Tea Time with the Posse

Idaho is well-known as a Mecca (heh) for militant right-wing nutjobs. This will remove all doubt and chill you to your bones. It ain't just in Idaho either.

Inside An Idaho Tea Party Patriots Conference

Little talk of repealing “Obamacare” or of modifying objectionable provisions of healthcare legislation took place at Stout’s “Patriots Unite” event, held March 26. The impending possibility of a government shutdown due to an impasse over the budget was hardly mentioned. Nary a word was spoken about bailouts or taxes. Instead, speakers at this Tea Party event gave the crowd a heavy dose of racist “birther” attacks on President Obama, discussions of the conspiracy behind the problem facing America (complete with anti-Semitic illustration), Christian nationalism, anti-environmentalism, and serious calls for legislation promoting states’ rights and “nullification.”

Read this article. It's like looking in through the window of the snake exhibit at the Crazytown Zoo.

Minnesota Republicans Want To Bust Poor People Who Carry Cash

I don't carry much cash around with me because I like the convenience of using my debit card to pay for stuff. I use cash for very small purchases or if they're going to charge me for using the card. It's my choice. Your choice is your choice. This is unconscionable. It's the Repug way.

Crooks and Liars

They're not just crazy, they're evil -- and un-Christian, should they have the audacity to claim otherwise. If only we could force them to live like this, they wouldn't last a week:

St. Paul, MN – Minnesota Republicans are pushing legislation that would make it a crime for people on public assistance to have more $20 in cash in their pockets any given month. This represents a change from their initial proposal, which banned them from having any money at all.

It's not stated, but I think the pols are convinced that poor people's only use for cash is to buy dope. They must think that everybody's got a checking account, debit card, credit cards, etc. At the least we're talking massively outta touch here.

At the worst, which is probably a lot closer to the truth, we're talking keep poor people poor so they can be more easily controlled.

There is an obvious target on the poverty stricken in this country. Let’s not forget, just as many poor people are Republicans. This won’t fare well and they’re signing their own Get Out of the House certificate. As the classes divide even more with their assistance, this is further proof that their campaign against government spending was simply to gain power and now, they’ve gone power mad.

They need to be dealt with like rabid skunks.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

Can't get much more recent than this!

Emmylou Harris performs "Hard Bargain," written by Ron Sexsmith, live at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles, CA, on April 21, 2011

Thanks to ednla.

Cascais and Sintra ...

2 hours off the Portuguese coast and just heading into the shower before drinks and dinner. We went north of Lisbon to the beautiful towns of Cascais and Sintra. Come along. I love Portugal!

Later ...

And who didn't see this coming?

Big Pharma set to take over medical marijuana market

Yes, mota is soooooo bad! It leads to harder drugs, will get your daughter pregnant and make her jump out a window, has no medical usage whatsoever, and can still get you life in prison in some places. It's illegal to grow, sell, transport, possess and use.

Unless you get it from a corporate- and government-approved commercial source, of course.

And perish the thought that you should ever use this plant that God put on this earth for pleasure and fun! It is written in the Holy Book that He put it here to exploit for profit only by Chosen entities like Big Pharma.

Sleepwalking into the Imperial Dark

As always when I link to a Tomgram, take a lunch...

What It Feels Like When a Superpower Runs Off the Tracks
...

This can’t end well.

But then, how often do empires end well, really? They live vampirically by feeding off others until, sooner or later, they begin to feed on themselves, to suck their own blood, to hollow themselves out. Sooner or later, they find themselves, as in our case, economically stressed and militarily extended in wars they can’t afford to win or lose.

The United States is, of course, an imperial power, however much we might prefer not to utter the word. We still have our globe-spanning array of semi-client states; our military continues to garrison much of the planet; and we are waging war abroad more continuously than at any time in memory. Yet who doesn’t sense that the sun is now setting on us?

Can there be any question that something big is happening here, even if we don’t quite know what it is because, unlike the peoples of past empires, we never took pride in or even were able to think of ourselves as imperial? And if you were indeed in denial that you lived in the belly of a great imperial power, if like most Americans you managed to ignore the fact that we were pouring our treasure into the military or setting up bases in countries that few could have found on a map, then you would naturally experience the empire going down as if through a glass darkly.

