We’ve Looked at Thirty-Six Houses?!

Kathy T. has the update.

Why They’re Trying So Hard Right Now

John McCain on Ellen last week:

he opposes gay marriage and believes in “the unique status of marriage between and man and a woman.”

“And I know that we have a respectful disagreement on that issue,” the likely Republican presidential nominee said

Jenna Bush Hager on Ellen last week:

“So, can we borrow it for our wedding,” DeGeneres asked. “Can we get the ranch?”

With her mother, First Lady Laura Bush, sitting by her side, Jenna Hager said, “Sure.”

The Goats

Thor has two goats who pull his cart–Tooth-gnasher and Tooth-grinder.  You can eat them, and as long as you put their bones and hide back in a pile, complete, Thor can make them whole again.  Other than that, I assume that they’re ordinary goats.

But I’ve been watching Mack’s goats with an eye towards Thor, wondering what it was about goats, of all creatures, that would lend them to being associated with Thor.

Frankly, I haven’t yet figured it out.  But I’m having a good time watching the goats.  One thing I noticed about them is that they have a surprising amount of dexterity in their hooves.  I guess it’s the cloven thing going on, but when they’re trying to stand on something they’re unsure about, you can see their hooves wiggling in interesting ways to find purchase.  And they seem to take great joy in climbing up on things, even if it’s just a pile of wood.

It’s interesting to watch them with the horses, because, at one level, they seem to get that the horses are herd animals and they are herd animals and so, as such, they might herd together.  On the other hand, they seem tentative, unsure if they’ll be accepted by the horses, who seem convinced that running off the goats is good fun.

I have yet to figure out how I’m going to smuggle my lone sheep onto the farm.  I could get a sheep that resembled a goat and see if Mack noticed.  Or I could get a sheep with good wool for spinning and just claim it was a weird looking dog…

I don’t know.  We’ll have to see.  I’m going to have to learn how to spin first, I suppose.

Recount

I watched part of “Recount” yesterday but couldn’t stand to watch the whole thing.  I won’t go into all the reasons I didn’t like it, but I do want to get on one: the portrayal of Katherine Harris.

To me, Katherine Harris is a really interesting figure.  She’s motivated by deeply held religious beliefs, but she’s also clearly a little tyrannical, and a little in over her head, but with some core of shrewdness.

It’s a type of women you come to know well living in the South, the “I’m not a feminist but…” chicks who aren’t feminists, but they want to be in charge, based not on some belief in their own value as human beings, but based on their core belief in their own exceptionalism as women, granted by God.  They are not like those other women, thank you Jesus.

I’m not sure that I could have done a better job writing Katherine Harris for Recount, but I watched it thinking that they got her all wrong.  They had all of the ingredients right, but somehow all in the wrong proportions.  She came off looking like an easily manipulatable fanatic.  And not that that’s not true, kind of, but it’s not right.

And it’s too bad, I think.  Because she does seem to me to be a really rich person to base a character off of, so particular to a certain place at a certain time, that I was sorry to see them so miss in their characterization of her.  And this is not to say that Laura Dern was bad in it. 

In fact, I thought she did an extraordinary job with what she was given.  I saw repeated hints that Dern got what Harris was about–the precise, almost hypnotized way she put on her make-up, the way she delivered her Queen Esther speech–but I still think the writers didn’t get Harris.

I’m Going to Get Kicked Out of Drinking for Admitting This

But I went to bed at seven last night.  And slept until six thirty this morning.