From a reader:

Dear Jonah, It was impossible to come of age when and where Leo Strauss did, and not be influenced by, and indeed indebted to, Nietzsche. But Strauss was most certainly not a follower of Nietsche--read only the final pages of Strauss's essay "What is Political Philosophy" to understand that Strauss saw Nietzsche as the culmination of Western Nihilism, and genuinely pitied him for it. Strauss, and Eric Voegelin too, had a similar take on Nietzsche: admiration for his boldness, understanding for his predicament, and pity for his inability to believe in something greater than himself. I think Voegelin said something to the effect that "no man ever wanted and needed to believe in God as much as Nietszsche did, but he could not bring himself to do so." A follower of Neitzsche's could never be conservative.

The influence of Nietzsche is comparable to the influence of Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Hegel, or Kant. People don't directly state their indebtedness to him any more than you or I credit water for the wonderful state of our health.

From a reader:

How dare you post a time waster! I'm trying to study for my law school exams! I'll sue...eh, never mind. Let's settle, I won't sue if you keep posting Simpsons quotes. I wish there was a Simpsons casebook that outlined the law using Simpsons episodes as mock litigation.

I've got to go, Nietzsche bad, Ayn Rand good (I have a "Who Is John Galt? bumper sticker on my truck just to annoy people, but I'm thinking of making a "Goldwater/Miller '64" sticker), God better.

In summation, you're wasting all my time, you're not Just What I Needed.
From Hell's Heart, I Stab at Thee.

Faithful Reader in Alexandria,
John

Several readers point out that Leo Strauss was indebted to Nietzsche. Fair enough. Though I do think it's one thing to admire a philosopher and agree with some of his descriptions and its another to buy into his prescriptions. It's also worth noting that Strauss' influence has been significant in America and upon American conservatism (and not just on the "neocons" -- Willmoore Kendall, after all, was an acolyte of Strauss'). But, Strauss himself hardly comes out of the American tradition or the Anglo-American conservative tradition generally, even if his influence on both has been large. Anyway, I thought this email was very useful:

Dear Mr. Goldberg,

Of course, the relationship is complicated and Strauss is no ordinary conservative, but I think that it's fair to say that Strauss took Nietzsche and Nietzsche's critique of rationalism very seriously. The best sources are Werner Dannhauser's Nietzsche's View of Socrates and Lawrence Lampert's Leo Strauss and Nietzsche. The Amazon link for the latter is here.

For the former (out of print), it's here.

It's also probably worth looking at what Allan Bloom has to say about Nietzsche, to whom there are more explicit references in The Closing of the American Mind than there are to, say, Plato.

Shadia Drury (who has become a poisonous nutty Strauss-hater, as opposed to merely a poisonous Strauss-hater) also, if memory serves, insists upon the Nietzscheanism of Strauss and his students (especially the "East Coast" variety.

The response to the argument that Straussianism is a kind of Nietzscheanism begins with Strauss' respect for America, amply documented in Deutsch and Murley's Leo Strauss, the Straussians, and the Study of the American Regime. I've also written on Strauss and America in Lawler and McConkey's Faith, Reason, and Political Life Today; my contribution is entitled "Leo Strauss, America, and the End of History."

Here's the Amazon link to Deutsch and Murley.

Here's the link to Lawler and McConkey.

Best wishes,

Joe Knippenberg
Oglethorpe University
Atlanta, GA

Since I'm still alone, from a reader:

If you can stomach another Simpson's food quote, I can't believe no one has mentioned my favorite:

Flanders wins tickets to the big football game between Springfield and Shelbyville on a radio contest. Homer hears and immediately jumps off the couch and looks up to curse God.

Homer: "Oh, God, why do you mock me?"

[enter Marge with broom in hand]

Marge: "Homer, that's not God. That's a waffle that Bart threw on the ceiling."

[Marge knocks down waffle with broom. Waffle falls into Homer's hands]

Homer [to waffle]: "I know I should not eat thee, but........[takes bite]....Mmmmmm.....Sacrilicious"

Uh, oh. Maybe I stepped in something? From a reader:

Not a good point, rather idiotic. Rand denounced Nietzsche, repeatedly and in no uncertain terms. Why do conservatives insist on insulting Ayn Rand? I will be reading along, and out of the blue, totally out of context, some dig at her will appear. Stop it. It's like Terry Jeffrey insisting that you cannot be moral unless you believe in God - offensive and stupid.