Hit the brakes or hit the wall. Will we get over the denial in time?

Above all, even as our imperial wars in the oil heartlands of the planet went desperately wrong, they allowed us not to think about empire or, until the economy melted down in 2008, decline. They allowed us to focus our fears on “them,” not us. They ensured that, like the other great imperial power of the Cold War era, when things began to spiral out of control we would indeed sleepwalk right into the imperial darkness.

Now that we’re so obviously there, the confusion is greater than ever. Theoretically, none of this should necessarily be considered bad news, not if you don’t love empires and what they do. A post-imperial U.S. could, of course, be open to all sorts of possibilities for change that might be exciting indeed.

Right now, though, it doesn’t feel that way, does it? It makes me wonder: Could this be how it’s always felt inside a great imperial power on the downhill slide? Could this be what it’s like to watch, paralyzed, as a country on autopilot begins to come apart at the seams while still proclaiming itself “the greatest nation on Earth”?

I don’t know. But I do know one thing: this can’t end well.

It will end, though. Soon.

"...a demented slapstick comedy starring The Donald as The Donald in "The Donald." "

An enjoyable read by William Rivers Pitt who survived both the Yuengling and Western Pennsylvania to bring us this.

Stick your nose into the air and smell the panic emanating from RNC headquarters. It is bad enough that they have to contend with potential presidential runs by the likes of Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich. Now they're staring down the barrel of a full-fledged freak storm, a demented slapstick comedy starring The Donald as The Donald in "The Donald." I feel a deep and overwhelming compulsion to go to church every day this week, light a candle each time, and pray until I'm sweating blood that this actually happens.

Seriously. Oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please let this happen. It is already wildly entertaining today, and can only get better if Trump actually jumps into the race. He has gone over the high side* (my em) at top volume regarding the "birther" issue, which has pleased the berserk GOP base to such a degree that he is blowing away the entire potential Republican presidential field, and now leads the pack by as much as nine points in the latest poll.

*A rare and heartwarming reference to the absolute worst way to get off a motorcycle at speed that doesn't involve a brick wall, a cliff, or a Buick Pahk Avenoo!

So what gives here? Did Trump just turn on a dime, scrap all of his former positions, and embrace the Tea Party platform because he believes in it? Is he cynically using those positions to elbow his way into the conversation because he knows GOP primary voters are made mostly of the far-right base?

I have my own theory, out there though it may be. He could believe in all that stuff, or he could be using those issues to position himself, but there is a third possibility. Trump could be pulling the biggest prank in the history of American politics. If he still believes in single-payer health care and higher taxes for the rich, he could be playing the GOP for fools with a fake run that is already scrambling the RNC's eggs.

Could it be that Trump is the greatest political mole/troll we've ever seen?

I report, you decide.

I have embraced the "deep plant Democrat" theory myself. It's probably not so, but it would be the best punk job in recent political history if it were.

I'll wait for the report and then decide. Please God, let it be so! Heh.

Update:

Olbermann to Trump: ‘Don, FOK off!’

With a shit-eatin' grin, I must add.

WI Recount

The BRAD BLOG is on the case in the highly questionable "Oh gee, I found some more ballots for our side" debacle in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

Details included in Kloppenburg's request for a special investigator in Waukesha --- including the curious point that Prosser "was observed entering the Governor's Office late in the evening and attending a private, one-on-one meeting with Governor Scott Walker" on the night following the election, on the very same day in which the controversial new GOP Governor publicly stated that there might be "ballots somewhere, somehow found out of the blue that weren't counted before." --- are certainly compelling.

Compelling indeed. They knew exactly which operative in a position of power was likely to 'find' them too. And willing to risk a jail sentence for it as well.

Two points of note in response to the video above.
...

2) The point made in the video about trusting the G.A.B. or anybody else. As we have pointed out over and over, for years on this blog, elections are not about trust. They are about oversight by the citizenry. If the citizenry can't see it for themselves, there is no reason to trust it. Kennedy seems like quite a decent fellow, as witnessed by his willingness to chat on the street about these matters with a citizen. But nothing here is about trust. It's about checks, balances, and oversight, as we recently emphasized with some passion in this video on the Wisconsin mess.

Kudos to the two folks at Defending Wisconsin for their good citizen watchdogging and video taping! We could use a million more like 'em on the ground in WI and in every other state!

