FinermanWorks

Responding to charges of improper political influence on the Attoady General, the White House will allow Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to be sort of interviewed by a congressional committee.  In a spirit of compromise, the White House has dropped its request for a $200,000 speaker’s fee.  However, according to to the administration’s remaining demands, these interviews will not be under oath and no recordings and transcripts will be allowed. 

And both Karl Rove and Harriet Miers had further demands.  Mr. Rove will make himself available for a 15 minute cell phone conversation while he is driving to work.  He insists that all questions be sung in a country-and-western style.

Ms. Miers will personally attend the interview.  She insists, however, on formal wear: men in tuxedos and ladies in evening gowns.  All questions must be succinctly phrased, so that a yes or no will suffice.  Furthermore, she demands that she be questioned only by Bennett Cerf, Arlene Francis, Dorothy Killgallen and Bill Cullen; John Daley is to moderate.  (No, she is not being devious; she really doesn’t know.) 

I am best-known as a Jeopardy has-been.  I might be the game’s equivalent to a punch drunk, starting monologues on the Jacobite Rebellion in crowded elevators, and the like.  However, my Jeopardy “contenda” status occasionally lapses into relevance.  Now is one of those rare moments.

March 16th, a date that will live in trivia, the Jeopardy match ended in a three-way tie.  The show has had a number of games where two players tied, but a triumvirate is unprecedented.  The situation required an unusual convergence of circumstances.  First, the player in the lead has to be a nice, thoughtful individual.  Well, how often do nice,thoughtful individuals get into the lead?  You have to be a megalomaniac just to qualify for Jeopardy, and it takes a sociopath to win. 

Second, the other two contestants would require a tie score prior to Final Jeopardy.  That in itself would be rare.  The typical Jeopardy match is a duel between the leading player and a competitive runner-up.  The third player, alas, is usually thinking of hanging himself with the microphone cord.  

But March 16th was the day of exceptions…and the footnote in game show chivalry belongs to a Mr. Scott Weiss.  (Mel Gibson obviously won’t be rooting for him.)

You might wonder if I would have been so noble in similar circumstances.  I can imagine playing for a tie against:  

Mahatma Gandhi and St. Francis of Assisi

or Al Capone and Vin Diesel

Beating Gandhi and St. Francis, I probably could not live with myself.  Beating Capone and Diesel, I probably could not live.

I imagine that I also would settle for a tie score if competing against Uma Thurman and Anne Hathaway.  In fact, I would probably be giving them the answers.

And hereth is from the first draft of The Book of Kells…

And St. Patrick spoke to the Happy Hour crowd at The Drunken Druid’s Pub. “Consider all that God has to offer you.”

And the crowd grumbled, “Not that shamrock bit again.”

Patrick replied, “Obviously you are in no hurry for eternal salvation. You want immediate benefits. Okay. In my religion, we don’t have to sacrifice your good-looking virgins in the nearest bog…or anywhere. In fact, we want your homeliest ones and we’ll put them in convents.”

And the crowd considered this a miracle. But a bartending Druid challenged Patrick. “Now, what would you be wanting them homely virgins? After all, they are still our sisters.”

And Patrick answered, “We’ll guarantee them full-time work in gratifying jobs–teaching and terrorizing the children of the good-looking former virgins.”

But the Druid demanded, “But what kind of God would want a homely virgin?” And the crowd had to agree.

Patrick shrugged and said, “A Jewish one. They have the strangest taste in shiksas.”

The Druid sneered, “A Jewish God? One who can’t hold his own liquor?”

Patrick answered, “But He can make the liquor, distribute and market it!’

And so Ireland converted.

Euan the Bard

Should we honor St. Patrick today

Just for drowning some snakes in a bay?

While you cannot contest

That the snake is a pest,

It at least kept the English away!

Euan Finn–born March 17, 1952

Outraged over the portrayal of Persians in the snuff-cartoon “300“, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will sponsor a conference on whether the battle of Thermopylae actually occurred.

But the battle most certainly occurred, and the Iranians should blame their ancestors for needlessly aggravating the Spartans. Persia actually only intended to destroy Athens; that city state had exerted its maritime power to support rebellions in Asia Minor against Persian rule. True, the Persians crushed the rebellions but they did not appreciate the extra work. In 490 B.C., the Shah (yes, they did use that title back then) Darius launched a punitive expedition against those meddling Athenians.