From a reader:

Dear Jonah:

The influence of Nietzsche is comparable to the influence of Plato,
Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Hegel, or Kant. People don't directly state
their indebtedness to him any more than you or I credit water for the
wonderful state of our health. Nietzsche is one of those great
philosophers--like Napoleon's a great general--who is in the water we drink
and the air we breath, and that is as true for liberals as it is for
conservatives.

All the best,

Brian [name/address withheld]

Me: I certainly take Brian's point and largely agree with it. However, leftwing philosophers and intellectuals do more than accept our/their debt (or burden) from him. They embrace him. Foucault, for example, called himself a Left-Nietzschean. Derrida, Sartre all those dudes were in constant -- and generally favorable -- dialogue with Nietzsche. Right? What I want to know if there are any American conservatives who've behaved similarly.

I had forgotten about her (as I often do). A reader notes that Ayn Rand was indebted to Friedrich and that a symposium is actually soliciting papers on the subject.

This is a good point. But, again, while Rand was certainly a figure of the Right, her connection with the conservative movement was, uh, complicated.

From a reader:

Your "corner" discussion prompted a thought. Paul Wolfowitz was a big admirer of Bloom who, as you know, kissed the hand of Strauss. Azar Nafisi (Author of "Reading Lolita in Terhan") acknowledges "Paul" in her book for introducing her to a work [actually by Strauss]. I wonder how all of the women's rights groups and quasi intellects reacted when they discovered it was Paul Wolfowitz, the evil incarnate, she was thanking. This truly underscores the irony of what is just.

Tom [Name withheld]
Chicago

PS-How can certain crusaders for women's rights be so up in arms with regard
to equal admission to Augusta Country Club and not expand that determination
globally in areas where women are treated as sub human?

Okay, another egghead bleg (EggBleg?). It is widely accepted that Nietzsche was a philosopher of the Right (though he was by no stretch of the imagination a conservative). Some have even called him the author of rightwing atheism. I don't want to get into what Nietzsche was or wasn't. But what I am curious about is if any philosopher-poli-sci-historian types (or just really well-read podiatrists for all I care) out there can point to any American conservatives who've taken-up Nietzsche as a major influence or hero. Of course, there's Mencken. But Mencken's relationship with and influence on American conservatism is complex and not necessarily direct. Is there anyone else? I looked in the index in Nash's The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America and he doesn't even appear there. Nor does his name appear in the index of The Conservative Tradition in America -- a great book by Charles Dunn and J. David Woodard.

I know Nietzsche remains very popular on the American and European left but I'm interested to know if anyone on the American (or British) right has written anything substantive claiming him as a man of the right. I don't mean simply defenses of him against the most slanderous charges (it was his sister who was the real anti-Semite etc etc).

Anyway, any insight would be appreciated.

Anne Norton is clearly a boob (that happens to be the professional opinion of about a dozen scholars and professors who've written me). More to the point, here's an account of Rossiter's troubles from his son (note: it's a PDF). It certainly doesn't sound like Norton consulted Caleb Rossiter. It's nice to know that in some areas, reporters are actually more reliable than "scholars," because a reporter would have at least bothered to fact-check such stuff. [If you're lost, again, scroll down.]

In response to my Thanksgiving column:

A friend just forwarded me your recent article praising our military and I wanted to say thank you. My husband deployed today and it's difficult to stomach that he is fighting for a cause that many Americans are so harshly against and probably know very little about, other than the little that the media shows. My family is giving up being together for the holidays because it is our job to defend and serve our country. I feel like a lot of our countrymen, whose rights are fought for by our military families, do not appreciate nor acknowledge such sacrifices. Thank you for validating their fight. Thank you for remembering.