No shit. Ten million.

Much, much more, links and video. and this:

But it looks like Fox "News" doesn't, and have apparently already decided the outcome, as reported on their website in their usual "fair and balanced" manner...

Failed Democrat Requests Recount In Wisconsin

P.S. Kloppenburg is not a Democrat. She's an independent. Not that facts 'n' stuff matter that much over at Fox "News", of course.

Actually, facts do matter at FoxProp. They are to be spun or ignored to the Repugs' advantage.

Yay!

Just got back from Lisbon and I'll have a post up later, but guess what I get on the ship now that I never did before:

Please step away from the fear

If yesterday was Wednesday, it must have been Morford going off on religious right the-sky-is-falling e-spittle.

On it went, item after item, all context-free and gleefully myopic in its abject fearmongering and its intent to scare the unsuspecting reader out of his stock portfolio and into investing in gold bars. Unfortunately, I haven't the space here to list the most garish examples -- there are just so many -- but if you're so inclined, remove your pants, pray to Shiva, and click.

This may be too late, but re 'click' - tinfoil hat alert!

Nothing new here, really. After all, Christian panic mongers like Snyder (and Glenn Beck, and the Tea Party, and the Tories, and nervous cavemen) have been trafficking in similar flagellation for eons. But thanks to the Net, the spiteful imp at the center of his list -- which is to say, fear -- now has far more fluid access to the brainstems of the unwary and the retired.

You'll have to go read the rest. I got things to do. I've been as busy as Fixer usually is for the last coupla days and I don't get up as early. Enjoy.

Quote of the Day

Via Mrs. G from her never-misses-a-day favorite soap opera, Days of our Lives:

"Nothin' says lovin' like something from the coven!"

Heh.

With A Stroke Of His Pen Obama Strikes Back At Citizens United

"Strikes back" is a little too strong. A "gentle rebuff" is more like it, but it's something. I'da had a coupla SCOTUS Justices taken out and shot pour encourager les autres, but that's just me.

Politicus USA

Conservatives are not known for their veracity, and based on von Spakovsky’s portrayal of the order, there is no telling how Fox, Limbaugh, Beck and myriad Republican presidential hopefuls will spin the story, or to what end their faux outrage will take. One thing is certain; Republicans will make the order tyrannical and un-Constitutional before the dust settles and that should be a signal that the president’s proposal is appropriate and in keeping with democratic principles of fairness. Of course, any attempt at ensuring fairness in government is contrary to Republican principles of corruption, fear mongering, and doing the bidding of the Heritage Foundation.

Got that part right.

Shopping Day

Big day today! Off to do shopping in The Big City, the pups get a spa day, the Tacoma gets fixed under a federal recall floor mat/gas pedal deal, and breakfast at Q's (go drool!).

Also, the article linked to at this post turns out to be satire. Fell for it hook, line, and sinker. I thought it was too good to be true and it was. Wishful thinking.

Later.

All good ...

We got aboard Queen Elizabeth yesterday at about 1400. No sooner had we arrived in our cabin when there was a knock at the door. Our friends Chris and Terry were already aboard and were waiting for us. Great to see them again. We were nuts last night, unpacking, dinner, and then some much needed sleep (we'd gone 40 hours without sleep after leaving NYC).

Currently we're in the Bay of Biscay, off the coast of France, heading for Lisbon Portugal. Just getting ready for lunch with our friends but I'll have pics up later from last night's sunset over Southampton Water. Fortunately, we didn't encounter any bears. Heh ... Glad you, the Mrs. and the pups are safe, homeboy.

Later ...

Update

Last nights sunset:

Over Southampton Water

With the Isle of Man Wight in the background

Off to tea with Chris & Terry. Ta ...

Bear Shit Happens

Here's a good example of "shit happens" causing financial outlay as described in the previous post.

Last night I took the dogs out for their late-night walk about 11:30. I also had a new bag of dog food to bring in from the truck. Well, I thought I did. As soon as we got outside, the dogs went fucking crazy. I noticed that a) my camper cap was open, and b) the bag of dog food was laying on the ground beside the truck. It had been torn open and partially consumed.

Only one thing could have done that: b'ar!

