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Sarah Palin, Republican John McCain’s running mate, tried to burnish her foreign policy credentials by meeting here with Israel’s ambassador to the United States. “We look forward to working with your Jewish agency,” she told Ambassador Sallai Meridor.

Governor Palin seems to be under the impression that any Jewish state would be a talent agency. That is true of William Morris (not his original name), Creative Artists Agency and ICM, but not Israel. (Israel, however, could give Mrs. Palin a good deal for its Philharmonic to play at Bristol’s wedding.)

But the Governor certainly would want a Jewish agent to negotiate for her book deal and Fox talk show. A Gentile agent–if one actually exists–could be raptured in the middle of the negotiations. That is not only inconvenient but unprofessional. No, Gov. Palin would want an agent who expects to be damned–and does business accordingly.

How can a derby be both a hat and a horserace? In fact, it could have been a soft drink, too; so be grateful for minor confusion instead of complete chaos.

The original Derby is a middling city in the English Midlands. The Romans called it “Derventio” in reference to the area’s oak trees, which the bored legionaires probably counted for lack of any other entertainment. (Londinium wasn’t exactly Rome either, but at least it had baths and burlesque theaters.) And 15 centuries later, the social life of Derby has not improved. The city’s idea of sophistication is pronouncing its name as Darby.

Nonetheless, Derby and its adjacent Derbyshire had sufficient resources to support and indulge a family of aristocrats: the Stanleys. They have been the neighborhood Earls since 1485, when Lord William Stanley stayed at the sidelines of Bosworth Field until he decided who to betray: Richard III or Henry Tudor. Since Stanley was married to Tudor’s mother, perhaps he really didn’t have a choice; but Richard still seemed surprised when the Stanley forces attacked him. The grateful Henry promoted his stepfather to an earldom.

Despite the initial treachery that elevated the family fortune, the Stanleys proved to be a loyal lot. None of them were killed by Henry VIII, Mary or Elizabeth—an actuarial miracle probably unmatched in any other family of English nobility. One Stanley, the 7th Earl of Derby, was killed by Cromwell; but that reflects only the Earl’s ineptitude, not his loyalty. The 8th Earl was so steadfast that he did not publicly complain when his wife’s second son looked like Charles II; however, the young man was written out of the Stanley will.

The 12th Earl is the hero of our story. If you believe the Gainsborough portrait of Edward Stanley (1752-1834), the Earl was an attractive and refined figure. You certainly would not recognize him as the short, fat slovenly man in the caricatures of London’s social gazettes. The Earl’s nickname was “Talley-Ho” so you get some inkling of the man’s cerebral nature. He did like the theater, if only for the actresses, but his chief enthusiasm obviously was for horses–breeding and racing them. To showcase his stable of thoroughbreds, he sponsored races. The Earl did not think it immodest to name one of the races the Derby Stakes. Indeed, the Earl would have been gratified to know that Derby is now synonymous with racing, although soapbox and demolition derbys might not be that flattering.

However, the Earl would be bewildered by the hat named for him. He never wore one; he never saw one. He died fifteen years before the hat was introduced. In 1849 the Bowler Brothers, custom hatters in London, were commissioned by the Earl of Leicester to create practical headgear for his gamekeepers. (Top hats tend to fall off when riding, and they look silly on anyone but aristocrats). The Bowlers produced the hat that sometimes bears their name; for some reason, no one wanted to call it a leicester. When that particular hat was introduced to the United States, however it was marketed as high fashion rather than practical headgear. Apparently, the name Bowler just did not sound chic, and Leicester could be a challenge to pronounce. (We literal Amercans would say Lei-cester instead of Lester.) So some marketing maven renamed the hat for the presumably dashing Earl of Derby, and that is how we Americans still identify the Bowlers’ claim to fame.

