A Priceless Modern Masterpiece:

One of Cassius M. Coolidge's classic "Dogs Playing Poker" paintings

Politics: Huey Long Had It Right

Huey Long speaking at the 1932 Democratic National Convention in support of the nomination of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The only difference I ever found between the Democratic leadership and the Republican leadership is that one of them is skinning you from the ankle up and the other, from the neck down.”— Huey Long, from his famous speech, ‘High Popalorum and Low Popahirum’

Poppa's Got a Brand New Gag

I've got a new gag. When people ask me what I do for a living (at the coffee shop), I tell them with a straight face that I'm a "Forensic Phrenologist" -- that is, I examine the lumps on dead people's skulls. This always gets a rousing laugh from the doctors in the crowd.

I sometimes add the  background remarks that after I got my Doctorate in "Spin," I went for my PhD in "Ethical Topology" and taught at the junior college level for a few years. But you can only train so many would-be politicians, journalists, and financial advisors, so I then quit to become a Forensic Phrenologist.

"Those that can do, those that can't teach."

The Know-It-All

Here's an uproarious book I identified with (perhaps a little too much), A. J. Jacobs' The Know-It-All.

33,000 Pages

 
44 Million words   

10 Billion years of history  

One Obsessed man   

Part memoir and part education (or lack thereof), The Know-It-All chronicles NPR contributor A.J. Jacobs's hilarious, enlightening, and seemingly impossible quest to read the Encyclopaedia Britannica from A to Z.   To fill the ever-widening gaps in his Ivy League education, A.J. Jacobs sets for himself the daunting task of reading all thirty-two volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His wife, Julie, tells him it's a waste of time, his friends believe he is losing his mind, and his father, a brilliant attorney who had once attempted the same feat and quit somewhere around Borneo, is encouraging but unconvinced.   With self-deprecating wit and a disarming frankness, The Know-It-All recounts the unexpected and comically disruptive effects Operation Encyclopedia has on every part of Jacobs's life -- from his newly minted marriage to his complicated relationship with his father and the rest of his charmingly eccentric New York family to his day job as an editor at Esquire. Jacobs's project tests the outer limits of his stamina and forces him to explore the real meaning of intelligence as he endeavors to join Mensa, win a spot on Jeopardy!, and absorb 33,000 pages of learning. On his journey he stumbles upon some of the strangest, funniest, and most profound facts about every topic under the sun, all while battling fatigue, ridicule, and the paralyzing fear that attends his first real-life responsibility -- the impending birth of his first child.

The Know-It-All is an ingenious, mightily entertaining memoir of one man's intellect, neuroses, and obsessions, and a struggle between the all-consuming quest for factual knowledge and the undeniable gift of hard-won wisdom.