As you know, the Persians did not get past Marathon. Twenty thousand Persians proved no match for ten thousand Athenians. The Greeks’ body armor was more than just a fashion statement. Furthermore, in hand to hand combat, metal shields are better than wicker ones.

Ten years later, to avenge that botched invasion and his father’s honor, the new Shah Xerxes amassed an army of 100,000 men to invade Greece. (However, he hadn’t improve the quality of Persian shields or body armor.) The Persians did attempt one precaution, however. Their diplomats went to the other Greek city states, warning them not to help Athens. The envoys could have tried charm or bribes to ensure Greek neutrality; they preferred to be obnoxious and overbearing. The Persians demanded the Greek principalities acknowledge the Shah as their overlord. As an expression of their fealty to Xerxes, each state should offer a sample of its soil and water, symbolically surrendering their sovereignty to Persia. Many Greek states did comply with the Persian demand, including Macedonia. (Alexander the Great was not particularly proud of those ancestors.) However, Sparta responded to the Persian demand for soil and water by throwing the envoys down a well.

Aggravating the Spartans proved a disaster for Persia, first at Thermopylae and then at the subsequent battle of Plataea, where the Shah’s army was routed and slaughtered. Yet, the Persians did not seem to hold a grudge against the Peloponnesian war machine. Perhaps Persia just hated Athens so much more.

When the Athenians and the Spartans finally had their showdown (430-404 BC), guess which country lent landbound Sparta a navy?

Imagine yourself a tourist in ancient Rome and you wanted to buy 15 postcards (the ones using mosaics were impressive but the postage was exorbitant). Of course, you would tell the shopkeeper, I’d like Ides, please. If he were obliging, he would lift his tunic. Otherwise, he would think you a babbling idiot.

You see, Ides does not mean 15. It rather refers to the full moon by which the old Roman calendar divided the month. The similarity between month and moon is not a coincidence.

Ancient Rome was built on seven hills and an absurd lunar calendar. The Roman year had ten months as well another sixty days in winter that didn’t count. Be fair: if you were stuck using Roman numerals, you’d resort to any short cut, too. Such a slovenly, lackadaisical calendar might suit a small Tiber village or modern Italy, but not a growing empire. The government decided to organize the dead time into two new months: Ianuarius and Februarius.

That improved the bookkeeping but not the accuracy of the calendar. The Roman year was 355 days. As Rome expanded, it was coming into contact with more sophisticated systems. The Greeks had realized that a sun-based calendar was more accurate. Yet, out of self-reverence, for six centuries Rome adhered to its ridiculous calendar.

But that outdated calendar was just one tradition that Julius Caesar intended to end. While in Alexandria, Caesar was seduced by more than just Cleopatra. The city was the think tank of the ancient world. Greek science and Babylonian mathematics had produced a calendar of unequaled precision. Caesar was so impressed that he decided to impose it on the Roman world. And for some reason, people called it the Julian calendar.

(Alexandria’s scientific community also successfully promoted a chronological concept called the “week.” The seven-day period once had been dismissed as just another Jewish idiosyncrasy. But when Alexandria adopted the idea, everyone loved it.)

The Julian calendar went into effect on January 1, 45 B.C. If the Roman traditionalists had any objections, they certainly expressed them on March 15, 44 B.C.

For too long, the young and impressionable members of our armed forces have been molested by a flamboyant, theatrical clique known as officers.  Adorned in ribbons and spangles, these strutting coxcombs routinely accost the enlistees, demanding unnatural acts of submission and degradation.  No one willingly does 50 pushups.

And for too long, we have tried to ignore the brazen, outlandish conduct of officers.  Liberal etiquette tells us that it is only a matter of lifestyle and that we should judge the officers solely on their military ability.  But that is the problem!  Officers are inherently incompetent.  History proves it.

In the annals of war, victory has often been determined by which side had the fewer officers.  Consider these examples: 

Agincourt, 1415: 6,000 Englishmen confronted 30,000 Frenchmen.  But the French force was chiefly comprised of knights.  That is the equivalent of an army of second lieutenants.  How do you coordinate 30,000 megalomaniacs?  They were preoccupied with their appearance, not with such mundane drudgery as tactics.  The English massacred them.

English Civil War, 1642-1649:  As the axe descended on his neck, the soon-to-be-late Charles I had the consolation that his cavaliers were quite good poets.  Unfortunately, while finding rhymes, they lost battles. They had been defeated by dour farmers who had no panache but knew the lay of the land from plowing it.  (Yes, the Roundheads had poets too, but John Milton had no delusions of military ability.)