The real Derbys have demonstrated a remarkable stoicism or stupefaction over the misappropriation of their title. Certainly one of the Earls had to notice the dubiously-named hats . The 16th Earl spent 5 years on this side of the Atlantic, as Governor General of Canada. An avid sportsman (a genetic indisposition), he did not care to designate any dog sled races as Derbys. However, he was very impressed with another Canadian pastime: men flaying each other on ice. In fact, he even created a championship trophy for the brawls. Of course, he had to name it for himself; and if Derby had become grossly overused, his actual surname could suffice. (He was Lord Stanley to his friends.)

But how could the hat be confused with a soft drink? Remember that the Leicester family commissioned the Bowlers’ masterpiece. The surname of the Earls was Coke. In fact, it still is; the Atlanta conglomerate apparently has not sued them into extinction. Yet.

This is the feast day of St. Albercius Marcellus, the second century bishop whose missionary efforts in Mesopotamia were so obviously successful. At least, no one killed him.

According to Christian folklore, Albercius Marcellus also was said to have exorcised Lucilla, daughter of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. That would make Albercius the patron saint of malpractice because Lucilla was the Emperor’s sane child. The good bishop apparently did not notice any of the quirks in Commodus; Hollywood has proved a little more observant.

Commodus preferred to be introduced as Hercules son of Jupiter. That certainly would have tested his father’s stoicism, but perhaps Marcus Aurelius thought that the boy would grow out of that phase. Unfortunately, inheriting the Roman Empire only further spoiled Commodus. He insisted that Rome be renamed Commodiana. And being the incarnation of Hercules, he trained to be a gladiator–although he limited his risk to killing animals. The wars in Britain and along the Danube were left to others; Commodus was busy slaughtering ostriches at the Colosseum. He was an accomplished archer, which allowed him a reasonably cautious way to kill lions.

The public was entertained, except for the patrician class being coerced into paying for the murdered menageries. His sister Lucilla was not exactly devoted to him either. In 182, just two years after his ascending the throne, she plotted his assassination. The nephew of her lover was supposed to stab the Emperor. Unfortunately, the aspiring assassin was also a cousin and he must have shared the family trait for bombastic theatrics because he proclaim the assassination before he had accomplished it. The Praetorians had more than enough time to disarm the orating man. Of course, he was soon executed, and so was the Emperor’s nasty big sister and her lover. However, Lucilla’s husband was spared; he really was innocent of the plot. (Lucilla kept him in the dark about everything.)

In fairness to Commodus, he did not kill people as indiscriminately as he did animals. He was a megalomanical buffoon but not a monster. The young Emperor really just wanted to party rather than rule; he let his ministers run the empire and kill each other. (Just think of Commodus as a George Bush who had stayed drunk.) But after 12 years of a reign that was more mercurial than herculean, it was obvious that Commodus would never grow up; so his ministers decided that he shouldn’t grow old.

Even his mistress was involved in the plot. She tried poisoning him but apparently was not that good a cook. Someone finally thought of an appropriate sendoff; since Commodus was a jock, a professional athlete was hired to snap the Emperor’s neck. Commodus finally had a match that wasn’t fixed.

The ever-adolescent emperor (he was a callow 31) was succeeded by a mature and eminent senator who lasted less than a year, murdered by the imperial guard which then auctioned the empire off to the highest bidder. That was followed by civil war, tyrants, maniacs, more civil wars and an inexorable decline of the Empire itself.

Edward Gibbons began “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” with the reign of Commodus. If only St. Albercius had exorcised the right child.

Herbert Hoover found himself in Purgatory, sentenced to 5000 years of reading books on economics, finance and civics. But, after just 44 years of torment, Hoover may receive clemency. Press Secretary Gabriel explained the possible change in policy, “As catastrophic as Hoover was, he still is better than George Bush.”

According to the Purgatory Parole Board, “Mr. Hoover was an oblivious ass whose dour personality alone could have induced a Depression. You would not have wanted a beer with him, especially if it led to your arrest for violating Prohibition. But however inept and exasperating his response to the economic collapse, he did not cause it. The 1920s had been a frenzy of financial speculation with a stock market propelled by wishful thinking. The madcap market could not sustain itself, and Hoover had the abysmal luck to be President–after only six months–when reality ruined the party.
Now, if Hoover had been President for seven years and had encouraged every irresponsible financial practice that led to an economic collapse, then 5000 years would have been too short a time here.”