I didn't see the bear, but we must have surprised it or it would have have finished its meal. The tracks leading to dinner were sorta meandering-lookin', not too deep, but here's its tracks bookin' outta there. You can tell it was on the move!

Click photo to embiggen

So, besides about ten bucks worth of dog food, what's the financial outlay? The goddam bear didn't know how to open the cap is what!



The bear just fiddle-fucked with it 'til it sprang its latch bar and the hydraulic units opened it the rest of the war and voila! - buffet! Below the scratch you can see the three dents it left. Otherwise the cap still works fine, but I gotta get it fixed of course.

I'll go to the body shop and get an estimate later today. If they can fix a Corvette they oughta be able to fix the cap. I hope so. That one cost $800 (Ironic, eh? See previous post. Heh.) so I hope they can save it. The dents? Who knows? Then I guess I gotta deal with the insurance company if the repair costs more than my deductible and it might. I don't know if they cover bear damage, but I guess I'll find out.

Yes, this is my own damn fault. Isn't everything? I know I shouldn't have left anything remotely resembling food in the truck, but we haven't seen bear activity in my neighborhood in several years. The old motorcyclist's adage proves itself again - the time ya get in trouble is when ya think yer safe.

Sigh.

Update:

Since the b'ar tracks led next door, I went and visited with Clancy to see if he had seen or heard anything. Boy did he! The bear batted the handle on the man door to his garage and went in. He thought somebody was coming up the stairs to his man cave/tree fort and flipped on the light. The bear skedaddled back toward my house. He saw it, says it was about 3 1/2 feet tall.

I just got back from taking the dogs for their noonday walk and ran into a coupla my neighbors out walking their dogs. Naturally we discussed bear break-ins of various kinds. Apparently there's been considerably more bear activity around here in the last year than I had thought.

I know how GE feels

Michael Moore

Do you wonder (like I do) what the tax accountants and executives are doing over at GE this weekend? Frantically rushing to fill out their IRS returns like the rest of us?

Hardly. They're taking the weekend off to throw themselves a big party and have a hearty laugh at all of us. It must really crack them up to see us like suckers scurrying around to make sure we report everything to Uncle Sam -- and even send him a check, if necessary.

I know just how they feel! Yesterday, Mrs. G got done with our federal and state income tax. With the help of TurboTax Premier to help us account for our (half)vast far-flung financial empire (cough), we are getting back $800 more than we paid in. Same with the state, but a much smaller amount.

This is on an Adjusted Gross Income of $17,970.00. There was no tax on our SS income of $21,000 and change. We get by OK, but since we've retired the outflow* is larger than the inflow. We have all sorts of retirement accounts and a rental house that is depreciating quickly and only barely pays for itself. The rental and our health insurance outlay are the secret to this $800 windfall.

*Everything's paid for and we have no debt and get along fine on our income day-to-day, but shit happens.

Note: That $800 probly cost us twenty grand, one way and another. Do not hire me as your financial advisor. Heh.

I normally wouldn't mention this kind of personal financial info, but this is a very odd one-time event. This year there'll be no withholding at all, so next year we'll have to pay something. We're saving up now by buying the store brand cat food. When it's on sale.

Well No Shit, Sherlock

War Is A Crime

TV, Newspapers, Congress Apologize for Claiming War Not About Oil

In the wake of the latest revelations of what everyone always knew, the largest press conference in the history of the United States has been planned for tomorrow in the Nationals Park baseball stadium in Washington, D.C. The powerful people lining up to apologize for having claimed the ongoing War on Iraq has had nothing to do with oil were deemed too numerous to gather in any indoor facility.

Former Congressman David Obey, who screamed at Congressman Dennis Kucinich in a Democratic caucus meeting for suggesting that oil might be one factor in the war, is currenly on a plane back to Washington to MC the mass apology. The line-up includes each major television, radio, and print news outlet in the United States. Select commentators, columnists, cartoonists, and talking heads of all varieties will represent each organization apologizing.

Former Senator Tom Daschle is quoted in the event announcement as saying, "We believe the time has come to set this straight. We collectively denied the obvious. In apologizing for having instinctively covered for one of the most destructive industries on earth, no individual or organization is necessarily continuing to pretend to have believed any particular purported reason for the war. What we are saying is that we ought to have asked for a credible reason before taking an action that has killed well over a million people, destroyed a country, ruined the good name of our nation, hollowed out our economy, and enriched the people we said had nothing whatsoever to do with it. We're sorry."