(Scroll down for the discussion from yesterday) From a friend:

Ugh! The Foer piece is totally goofy. He says Nock shaped the spirit of today’s conservatism -- and then says Nock wouldn’t recognize conservatism today. Despite the incoherence of that argument, Frank’s employing as much rhetorical gymnastics as he can to make an exceedingly tired liberal argument born of liberal conceit and blinders: Nock (you could substitute a bunch of “weird uncles” here, by the way, Nock was hardly alone) provided intellectual cover for conservative hatred/bigotry, and while Nock’s intellectual influence has melted away, the hatred and bigotry remain. Clever.

Frank needs to look at progressive intellectual history. Turn of the century progressives, mostly affiliated with Ivy League schools and Bloomsbury circles were racist and elitist, arrogant to boot. The difference between those progressives and conservatives like Nock is that Nock distrusted the state to remedy the problem of so many subhumans jostling about, making life so unpleasant for guilt-addled elites. The progressives thought the state could engineer all those subhumans they loathed in a manner more to their liking – or at least make things less untidy. If it’s a choice between conservative haters and liberal/progressive haters, I’ll take the ones mistrustful of the state any day.

The whole point – or a whole point, there are many -- of Buckley’s influence is that it stripped the Nockian influence, such as it was, away – root and branch (Hayek and the neocons had similar effect). The same cannot be said for the legacy of Ivy League progressives and the left – the root remains firmly entrenched in liberal political soil today.

Hey, I'm going to be signing off any minute so now's your chance:

Mr.Goldberg,

From Krusty's 29th Anniversary Special:

Krusty: "I've worked with a lot of second bananas over the years, but none were as memorable as Sideshow Rahim."

Flash to a scene of a Krusty show from the early-mid 70s and Krusty is standing next to a LARGE black man in a dashiki:

Krusty: "Uhh, the script says I've gotta bonk you with this mallet."

Sideshow Rahim: "I wouldn't"

Krusty: "Uhhhh..."

Flash to Krusty's 29h Special and Krusty sitting on the steps pensively shaking his head: "Angry, angry young man."

That and the mediocre Presidents song:

We are the mediocre, Presidents
You won't find our faces on dollars or on cents
There's Taylor, there's Tyler, there's Fillmore and there's Hayes
There's William Henry Harrison, I died in Thirty Days!

We are the adequate, the laughable, occasionally regrettable
Care-taker Presidents of the U...S...A....

From BBC:

Journalists on Ukraine's state-owned channel - which had previously given unswerving support to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych - have joined the opposition, saying they have had enough of "telling the government's lies".

Journalists on another strongly pro-government TV station have also promised an end to the bias in their reporting. The turnaround in news coverage, after years of toeing the government line, is a big setback for Mr Yanukovych.

Journalists in Ukraine seem to have responded to the call by opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko for them to reject government censorship.

A correspondent on the state channel, UT1, announced live on the evening bulletin that the entire news team was going to join the protests in Independence Square. She said their message to the protesters was: "We are not lying anymore".

From a reader:

I know--it's not related to food, but the Simpsons line that made me laugh aloud, the only one that I remember doing so, was by Kent Brockman:

". . . Montgomery Burns, seen here frightening children in a nineteenth-century woodcut."

I suspect that Conan O'Brien wrote it.

From a reader:

Jonah:

I unfortunately don’t know about Rossiter’s suicide, so I can’t help you there. But you should read the book. I was extremely disappointed. It’s pretty bad. And by bad, I mean it’s unscholarly, anecdotal, gossipy, unintellectual. Mostly, though, it’s just plain poorly written and ultimately unconvincing. Norton obviously has some personal axe to grind. After reading her “dissection” of Bloom’s book, I was left to wonder if she had even read it.

From a reader:

Run into the ground or not, this is one of the funniest Simpsons quotes ever:

HOMER: "Wait a minute. Is this the biggest steak you've got? Seventy-two ounces? I thought this was supposed to be a steakhouse, not a little girly, underpantsy, pink doily, tea-party place!"

WAITER: "Well, there is one steak that's available only by special request. We call it, uh, Sir Loin-A-Lot. It's, uh, the size of a boogie board."

HOMER: "Ooh, I'll have that one. And to drink...meatballs."