The Parole Board also noted that Hoover had inherited, not started–his unnecessary war: Prohibition. And, to his credit, at least his administration captured Al Capone. Furthermore, Hoover had not escalated the war on alcohol by invading Canada, or rationalizing the existence of vodka to justify an attack on the Soviet Union.

In view of these extenuating circumstances, the Board is considering a reduction of Mr. Hoover’s torment to 1000 years or at least upgrading him to a private sulfur pit instead of the one he is currently sharing with Milton Friedman.

Meanwhile in Hell, the Emperor Caligula has applied for a promotion to Purgatory, asserting that at least he was better than George Bush.

I am not going to worry about this election. Diebold has already counted my ballot; and it seems that I have voted for McCain six times in Florida and Ohio.

Of course, I have yet to recover from the 2000 election…but neither has Western Civilization. That election did answer the profound philosophical question: in a race between an idiot and a fool, who’d win? We now know: the idiot will. The idiot might do something inadvertently right while the fool will do everything meticulously wrong. Bush spoke as if he were in fourth grade, and Gore spoke as if we were in fourth grade.

In this election, John McCain claims to represent the mainstream against the liberals. McCain isn’t mainstream, he is a swimming pool at a country club–the shallow end. But Sarah Palin is genuinely folksy…just like a septic tank.

Barack Obama should accept the mantle of liberal. After all, look who is on Mount Rushmore. By my count, that is three liberals–and even Washington was a revolutionary. Secular humanist liberals founded this republic. Without them, this country would be under the hereditary rule of upper-class twits….Well, until 2000 it wasn’t.

In fairness, I will acknowledge the Conservatives’ contribution to America: they lost the Civil War.

Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley inspired two-thirds of a nursery rhyme. They were not intentionally whimsical; Bishops are not supposed to be frivolous, Protestant ones seldom are, and being burned at the stake is never fun. As if they needed further martyrdom, they were Cambridge graduates being publicly executed at Oxford.

What had Latimer and Ridley done to earn their kindling? Both men had been vociferously Protestant at a time when the monarch was just as dogmatically Catholic. Latimer had been too Protestant for Henry VIII–and had a few cautionary “timeouts” in the Tower of London; so just imagine the reaction of Queen Mary, the pinup girl of the Counter-Reformation. Worse for Latimer, he had supported the failed Protestant coup to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne. So Latimer was already condemned for treason, but Mary preferred to execute him for heresy. Guess which crime had a more painful sentence.

Ridley had risen to royal favor in the 1530s defending the King’s ecclesiastical supremacy, which included the divine right to dump the first wife. For some reason, Queen Mary resented her mother being declared a whore and she being demoted to “bastard.” When the erstwhile bastard became queen in 1553, Ridley went in person to Mary to apologize for any past misunderstandings. “No, I didn’t say Spanish whore. I said banish hors d’oeuvres. It is bad for my gout. Oh, you have a way to cure it?….” As part of his physical therapy, Ridley was transferred from the stressful job of Bishop of London to the salubrious simplicity of the Tower. Latimer was also vacationing there.

After a year in the Tower, the two were sent to Oxford where an inquisition of impeccably Catholic judges awaited them. Latimer and Ridley knew they were condemned; no one ever beats a heresy charge. However, you can grovel your way out of the most permanent sentence. The men simply had to recant every tenet of Protestantism, fully confess their errors and fervently embrace Holy Mother Church. In return for their humiliation and conversion, they probably would have gotten off with a few years in prison. But Latimer and Ridley would not bend, instead debating every religious point with their accusers. Unfortunately, the Inquisition was not known as an ecumenical good sport.

