Sentential Links #87

I'll probably be away from the computer most of the day tomorrow (Monday -- Presidents' Day), so here are this week's Sentential Links, one day early.

:: One of the reasons I love researching for Pulp Heroes is that I'm constantly reminded that our predecessors could be so exuberantly imaginative. A crossdressing rocambolesque zeppelin-piloting master criminal from a 1915 silent film--how fun is that?

:: I've always figured that anyone who thinks that the world today is more dangerous and more frightening than, say, the decade after WWII, is either too young to remember, too incurious to have read any history, or else just plain nuts.

:: What does it mean to "love thy neighbor"? Where does my social/spiritual obligation or opportunity start and stop?

:: I've seen biggies like the Eagles, Pink Floyd, U2, and Bob Dylan, not to mention personal uber-faves like Dwight Yoakam, but the list above still did the best live shows.

:: Things get pretty moody out in space, I guess. All that training, and then, at the end of the day, there you are with no gravity, some other astronaut is having sex with the astronaut you're supposed to be having sex with, you're trying to eat something that looks like a mylar balloon, and you have a load in your pants.

:: Boy, the early years were rough on Jerry, weren't they? 17 episodes in and he's only had four girlfriends, really. We'll check back in with the next season soon. Things might pick up for him then! (Schmoopy! Yes, he's blogging his way through Jerry's history of love on Seinfeld. Hilarity should ensue.)

:: Being a kid means feeling afraid, feeling sad, feeling lost and confused, feeling let down, feeling alone, feeling sad, feeling bad for reasons you can't name for yourself. (One of those posts Lance uncorks on a regular basis that makes me wonder why on Earth I'm blogging in the first place. Criminy.)

:: One thing to consider about the Glenn Reynolds / Hugh Hewitt assassination strategy for coping with the Iranian nuclear program ("we should be responding quietly, killing radical mullahs and Iranian atomic scientists") beyond the obvious is how we once again see conservatives (or in Reynolds' case "libertarians") displaying an almost childlike faith in the competence, honesty, and efficacy of the federal bureaucracy insofar as that bureaucracy is tasked with dishing out lethal force that they would never in a million years ascribe to, say, the people in charge of the Endangered Species Act.

:: I am not a Freak.

:: Pig, the last animal of the zodiac, is considered a very good sign to be born under. They are sincere, gregarious, diligent, generous sensualists. (Personally, I'd rather call it the Year of the Boar, but hey, it's my year! How about it, readers? Am I a sincere, gregarious, diligent, and generous sensualist? According to the placemats at Chinese restaurants, I'm noble and chivalrous, and while my friends will be lifelong, I am prone to marital strife. [No comment. -Ed.] I'm also supposed to marry a Rabbit, which The Wife is not. Hmmmm.)

That's it for now. Back next Monday.