Churlish chicken wings; New "Best of"

In this county, the best hot wings within reasonable driving distance are made by a place called "Scubber's" (skoo-burrs), in the tail end of a wealthy bedroom community.

Expensive, but outstanding. Fat and meaty, very little skin, crazy hot, a high leg-to-wing ratio, fried not baked, and dry rubbed not sauced. Perfect! Worth the money.

Yet every time I go in there, the owner seems like he doesn't want my business. He's always frowning and grumpy, and acts as if taking my money is too much of a bother for him.

I've given him the Christian benefit of the doubt in the past, but on my last visit, I was served by someone whom I believe, by resemblance and her casual conversation with others, to be the owner's daughter. After this encounter, I can no longer tolerate Scowling Scubber's.

The wings are listed in lots of 10 on the price board. Now, many places will let you add a wing for a premium, by-the-wing price. Some pubs even sell wings per piece, a la the classic "Quarter Wing Nights." So I asked this young lady if I could order 15 wings.

"NO. You can have 10 or 20, not 15. They don't come in 15s," says she. And the glare ... that surly glare will be with me forever, it said: "If-it-was-legal,-I-would-hit-you-in-the-face-with-a-frozen-chicken-wing-repeatedly-until-you-cried-for-asking-such-a-stupid,-foolish-question,-and-wasting-my,-Queen-Precious',-time."

How about, "I'm sorry, I can't ring them up that way," or even just "unfortunately, no," with a nice friendly smile?

While buying a cone, I asked the nice fellow at the Carvel next door why Sir Scubber and Clan have such massive chips on their shoulders. Apparently, they are well-established and also view themselves as the Wing Supplier to the Wealthy. So, they care not if the lumpenproletariat buy their product.



Here's an actual photo from their web site of the grouch in question. Now, while he's better dressed than than, and not covered in goop, that is the expression he wears ... all ... the ... time.

I can broach no more of this. I will now eat inferior wings just to avoid these frumps.

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The post on the Rochester vandals has been added to the "Best of T&A" list in the sidebar. No comments on that one? I thought some of the wordplay was outstanding, myself. Hopefully, there were at least a few groans in the audience.

Church quiz; Indian funnies; NOR swag

You scored as Institutional Model. Your model of the church is institutional. Jesus established all church hierarchy, which depends upon the Holy Spirit to guide all the members to the Father's will. The hierarchy is responsible for teaching, sanctifying, and governing. Lay persons are responsible for obeying and adhering to the official teaching of the hierarchy. This model can become rigid or narrow if not complemented by other appropriate models.

Institutional Model 95% Sacrament model 72% Mystical Communion Model 67% Herald Model 56% Servant Model 17% What is your model of the church? [Dulles] created with QuizFarm.com

As an Institutional-model Catholic, I say that church in the example is way under-ornamented.

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A clever photo for the true hard-core reactionaries in the audience:

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Hey, Chester! Buy some gear from the New Oxford Review. It'll make Fr. Flapdoodle really angry.

GROUCHINGS: Dead blogs; Chimera culture

• My grouchiness:

Evil Steve, now on top of Fiat Mihi, has quit blogging. I'm a little tweaked about this.

Selfishly tweaked, because the League of Evil Traditionalists has been a great boon to my traffic. Hopefully the League will be continued in some fashion. Maybe I'll volunteer if no one else does, if he gives up ring maintenance.

Also, I enjoyed those two blogs and I'm sorry to see them go.

Otherwise tweaked, because the main reason they gave, that the blog was too time consuming, is a good reason, but confounds me.

The upside of daydreamery is that temperence is a built-in virtue; I'm too ADD (or whatever you want to call it) to keep interest in anything very long. Thus, it's always a bit tough for me to comprehend when people get really "into" anything for more than a week, or spend enough time on any one thing that it becomes obstructive to Life.

Teachers, for example, almost practice their profession as a religion. Other folks I know have gotten way too into booze - or even positive things, like working out or their career.