American Revolution (you should know the dates):  By this time, the British Army had abandoned any hope or pretense of competence.  Its officers had achieved their commissions by buying them.  The classic example was General John Burgoyne.  When he surrendered at Saratoga, Burgoyne had with him 30 carts of luggage, a wine cellar, someone else’s wife, and what was left of 9,000 men. The general had simply intended to march his army from Canada to Albany, N.Y., but he had chosen an itinerary through forests, swamps and 20,000 American troops-led by amateurs.  

French Revolution, 1789-1815: Taking the guillotine as a hint, most of the French officer corps fled the country.  Led by its more assertive sergeants and corporals, the French army soon overran most of Europe.  Unfortunately, those sergeants and corporals then promoted themselves to Dukes, Princes and-in one case of overreaching-Emperor.  They stopped thinking like soldiers and began acting like officers, invading Spain and Russia without any idea how to win there.

World War I:  According to the laws of physics, a machine gun bullet is faster than an infantryman.  The officers of Europe spent five years testing that axiom.  At least, the British officer proved that he could still write good poetry. 

Viet Nam:  Modern technology-and PhD. programs– produced a new species of officers.  Military consultants have all debilities of traditional officers and do not even have the physical ability to do chin-ups.  They wage war with flow charts.  The military consultants were certain of victory because they went to Ivy League schools and Ho Chi Minh did not. 

And Iraq:  See Viet Nam. 

I realize that some historians, military re-enactors and Jeopardy fans can think of competent, even excellent, officers.  Yes, I can name too:  Alexander the Great, Richard the Lion-Hearted, Frederick the Great and Lawrence of Arabia.   But they are the exceptions.

If only all our officers were gay.  

“The government has lost the confidence of the people. It is time to change the people.”   Berthold Brecht

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced today the firing of the American people.  “They just weren’t showing the enthusiasm and gratitude that President Bush expects.”  As a replacement population, the administration had hoped to hire 16th century Spaniards.  However, they seem to be unavailable.     

Fortunately, the administration was able to find a supply of elderly Germans. 

Is decapitation hereditary?

If Thomas Howard, fourth Duke of Norfolk, were here to celebrate his 471st birthday, I would ask that question. Surely he would have noticed that much of his family–Dad, Aunt Catherine, Cousin Anne, etc.– was dying in the Tower of London rather than Norfolk. Grandfather nearly went to the block but instead spent years watching the mold on his cell walls. At the very least, being a Duke of Norfolk seemed to have some risk. So, why was the fourth Duke writing fan letters to Mary, Queen of Scots? Perhaps he couldn’t help himself if decapitation is a hereditary trait. He certainly discovered that Queen Elizabeth I had a hereditary trait too: Tudor vindictiveness.

Yet, the Howards were fairly adapt at surviving. They had been on the wrong side at the Battle of Bosworth, but switched their loyalty from York to Tudor. They could be just as flexible in theology, oscillating their piety from Rome to Canterbury to Rome. The Howards were devoutly Anglican when it came to seizing monastery lands from the Catholic Church. Once they sated themselves upon the Church’s wealth, they could be Anglicans for Henry VIII and Edward VI; they could be Catholics for Mary. (Caught between Elizabeth and Mary Stuart, they tried being everything. That proved tricky.) Had the Ottoman fleet sailed up the Thames, the ingratiating Howards probably would have become the Emirs of Norfolk.

In the 17th century, when the reigning Stuarts were subconscious or covert Catholics, the Dukes of Norfolk felt safe to resume their Catholicism. For the last three centuries, they have avoided any unpleasant stays in the Tower. And yes, the Howards are still the Dukes of Norfolk.

“GONZALES, MUELLER ADMIT FBI BROKE LAW

WASHINGTON – The nation’s top two law enforcement officials acknowledged Friday the FBI broke the law to secretly pry out personal information about Americans. They apologized and vowed to prevent further illegal intrusions.”

In addition to acquiring topless photos of Jennifer Aniston, FBI agents also saw advance screenings of upcoming episodes of “24“, “Battlestar Galactica” and “Rome“.

The agents allegedly used this advance information to make wagers.  FBI Director William Mueller was said be offering 5-to-1 odds that Octavian wins the battle of Actium.  Sources report that Secretary of Education Margaret Spelling took the bet.

When confronted with the charges of inside information and gambling, Director Mueller promised that all profits would be spent on Jenna Bush’s book.