An emailer informed me that a new book by Anne Norton, Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire, suggests that Clinton Rossiter committed suicide because of the intimidation he suffered from Straussian colleagues, including Alan Bloom. I had not heard this before, and I've read a little bit about the Cornell takeover. Indeed, my understanding of Rossiter's tragic suicide was quite different. If there's anyone out there who knows the real story or can confirm Norton's version or can simply point me to another reliable source I'd be interested and grateful.

John - I agree, it's an interesting piece and I learned a couple things from it. But that line bugged me too (I've mentioned Nock in print and criticized him in debates and speeches numerous times). Frank -- an old friend -- seems to be carving out a space for himself as the next John Judis, a liberal chronicler of conservative intellectual history. I've quibbled with Frank's versions of conservative history before, but I've decided my real problem is that he reports on conservative intellectual history as an outsider and so maybe he simply sees things I don't and I see things he doesn't. And fair's fair when it comes to interpreting such things.

But what does bug me is this entire ouevre. Conservatives, rightly, have a greater ownership of their intellectual history than liberals have of theirs. We're proud of our heritage of ideas. Liberals are proud of their heritage of action (a gross oversimplification, of course). Nevertheless, the whole project of applying a vague guilt-by-association between today's conservatives and figures from the past, particularly the pre-Buckley past, often strikes me as a bit unfair, if not tawdry. I've been wading pretty heavily into liberal intellectual history for the last two years. And, frankly, it isn't something to be all that proud of.

The key difference, I think, is that conservative have investigated their own history enought to pick and choose which traditions we want to uphold (again, a gross oversimplification). Liberal writers, on the whole, have done no such thing (there are obvious exceptions including, I think, Foer). This has made liberals far more indebted to the intellectual undertow of their intellectal past than they realize. The undercurrents of Dewey, for example, still steer a staggering amount of liberal thinking today and I just don't think liberals appreciate the implications and handicaps this places on them. Being part of an intellectual heritage that is uninterested in intellectual history means you will invariably accept certain ideas as givens you might rightly question and dismiss if you took an interest in doing such things.

Meanwhile, conservatives have the opposite problem. We have to contend with the weight of everything any conservative ever said (or, at least, anything a liberal critic wants to throw in our face). We constantly hear, for example, that conservatism has been poisoned by southern racism because the South moved to the Republican fold in the 1960s. But almost no allowance is made for the possibility that the conservative movement had a far more profound effect on southern racism -- or souther conservatism -- and that maybe not every Southern Republican is a Bull Connor.

Anyway, I gotta get back to work.

this is from the proprietess of Miss Mary Bobo's Boarding House in Lynchburg, Tennessee. (A real place, just down from the distillery. I've eaten there but you have to make reservations well in advance.)

2 1/2 cups cooked, mashed sweet potatoes
4 tablespoons butter, softened
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
pinch of salt
1/3 cup Jack Daniel's Whiskey
pecan halves of marshmallow for topping

Preheat oven to 325. Combine all ingredients except topping. Spoon into greased 1 quart casserole. Top with pecan halves or marshmallows. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until bubbly. (6 to 8 servings)

Free-range turkey and giblet gravy; Prairie Chapel bass; mashed sweet potatoes with maple syrup and chiptoles; pan-roasted vegetables with walnuts and apples; cornbread stuffing; pecan and pumpkin pie with Blue Bell ice cream; Patz & Hall "Hyde" chardonnay 2002.

Well, here’s a surprise (not): the EU’s bureaucracy (in this case the EU ‘parliament’s’ legal service) looks as if it has managed to shut down the row over Chirac’s new EU commissioner, Jacques Barrot. This, you may remember, concerned the fact that Barrot didn’t bother to disclose that he had been convicted of involvement in a political funding scandal some years ago.

Barrot’s defense was that he didn’t have to mention the conviction, because he benefited from an amnesty. The EU Parliament’s legal service agrees, and, as matter of strict law, they are probably right. The amnesty effectively nullified Barrot’s conviction so there was, I suppose, literally ‘nothing’ to disclose.

Well, yes and no.

Barrot may not have had to disclose the conviction, but given the (regrettable) importance of the job to which he was being appointed, he had a clear moral obligation to do so.

He should resign.