What the hell did they think the top-secret "Cheney Energy Task Force" meetings were all about anyway? It was about divvyin' up the spoils.

Sorry, shit. Shoulda thought more about going along with Bush's Criminal War For Oil before you fucked the U.S.A. up for generations. "Sorry 'bout that" doesn't cut it.

You wanta really try to do something to atone, not that you could? Lock up Bush and Cheney and a buncha others and let 'em die in prison.

"Framing the Sixties"

The Use and Abuse of a Decade from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush

If you were there, ya might oughta read this. I read all I can about the '60s. Trying to remember them. Actually, I remember 'em pretty good until I got outta the service in '66. After that it's sorta blurry...

The '60s are still with us. I think we're gonna be in the 'hangover' phase for a long time yet to come.

Truthout

Forget such pesky things as Jim Crow and equal rights for women. All but the archest of archconservatives will concede that tinkering was needed to correct egregious racism and sexism. This shift led, von Bothmer continues, to a bizarre splitting of the 1960's into two parts: the good sixties and the bad sixties.

The good sixties, he writes, ran from 1960 to 1964 and included John Fitzgerald and Robert Kennedy, the nonviolent resistance of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the Peace Corps, the Civil Rights Act, the 1963 March on Washington and the activists who pushed for racial integration as part of the beloved community.

On the flip side, he continues, are the bad sixties, which ran from mid-decade to the fall of Saigon in 1975. Among the markers of this period: the sexual revolution, Roe v. Wade, escalating protests against the Vietnam War, the Stonewall Rebellion, urban riots and the growing influence of groups such as the Black Panthers and the Young Lords.

About half of those oughta be in the 'good' '60s. Your choice.

Bush, a man with a history of substance abuse who had skirted active military service in Vietnam, was so successful in tarnishing Kerry that he skated to victory. By presenting himself as a God-fearing, born-again Christian who was family-oriented and believed in tradition, he represented the good, nothing-to-fear years of pre-1960's mythology.

Obama, not born until 1961, represents a shift from this good/bad dichotomy. That said, the right wing continues to dredge up the sixties in its attempt to blame them for every flaw in contemporary life. The so-called culture wars continue to rage and, perhaps nostalgic for the good 1960's - before queers took to the streets, before women flooded the workforce and before a family of color lived in the White House - have taken on new urgency. Indeed, conservatives seem ascendant.

Some things haven't changed - I didn't like the Repugs and Birchers then and I don't like the Repugs and Rightards now.

I guess I'm just older and better lookin'.

Will Trump Tell the Tea Party “YOU’RE FIRED!”

…or just rip ‘em off like he does to everyone he does business with?

He'll work 'em like a redheaded stepchild because they're the only ones brain-dead enough to watch him abuse washed-up celebrity apprentices who need the money like Gary Busey.

When the show's run is mercifully over, sooner rather than later, then he'll tell 'em they're fired.

Yeah, he's rippin' 'em off. It's what he does.

Update:

I've actually kinda had the feeling that Trump's being so ridiculous he could be a deep plant, but I like conspiracy theories. Well, the one about JFK anyway.

Puke before reading.

Donald Trump, secret liberal? The top 10 reasons conservatives should hate him

Adds credence to my opinion in the first half of the post.

Let’s Not Be Civil

Paul Krugman on the Repug/Ryan proposed class war budget.

When the proposal was released, it was praised as a “wonk-approved” plan that had been run by the experts. But the “experts” in question, it turned out, were at the Heritage Foundation, and few people outside the hard right found their conclusions credible. In the words of the consulting firm Macroeconomic Advisers — which makes its living telling businesses what they need to know, not telling politicians what they want to hear — the Heritage analysis was “both flawed and contrived.” Basically, Heritage went all in on the much-refuted claim that cutting taxes on the wealthy produces miraculous economic results, including a surge in revenue that actually reduces the deficit.

By the way, Heritage is always like this. Whenever there’s something the G.O.P. doesn’t like — say, environmental protection — Heritage can be counted on to produce a report, based on no economic model anyone else recognizes, claiming that this policy would cause huge job losses. Correspondingly, whenever there’s something Republicans want, like tax cuts for the wealthy or for corporations, Heritage can be counted on to claim that this policy would yield immense economic benefits.

