I am not making this up, nor did I coach my four-year-old son in any way. He looked over my shoulder while I was watching Fred Thompson call out Huckabee for what he stands for.

Son: “Who is the president of Oregon?”

Me: “We don’t have a president of Oregon. We have a governor. His name is Ted Kulongoski. But we have a president of the United States, and his name is George Bush. In November, we’ll vote for a new president of the United States.”

Son: “Who is it going to be?”

Me: “We have to vote to find out. Voting is how we choose the president. Voting is choosing, for the president.”

Son: “Well, my president is Fred Thompson.”

Me: …

Me (trying, and failing, to keep a straight face): “Why is that?”

Son: “Because it’s my favorite and I love it.”

“I am appalled that I ever liked Huckabee”

–Rachel Lucas

“As has so often happened in the great crises of her history, France produced a man.”

–Winston S. Churchill, speaking of Joseph Dupleix, in The Age of Revolution

Me: “Sometimes we have to do things we don’t like before we can do the things we do like.”

Son: “Why do we have to do things we don’t like?”

Me: “Sometimes we have to do things we don’t like because if we didn’t do them, nobody would do them and our lives would be worse.”

Son: …

Son: “I want a happy worse life.”

I realized I haven’t posted any Boston photos. Here are some of the Day of John Adams.

The house in which John Adams was born, bordered on the left by the house he and Abigail later lived in and in which John Quincy Adams was born:

Over at Peacefield, the larger estate where John and Abigail lived much later and where many of their descendents lived as well, the beautiful library Charles Francis Adams built to house his father’s (John Quincy’s) books:

The grounds of Peacefield:

And some butterflies thereon:

On Christian denominations: It’s all right to be loyal to traditions, as long as you don’t get the traditions confused with the Word of God and treat them as having the force thereof.

If nobody owes you anything, then they also don’t owe anybody else who might cut you out of your share.

Deep thoughts. I haz them.

A guy I know describes himself as both Christian and Buddhist and has mentioned, in that context, looking at beliefs and religions “that have something to offer.”

I think it’s likely to be more valuable in the long run to consider whether any religion or belief system tends to oblige you to allegiance.

People looking for something to be offered them might tend to wind up, um, enthusiastically taking up for long lists of tripe to see where they can get the best value. What happens when the next big bargain of “something offered” for effort, self-discipline, and time comes along? Certainly the belief system that exalts human beings to the top of the rational food chain has a lot to “offer” in terms of pride and self-importance.

Son, singing a song we’d listened to in the car while running errands: “God spoke to Moses from a burning book, burning book, burning book…”

Me: “No, honey, it’s burning bush. God spoke to Moses from a burning bush.”

Son: …

Son: “God was hiding in the bushes.”

Update: Conversation of the Day, Part 2:

Son, wailing at bedtime: “I want to read in my room!!!”

Mom, after a couple glasses of cabernet: “Okay. Fifteen minutes.”

Daddyman, whose job it is to put the boy to bed: “Fifteen minutes! You certainly do have a lenient mother.”

Son: “Where?”

It’s time. When you’re feeling a little love from even the big A, it means, in the immortal words delivered by Jack Palance, the day ain’t over yet.

Take a look at the info-blurb under Thompson as he’s speaking here and then tell me about your lack of bias:

Fred Thompson Opposes Abortion Rights and Same-Sex Marriage

What’s wrong with “Fred Thompson Supports the Right to Life and Heterosexual Marriage”? Nothing except that the one they went with sends a context of opposition to something that should be a foregone conclusion.

Tiresome.

Time to find out how many Fred supporters are the kind who hang up on pollsters.

Update: Wyoming caucus day Saturday. Cowboy hats still play there, right?

…in the shape of a toxic fungus killing people stone-dead. Via the Headlines of the Ace of Spades, who tells off the quoted doctor, Paul Cieslak, for taking it lightly:

“You’ve got bigger things to worry about,” he said. “If we start to get more reports and it’s increasing, I’ll sit up and take note.

He’s the manager of the communical diseases program in the state Public Health Division. Thanks for your vigilance and expertise, Dr. Cieslak. I guess that’s why they pay you the government big bucks.