The men were burned alive in a public square. It was said that Latimer’s last words were, “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”

No, that is not the nursery rhyme… or even two thirds of it. The remaining inspiration was Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was burned alive at Oxford some five months later. Mary showed considerable restraint in not lighting the pyre herself. She really, really, really hated him. Everything about him seemed damning. When he still was supposed to be a Catholic priest, he had been married. He had risen at the recommendation of the Boleyn family, and he had endeared himself to Henry VIII by being the chief advocate for the first divorce. As if to further aggravate Mary, Cranmer did not even prove to be loyal to his Protestant convictions. When confronted by the Oxford tribunal, he recanted. Given his groveling and Church etiquette, his life should have been spared. But Mary had made her feelings known to the judges. (”Do you enjoy your tenured niche at Oxford or would you prefer being a chaplain at a leper colony in Wales?”) So, when Cranmer was condemned to death, he recanted his recantation.

And, with his death, the wags and wits of the time memorialized the three executions with a nursery rhyme. And you know it, this story of heretical bishops destroyed by an irate queen. Heretics are figuratively blind, so you could say “three blind mitres, three blind mitres…”

Or something similar.

On this day in 1066, William the Bastard won the battle of Hastings and improved his nickname. Ironically, the Conqueror could have done just as well in a probate court. William had a better claim to the English throne than the English king did. (Yes, possession is nine tenths of the law; but William’s one tenth included a better army.) The legal wrangling and the bloodshed all stemmed from the inability to the late Edward the Confessor to make up his mind. Who would succeed the childless monarch? Edward apparently promised everyone the throne.

He had promised both his cousin William and his brother-in-law Harold Godwinson. His half-greatnephew Edgar also thought he was in line to the throne. King Edward’s Christmas cards probably read, “You May Already Be a Winner.” Fortunately, few people could read at the time; otherwise there might have been some 200 claimants to the English throne. (That didn’t happen until the 15th century and the Wars of the Roses.)

When Edward died on January 5, 1066, the council of English nobles chose Harold to be the next king. Harold was the most powerful noble in England and he was a distinguished soldier; in fact, Harold had been the de facto ruler during the reign of his ineffectual brother-in-law–whose only real skill apparently was praying. Since he was already doing the work, Harold would seem entitled to the formalities and its perks; besides, why shouldn’t the English have an English king? That would be fair and democratic, and completely anachronistic and wrong.

The council of nobles did not have the right to choose a king. Besides, where did you get the idea that Harold Godwinson was English? Does the name Harold tell you anything? Do real Angle-Saxon names end with “son”? Remember, the Vikings did get around. Eastern England was inundated by the Norse invaders; York was originally pronounced Jorvik. In the 11th century, England already had three Danish kings: Knut, Harold I and Hardicanute. So Mr. Godwinson would have been the fourth.

Being Norwegian and French, William of Normandy felt that he had as much right to the English throne as a Dane. Furthermore, William actually was related to Edward the Confessor. A cousin outranks a brother-in-law, especially when the marriage probably was never consummated. (Edward did have something to confess.) Finally, William could claim to be the overlord of Harold Godwinson. When Godwinson had visited Normandy in 1064, he had received a complimentary knighthood from William. That turned out to be more than a friendly gesture; from a legal perspective, Harold had made himself William’s vassel. Of course, any graduate of Constantinople University (which was the nearest law school in the 11th century) would have found the loophole: Harold only would be a vassal in Normandy, so just stay out of France.

Unfortunately, Harold did not think of hiring a smart Greek lawyer. In fact, he was unrepresented when William went to court. The Norman duke sent a delegation to the Pope, hoping to wangle Rome’s endorsement. Pope Alexander II was very flattered. Few rulers ever showed the Pope any respect–certainly not those imperial thugs in Germany. Alexander was usually preoccupied trying to enforce celibacy on the clergy. But here was a chance to determine the fate of a kingdom. The Pope considered the weight of the Norman’s claims (and bribes); not hearing any English arguments, Alexander decided in William’s favor. So William invaded England, with the blessing and authorization of the Pope.

