The Associated Press reports:

Hopes of finding a Roman Catholic priest who disappeared after soaring into the air with hundreds of colorful balloons are growing slim, rescue officials in Brazil said. The Rev. Adelier Antonio de Carli has been missing since Sunday, when he lifted off from the port city of Paranagua in a fund-raising effort.

So do not be alarmed if you look up into the sky and see a priest floating by with a hundred balloons.

The Tragedy: A mere 48 hours after signage went up in Oreland, PA (home of Pride of Oreland, PA, Chris Matthews), some nefarious henchmen of Hilly C snatched the evidence of the change to come.

The Triumph: Through a little homespun ingenuity, the situation has been remedied. YES, WE CAN!!!

With five days to go before the Pennsylvania primary, things are getting serious in Oreland, PA (home of Pride of Oreland, PA, Chris Matthews). The following sign was spotted on one 2logger's lawn this morning:

Tirdad Derakhshani, author of the Philadelphia Inquirer's "SideShow" feature and world's greatest gossip columnist, confirms what this 2logger has long suspected in today's column:

Oprah assembled her most famous creation, Dr. Phil, using body parts from deceased psychiatrists, middle-school vice principals, and secondhand car salesmen, which she glued together with gobs of good intentions.

Villagers, grab your torches!

A host of 2uandaries confront the 2urious 2logger these days. I have taken it upon myself to list some of them here.

• How should an American broadcaster pronounce the name of Muqtada al-Sadr? Arabic is one of those languages where what you see is pretty much what you get in terms of pronunciation, but there are a few exceptions. The definite article, "al," assimilates with certain following consonants. These include 's,' so "al-Sadr" is pronounced "as-Sadr." In addition, words that end in 'a' elide into a following "al," so the correct Arabic pronunciation ends up sounding like "Muqtada Sadr." If you pronounce it this way, though, it sounds like you are skipping over "al," which is clearly printed as part of the name. So is it better to pander to the insufferable smarty-pants who pretends to understand Arabic rules of pronunciation, or the smug ignoramus who insists on pronouncing all the letters in every word, like saying "off-ten" for "often"?
  
  Wolfman Jack says: YOU DECIDE!!!!!!!!!
  
  
• Who are the bad guys in the Hollywood blacklist? The guys who snitched on their colleagues, or the guys who refused to answer questions about communism? I have always sided with the guys who were blacklisted for refusing to answer questions. But recently (after the death of Jules Dassin, who directed some great film noirs and then was blacklisted), I was wondering what I would do in their place. Let's imagine that we agree that communism (Soviet-style) is a credible threat (in hindsight, the left's romanticization of Stalin in the 1930s was misguided at best). Those who refused to testify against someone who might be a threat to the United States could, arguably, be practicing the same ethos as the "Don't Snitch" culture that bedevils many urban police forces today. Here is where the 2uandary arises. I am morally opposed to "Don't Snitch," so shouldn't I be against the Hollywood Ten as well? Probably not--communists in the U.S. did not, to my knowledge, commit any crimes other than poor judgment--but I had never thought of it that way before.
  
  And, last but not least...
  
• Have all the Questions of the Day been answered? Have all the 2uotes of the Day been 2uoted? The answers are not 2uite clear.

While the mainstream media is reporting on a recurring falsehood from Hillary Clinton, I have found another instance of her misrepresentation of the facts.

According to genealogist William Addams Reitwiesner,

In her autobiography, Living History, Sen. Clinton describes her maternal grandmother as "one of nine children from a family of French Canadian, Scottish and Native American ancestry." No records have been found to support this claimed Native American ancestry. (italics mine)

For those who are interested in checking the facts, you can peruse Hillary's family tree yourself. (A note on how to read this: the numbers in the left column show how people connect. The parents of person x are 2x (father) and 2x+1 (mother). So Hillary's maternal grandmother, No. 7 Della Murray, was the daughter of No. 14 Daniel Murray and No. 15 Delia Martin, etc.)

Perhaps we should be more forgiving of this particular error, however, because Hillary is not alone in mistakenly believing she has Native American blood. Many Americans seem to want to claim a small portion of a native heritage they view as noble, authentic, or exotic. Henry Louis Gates, in his African-American Lives 2 series on PBS, set out to check these claims for a group of twelve (mostly famous) African-Americans, and DNA tests showed that, family legends to the contrary, the amount of actual Native American ancestry was very small at best (I believe Tina Turner had the most, at about 3%, while most of the subjects had none at all). And as Hillary proves, this is by no means limited to the African-American community. I've heard my dad and my aunt both claim some mysterious aunt/cousin/great-grandmother was an Indian, even though this is logically improbable and geographically impossible.

Incidentally, if you have a chance to catch a re-run of African-American Lives 2, I can't recommend it highly enough--it is thoroughly fascinating, and a much worthier use of public broadcasting than some Moody Blues reunion concert.

And if you are interested in the ancestry of our other presidential candidates, Barack Obama's maternal line was spread throughout the midwest, northeastern, and southern U.S. and is a mix of British, French, and German ancestry; his paternal line is Luo from Kenya. John McCain descends from southern slaveholders of British and Irish descent. There are many more political figures in the full list.

Which one of these blowhards is a lovable goofus and which one is a loudmouth father of young children who often appears on TV?

YOU DECIDE!!!!?!?!?!!!

Homer image by Pixeloo, via CartoonBrew

Heard on the radio this afternoon that Buddy Miles had died. I know him best as the drummer for Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys album. He was a really solid drummer with a fat beat, and a charismatic singer, but that's not why I'm 2logging about him.

Last week, Gerrit was looking for nominees for the Train Award for "most flagrant use of rhyming a word with itself." I knew there were a few songs that always bothered me for this reason, but I couldn't think of them under all the pressure. Thanks to Mr. Miles's passing, however, I am reminded of some of the stupidest lyrics of all time, from his song, "(Dem) Changes":

Well my mind is going through them changes
I think I'm going outta my mind

Granted, these lines don't rhyme a word with itself, but I think they exhibit more than the required redundancy and laziness to qualify for the grand prize (note that our late, lamented lyricist didn't even bother to make a rhyme in the first place). And so, in memory of Buddy Miles, I hereby nominate him for the first Train Award.

Close your eyes. Who's talking?

Pride of Oreland, PA, Chris Matthews...


or Pride of Shaker Heights, OH, Fred Willard?


YOU DECIDE!!!!?!?!?!!!

They say it ain't over till the fat lady sings.