Granted, my inability to retain interest carries its own inherent sins, so there is no judging going on here; but I'll never relate to obsession.

So I guarantee gentle readers that while I won't post every day, the blog will be around for years to come.

• The grouchiness of others:

Terry Graham doesn't like Spanish, via the Julian Calendar:

"Like most Americans, I am sick and tired of being force-fed all things in Spanish, and being Hispanified and Latinized as part of my everyday experience. The 11th Commandment, 'Press 1 for English,' makes me want to push the offender’s Doomsday Button and say Adios!"

Amen sistah! Some say Latinos make the U.S. culturally richer. No. A rich culture is one that is self-defined and has reached a high peak of that definition. Would 12 million New Yorkers make Nepal more "culturally rich?" No, just less Nepalese. Here are some other examples:

• Steak is good. Peanut butter is good. Peanut Steak Butter ... not so good.
• Red is nice. Blue is nice. Blue are Red are Purple, not "richer" Blue or Red. They cease to be either.
• Jazz is good. Chant is good. Rockabilly is good. Chantabilly Jazz is something only Andy Warhol could love.

Think about cabbage. Broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, kale, and collard greens are all examples of humanity refining the raw cabbage plant into something distinct and beautiful over generations of labor. Open borders destroy the distinction and beauty of both parties.

"Truly, language actively shapes, and reflects, an individual’s and a nation’s world view. ... This basic Top Dog/runt social construct is reflected in the Spanish word for “you” ('Usted'), which is capitalized. One’s self is relegated to the lower case, lower class “yo”, which means “I”.

Well, now I kinda like Spanish. Of course, Japanese is better, which (if my memory serves) has seven sets of pronouns depending on your social status and sex.

"The reverse is true in English, where 'I' is capitalized and the other, 'you,' is expressed in lower case, championing the power of the individual while reflecting the diminished, secondary status of others, be they presidents, kings/queens, or groups. We terminated the King/subject-serf relationship ... No more Thou/Thee, except for God.

Despite the author's Jacobin opinions, these are terrible drawbacks of modern English: self-centeredness and pride.

Looking back to point one, Iberianizing English doesn't make it better English, it makes it Spanglish, purple, peanut steak butter, or something akin to what the French did to the Louvre.

The situation is akin to the Novus cOrdo, where they mashed everything together and came out with mud.

Tids and Bits

Rep. Tom Tancredo says that, if the U.S. is nuked, America should respond by destroying Islamic holy sites. A fine idea.

But the 'Slamics are doing it themselves, as radical clerics approve of demolishing historical buildings tied to Moe himself, fearing the veneration of sacred sites leads to idolatry.

This is one iconoclasm I can get behind.

***

Random thought: If you needed a word that meant "like a convent," could you use "conventional?"

***

How about the new Hummer, the H3? Each one of these things gets less and less cool, or "Hummerican," to coin a neologism.


Humvee: Manly. H2: Middling. H3: Metrosexual.

How am I supposed to make up for deficits in my masculinity with one of these things? It's so ... curvy. It'd make more sense to save money and buy a Jeep Liberty.

Links; link manager; the border; Muslim on TV

The blog roll has been gutted and restuffed, kind of like a four-point buck.

Sites tend to get rolled around here if they strike me as interesting, show a simpatico with T&A, link to T&A themselves, or sometimes just as a shameless clamor for reciprocation.

But when the roll gets too chubby, weight loss is in order. For non-religion blogs, which are few on the list, the lone criterion is personal taste. But there are so many Catholic bloggers, they can't all fit.

Thus here is the new point scale for T&A papist blog rolling:

Latin Trad: +1 (+2 if female)
Eastern Catholic: +1
Culturally retrograde: +1 (+2 if female)
Geek content: +1
Monarchist: +2 (+3 if female)
Anti-Islam: +2
Humorous: +2
Unusual style: +3
Unusual content: +3
Informative: +3
LoET member: +3
Low profile (Needs the link): +4
Links to T&A: +5

Demerits:

High profile (Doesn't need the link): -5
Too many family pictures: -4 (-5 if female)
Neo-Catholic: -3
Generic (Dude, we've read Chesterton): -2
No humor at all: -1
Too much routine politics: -1
Defunct: -1 point per postless month to today

10 points was the number used to cull the cream. I score a 17 on my own system, well ... a 19, because I find myself hilarious.

