the whiskey sour cocktail

So it's pile onto Uncle Ken Monday.  Beagles has nailed his four points to the ivied walls of Beaglesonia .  Rather than go through each one I will issue my blanket statement which I have held from the beginning.  It's only a big deal because Trump in the midst of an off year election chose to make it so.  It is of little consequence as to the health of our nation, and will amount to nothing.

As for folks having their minds made up and being unwilling to budge I say let the Beaglestonian who is willing to budge cast the first stone.

A ham sandwich is the proper way to ask for ham between two slices of bread.  You could ask simply for a Polish sausage, but you could just as properly ask for a Polish sausage sandwich.  If you asked for a hot dog sandwich the guy behind the counter would probably look at you funny, but not say anything, but if you asked for a hamburger sandwich 'I daresay the guy would at least grunt huh?  Perhaps he would inquire if you wanted your patty between two slices of bread.

If you asked for a hot dog taco you would get a hot dog in a tortilla.  If you asked for a carne asada sandwich you wold get your meat between two slices of bread.  I think that perhaps Old Dog does not get the point of meaningless arguments.  Outside of being good clean fun they are also research into logic and semantics.  The problem with the cube theory is not so much that it is arbitrary, which it is, but which is not a problem for meaningless arguments, but that it is simplistic and the author does not take it very far.  He goes through a few examples and then he is done.  I mean, where is the beef?

If Old Dog is so enamored of less being more, I expect that the next time he orders an Italian beef, he asks the counterman to put less beef between the dipped slices of bun and when the guy looks at him funny he can explain how less is more and something about elegant simplicity, and when the guy looks at him more suspiciously he can brightly inform him that it's actually an Italian beef taco.  That should make an impression.


All of which reminds me of the story of the whiskey sour cocktail.  Thirty-five years ago I was tending bar in one of Champaign Urbana's toniests joints.  I wore a white shirt, a black vest, and a bowtie, that's how fancy it was.  The local swells showed up and tipped well and in deference I dropped the sullen attitude I had presented at the House of Chin. 

One evening a group of swells dropped in for a before dinner drink and one of them, a woman as well-dressed as the rest of them, but a little unsure of herself, like a woman who had married into money asked for a whiskey sour cocktail.  "Right," I said parking it into my memory, "A whiskey sour."

But her finger went up and she corrected me, "A whiskey sour cocktail."  A whiskey sour is a cocktail, which I was about to explain, but I remembered my place and ducked down into my bottles.

Afterwards. as they were gathering their coats and whatall to enter the dining room, as I was whisking her empty glass away I asked her, "How was your drink Ma'am?"

"Oh, it was fine," she answered, and then she sighed, a heartbreaking sigh that I expect she had sighed often, "It just wasn't a whiskey sour cocktail."


The big deal about Beto O'Rourke is that he almost beat Cruz in Texas.  Texas!!!  I didn't follow the race closely because I knew he didn't have a chance, so I can't say I know what his platform is or what is the source of his charisma, and I kind of don't care.  What he appears to be at the moment is a guy who can unite the dems and beat Trump, and that is all we dems are looking for right now.

Of course it won't be that simple and he is already taking fire from fellow dems.  The last thing we dems want is a bruising primary fight which would leave the party divided and the losers staying home on election day.  That is all we good dems are thinking about at the moment.


Tip O'Neil famously said, "All politics is local."  But anymore all politics is national.  When voting for dog catcher we don't ask what kind of net he uses,. but where he stands on Trump.   It has been much written about and discussed.  The internet, like tv before it, is getting much of the blame.