The dogs are doing well, but they're getting worn out taking care of US

Image source: freefoto.com, used under the Creative Commons License. This is a superb site for freely usable photos under the CCL and related "open source" style licensing.

Everyone knows the proverb/aphorism "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link" but my research hasn't turned up anything definitive as to its origin. It seems to have been around in some form for hundreds if not thousands of years... which makes sense, since chains have been too!

In any case, this aphorism and image are an apt summary of how things are with me and Tess right now.... and to go into more detail would take more time and energy than I have, or background on us than most any of you have.

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Just a few tidbits which don't require so much explaining...

• We believe we have isolated out why Tess' migraines have been so intractable since November, and are addressing it. When we'll see the fruits of that, I don't know, but I know many of you are wondering and worried (and THANK YOU for both! ) so...
• Tess is really taking to the concept and action of blogging. I expect she'll be more active and INTERactive on multiply and "whygod" than I for the foreseeable future.
  
• And speaking of Tess and "whygod"- a special request... she doesn't know I'm making this... (she's asleep as I should be except that one of my "weak links" is acting up on me)
• If you'd like to engage her in talking about life, spirituality, etc., but don't want to join "whygod" please let her know, so she can consider posting to her blog more too. Blogging is becoming an important lifeline to external reality and human interaction for her... its damn near the only one she has, so... .
• As for me... the same realities which became so overwhelming that I had to draw back from the amount and nature of my virtual interaction remain so. Some are a little better, some dramatically worse (I don't know what's up with my gut, but its nothing good, and its become a figurative and literal pain in the @ss!)
• I have realized one thing... after what- 25 years of interaction with other people on the computer, starting with the old dial up BBS powered by caged hamsters in the 80s... that the one thing which cannot be accomplished in virtual reality is the establishment and enjoyment of Gemütlichkeit. (If you don't speak the superior German language click here to read what it means.)
  
• You can do some of the groundwork for its establishment, as I did with the BBS parties I hosted back in the 80s, or as Snark does with the PaN crowd at Gino's and the Anvil now, but... there is no such thing as virtual gemütlichkeit!
• So... I'll continue posting pictures and videos of interest both places, but keeping my head down on Multiply.
• Finally- this deserves a post of its own, but I'm too exhausted from life to do it now... the death of William F. Buckley Jr. is striking a powerful resonance with my feelings for my father. My earliest memories of my father include his introducing me to The National Review, and helping me to learn to read by sitting with me as I read it... always starting with WFB's column.
  

A nice Youtube tribute to WFB-jr

WFBjr RIP- Sometimes the good don't die young, they scrabble it out for 82 years

Outside of my family, William F. Buckley Jr. is doubtless the most influential man in my life. I grew up reading his National Review, which accounted for my high school nickname of "Dictionary breath." Somewhere we have a picture of me as a bright blond haired 2nd grader reading The National Review.


It is such the pity that he has no more heirs now than he did peers then. With this brilliant mind and incisive wit he opened the door for conservatives or "classic liberals" to be influential in media and culture, but the ones who have come after him have not tended to be nearly so civil, thoughtful, or cultured as was he.


Its almost as if a philosopher king had beaten down the gates to a walled city, only to have it over run by thugs who entered through the breach he created. Such is the lay of the land on the right today.

Video: On Legalizing Drugs, 1996

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Video- debating Chomsky

Part II of the debate is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9Samvw6Z08...

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Here's a selection of his obit from his hometown paper, the Boston Globe

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By Mark Feeney, Globe Staff

William F. Buckley Jr., who as author, journalist, and polysyllabic television personality did more to popularize conservatism in post-New Deal America than anyone other than Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan, died early today at his home in Stamford, Conn. He was 82 and had been ill with emphysema, said his assistant, Linda Bridges.

Mr. Buckley’s political importance has long been acknowledged across the political spectrum. Pat Buchanan, the three-time presidential candidate, once called him “the spiritual father of the movement,” while the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. called Mr. Buckley “the scourge of American liberalism.” Although Schlesinger, very much a man of the left, did not mean it as a compliment, Mr. Buckley cheerily took it as such.

Good cheer was a key element in Mr. Buckley’s success. Not only did it sustain him during the ’50s and ’60s, when his brand of conservatism claimed few adherents. It also helped earn him an audience — and grudging acceptance — among the liberal elite. Indeed, Schlesinger became a friend of Mr. Buckley’s, as did such other eminent liberals as the activist Allard Lowenstein, the columnist Murray Kempton, and the Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith.

Mr. Buckley’s personal charm was one of several sources from which he derived so large an influence. He was also the author of more than 40 books. Although many were not about politics, all his early ones were, and they tended to attract wide attention.

In 1955, Mr. Buckley founded National Review, which he edited for the next 35 years. “It was a pretty sclerotic situation [on the right] when National Review started out,” he recalled in a 2001 Globe interview. “Our launch reflected a pent-up appetite.”

The columnist George F. Will (the magazine’s onetime Washington editor) said at a 25th anniversary celebration, “Before Ronald Reagan, there was Barry Goldwater, and before Barry Goldwater there was National Review, and before there was National Review, there was Bill Buckley, with a spark in his mind.” That spark, Will noted, eventually became “a conflagration.” One sign of that conflagration was circulation: The magazine is America’s most widely read political journal.

National Review also turned into a great incubator of young writers, courtesy of Mr. Buckley’s keen eye for talent. Among those who worked for the magazine early in their career were Will, Garry Wills, Joan Didion, John Leonard, Richard Brookhiser, and David Brooks.

The success of National Review led to Mr. Buckley’s being offered a syndicated newspaper column in 1962. At its height, the twice-weekly column ran in more than 300 papers.
Four years later, he debuted as host of a television debate program, “Firing Line.” It ran for 33 years and brought him an audience greater than that for his books, magazine, and column combined.

It also made Mr. Buckley a celebrity, which may have been the most important contributor to his influence. Looking at their television screens, viewers didn’t see a conservative in the mold of a Robert Taft or Calvin Coolidge — someone pinched, drab, reserved. Instead, Mr. Buckley was dashing, witty, almost preposterously energetic.

“On TV Buckley is a star,” wrote the journalist Theodore White. “His haughty face, its puckering and hesitation as he lets loose a shaft of wit, would have made him Oscar Wilde’s favorite candidate for anything.”

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