Dave Barry and Bob Graham

As you know, my man Dave Barry has stopped writing a weekly column and has spent the past few years writing children's novels of unknown worth and following his wife to sports events. But, like with Calvin & Hobbes in newspapers, the powers that be have been reprinting old Dave columns. Most I've read already but sometimes we get lucky and there's a 'new' (meaning so old that it wasn't published in any of his books) column. So it was a week ago when I was able to read a 1983 interview between Dave and then FL Gov. Bob Graham (D).

I advise reading the whole column, but suffice it to say that Graham is possibly the sharpest politician I've seen interviewed, based on his extraordinarily swift wit. Mario Cuomo struck me as sharp and funny but just read this amazing interchange, which Dave swears actually happened, and was not pre-planned:

BARRY: What can the state do about harmonica safety? I don't know if you have any idea how many Floridians die every year in harmonica accidents....

GRAHAM: Well last year we actually made some substantial improvement. In 1981, there were four people who died of harmonica accidents. Now actually, I think it's only fair to count three of them, because the fourth one was actually, I would say it was more of a swimming-pool accident. He was playing the harmonica in the swimming pool and actually jumped off the shallow end, hit his head, and we don't know whether it was the fact that he swallowed the harmonica, or the brain damage. They counted it as a harmonica accident. Now, this year, or 1982, the last year for which we have statistics, we only had two harmonica accidents. I think it was the result of the public-service ads that I did....

BARRY: The Harmonica Safety Day I think was a wonderful....

GRAHAM: ...and we built it around the theme that if you want to play Dixie, it's fine, but don't do it in front of the air- conditioning duct, because that's where we found that most of the deaths occurred. It was the vacuum that was created.

BARRY: This leads us pretty much directly to toads. I've been staying at a house in Broward County, and there are, every morning out on the patio, toads the size of mailboxes. What can we do?

Just to 'fact-check', I searched to find if there really had been a Harmonica Safety Day. Nope. Gadzooks, what a guy!

I remember when he ran for president in 2004 and now I'm even angrier that he didn't make any headway. If he had run instead of John "Choke" Kerry?! Think about it: a sharp, savvy, popular Governor and Senator from Florida who opposed the Iraq War! Grrr.

Pic from this completely unrelated site.

Mervin Verbit

Mervin Verbit is a distinguished professor of Sociology at CUNY - which was my second choice for grad school (they offered me a prestigious scholarship) after Brandeis - and I've seen his name referenced a bunch of times. But, I must admit a chronic weakness of mine, one that's shared by some of my heroes (notably, Dave Barry) which is that I cannot resist a funny name.

This man is a senior colleague in my field yet his name is a caraway seed in the dentures of my mind because his name is beautifully, tragically funny.

We were brainstorming what his middle name is: Bert? Gertrude? Murgatroyd?

Story illustrating the use of the name from this morning: I gave a gift to my eldest son: a small paper map of the 553 bus route. He loves it. It's got roads, railroad tracks, the letter T, etc. And there's the picture of the guy I call "Mr. Bus Man" - his smiling face is on a number of bus maps and the MBTA does not identify him. Is he a driver? Does he own a bus? Did he invent Boston? No idea. Anyway, my eldest asked me, naturally, who this guy was. My answer, also naturally: Mervin Verbit.

Mervin Murgatroyd Verbit, to be honest.

A la Grover, I am so ashamed.

Dave For President

The Knight-Ridder folks (the best newspaper chain around, even though they changed their name to the hard to remember and pronounce McClatchy) are hosting a Q&A forum with perennial Presidential candidate Dave "Dave Barry" Barry.

An example:

"Q - Dave, if you were both President of the United States and a turkey, would you pardon yourself for Thanksgiving?
- Butterball Bill, Chaska, Minnesota 11/21/07

A - Yes. Also, when congress brought me bills to sign into law, I would poop on them, and people would say to Congress, 'What did you expect? He's a turkey!'
- Dave Barry 11/22/07"

And you can ask Dave whatever you want. I'm thinking of a few right now.

Dave Barry Online (Pirated)

I was searching, as a favor to Mrs. Styx, for the resolution of the famous Dave Barry story about the "Lavender Hill Mob." In my search, I found the original story online, because, I swear I am not making this up, some Russian website has pirated his books and placed them online.

