I’m off to Elk Horn, Iowa this morning to do the Viking thing, because that’s the kind of guy I am. You’ll have to be content with this for a post from me. Phil, I assume, will fill the void with wonder and merriment, as is his wont.

And remember, all you burglars out there, my renter will still be in the house. He’s got a new shotgun, and he’s just itching to try it out.

Photo credit: Corbis.

I didn’t even realize Art Linkletter was still alive, and now he’s dead.

You young folks probably don’t even know who Art Linkletter was. But in his time, when I was a kid, he was a genuine phenomenon. On television and radio, in books, even in a couple movies, he combined personal charm and wit with a master pitchman’s instincts, to make himself one of the most recognized—and loved—personalities in America. He was like Oprah, except without pretension.

Born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, he was abandoned by his natural parents when a few weeks old, and raised by an evangelical pastor, named Linkletter, and his wife. The family moved to California. He gravitated to radio, and from there to television. His popular quiz show, “People Are Funny,” made the transition to TV very successfully, and his afternoon TV program, “Art Linkletter’s House Party” became an institution, especially the segment where he interviewed young children, skillfully fishing for funny (but never humiliating) responses.

I know a fellow who told me he was once one of those kids. I was tremendously impressed.

This guy was everywhere in those days. He had two shows on TV. He had a radio show. He did guest appearances. He must have worked twenty hours a day.

In his later years, after the death of his daughter by suicide (a suicide he attributed to LSD use), Linkletter became an anti-drug activist. This, of course, made him a figure of fun to the left (because, after all, what’s funnier than a grieving father?).

I don’t know what his religious beliefs were. I saw an anti-drug film he did back around 1970, and in it he said that, in spite of being raised by a pastor, he’d never held any faith in religion until he’d observed the success of faith-based programs like Teen Challenge in dealing with drug addiction.

When I think back on the vacation days in the 1950s, when my brothers and I used to watch his programs, I remember a time that was kinder in many ways, a time when we all shared values and you could relax with the TV on, not worrying something would come on you didn’t want the kids to see. Art Linkletter outlived the world he belonged in. I miss them both.

OK, so I’m mowing my lawn tonight. The mower is sputtering off and on, threatening to die. I stop and rinse the air filter out in gasoline, and while I’m letting it dry I come in and check my e-mail. There’s a message from a Viking friend, the guy I drove out to Annandale with on Saturday (more on that below). The subject line says, “What Wrong With Your Lawnmower?”

I swear we didn’t discuss lawnmowers during our drive on Saturday. We did talk about Sea Foam gas treatment, which I had just put in the mower, but we hadn’t discussed mowers. I’m sure.

Pretty sure.

Anyway, it’s weird.

Our Viking group was asked to set up a display for a big Boy Scout event at a Scout camp in Annandale, Minnesota on Saturday. It’s about an hour away, so we got up early and drove out. The weather forecast called for a bright, hot day.

And it was. After the thunderstorm.

The pounding rain drove us under cover for most of the morning. When the skies finally cleared, we got heavy winds for a while. This is a perfect scenario for loosening the pegs that secure my sun shade, which you can see in the picture above. I kept pounding them back in with the poll of my Viking axe. I also had to do my second field repair on the canvas, with artificial sinew and a needle. Finally the winds died down, and I was able to sell a few books and try to ride herd on all the little boys who wanted to handle my swords. Also to have a different friend take the picture above, which I wanted so I could record my new Viking outfit. I made both the tunic and the trousers all by myself, and I’m relatively proud of them. The pants were the second pair I made. The first pair taught me what not to do on the second pair.

The tunic is about 50% better than the one I made last year, from the same light blue cloth. My only big complaint with it is that the facing is crooked. You’ll notice how it (the dark blue around the neck) is hanging crooked? That’s not a bug, it’s a feature. I don’t mean it’s how I intended it. I mean it’s how I sewed it. It’s not just hanging crooked. It’s always like that. (Last year’s shirt has the same problem.)

Still, I’m learning. And that’s about all you can ask for in these things.

Or so I’ve learned.

John Cleese is touring England soon to pay off his third wife–or something like that.

John Cleese is to embark on his first-ever UK tour next year at the age of 71. The comedian, who recently agreed a divorce settlement believed to be in the region of £12m, has dubbed it the “Alimony Tour”.

