Never been prouder, Maddie edition.

My eldest can ride a bike now. She's still not quite to the point of being able to kick herself into gear, but she's getting closer.

She stumbled and fell and accumulated the usual collection of scrapes, bruises and tears on the way. Each time, she picked herself back up and tried again, me encouraging her all the way.

Now she sails northbound with confidence, confident enough to peek at the clouds and birds.

"It's so much fun!"

What? Oh, allergies have been a monster this year.

Who's the leader of the cult that's made for you and me?

B-a-r-a-c-k O-b-a-m-a.

Barry-O, Barry-O...

Forever let us raise his temple high! high! high!

So come along and sing the song and worship faithfully!

B-A-R-A-C-K O-B-A-M-A!

Cinderella.

If you haven't seen Cinderella Man, see it. As in, right now.

All right--quick summary:

CM is the improbable comeback story of boxer James J. Braddock, the heavyweight champion right before Joe Louis. Braddock was a contender in the late 20s until he broke his left hand. His savings wiped out by the Great Depression, he ended up moving into a basement apartment with his wife and three kids. He was lucky enough to get work on the docks, which forced him to use his left hand, progressively strengthening it. He gets a chump match at the last minute at Madison Square Garden and scores a titanic upset of the No. 2 heavyweight, his now hammer-like left hand helping to knock out his stunned opponent before an even more stunned audience.

I think the pivotal scene in Cinderella Man is not the heavyweight match with Max Baer (who was done an injustice by the film, not so BTW), as impressive a bit of sports cinema as it is. No, the crucial scene is Braddock's fight with the No. 1 contender, Art Lasky, the last step before facing Baer. Frankly, Lasky mauls Braddock, breaking a rib and battering him from one end of the ring to the other. Finally, Lasky throws his best shot, a titanic right hook, smashing Braddock to the canvas and knocking his mouth guard out. The count begins, and Braddock is seeing double.

Then he starts flashing back to his family in poverty, being reduced to nothing, and he pulls himself to his feet. Not even wobbling, he smiles at Lasky and walks over to pick up his mouth guard, still smiling. A smile that says, louder than any speech, "Kid, you'd better pray to God that wasn't the best you got."



Alas for Lasky, it was, and the scene shows him watching Braddock in disbelief as the latter takes up residence in his head, shortly before turning the tables and beating the snot out of him.

That's what happened last night. No, not to Biden, but rather to all of Gov. Palin's detractors. Sure, she's had an awful stretch--no one watching the Couric interview could do anything but wince.

But last night she got back off the canvas with a smile after having taken the worst pummeling in modern political history, and sent her detractors to the mat for a ten count. Regardless of what happens this year (and the odds aren't great and haven't been), she's here to stay.

Why I am pulling for her to do well.

My uncle sends this recent story about the Palins, one "that will never make the papers":

One of the clearing guys here at our [utility] company was volunteering at the Alaska State Fair when the pole he was up on (helping to remove) broke off at the ground and fell with him attached. The fall would have killed a normal human. In this case it resulted in a life changing (for a lumberjack) shattered hip and internal injuries.

This coming Saturday the fair is holding a fund raiser for the family that includes an auction of donated goods. Todd Palin called the organizer and asked him to come over to the house and pickup a donation for the auction. Once the organizer got past the Secret Service background check and fondle, Todd handed him an official NHL jersey with the name McCain-Palin sewn on it and signed by John, Sarah and Todd. Estimated value on e_bay today..$5,000.00. Good people those Palins.

Which is why it ticks me off to no end to see the ridicule and scurrilous bullshit heaped upon them. Argue her qualifications and missteps all you like. But the below-the-belt crap deserves a quite literal punch in return.

The Church of the Savior in Chora, Constantinople.

With all due respect to Hagia Sophia, the best remaining mosaics in the City of Constantine are not to be found there.

Rather, they can be seen at the Kariye Museum, the current name for the Church of the Savior in Chora. "Chora" is a term roughly meaning "rural," and reflects the fact that the city's great Theodosian Walls enclosed a great deal of farmland that was never developed, even when the population of the city exceeded half a million souls.

In fact, the parts of the city nearest the walls were popular sites for monasteries because of their remoteness from the population center.

The Church of the Savior is the last survivor. [Important Technical Note: Clicking on the pictures in the post often gives you a better look.]

Built in the Eleventh Century, during Byzantium's last years of unchallenged political glory, the Chora was made immortal during the fourteenth century by the diligent efforts of an aristocratic patron, Theodore Metochites.

Metochites presenting his work to Christ.

