EGAD

Hamas does Mr. Rogers + Checking In

Oral exam tomorrow. My practice talk went well enough, but I've got some work to do before I'm ready for tomorrow.

Turned up during the present web break: Hamas does Mr. Rogers. Friendly guy hangs out with kids and oversized stuffed animals, plays fun games, and teaches important lessons like cooperation. And that Jerusalem is the Palestinians' birthright and must someday be retaken. Important life lessons like that. And now I have had my recommended daily allowance of postmodernism.

In completely unrelated news, the conventional wisdom holds that Democrats lost any chance to beat the Scalito nomination when they made his wife cry, because now they're just big meanies. Naturally I suspected at the time that the boo-hooing just might have a whiff of stagecraft about it. Cold comfort, though, to see that I was probably right on that count.

In keeping with the pattern of these things, I leave you with another installment of Impromteau Photojournalism.

The Cathedral of San Fernando began as a parish church in 1738 by settlers from the Canary Islands sent by the Spanish government as a bulwark against possible French incursion. The present facade, seen here, dates to the 1870s, when the church was recommissioned as a cathedral. Not so long ago, the plaster walls were black with soot, and oozed the scent of frankincense. Since then renovations have restored the walls to a more historically and structurally appropriate finish, but the pervading aroma of incense will take a century or so to return.