First Havel comes out in support of the Ukrainian opposition, now Kiev is visited by Lech Walesa, another giant of Eastern Europe’s heroic age:

“Solidarity leader and the first post-communist Polish president Lech Walesa also addressed the crowd, which was in high spirits as it gathered under blue skies on this clear, windless day.Much of central Kyiv is now a solid block of protestors, most bedecked in orange, the signature color of opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko. A carnival atmosphere predominates.Estimates place the crowd at up to a million.”

The ‘winner’ of the Ukrainian election has now had his swearing in. Foreign Notes, an American blog in Kiev, has more:

”There was a ceremony of sorts yesterday where Yanukovych accepted the presidency. The swearing in is supposed to take place today so it was not his investment ceremony. It was a kind of acceptance ceremony that took place in some room somewhere in Kiev. He was surrounded by people who looked pleased with these events, but there seemed to be less than fifty. They stood and clapped and he had the look of the humble ruler reluctantly assuming power after the people have spoken. But there was something pitiful in this in a way. It was a small gathering indoors. He speaks to fifty inside. Yuschenko speaks to hundreds of thousands outside. And on that outside, Yanukovych has to ship in his supporters from other cities to Kiev to counter the crowds in the downtown square and he can’t get anywhere near the numbers Yuschenko gets who pays no one. With no pay, with no one defraying their expenses in any way to come here, these people make their way to Kiev under their own power to take part in the demonstrations. The give their loyalty freely to Yuschenko and to their country. Inside with Yanukovych, though, it is hard not to believe that those who stood and clapped for him are people who are in that position because they owe him something.”

Here's Guardian cartoonist Martin Rowson's take on the Ukrainian elections, with a drawing that blends bile, ignorance, moral cretinism and anti-Americanism to use the Ukrainian elections as yet another excuse to take a run at Bush.

Very classy, Martin. Very classy.

One of the tragedies of Russia after 1991 is its failure to come to terms with the horrors of its Soviet past. There never was a Soviet Nuremberg, something that still burdens that country today. Moscow’s meddling in the Ukrainian elections shows how that old Soviet mindset persists. Failure there might produce a long overdue rethink.

The London Times quotes Konstantin Zatulin, director of the Institute of CIS Countries in Moscow, as saying this, “The Ukrainian election means more for us than for the West...The West will lose practically nothing if its candidate doesn’t win. However, for us, it can mean a reappraisal of values and significant expenses.”

Quite what the “expenses” would be, I cannot imagine, but a “reappraisal of values” is exactly what Russia needs.

By the time you read this, it will be our "Thanksgiving" holiday. This is a day when Americans commemorate the efforts of the original English settelers of this land, who came here in the name of feedom, but at great personal risk and physical danger. It is self-evident that they seldom lived in comfort, but they tamed primitive lands, exhibited a peaceable spirit, and governed themselves by equitable principles rooted in democracy and religious faith. We honor these kinsmen, praise their sacrifices, and share their respect for God. Without their great efforts and ongoing struggles, the cause of freedom may never have realized its triumphant successes. I give thanks for what these forebearers and God have given to me and my family, and I pray that you and you kinsmen will soon realize these same gifts. God bless America and God bless Ukraine!

Slava Ukraini,

The Bush administration has been admirably frank and forceful this week in denouncing the fraud in Ukraine and in making clear to Ukrainians that it is on their side. In the coming days it must drive home the message to Mr. Yanukovych that he will be a pariah in Washington -- notwithstanding his cynical offer to extend the deployment of Ukrainian troops in Iraq -- if he accepts his illegitimate mandate, and that he and all of his governmental and business allies will be held personally responsible for any violence against the opposition. At the same time, President Bush needs to accept that U.S. hopes of cooperation with Russia, in the Middle East or elsewhere, cannot be insulated from Mr. Putin's anti-democratic imperialism in Eastern Europe. The West must take a clear stand against that policy, before it is too late to prevent a redivision of the continent.

- Vaclav Havel has issued a second statement on the situation in Ukraine:

Dear Citizens,

Allow me to address you once again in these turbulent yet hopeful days. I am currently far away in Taiwan. But even here, I can feel the breeze blowing of your civic will, responsibility, and desire for freedom. It very much reminds me of our own Velvet Revolution in the former Czechoslovakia in 1989. Despite the announcement of official election results, may the course of your protests remain peaceful. I know based on my own experience how important it is to not allow oneself to be provoked into violence.