It must be said that Chesterton still rulez-with-a-Z (or "roxx-with-two-Xs" for you old-school types).

***

Incidentally, does anyone know of a good link manager, a la Blogrolling, but for non-blog links?

***

New Hampshire town uses trespassing laws to fight illegal immigration.

Two paragraphs stand out:

• In a state that is 96 percent non-Hispanic white but that has been seeing a rise in its Hispanic population, Chief Chamberlain's idea was born a year ago when he encountered a van with nine illegal immigrants from Ecuador. The federal Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he says, was not interested in arresting them. Congrats to the reporter for finding a slick way to allege racism with no proof.
• Judge Runyon seemed somewhat concerned ... Am I going to determine whether someone is here legally or not?" he asked the prosecutor. "Isn't that what the federal immigration system is for? Is it for part-time district court judges like me who know nothing about immigration and arguably nothing much about anything else either?" Either Judge Runyon doesn't think before he speaks, or is the first local judge ever to have a great sense of humor.

***

A Muslim fellow on Big Brother 6, who seems like a decent guy, made the following statement the other day (paraphrased): "I feel kind of bad because many of the things that you have to do to win are against my religion. Islam teaches you to tell the truth and be nice to people."

Whoah there, Skippy.

The look my wife gave me was priceless.

More cool blogs; Presbee humor

(I know I'm spoiling you with daily posts recently.)

The League has begun to bear its first fruits for T&A. Readership is up from a trickle to a quick trickle, and I've run across some great sites second and third-hand.

Traditio in Radice, via a comment here.
The Catholic Monarchist, via TiR.
Joseph Crisp's Monarchist Essays, via TCM.

It seems to be time to update the blog roll. There's a lot of sites to add, and more than a few bums to kick off.

***

Also, a joke, from my sister, who is usually too PC for this stuff:

A Presbyterian is at the horse track, losing terribly. But before the ninth race, he sees a Catholic priest walk out to the gate and bless the head and hooves of horse number nine, a 30-1 longshot.

The guy figures that his own strategies aren't working, so he decides to bet number nine.

The horse comes in first by two lengths! Ecstatic, the fellow starts planning his bet on the final race, when the very same priest saunters out and blesses the head and hooves of horse number four.

"If it worked once," the guy figures, "why not again?" So he bets the horse, and sure enough, it comes in first.

The next day he brings all his winnings and paces around anxiously to see if the priest is doing any blessings today. Just like the day before, the good father is out there, making gestures and speaking in Latin to one of the horses.

So the Presbyterian sees a big fat win, and takes all of his cash from the day before, and puts it on the blessed horse. But this time, the horse comes in last, galloping barely above a normal trot.

Incensed, the guy runs down to the rail and finds the priest, "What's wrong with you, father? I took all your picks yesterday, and lost it all when your magic didn't work today!"

The priest says, "That's the problem with you Protestants. You can't tell the difference between a simple blessing and Last Rites."

Ordination; Canonization; Regulation

The Vatican is set to release a document ceasing ordination of homosexuals. Mercifully, with our new Holy Father, the text will likely be brief, the diction clear, and be treated as "rules" instead of "collegial suggestions."

***

Speaking of Holy Fathers, why the rush to canonize the last pontiff? While a decent idea in theory, this Modern Sainting Mania to push through anyone who died in a State of Grace distresses the trad in me.

Giving out Venerable, Blessed, and Saintly status without posthumous miracles is like awarding Purple Hearts without injuries.

As my pappy the deacon always says, "Canonizing doesn't make the Beatific Vision any more Beatific for the person in question."

Already we have so many. Ever have a conversation about St. Michael? "Which one? The Archangel, or The Ecstatic? Oh, you must mean the Nigerian one. No? Are you thinking of Pope Pius V? Sorry, it must be one of the eight dozen other Saint Michaels."

