Tuesday's Trivial Trash

Today’s de Rigeur Political Post: There will be massive sadness on the Left today. There is no Fitzmas—not where Karl Rove is concerned, anyway. Or so says Byron York at NRO. In the understatement of the day, York writes:

Rove’s fate has been the subject of intense discussion among critics of the Bush administration. Perhaps foremost among them is former ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, was the CIA employee at the center of the affair. In August 2003, Wilson vowed to pursue Rove vigorously, saying, “At the end of the day it’s of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs.”

Sorry, Joe. Maybe next time. In the meantime, I’m sure you can find some consolation over at dKos or Firedoglake.

Hockey: OK, I won’t give up my day job. I already did, anyway. A hockey prognosticator I’m not. Carolina is up three games to one after winning last night in Edmonton, 2-1. If they win at home tomorrow night, Carolina will hoist its’ first-ever Stanley Cup. Edmonton has won five Cups, so I don’t feel too bad for them. I missed games two and three of this series; game two because the Yankees were playing the Red Sox Wednesday night and every bar in New England had that game on, not hockey; and game three because it was played Saturday night and I simply had more important things to do. Gasp! I just admitted there are things more important than the Stanley Cup Finals! I shall attempt to atone for that heresy by pouring the day’s first cup into my 1997 Detroit Red Wings Stanley Cup Champions coffee cup. (Yeah, I know. 1100 and I’m just now pouring my first cup of coffee. I was up all night again. I do it because I can.)

Maybe you’ve seen the various videos of the reaction one gets when dropping Mentos mints into Diet Coke or Pepsi. The results can be spectacular. On the other hand, it’s worse than you thought… (hat tip: Morgan at House of Eratosthenes)

More Random Notes: Unmentioned in my travel narrative: finding love notes from the TSA in my checked baggage while unpacking. These “Notice of Baggage Inspection” documents are curiously reassuring. These guys are doing something, even if it’s only placing the notices in your bags. Or taking away your lighter. Still p*ssed about that, ya know.

Speaking of which... (the fact TSA confiscated my USS Mason Zippo) I’m now carrying a brand-new, bright chrome, official USS Monterey (CG 61) Zippo. SN2 gifted me with the Monterey lighter this past Christmas, along with a personalized Monterey ball cap. (SN2 was the Chief Engineer on the Monterey before heading off to the Naval War College.)

One of the great things about being a military Dad is I get all sorts of military paraphernalia, including unit ball caps, from my sons’ assignments. This is very cool, especially since my own personal collection of military mementoes is sadly lacking. I’ve left countless Zippos with unit crests in countless bars over the years, and rather than saving my unit ball caps I wore them until they were worn out, and then threw them away. The upshot is all my souvenirs of days gone by are gone — Bye! SN2 is decidedly different. One of the walls of his home office is covered with pristine ball caps from every assignment he’s ever had in the Navy. The first time I saw that display I was overcome with jealousy and pride. Jealousy in the sense he had the presence of mind to save these things and I didn’t, and I was proud of him for the very same reason. Rod Stewart sang “Every Picture Tells a Story,” and it’s the same with unit ball caps. Except the stories are better.

You can never catch up. I spent the better part of the day yesterday trying to catch up on my favorite blogs after a week of not reading. The bottom line: Mission Impossible. My favorite writers are just so damned prolific that “catching up” is like trying to clean out the Augean Stables. And I’m no Hercules.

Airplane reading: I mentioned I wanted to hit Borders in ABQ to get reading material prior to flying. Well, I did, and I did. Except I didn’t buy what was on the list, specifically Bec’s recommendation ("Nomenklatura" by Michael Voslensky), mainly because I couldn’t find it. I bought Mark Bowden’s “Guests of the Ayatollah” instead. The book is a narrative of the 1979 take-over of the US embassy in Tehran and is a real page-turner. Bowden wrote “Blackhawk Down,” and “Guests” is every bit as good. From the Publishers Weekly review:

Bowden's analysis of militant Islam is clear, current and dead-on. The government of Iran, now as then, is a theocracy with a secular face, combining, he writes, "ignorance with absolute conviction." Anyone who thinks a nuclear-armed Iran could be dealt with through Cold War–style containment should read this book. Guests of the Ayatollah is, however, no academic tome, but a briskly written human story told from every conceivable point of view: the captives and their captors; President Carter's inner circle and Carter himself, struggling to negotiate a release and finally ordering an extremely risky rescue mission; the soldiers of Delta Force, whose audacious attempt failed; Iranian political figures under the thumb of the glowering Ayatollah Khomeini; and a cavalcade of diplomats, journalists, secret agents and barmy peace activists, some of whose actions bordered on treason. The cast of characters would do justice to a 19th-century Russian novel.

I was disappointed at being unable to finish the book on the plane(s), only managing to read 419 of 637 pages. Bowden is a remarkable writer, to say the very least. Highly recommended, if you get the chance…