At the same time, I appeal to all of you who work in the mass media: Do not allow yourselves to be intimidated, and write the truth about events in your own country.

Yours, V.H.

(English translation by RFE/RL)

to have children in an age of birth control is an act of pure optimism….for all the talk of dark days, edge of apocalypse etc, raising kids is like shooting skyrockets into the night. and we all like playing with fire.

Mr. Robinson, I'm sure you're getting deluged with emails from nerds like myself, but let me assure you that the boys will be much better off becoming accustomed to the mouse + keyboard than the joystick. The joystick is, indeed, only used for flight sims anymore, and anyone playing a shooter with the joystick will find themselves at a severe disadvantage.

If starwars battle front is a first person perspective shoot em up [it is] then your children are better off using the mouse and keyboard to control it. Joy sticks are used mostly for flight sims and are also popular for playing the mech warrior games. Games companies have been trying for years to create and sell a better input device to control first person shooters and not one of them has managed to top the good old mouse and keyboard.

I too cook my turkey on a round Weber grill. I usually do a 25 lb bird, but to do so, I use the round ring insert, made for the rotissierie, to gain vertical clearance. The coals are banked on either side, kept there by heavy wire enclosues designed for that purpose. Weber calls it the "indirect method". The turkey is placed on a rack on the main grill after being stuffed, rubbed with veg. oil and seasoned. Takes about as long as it would in the oven, but all the heat is outside and the oven is available for other puposes. The bird gets smoked red about 1/2 inch deep and stays moist throughout, as the initial heat tends to sear the outside. I have been doing this since 1976, and the idea of roasting it breast down has never crossed my mind, but it will be done tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

From a reader:

Jonah

Not to run the Simpsons food references into the ground here, but the
Helen Hunt episode also contains another of the all-time greats, Moe's
overjoyed response upon finally getting his date:
"Don't eat nothin' for three days, baby, I'm takin' you out for a steak
the size of a toilet seat!"

Cheers

Peter,

Can you put a little update on my recipe for cranberry sauce? I've checked and a bag of cranberries is 12 ounces. It's very important to make sure that you have the right proportions on cranberries to sugar to water because cranberries are VERY tart. If you like it that way, you can cut back on the sugar, but be careful, cranberries don't necessarily taste so great without a lot of sweetener. Also, make sure you cook the berries until they burst, about 6 or seven minutes.

On the other variations to the recipe, a suggestion that I would make: Start with the base recipe to make the cooked cranberries. Then add in your other flavors. Be careful about cooking out the port wine or the orange juice at the beginning because some of the more volatile flavors will cook away.

Good luck and good eating.

RUSSIAN SPECIAL FORCES “VITYAZ” LANDING AT BORYSPIL AIRPORT

Kyiv, Ukraine – Viktor Yushchenko's presidential campaign has received reports that two Russian aircraft landed at the Kyiv International Boryspil airport today carrying military personnel of the “Vityaz” special forces unit. Approximately 1,000 in number, they were transported to Kyiv, but their whereabouts currently are unknown.

This information was provided to the campaign by Ukrainian Colonel Lyashenko, an assistant commander of aviation brigades, who services aircraft landing at the airport. He refused to follow orders from above to accept the aircraft and thereafter submitted his resignation.

The Yushchenko campaign provided this information to Ukraine 's Security Service (SBU) Chairman Ihor Smeshko for appropriate investigation and follow-up. As well, the campaign requested security protection be given Colonel Lyashenko. Subsequently, the Yushchenko campaign was informed by the head of SBU's military counter-intelligence that indeed Colonel Lyashenko resigned his post at Boryspil airport today. However, the SBU representative rejected the fact that Russian special forces arrived at the airport today.

Yesterday, Yushchenko campaign chairman Oleksandr Zinchenko and Yushchenko ally Yulia Tymoshenko reported they saw non-Ukrainian special forces units at the presidential administration in downtown Kyiv, when they were peacefully let through a human barricade located on the street in front of the presidential administration. More reporting to follow.

