Giuliani

"I feel like Seabiscuit," Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said today after the Iowa Caucus, National Public Radio reports, likening himself to the underdog racehorse that became a champion. But maybe he meant "I feel like eating Seabiscuit"?

While stumping in Iowa in December, Huckabee admitted to eating horses, and Huckabee and other candidates seem to have a real problem with puppy love (or the lack of it).

Diet-conscious Huckabee's horsemeat eating was revealed when responding to a reporter from a Dutch television station. He informed her of how much he liked the Netherlands: “It’s one of my favorite places.” He then went on to comment on the food, horse flesh in particular.According the Wall Street Journal’s blog Washington Wire “He named a couple of his favorite Dutch foods, including one made from horsemeat. Asked if it tasted like chicken, he confirmed: ‘Tastes like chicken.’”

Reuters New Service reports that United Animal Nations has asked Huckabee to reconsider eating Trigger and Mr. Ed citing a statistic that says 70 percent of Americans disapprove of eating horses.

Interesting to note here is the fact that most people who have eaten horse meat liken the meat to beef, begging the question of exactly what chicken-like substance was Huckabee eating when he thought he was munching on Seabiscuit?

Huckabee strikes out with dog lovers too, as do his fellow Republican candidates. In a story entitled “Why do Republicans Hate Puppies?” Salon.com reports that Huckabee’s son David killed a dog in 1998 by hanging it from a tree (a la Michael Vick) and “John Bailey, then-director of the Arkansas State Police, told Newsweek that a local prosecutor asked him to investigate, but that the governor's chief of staff and personal lawyer both pressured Bailey to keep away.” Utopia Rescue Ranch alleges that David Huckabee not only hung the dog but slit its neck and stoned it to death.

Rudy Giuliani’s contribution to the puppy problem comes via his wife Judith, who used to sell medical staplers to doctors by demonstrating them on live sleeping dogs, who were then later killed. When asked why it was necessary to staple live dogs, the president of the company Judith Giuliani worked for, U.S. Surgical, said “A dead dog doesn't bleed . . . You need to have real blood-flow conditions, or you get a false sense of security,” in a 1988 Time Magazine article.

The final Republican in the not-so-warm-and-fuzzy list is Mitt Romney. The Boson Globe reports as an example of Romney’s “emotion-free crisis management” an incident in which he put the family dog, an Irish Setter named Seamus, into a dog carrier and strapped him on to the roof of his car for a 12 hour drive to Canada. He only stopped when one of his sons noticed a “brown liquid dripping down the back window,” a sign animal lovers say that the dog was terrified and a sign that PETA president Ingrid Newkirk told Time Magazine “the dog was, basically, being tortured.”

If a Republican wins, the puppies and ponies of America better watch out, or they may find themselves strapped to a roof and Kentucky Fried. After all apparently these guys eat the underdog.

1. What crazy ass fools would deny kids health care coverage? Would it shock you if I said the Bushies?

2. Maybe they had health care 14 million years ago. And now we'll be able to see!

3. Ha! Not to insult Prince Hal or anything ... Nice try, people, but we know Bush ain't no Shakespearean hero.
After the 2000 recount, plenty of us hoped - we really had no choice - that Bush would turn out to be Prince Hal in Henry IV, the layabout brat who, on succeeding to his father's throne, finds the maturity to lead. His presidency has indeed turned out to be like Henry V, but in reverse.

4. Health care in Ohio is screwed too, thanks to "the market." The profit motive runs contrary to the best cooperative and Samaritan traditions of medical practice and training.

5. Healthy food Less instantly bad for you food at the Indianapolis State Fair. Oh noes, they has to change the oil more often!

Um, dudes, that's a good thing. However, problem:
And if this meant they could indulge without guilt or have one more helping, so much the better.
No, see, the one more helping thing? You're missing the point.

6. OMG, the West Coast is so ... far ... away ... from East Coast newspapers, that is.

7. But not as far as Iowa, apparently. Not that the farmers help that myth, either.

8. Rain: It's messing with Mexico & Jamaica and killing people in the Midwest. (And freaking me out in Eugene: Give me back my sunny days! Until October!)

9. More disaster and a slow response: Peru needs help.

10. Kids these days! It's the annual Beloit list about entering first-year students, and it's a bit confusing:
62. They have no idea who Rusty Jones was or why he said “goodbye to rusty cars.”
Me neither, dudes.

BONUS: The Remains of the Day Lily
That just hurts. Ouch. Stop it!

Good books are not conducive to a proper amout of sleep. Do you hear me, Craig Thompson? I was going to go to bed at a reasonable hour, but then I picked up Blankets and seeing as I was about three-quarters of the way through ... I just kept reading.

And then I couldn't sleep. It's a truly beautiful, heartbreaking, sad, lovely, hopeful book, and it strikes me as an intensely brave work of art, too. Just gorgeous. I also adore Thompson's earlier book, Good-Bye, Chunky Rice, which is one of those things that calls up a very specific memory for me: Sprawling on a blanket in a patch of spring sun in New York's Tompkins Square Park with a pile of comics my friend Toby had lent me. I also read Queen and Country: Operation Broken Ground that day, if memory serves, but it was the story of Chunky Rice, a turtle, and his best friend Dandel that had me sniffling and smiling at the same time. Thompson has a remarkable (though that word is too mellow) knack for the melancholy, the kind of story where change is inevitable, even necessary, but no less painful for that.

But now it's morning, and my coffee cup is empty, and that must mean I've found some interesting reading online, right? Well, sorta. Just a couple of things, really.

• First, something droolworthy: root beer float cupcakes. The same site has recipes for things like pear and bleu cheese cupcakes, which also, not-so-oddly, appeal to me.

• And droolworthy in another way is this set of images from and commentary on the original Oz books at BiblioOdyssey. The site also links to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz online at the Library of Congress, but I'm not clicking on that because, well, I need to do some work today. If only books were still this stunning.

• The Village Voice explores Rudy Giuliani's Five Big Lies about 9/11. I'm sticking this link here despite having not yet read the story, because I think the topic is important (and thus you should read it) and because I want to sit down and read it carefully and in-depth (and thus I don't want to forget about it).

• You realize Stardust opens today, right? And that you should go see it? Walk away from Daddy Day Camp! Don't be tempted by Rush Hour 3!

• If you need more Harry Potter in your life (and honestly, I still do), here are Christopher Hitchens' and Stephen King's takes on the end of the tale. (I confess, I usually can't bear King's Entertainment Weekly column, but I'll give this one a read.)

And with that, dear readers, my need for caffeine has begun to outweigh my love for browsing for more links. These are still pretty ordindary links, from pretty ordinary sources, and I realize that; I've got to get in the swing of things and start finding some funky stuff. Feel free to send in suggestions!

(Also, when I've had more coffee? Links get more commentary.)