Speaker A: . . . gobbling the whole, sharpening the flashing iron.

Speaker B: And the helmets are shaking their purple-dyed crests, and for the wearers of breast-plates the weavers are striking up the wise shuttle’s songs, that wakes up those who are asleep.

Speaker A: And he is gluing together the chariot’s rail.

LA Times: "Eriksson "had a .09 blood-alcohol level, but if he's a passenger, that's OK," [Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sgt. Philip] Brooks said. "But he had a bloody lip, and only the air bag on the driver's side had blood on it. The passenger-side air bag did not. My Scooby-Doo detectives are looking closely into that."

When the pigs the fuzz the heat have such a command of semi-cynical pop-cult name-dropping, who is left to rebel against?

yesterday, on talking points memo: "TPM Reader MN points out that Dick Cheney now joins Aaron Burr as one of the two vice presidents to shoot someone while in office."

tonight, the local news: "Vice President Cheney became the first vice president since Aaron Burr to shoot a man in office."

[is this going to be it? Is this the scandal that everyone can get behind?] [no special bird hunting stamp!]

James's post on Les Krims reminded me of something I read about Krims that relates to our current cartoon riots. In the very early 70s, Krims showed his prints -- maybe the stack o wheat murders? -- in Texas or some other conservative place. A local viewer was so upset by Krims's pictures, so offended, that he took the curator (?? my memory fails me) hostage. Or something like that.

You have to feel for the guy, that he got so offended.

And then you follow the Krims link and you find that he is an amazing anti-Left crank, who revels in his tweaking of the bourgeoisie and believes he has discovered the dark secrets of the Academic Left.

There's a local news report on about a schoolkid who died playing a "dangerous choking game," autoasphyxiation to achieve a high. 10 or 11 year old kid. And I remember reading a RE/Search or some similar thing back in the transressive late 1980s, which had a whole chapter about autoerotic asphyxiations, which were held up in ironic hero-hood, men willing to go the distance for their pleasure or their obsession. And I wonder, is this our fault?