Dick Cheney’s palaver notwithstanding, Iraqis did not “actually attack our homeland.”

Bonus points that he put the period within the double-quotes (grammar counts). I had come across palaver before, and I could certainly piece together a meaning from context, but I decided to look up the definition anyway:

unctuous

1. talk intended to deceive, charm or beguile; flattery
2. loud and confused and empty talk; “mere rhetoric”

Lo and behold, I could have found this definition under “modern media.” sigh Oh right, I was going to steer clear of contemptuous and depressing commentaries about today’s society. Anyway, I think it is a good word and a handy one to have in the ‘ol tool belt these days. Nota bene- it can also be used as a verb, meaning “to dole out the palaver” if, like me, you have a soft spot for self-reference.

And thusly, I return to blogitudinal tendencies. I should get in form before going over to France, so that I can bloviate online about my trip!

Until next time,

-c

PS- thanks, mcq, for the following quote:

The major problem — one of the major problems, for there are several — one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.

And so this is the situation we find: a succession of Galactic Presidents who so much enjoy the fun and palaver of being in power that they very rarely notice that they’re not.

And somewhere in the shadows behind them — who?

Who can possibly rule if no one who wants to do it can be allowed to?

– Douglas Adams. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Those glittering abstract nouns aren’t sufficient, but they can be damn useful. They aren’t accurate descriptions of this country right now, and probably they never have been, but a lot of Americans are sincerely attached to them. And sometimes, when presented with a stark contradiction between the bedtime stories we learned about this country as children, and concrete effects of our actions, we will choose to make the bedtime story true rather than give it up entirely.

The word that is currently raising its hand and squirming out “Oooh! Oooh! Me! Me!” has popped up twice in my recent quotidian adventures. First off, I stumbled upon it in an entry about John Edwards at the Huffington Post (a regular haunt of mine). Under a section titled Get Off The Bus And Go Skinny Dipping, the author dispenses this bit of advice about how to win the early primaries this year:

The biggest surprise this campaign season has been the unwillingness of the candidates, other than Ron Paul, to reveal his or her true selves in unexpected and unscripted ways. You can use social media but it still doesn’t make you authentic. And if there is anything that rubs people the wrong way about you, no offense John, it’s your unctuous lawyerlyness. You’ve got to close the deal that you should be the next POTUS with 50,000 people in the next three weeks. Micah Sifry, one of the big brains behind TechPresident, suggests a live webcast every morning between now and the election and talk to voters about your day, your views, your hopes, your fears. It doesn’t matter what the topic is, it’s an opportunity to inform and inspire people and show them your real, intelligent, authentic self. It’s critically important that you engage your supporters, listen to them, and recruit them to be your foot soldiers for the final push.

Ah, the chances of seeing the real nature of a politician is akin to seeing a manticore driving a Ferrari on the highway; a very unlikely event that will register as a mere flash of something surreal, yet recognizable. Something you’re not quite sure really even exists, but if it does, you’re glad it passed by quickly and you hope to never get so to its inscrutable nature and sharp jaws again.

This is the usage of unctuous that I’m used to seeing; something slippery or conniving. However, later this evening I was lapping up an early Christmas present to myself, Chloé Doutre-Roussel‘s The Chocolate Connoisseur. In a section describing her tactile habits of measuring up the quality of a particular chocolate, she notes:

Is it soft or hard? Sticky, grainy, sandy or velvety? Crisp or crunchy? Getting to know the feel of a chocolate will help you recognise [sic] it again in the future. It will also help you to identify quality. The smoother the texture, the more unctuous it will be in the mouth. the finer the chocolate’s particles, the greater the aromas you will find in it.

This usage didn’t sit very well with me; at least I didn’t expect oiliness to be a quality you’d normally shoot for in a fine chocolate. So, I turned to the dictionary and lo, what did I find:

unctuous

1. Characterized by affected, exaggerated, or insincere earnestness: “the unctuous, complacent court composer who is consumed with envy and self-loathing” (Rhoda Koenig).
2. Having the quality or characteristics of oil or ointment; slippery.
3. Containing or composed of oil or fat.
4. Abundant in organic materials; soft and rich: unctuous soil.

While the slipperiness aspect certain does tie in to what I think Ms. Doutre-Roussel was getting at, it is the fourth definition here that seemed to ring with me. Leaving the touch of the chocolate behind for a moment, fine chocolate should contain a bit of the soul from whence it came, a terroir if you will. How else can one really exude that erudite affectation if you don’t lace your review with phrases like, “a heady banana aroma,” or “a certain loam in the lower ranges, as if you breathing in the Sumatran air itself,” or even, “Is that raspberries or pomegranates that flirt with you during the long finish?” Unctuous is a fine word, with a rarefied usage, that fits such highbrow activities as chocolate snootery to a T.

Ah, and now that I’ve gotten that down, off to bed. ‘Tis late, and we have 8-10″ of fresh powder that my newly-waxed board is anxiously awaiting. Perhaps once I get back, and get done with my LDAP perl scripting, and get done building up a couple of new servers, and done getting the latest Ubuntu build wrapped up, and get done Christmas shopping, and get done watching my latest Netflix arrival (The Battle of Algiers), I’ll blog about the wonderful pear tart that I made last night, which promptly and quite accidentally turned into a pear taco when I tried to remove it from my sil-pat. Oh well, shape be damned, the thing was quite delicious!

Yours yours yours,

-c