SECRET TAPES COULD UNCOVER ELECTION FRAUD SCHEME

Kyiv, Ukraine – Viktor Yushchenko's presidential campaign managers possess audio taped recordings of conversations held among top Ukrainian government officials and their aids documenting vote count manipulations, instigation of violence at polling stations, and falsification of election protocols. The tapes include conversations with central election commission leaders as well as top aids to President Leonid Kuchma. Personnel from Ukraine's Security Service passed the secret tapes to Yushchenko campaign managers.

The audiotapes are similar to those released in September 2000, which unveiled that the murder of investigative reporter Georgi Gongadze was tied allegedly to Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma and other top government officials. A partial transcript of the taped conversations can be found on the 24 November Internet site www.pravda.com.ua in both Russian and Ukrainian.

I have work to do, and all you people at NRO seem to do is distract me!

This morning's home page offers a cornucopia of politico-cultural junkie delights: SpongeBob, U2, and Dan Brown, all on the same screen?! Within an inch of each other?

New VDH and turkey frying? What am I to do? I don't have this kind of time. And then on the Corner, people are quoting the Simpsons and talking turducken! .... Stop being so interesting!

P.S. My use of the word "cornucopia" above reminds me that my six-year-old [son] adorably called it a "corn-mania" earlier this week.

The Lions last championship was won in 1957. Since that time, the Lions have generally been awful, with occasional bursts of pretty good.

Win or lose, my father will be watching his beloved Lions on Thanksgiving Day, hoping for the best despite plenty of reasons to expect the worst.

Morton Blackwell, a man who served as a GOP delegate for Barry Goldwater and has attended every Republican convention since, has seen the ebb and flow of politics. His Laws of the Public Policy Process includes this gem: "Don't fully trust anyone until he has stuck with a good cause which he saw was losing."

K-Lo,
The "pinko" NPR cranberry relish sounds interesting, but here's a "red state" cranberry relish. Sorry if it's too late for Thanksgiving - I kept assuming someone else would write in - but we make this at Christmas too. Ten minutes prep - no cooking.

1 large orange
4 cups (about 1 lb) fresh cranberries, picked over and washed
1/2 cup sugar, or more to taste
1 teaspoon minced or grated fresh ginger

1. Peel orange and remove all pith. Keep the orange sections and the zest.
2. Combine the orange flesh, zest, cranberries and sugar in a food processor. Process until mixture is chunky. Stir in the ginger and additional sugar if needed.

Let it sit for 30 minutes before serving to allow flavors to blend. Keeps well (refrigerated) for a few days, but it never lasts that long. (Great on turkey sandwiches.)

Best wishes,
Kevin Clark

P.S. If anyone wants the recipie for tipsy sweet potatoes (secret ingredient is Jack Daniels) let me know.

A number of thoughtful readers have written in on my Monday column
(geneticist makes house call) by remarking that the way genes determine the
characteristics of living things is complicated & not very well
understood -- it depends to some degree on the interaction of a gene with
(a) other genes, and (b) the environment a gene, or its host organism,
happens to find itself in.

All of that is perfectly true, and I did not say or imply otherwise. In
this area of science, though, it remains the astounding case that _the
dominant consensus in the public square is an extremist one_.

That dominant consensus is, in fact, the assertion that genes do _nothing at
all_, most certainly nothing to do with brain function! The consensus is,
as Steven Pinker has scoffed: "See no genes, hear no genes, speak no
genes." This is preposterous. Genes, with all their complications and
subtleties, are tremendously important in determining our characteristics --
both physical and personality characteristics -- as every parent surely
knows.

My column leaked out to several lefty websites, where there has been much
sneering at it as a typical attempt to buttress white male supremacy etc.
etc. For the record, my visitor -- the "datanaut" -- is a dark-skinned
South Asian. He boasted to me, in fact, about how easy it is for him to win
arguments with campus lefties by pulling race on them -- "I'm darker than
you, so what do you know?..." He says it generally does the trick.

