Today was the first day of classes, one of my busiest times. I don’t have any assistants trained yet, so in between the other stuff I’m doing, I’m answering the bell to sell people textbooks every few minutes. I’ve got no complaints. It makes the day pass quickly. I’ve met my new assistants. One is a doctor from Ecuador, the other a pastor from Africa (not sure what country. Nigeria or Uganda, I think).

We have high employment requirements in my little library.

It’s amazing what you get in your e-mail as a result of being a Writers Digest subscriber. Today I got an advertisement for this book: The Pirate Primer. Teaches you the language of the freebooter. Just what we need to get ready for “Talk Like a Pirate Day,” September 19.



Usually when you get an e-mail that seems to come from yourself, but with your name spelled wrong, it’s a pretty good indication that you’re the lucky recipient of spam. But I took the risk of looking at an e-mail I got last night from a fellow named Lars Walkler (note the extra “l”), and it turns out he’s genuine. He wrote just to say hello and to warn me I might get some accidental e-mail intended for him in the future.

It’s rather amazing, I think. He’s a Swede, and he invented his unique last name, which he cobbled together from syllables of his father’s first and second names. But his original family name was Ohlsson. Ours was Olson.

He operates an adventure vacation business in Spain.

That’s where the resemblance ends.

Not only does chocolate rich in cacoa or dark chocolate taste great, it’s good for you too. It improves blood flow by knocking out cholesterol, among other things.

“Many people don’t realize that chocolate is plant-derived, as are the fruits and vegetables recommended for a healthy heart,” said Dr. Mary Engler of the University of California, San Francisco.

Everyone knows this, of course. That’s why chocolate sales are up a few billion.

Andree Seu writes, “Yet God, who is infinitely wise and for whom ‘nothing is impossible’ (Luke 1:37), chose human speech as the vehicle of communication to us. Was He grasping at straws?”

In his entertainment column, Roger Friedman writes, “The ‘Juno’ effect seems to be reverberating all over the place. In the year since Diablo Cody’s screenplay became Jason Reitman’s hit film, ‘Juno,’ we’ve seen unmarried 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears, single 22-year-old Ashlee Simpson and now 17-year-old unmarried Bristol Palin all get pregnant and decide to keep their babies.”

Deciding to keep their babies–why should that be abnormal in any way?

John Hinderaker at Power Line reports on the efforts of Leftist protesters at the Republican National Convention to actually injure (possibly kill) people on their way to participate in the assembly.

Isn’t it fascinating that conservatives, who are supposed to be narrow-minded ideologues who see the world in stark black-and-white terms, did not try to do this sort of thing to the Democrats in Denver?

And that Leftists, who are supposed to be open-minded and tolerant, actually are attempting to prevent the party they oppose from holding a legal assembly necessary to carrying on the constitutional election process?

I know these protesters don’t represent the majority of Democrats. But why isn’t there a noticeable Republican equivalent? And why don’t we hear the Democratic leadership denouncing these acts?

(By the way, on a totally irrelevant note, “Hinderaker” is a Norwegian name. Some of my ancestors lived on a farm named Hinderaker, so it’s conceivable John and I are distant relations.)

Gaius at Blue Crab Boulevard posts a moving tribute to his brother’s birthday today:

In a cognitive sense, my brother is about eight years old – and always will be. But he is sweet, affectionate, artistic and quite the ladies man. He will tell, with complete sincerity, any woman he meets that she is gorgeous. This is not a hollow compliment, he means everything he says; there is not one dishonest bone in his body. And he can draw some stunning pictures.

Read it all here.

Just in case you missed this earlier.

While I don’t want to take any buzz away from Sarah Palin, who is in for the hockey fight of her life, I do want to write this post. A Swedish food magazine published a cake recipe with a typo in how much nutmeg to use. It should have called for two pinches. Instead, it recommended 20 nutmeg nuts. Now, nutmeg nuts aren’t easy to come by, and they’re potent. So you might think like the editors did that out of several hundred recipes, one that calls for a huge amount of nutmeg would not cause a problem. It would be an obvious error. They did the responsible thing and sent a letter to their subscribers and put a page in store copies warning “high doses of nutmeg can cause poisoning symptoms.”

When four women got wind of this and poisoned their husbands with it, the editors recalled the magazine.

In other food related news, the president of Iowa College resigned after the Des Moines Register published a photo that “reflected poorly on the college.” The photo shows him helping a young woman drink from a mini-keg of Coors Light. Obviously, had the beverage been Miller Chill no one would have objected.

If this story is true, I’d say it’s very good news for the Republican ticket.

I had some sentimental, Minnesotan investment in Pawlenty’s shot, but frankly nobody except his own family is all that enthusiastic about the guy.

I’ve said for some time that if McCain could see his way clear to choosing a woman for his running mate, he could pretty much cruise home. Palin will attract both conservative Republicans and Hillary Democrats.

Political genius, I say. I shall allow myself the unaccustomed luxury of a short moment of optimism now.

Apparently, officials at Arlington National Cemetery and a few military departments are working on an idea to replace the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with another one made from the same marble. This would cost a couple million and “significantly harm the historic character of Arlington National Cemetery,” according to a report quoted by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. I have to side with the National Trust. Every effort should be made to preserve original monuments or historically significant structures before replacing or removing them. The wear of time can add to the meaning of something like this. The tomb is a marker of the price of liberty in our country, not just a point of interest in a park.