Floating around in my head

*Charm offensive
*Deadly chimpanzee
*Teetotaling in the New Year
*Buzz Bissinger words
*Cover-up letter
*Providential protectorate
*Airborne toxic event
*Jack glad-hand
*The mark of a snow-blower

cars as brogues

I surveyed the lot. 5:30 on a Wednesday, there was no doubt that R— would still be lurking in the office. Her car must be amongst the last picked-over remnants in the stew pot parking lot. Which one?

Consider the source. Micromanager, another one of those people who seems to have a work face they put on every morning, giving you the eerie feeling of talking to the face, not the person. There must be a car for her here, one that fits.

I saw it clear, like icy water in a steel sink: the Honda Accord nestled in a corner spot.

Moderate luxury without ostentation.
Modernity without hipness.
Practicality without ugliness.
Comfortably, tenaciously situated right in the middle.

That it was beige went without saying.

Notes on Roth; meaningless to most anyone except for me

-Isn't so much associating with Nazis a little over the edge, even for Lindbergh?
-Indictment of Americans for how easily they are tricked by the false modesty of a Lindbergh. Some have claimed this is a roman a clef against the Bush Administration. Parallels my dears?
-225 - His portrayal of the honest, striving, protective parents working together to keep their families safe is moving
-227 - Sandy: "You Jews"
-228 - Homestead 42 sinister because it is so unnecessary. How in the world can Bengelsdorf and Evelyn et al. not see through this? It is transparent as a thinly sliced cucumber.
-230 - Sandy is in throes of rebellious young adult period but, this is to an extreme level. Again, how can he justify saying "you people"? Who does he think he is?
-Communal news-watching/listening. Is this completely gone? Exception of Super Bowl and election night. Any others?
-Does Winchell not fear for his own safety?
-What do we make of Herman's assertion that there are still good men in this country? Is he right? Are the good men (Roosevelt, Ickes, et al.) being swept away in the wave of Lindberghism?
-226 - "This is our country!" Realization that Bess is right, though, and it's always better safe than sorry in these matters, as European Jews learned in the worst possible way
-Symbolism in Alvin's absence?
-241 - "historical fears of a persecuted people" They are historical fears for a reason! Is Bengelsdorf naive or perverse? Both?

Discretion is the better part of valor

Pat Robertson, please do everyone a favor: make like a banana and split. I don't recall anyone asking you for your take on the tragic situation in Haiti. No, I don't recall that. Give it up already, it's a tired, sad shtick. What could be less Christian than to kick Haiti when they're down? You make me sick.

Pat Robertson is insane. I shouldn't have even dignified his remarks with a response.

God bless everyone in Haiti