Metochites spent lavishly to adorn the church with the great mosaics which have endured to this day. After his fall from power during one of the many idiot suicidal squabbles within the last ruling Byzantine house, Metochites retired to the Chora as a monk and died there, hopefully consoled by his great work.

The Chora was not immediately turned into a mosque after the fall of the city to the Ottomans in 1453. However, it was forcibly expropriated and turned into a Muslim worshop site in the early 1500s, and heavy plaster covered the mosaics. Please note that the the plaster is not responsible for all of the damage to the mosaics--Istanbul is geologically active and suffers from a large number of earthquakes.

Fortunately, in 1948 the Chora's life as a mosque was ended by the Turkish government and restoration work was begun, resulting in the establishment of the site as a museum in 1958. For that, at least, we can be very thankful.

[Picture credit.]

The Dormition of the Blessed Virgin

The South Dome

The North Dome

Saint Paul

Saint Peter

You gave me fortune/ You gave me fame/ You gave me power in your god's name/ I'm every person you need to be...

I'm in the odd position of finding comments neither necessary nor sufficient.

*Two* of you will get this one in its entirety.

But both of you will laugh heartily. The rest of you can suffer in eye-rolling silence. Except for Hilary. She'll be vocal about it.



[Via the best college football blog of all time, Every Day Should Be Saturday.]

P.J. O'Rourke mulls his mortality.

A funny and touching piece at the L.A. Times about his reaction to a cancer diagnosis.

God knows this stuff. He's God. He's all-knowing. What am I telling him, really? "Gosh, you sure are a good God. Good -- you own it. Plus you're infinitely wise, infinitely merciful, but ... look, everybody makes mistakes. A little cancer of the behind, it's not a big mistake. Not something that's going on your personal record. There's no reason it can't be, well ... reversed, is there?"

No doubt death is one of those mysterious ways in which God famously works. Except, on consideration, death isn't mysterious. Do we really want everyone to be around forever? I'm thinking about my own family, specifically a certain stepfather I had as a kid. Sayonara, you s.o.b.

Napoleon was doubtless a great man in his time -- at least the French think so. But do we want even Napoleon extant in perpetuity? Do we want him always escaping from island exiles, raising fanatically loyal troops of soldiers, invading Russia and burning Moscow?

Well, at the moment, considering Putin et al, maybe we do want that. But, century after century, it would get old. And what with Genghis Khan coming from the other direction all the time and Alexander the Great clashing with a Persia that is developing nuclear weapons and Roman legions destabilizing already precarious Israeli-Palestinian relations -- things would be a mess.

Has he become one of the tribe? He was raised Protestant and explained why that happened in one of his books, but he seems to be giving off beadsqueezer vibes in this one. Starting with the beadsqueezing reference.

Clusterfunk.

At the risk of boring you stiff (or creating a new genre of horror writing where Ben Bernanke wanders around moaning "Braiiiiiiiinnnnns") with the bailout stuff, I'll limit myself to two thoughts.

First, we had no leadership yesterday. None. Bush, being a lame duck and having cashed in his credibility chips, can't count.

But no one else stepped up. Not McCain, not Obama, not anyone in the House. No. Buh. Dee.

And a special Order of Demerit to San Fran Nan, whose shrieky partisanship failed to carry the day. Oddly enough. That wasn't a reason to vote against the package, and it was stupid for the GOP to say so. But her behavior did a nice job of squelching the argument that we are indeed, facing a crippling crisis. Instead, it's partisan point scoring as usual.

Imagine Churchill saying in 1940:

"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. Plus a boot to the arse of the brain-dead Labourites whose blinkered pacificism helped lead us to this precipice."

Not good.

Second: your head to the hills advice o' the day.

Pleasant surprise.

I see from trusty SiteMeter that this is the best traffic month in the past calendar year--over 10,000 page views and 8100 visits.

I've had higher traffic, but only on bad personal news, so I'm happier with this result. Not sure why it's going up--only one full-blown Sheavalanche--but it's nice to see.

If you're new here, welcome, and feel free to identify yourself and/or codes/locations for your accounts and valuables. If you're a lurker here, and want to delurk anonymously, have at it. If you'd just like to post one of those obnoxious "FRIST!!" [sic]-type comments, it's a free country and an authoritarian blog.

How about "bailout month"?

Britain's financial sector is tottering (more like Europe's actually), showing that the American malady is a worldwide problem.

There are indications the giant European bank Fortis could go under.

Good news? Of sorts. The oil price continues to plummet and the dollar is getting stronger by the hour.

Just might want to fastball debate on the bailout, lads.