The point is that the two parties don’t just live in different moral universes, they also live in different intellectual universes, with Republicans in particular having a stable of supposed experts who reliably endorse whatever they propose.

Which brings me to those calls for a bipartisan solution. Sorry to be cynical, but right now “bipartisan” is usually code for assembling some conservative Democrats and ultraconservative Republicans — all of them with close ties to the wealthy, and many who are wealthy themselves — and having them proclaim that low taxes on high incomes and drastic cuts in social insurance are the only possible solution.

This would be a corrupt, undemocratic way to make decisions about the shape of our society even if those involved really were wise men with a deep grasp of the issues. It’s much worse when many of those at the table are the sort of people who solicit and believe the kind of policy analyses that the Heritage Foundation supplies.

So let’s not be civil. Instead, let’s have a frank discussion of our differences. In particular, if Democrats believe that Republicans are talking cruel nonsense, they should say so — and take their case to the voters.

I am totally down wid not being civil to the 'bagger/Repug retards.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Biden Dozes Off During President's Speech
At gathering of air traffic controllers

Romney Forms Exploratory Committee
Their mission: find him.

Experts: Planet Could Be “Unrecognizable” by 2050
Unless you grew up on Mars.

Complex Life Forms Emerged From Sea Earlier Than Thought
Looked around, went back.

Statue of Liberty Stamp Based on Photo of Replica in Las Vegas
Lincoln stamp based on photo of animatronic Lincoln at Disneyland.

Sigh...

No worries, F-Man!

Just be careful about what gets on the walls. I just painted. Heh ... Fixer

This should help assuage your fears! I got sumthin' a little different in mind...

Thanks to rznelson.

Later ...

Gotta go drop the dogs at Dr. Grove's place, then check on dad-in-law once more, and then begin to pack. I still got a load of laundry going too. I am so far behind I'm about to lap myself. For once I'm happy for an overnight flight because the car won't get here until 5. I might actually get everything done.

If I don't stop back here today, I'll catch you from the ship tomorrow. As usual, I'll be posting at Worlds while I'm gone so you can see what we're up to. We only have 4 ports in 11 days so I'll have time to post a bit more regularly than when we did "Europe on crack" a couple years ago (12 ports in 14 days).

As always, listen to Gordon, try not to drink all my booze, and don't leave stains anywhere I can find 'em. Heh ...

Later.

Steely Dan - Home At Last

Whoopin' it up at Fixer's house! Bon Voyage, Mr. and Mrs. F!

The Fixers are leaving for London tomorrow and we hope they have a great time. Easy, how could they not?

This has become my personal "Fare thee well in thy worldly travels!" tradition. Enjoy!

Note to the gals in the video: We got a place to party! Call me...

Jimmy Buffet ~ Gypsies in the Palace

Thanks to Kinja98, Netherlands Antilles.

Update:

Looks like the locals are gettin' ready to greet the Fixers!

Thanks to nocommenttv.

And you wonder ...

Why the economy's so fucked? Check out how the Republicans do "fund-raising":

... Add it all up, and Denham’s special committee spent nearly a quarter of a million dollars to net a grand total of $650 in outside contributions ...

Yeah, good fiscal responsibility there, twats.

Big fucking Weiner!

I like the sound of "President Weiner":

"I was watching [the President's] speech, and I was the opposite. I was thinking “Boy the president's being so gentle and modest.” I mean, you know what I would have said. I would have said the Republican plan stinks and I will chew my right arm off before I sign any part of it."

"If you don't want to have your program criticized by the President of the United States I say two things. One, don't make dumb proposals. And two, maybe you should think a little bit about the tone in this town when they've been eviscerating the president for everything from being a Socialist, a Communist and not even being born in this country. I thought the president's tone was remarkably measured considering the attacks that he's on every day. I mean President Weiner certainly wouldn't have been that measured."

As far as leadership goes, Tony's hung like a horse. Keep using that thing like a club, bro! This is what we could use in the White House; a man who stands up for progressive principles without bringing the "Kucinich Crazy". And, as Mrs. F says, "he's such a lovely Jewish boy; his mother must be kvelling".