From a reader:

Jonah ... I have been enjoying your articles for the past few months, but this one really hit my heart. I will be saving it for myself and perhaps sharing it with others from time to time, if that's okay with you. My son will be going back to Iraq in January and from what he has experienced from his fellow citizens, since his notification, he goes, knowing that they care. He also knows that he is doing this to show that he cares and believes in America. I'm thankful that I found out about NRO from, of all places, the CBS News website. Your writing as well as others around you has restored my faith in opinion writers. Thanks ... [Name withheld]

From a reader:

Jonah,

I read your post on Thanksgiving and the interpretation of the holiday by the Ayn Rand Institute. It struck me that perhaps this is where the notion of original intent may be most appropriate considering the times we live in, our brave men and women who are serving in far off places, and the risks they are facing day in and day out. And for that, I will defer to the wisdom of Abraham Lincoln, as written through the pen of William Seward.

"I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union."

Seems to me that his proclamation speaks volumes today, as it did in 1863.

All the best to you and the rest of the tireless crew at NRO.

A nice profile of three medics in Iraq.

Today's syndicated column
is on Thanksgiving. And, yes, it was partly inspired by (i.e. ripped-off from) 2001 Thanksgiving column which people seemed to like at the time.

From a reader:

Ok, the magical animal quote was good re: Turducken, but I immediately thought of the episode where Moe gets a date with Helen Hunt, and Moe, Helen, Homer and Marge are at The Gilded Truffle. When the waiter asks Moe what he would like to order, Moe Responds:

Moe: We'll have you best dish, stuffed with your second best:

Waiter: Very good sir, lobster stuffed with tacos.

Happy Thanksgiving!

From that emailer from NPR:

Jonah:

LOL to the NPR comment in the Corner…

Let it be known that:

1. My position is technical, so I have no (direct) control over what goes on the air…yet!

2. I voted for W, along with the other 3 conservatives at NPR.

3. The post-election atmosphere here is absolutely delightful. Plenty of shock and awe for everyone. It culminated in a reporter incredulously asking me “Are you being ironic?” after she saw a “Viva Bush” bumper sticker on my desk (put there entirely to get amusing responses like that)…

Have a great Thanksgiving,

Deep Cover NPR Guy

From a reader:

"We are giving thanks for the soil, the land, for the gifts of providence which were bequeathed to us long before we figured out our political system."

Not according to the Ayn Rand Institute: "This holiday is designed to
celebrate, not faith and charity, but thought and production.

"Thanksgiving celebrates man's ability to produce. The cornucopia filled
with exotic flowers and delicious fruits, the savory turkey with
aromatic trimmings, the mouth-watering pies, the colorful
decorations--it's all a testament to the creation of wealth."

http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=10469&news_iv_ctrl
=1021

Steve - Did you not know about my dark fascination with the Turducken? It always reminded me of this scene from the Simpsons:

Homer: Are you saying you're never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?

Lisa: No.

Homer: Ham?

Lisa: No!

Homer: Pork chops?

Lisa: Dad, those all come from the same animal!
Homer: Heh heh heh... ooh... yeah... right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal.

Dear Klo,

I would offer a slight modification to my fellow Georgian's recipe for Cranberries.

Replace the water with a Ruby Port - it gives a rich fuller taste.

And being a good conservative reserve the remainder of the open bottle's contents for the cook.

To everyone - I wish you all a Great Thanksgiving wherever you are with whoever your with.

Several readers have -- quite fairly -- pointed out that the Fourth of July probably qualifies as a more nationalist holiday. I think this is certainly right in one sense. But I think it also illuminates how the word "nationalist" doesn't really fit the American context very well. For some, nationalism is about martial songs and patriotic fervor. For others, it's about an organic bond with the land and the soil and the founding culture of the nation. I consider the Fourth a patriotic holday more than a nationalist one. We are celebrating the signing of a text, the establishment of a set of laws and principles on the Fourth of July. The Fourth is about political liberty and national independence. It is, for all its pomp and circumstance, a fairly secular and rational holiday. Meanwhile, Thanksgiving plays upon the mystic chords of memory and is prior to and independent of many of things we celebrate on the Fourth.

Anyway, I agree its a fair criticism and probably just highlights different perspectives. And, yes, the food on the Fourth of July is really, really good. I am all about hotdogs, beer and barbecue.