Cleese, who rose to fame with Monty Python, promised the show would be “an evening of well-honed anecdotes, psychoanalytical titbits, details of recent surgical procedures, and unprovoked attacks on former colleagues, especially Michael Palin”.

I’ve often said (to myself in imaginary conversations with people who care what I think of public issues) that pornography isn’t everywhere online, but sometimes it feels as if it is. That’s why the best web filter is your own mind, which doesn’t help our kids who don’t have minds yet.

Steve Jobs shocked some Net-citizens by saying Apple’s iPad and iPhone won’t have porn apps. He said in an email, “Yep, freedom from programs that steal your private data. Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom. The times they are a changin’, and some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away.”

As Eric Felton points out, Jobs may be promising more than he can deliver. “As long as one of the Apple Apps is an Internet browser, the bawdy side of web will still be accessible on iPhones and iPads. Still, just because Mr. Jobs won’t be able to purge his devices of blue content, that doesn’t mean he’s obliged to distribute it himself.”

A Gawker.com reporter accused Jobs of imposing his morality on us, to which Mr. Felton writes: “What a peculiar—and peculiarly modern—controversy. Is it really such an affront to the rights of those who would buy and sell pornography that someone might want the right to choose not to?”

In slightly related news, a jobs bill from the Democrats in Washington, intended “to increase investments in science, research and training programs,” was scuttled after Republicans amended it to hold back on some of the funding and to deny any funding “to salaries to those officially disciplined for violations regarding the viewing, downloading, or exchanging of pornography, including child pornography, on a federal computer or while performing official government duties.”

Here’s a list of videos show what they call Augmented Reality. The first film, I believe, is student film illustrating the consequences of augmented reality. “Augmented reality may recontextualise the functions of consumerism and architecture, and change in the way in which we operate within it,” as noted on the Vimeo host page. Other videos show darn cool phone apps for navigation and identification. This is wild. (via Jeff Jarvis)

(Photo by The Lightworks/Flickr)

And now for something completely different: a Western music video.

Responding to a new Gallup poll, 45% said moral values in the U.S. are poor. Democrats are a little more optimistic than Republicans or independents. The results are the most negative Gallup has gotten for this question in several years.

I am not familiar with this term: Morton’s Fork

“A situation involving choice between two equally undesirable outcomes

“ETYMOLOGY: After John Morton (c. 1420-1500), archbishop of Canterbury, who was tax collector for the English King Henry VII. To him is attributed Morton’s fork, a neat argument for collecting taxes from everyone: those living in luxury obviously had money to spare and those living frugally must have accumulated savings to be able to pay.” (via Wordsmith.org)

I took this picture of the town of Olden, Norway from the cruise ship in 2005. It’s the jumping off point to visit the Briksdalsbreen glacier.



As mentioned below, today is Norwegian Constitution Day. In spite of what is often said (even in a book I reviewed recently), it’s not Norwegian Independence Day. The Norwegians adopted their constitution in 1814, in an abortive attempt to achieve independence. The Swedes marched in to nip that idea in the bud, but (being Swedish) they were nice enough to let them keep their constitution, with a few editorial changes. For almost a century after that, the Norwegians celebrated Constitution Day (often in defiance of the law), to keep the fires of independence burning. By the time they managed to get loose in 1901 (through the most passive-aggressive revolution in history) the tradition of Constitution Day as the great patriotic holiday was firmly established, and so it remains to this day, even though there’s a genuine independence day (June 7) to celebrate too. Plus Liberation Day (May 8) if you’re in a party mood.

I love Norway for many reasons. For all its progressivism and secularism and social democracy, it hasn’t yet joined the European Union and has not adopted the Euro (a decision that looks better and better every day). It ain’t easy for a country with three independence days to give up its sovereignty. Norway has the largest (though still vestigial) evangelical Christian population in Scandinavia. It possesses (imho) the greatest concentration of natural beauty in the world. And it’s full of really wonderful people, several of whom are my friends, or (lucky them) related to me.

So, God Syttende Mai (again) to our Norwegian readers. Of course our Norwegian readers are mostly in bed by now, and won’t see this until tomorrow morning their time, when we’ll be in bed ourselves.

But then it’s light in Norway till around 11:00 p.m. this time of the year, so maybe we’ll catch some of the hard partiers.