Check it out: “Dave Barry” at FictionBook.lib

This is not happening... Dave go bye-bye

Augh! According to this story:

Dave Barry, The Herald's humor columnist for the past 20 years, said Tuesday that he will take an indefinite leave of absence from the newspaper. He may return in a year.

[Sound of The Styx weeping]

Barry said he has not decided whether he will return to writing his weekly column in 2006.

And, no, I don't think the Styx is a good substitute for The Barry. You need to go to the source. Of course, his columns from the early 80s are the best stuff he's done, so maybe he can recharge his funny-batteries... aw, who am I kidding [more weeping]

Religious Weirdness Alert

Dave Barry, who has made a point of keeping the world abreast of all the stark craziness on the web, linked to this site at some freaky Baptist 'anti-triclavianist' church.

I roamed around this site for a few minutes and found myself getting seriously creeped out. Check out the kids' page (with Habu the Hindu elephant, Prof. Giraffenstein the Creation Scientist and, my favorite, Hopsiah the Jewish Kangaroo from the Middle East "where his ancestors and those of all the other animals and humans alive today exited Noah's Ark 4,000 years ago. But unlike the other Kangaroos who hopped to Australia, Hopsiah's family stayed behind to witness the coming of the Messiah!")

Back at the original link, the Pastor explains his anti-triclavianist standpoint. If someone can explain the following terms he uses in the following verbatim (schizophrenic?) posting, I'd much appreciate it:

August 13, 2003: Some have criticized my stance on triclavianism as being counterproductive, arguing that making a point of doctrinal contention over not making a point of doctrinal contention over adiaphora is itself non-salvific. However, my critics are overlooking the dangers of triclavianistic doctrines: allowing adiaphora to creep into our credenda -- while possibly pushing the theologoumenic envelope and providing exciting new opportunities for supererogative works -- will most often serve to muddy the soteriological foundation of Faith, leading in general to ultramontane excesses and, in extreme cases, ebaptization (which is unacceptable pastoral malpractice, however rare it may be.) Doctrinal integrity, and hence salvific effectiveness, is best served by working to end triclavianism and similar erroneous, or simply adiaphoric, doctrines.

Why We Hate Bush?

Ted Rall demonstrates the danger of liberal philosophy; or at least the danger that poses if I get labeled a liberal. While I generally agree with him that it is moral to despise the government of G.W. Bush, he also despises the Israeli government – an act I consider immoral.

Most Orthodox Jews who support Bush do so because vis-à-vis Israel his government has been the best towards Israel in years. I disagree on principle but agree in action. Meaning that Clinton’s government was closest to Israel – they believed in Israel as a sovereign nation and as a friend – but only with the definition of Israel under the Labor government .

Bush’s crew supports Israel with a freaky neo-conservative, Christian Right, perspective which frightens me to death. But, so far, they support Likud (whom I support), so materially they are doing well for Israel.

Which, all told, is still not all that good. When the American government allows Israel to arrest Arafat, punish terrorists, and protect their citizens, then I will declare that government "good for Israel."

Liberals detest Israel largely because of bias and ignorance. The bias is against any government – the liberals think that individual citizens (especially unionized) are always correct when up against Big Interests (like governments and companies). Ironically, the best definition of a domestic liberal is someone who believes in big government, but that’s the Foreign Policy vs. Domestic Policy flip-flop that a lot of people suffer from (like me, I guess, hmmm).

The ignorance I refer to is the fact that these people are not acquainted with the facts. They see Arafat as a freedom fighter – which he would be if you only read headlines. It’s the same way I treat the Pakistan-Indian conflicts; that is, I don’t know any details and I make decisions based on gut.

So… why do I hate Bush. Rall says its not because Bush is an idiot. Nor because Bush is a hypocrite. Nor because of the fascism. Rather its because Bush stole the 2000 election.

I disagree. The stolen election is infuriating, but (alas) its History and not much we can do about it. I hate Bush because his government is using any excuse possible to mislead the nation as to their real objectives: making themselves rich and oppressing those who they dislike. The Bush administration is low, mean, and petty.

And because Bush & Co. are low, mean, and petty about Domestic issues – I fear that their attitude towards Israel is the same. As my man, Dave Barry, once said: "If he’s nice to you, and mean to the waiter, then he’s not a nice person."

Dave Barry was in New York

And I didn't get to switch identities with him!