And, frankly, I want some proof a person is actually in Heaven before I start praying to them, for the good of my own soul.

***

Lastly today, the EU Court of Justice has approved bans and regulations on vitamins, remedies, and extracts. How long before the Euroligarchy tries to classify consecrated Hosts as "food supplements?" That way, they could show hate for God and freedom in one convenient little package.

Whoops. That was supposed to be funny, but it came out kind of creepy.

Blowing more smoke than a chimney

T&A has been accepted into The League of Evil Traditionalists, run by Steve Skojec, A.K.A. Evil Steve, A.K.A. Darth Traditionis. I extend my thanks His Evilness and also to Fiat Mihi for the call-to-action whereupon the League caught my eye.

Lord Traditionis' instinct for nicknames serves the dramatic flair of such an organization well. Yet the group's name makes me think more of The Legion of Doom, so that if I were to bemoniker myself, it'd be with something along the lines of Baron von Backward.

Of course, this is a terrible idea. Strike it from the record. In college, during an ill-ended drinking game, I once tried to get my friends to call me "Seamus," which certainly contributed to the aforementioned sour finale. We will speak no more of this, either.

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Merci to Edward Yong, who has added T&A to his blog roll. I picked up on his blog many moons ago via the Byzantine Catholic Forum (see Note 1). I thought I had seen a lot of different liturgies in my day, until reading of Mr. Yong's globe-trotting church habits.

Also grazie to Idle Mendacity, which I just learned of from his link here. Looks good prima facie. (That's enough foreignisms for today.)

***

Note 1: The Byzantine Catholic Forum is the only place on the web where you can be verbally abused in posts that are signed "Your Humble Servant." Odd.

It's also the only Catholic forum where it is more PC to bash the orthodox than The Orthodox. Folks so hot to defend their traditions (and rightfully so) would do well to remember that one of these traditions is being Catholic. God forbid someone suggest that those persons who broke off during The Great Schism are actually ... schismatics. "A=A" as our dear godless friend Ayn Rand would say.

But I still love you, American ByzCaths; why can't you love me back?

More good ideas from the pews

Police: Boys Urinated In Holy Water, Vandalized Church

"ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Someone urinated in the holy water at a suburban Rochester, N.Y., Catholic church.

Four local teens have been charged with that and other vandalism.

Monroe County sheriff's deputies said the teenagers smashed wine bottles against the walls, left bicycle skid marks on the carpet, emptied the fire extinguishers and burned cigarette holes in the Saint Pious (sic) X Church.

The damage is estimated at $17,000."











NOTE: 03/23/08: The rest of this has been redacted by the author. It was uncharitable to the hierarchy and he felt bad. A shame, too, it was quite funny.

Posting deficit; Afro-poverty; U.S. independence

Sorry for going almost a month without posting; I've started a new job that demands more of my time. Things have settled down a bit, but posting will be sporadic, hopefully once or twice a week, at least until I get into a new flow of life.

***

A smart, unabashedly Christian article by Wesley Pruden questions the wisdom of Live 8 and the whole African prosperity movement.

Solutions to almost any world problem aren't complicated, but are often tough to implement. What would solve the woes of the Sub-Saharans? Catholic constitutional monarchy and private property. In 50 years much of the Dark Continent could be a paradise.

Debt relief and fresh Western cash should be portioned out only to nations that meet the above criteria, and to the degree that they do. Or despots will continue to waste and steal anything we continue to send their way.

Maybe the vaunted International Community can bring about a constitution or two. But the powers of the world are so invested in religious subjectivism, the alleged panacea of democracy (read: Iraq) , and socialist oligarchy that nothing will ever be done on the other three points.

***

It's tough to be a proud monarchist and a proud American on the Fourth of July. Especially as a lover of pomp and tradition, it's one of the few days we get any here in the States. Talk about mixed feelings. 'Nuff said.

At least the beer and sausage is untainted by such considerations.