Absolute kleptocracy corrupts absolutely; and if you’re not careful, seventy percent of your population is going to vote for a clown who, as his first act, dissolves your parliament.

… in The Importance of Being Earnest.

… has placed a flamboyance of flamingos in Garrett Park’s Porcupine Woods.

As seen on UD‘s morning walk. She’s back from Harpers Ferry, having taken the MARC train to get there and the Amtrak from Chicago (an hour late) to get back.

It’s an insanely busy Saturday in town – there’s the farmer’s market, a plant swap (UD has nothing to swap, but would like to take, if they’ll let her), yard sales everywhere, etc. If you’re local, it’s a good day to see GP.

… says George Herbert, and how can UD doubt it when the two women she happens to have hung out with at Ledge House in Harpers Ferry turned out to be an attorney for Transparency International and the manager of a crematorium? Two random individuals at my B&B, one tracking our sin, the other reducing us to dust…

The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality.

For Herbert, there was that third step. When your sinful life ended, you were returned to dust, but THEN (trumpet flourish)!

********************************

“It takes a normal body an hour or two to burn,” mused the manager as we gazed at this view; “but a really really obese person can take up to five.”

She didn’t mention any grease fires.

*************

UPDATE: Yikes. The story behind this spectacular view.

Worked. Like a charm. The 6:03 from Union Station stopped and took me from Garrett Park to Harpers Ferry, just as it said it would.

The tricky part was finding Ledge House. UD, on foot and alone, with night approaching, and in a mountain town where most streets are steep inclines, made every mistake possible and then some. She chatted with half the town in her effort to find the place.

Everyone – including the man who took me to a steep crumbly poison ivy ridden path he swore would get me there (I didn’t take the path) – was very friendly. And of course GPS was trying to help me too. Every wrong route I tried opened up onto gobsmacking views of rushing rivers, bridges, rock cliffs, green hills, and clear evening skies with an almost full moon.

Eventually, her ancient heart pounding, UD got to Henry Clay Street, where the GPS lady assured her she had reached her destination.

The house – way the hell up some cruddy steps – looked wrong. UD had no choice but to trudge the cruddy steps.

While resting halfway, she checked her email, which included congratulations from Amy at Bonhams – at yesterday’s New York auction, our latest Fangor sold for over a hundred thousand dollars.

Naturally this news gave me a second wind and I finished the course like a Marine recruit.

Where was I? This was a private house, with a big For Sale sign in front of it. GPS had stopped me too soon and sent me up the wrong street. Now – eyeing the cemetery that was the only other game in town – I had to go all the way back down to Henry Clay.

Where, glowing with charm and a Southern garden in dusky shadows, stood Ledge House.

Trying to get there via the MARC train that stops right by UD’s house. We’ll see if this works. Will try to blog from there.

So far, in the wake of the college admissions scandal, that school has only had to deal with evil coaches and scummy parents… and, as of this morning, a lawsuit from the son of one of the scummy parents – a guy with real balls, if you ask me. He doesn’t want his fraudulently obtained degree to become meaningless when Georgetown expels him.

But listen up: For years G’town has been admitting all the teenybopper descendants of the crowned heads of Europe. Have you noticed? Town and Country has noticed. This short piece only brushes the tiara: they all go there, and … you know… you have to wonder…

I mean to say everyone’s going to start to wonder now, what with the larger scandal drawing attention to this particular campus. Royal pain a-comin’.

*******************

UPDATE: Uh-oh.

… and the same goes for child sex abuse cases, and of course the matter of our little ones’ vaccinations.

As to why [exorbitant] travel and wardrobe expenses [for N.R.A chief executive Wayne La Pierrre] were billed through a contractor, and not directly through the N.R.A. — an arrangement that may also interest investigators — [a spokesperson] said it was a practice “abandoned some time ago” that had been done “for confidentiality and security purposes.”

As usual, UD thanks her niece and longtime webmistress, Carolyn.

… it’s temporary. We’re undergoing maintenance.

Another WE CHILDHOOD MEASLES school has been shut down by New York City.

… are at it again, bless them. The latest protest took place at Tehran University, where students have had it all the way up to here with the morality police threatening them unless they veil.

It takes unbelievable guts to go up against the enforcement fuckers – you can certainly go to jail, and the enforcement fuckers are also more than willing to beat you up.

‘Course around here, in the free west, you’ve got women holding Everyone Wear a Hijab in Solidarity with Hijab-Wearers rallies, and UD‘s got nothing against that; but she wonders why the same people never seem to hit the streets in support of women – seriously endangered women – who don’t want to veil themselves.

Sing it.

Not sure if you know this
But funerals are pricey
My wedding and your corpse…
It’s very dicey

I found the answer

We’ll take our journey together

Your rictus smile

Will follow me down the aisle.

You look so beautiful in death
And from now till my very last breath
This day I’ll cherish
You look so beautiful in death

[The emergency line] was flooded with calls from disgusted and upset supporters following Collingwood’s 19-point win over arch-rival Carlton.

One fan, Ross, said he’d “never be going to the football again” after being thrown to the ground…

[A] man was also seen “relieving himself” on a police car while leaving the MCG.

There were also reports of spitting and children crying as they were caught up in the mayhem.

Robin, one of those to call 3AW, said she spent the last five minutes of the match trying to break-up fights between fans.

She said it happened in the Carlton members area.

“There were four, full-on fights where people were knocked out,” she said on 3AW Football.

********************

An eye-witness account.

One star defender is the subject of repeated homophobic abuse, raising the idea of calling the phone number on the scoreboard by which you can report abusive behaviour.

But clearly identifying the source of the remarks in the pack in which the coward is concealed is difficult and, you suspect, alerting the authorities will only inflame an increasingly heated group.

… Where once the overt nature of loud and insistent barracking created some form of self-policing, the friction now seems like the wild, uncontrollable urges of those who have no sense of the consequences of their actions.