Having cavalry and God on his side proved decisive for William. While the cavalry was more useful at Hastings, the Pope’s endorsement stifled further opposition from the English. Besides, the English were getting used to the idea that their kings would be foreigners.

And they now have had 1000 years of practice.

PAUL KRUGMAN WINS NOBEL PRIZE IN ECONOMICS
White House Adds Nobel Committee to Axis of Evil

Citing his remarkable clarity for an economist–and unpredecented happenstance of actually being right–the Nobel Committee awarded Paul Krugman its prize in economics. In announcing his prize, the Nobel Committee spoke of Professor Krugman’s cogent economic analysis: “Whereas other economists would describe George Bush’s counter-intuitive cerebralizational calibrations, Professor Krugman says ‘moron.’”

Krugman’s most recent works are “I Have Never Heard Such Rubbish!” “How Can You Believe This Idiot?”, and “I Told You So, I Told You So.”

Unfortunately, Krugman has proved too correct. Whereas the usual Nobel Prize in Economics amounts to 10 million Kroner, this year hasn’t been so good. If the professor can get to Stockholm–at his own expense–he is welcome to stay at Max von Sydow’s appartment; there is a fold-out couch in the living room. As for the prize, this year it amounts to 1400 Kroner, the deluxe blue-ray DVD of “Fanny and Alexander” (the full length–all 47 hours), one tenth of a Munch painting (his choice), and a monthly delivery of two pounds of lox for the rest of his life.

While flattered by the award, Professor Krugman is not sure that a trip to Stockholm is worth the risk. There is some question whether he would be allowed back in the United States once he left. Press Secretary Dana Perino would only say, “Why would an economist need a beard? What is his real motive?”

McCAIN LINKS OBAMA TO NAT TURNER

Accusing his opponent of coddling terrorists, John McCain demanded that Barack Obama denounce the leader of a 19th century slave rebellion. “Why hasn’t Senator Obama disassociated himself from this extremist, murderer and labor organizer Nat Turner? Let me tell you about Nat Turner. He used a honest discussion on the minimal wage as an excuse to murder 60 men, women and children in Virginia. And is this how Obama intends to campaign in that state?”

Three days later, the reporters capable of arithmetic began questioning McCain’s allegation. The Nat Turner Rebellion had occurred in 1831, 130 years before Obama was born. The McCain campaign replied, “Obama obviously needs more than 130 years to denounce his terrorist association.”

Nat Turner’s Rebellion lasted two days. In its suppression and aftermath, more than 100 blacks were killed or executed, including Turner. McCain credited the verdicts to strict constructionist judges, the type he would appoint. “If they had been Obama’s liberal judges, Turner might still be alive.”

In her campaign, Governor Sarah Palin continued this particular attack; however, she kept referring to Obama’s ties to the terrorist Nat King Cole. The McCain campaign defended the discrepancy by noting the song “Mona Lisa” referred to a painting by a homosexual.

We begin with a public service announcement.

HELP. I am living with a Cubs fan! For the last several few nights, I have gone to sleep listening to wails and shrieks. And I have awakened to the very same soundtrack. Let’s just say that the mood of Masada was much more chipper. I have tried consoling Karen that losing is part (actually all) of the Cubs’ charm. But I fear that my wife is so distraught that she now wants McCain to win; if the Cubs can’t win, no one deserves to survive.

Speaking of the Apocalypse, Costco has a product to tide you over. Karen and I were shopping there today, hoping to find Halloween candy that wasn’t a Melamine surprise from China. (This year, the candy will be more frightening than the costumes.) While wandering the aisles, we saw a display of white tubs labelled “Emergency Food Supply.” Containing 275 servings of such dehydrated delights as ‘ala king” (they don’t actually promise the chicken), cacciatore (the meat is anything you catch), and western stew (don’t be snobbish about cockroaches), all you add is boiled water. (And the radiation probably will do that for you.) Priced at only $99.95, “Emergency Food Supply” has a shelf life of 20 years! Given the economy and world events, I am not sure how many of us could make that claim.