Plunging Towards Gomorrah
club soda
Club Soda is a penny lover and a recovering liberal. His most unique talent is connecting every topic to communism. As part of his penance for once being a liberal some 15 years or so ago, Club Soda has vowed to read every book by David Horowitz. Unable to escape his past, Club Soda is haunted by the fact that he’s originally from Houston, Texas. Club Soda now resides in Denver and has a chronic illness that requires him to miss a lot of work and ride ski lifts in the winter months.
Posts by club soda
Katrina and the Waves
Sep 1st
Another sign of the Apocalypse: Paula Zahn discussing the Apocalypse.
I purposely shunned the news media this past week, particularly cable news, simply to avoid the incessant caterwauling over Katrina, five years later. Whilst flipping through the channels the other day, even the briefest glimpse of some “news” organization patting itself on the back and replaying its horrifically inaccurate coverage from five years ago caused my eyes to bleed.
Fortunately, I had beer and a Wii handy, so all was soon forgotten. I won’t enumerate every single journalistic misdemeanor and felony perpetrated on the American public in the aftermath of Katrina since W. Joseph Campbell, a professor in Communications at American University, did such a fine job in a recent post at Media Myth Alert.
However, I will say that Katrina may rank as the most overblown natural disaster in the history of mankind, puns and hyperbole very much intended. I’m certainly not downplaying the death and destruction wrought by the hurricane, but I will quibble with the way in which it has been portrayed.
Environmentalists love it because it supposedly represents Mother Nature’s disgust at humankind for having the audacity to drive cars. Race hustlers love it because it supposedly represents how the powerful white establishment could care less about blacks.
What Katrina actually represents is America’s slide into a culture of dependency. We should not be asking how the government can bail us out whenever something goes awry. We should be asking how we can better prepare ourselves so that we don’t need the government’s help.
Moreover, if we should expect any form of competence from government, it should be local and state government, not the Federal government. We are far more likely to be able to hold our local representatives to account than we are some pork-bellied beast thousands of miles away from the action.
Katrina did not expose the failure of the federal government; it exposed the failure of local government to have any semblance of sense before, during and after the storm. The old, tired saw, worn down by constantly sawing through the media’s BS, is that Katrina showed how foolish and inept the Bush administration was.
Even if this were true, it doesn’t change the fact that people need to take responsibility for themselves. Of course that’s an old-fashioned and outdated way of thinking. Also falling out of favor is the notion that we not only help ourselves, but that we help our neighbor when our neighbor is in need. With my boots on the ground, so to speak, I am much more likely to be in a position to help and to do so effectively.
What happens when we cede this responsibility to government is that we tend to care less about our neighbor.”Oh, Uncle Sam’s got his back. I can go back to playing Mario Kart,” we say to ourselves as the flood waters rise.
Today, the average Spaniard is 20 percentage points less likely than the average American to classify himself as “religious,” gives less than half as much to charity, and volunteers about one-fifth as often. And Spain has the highest level of charitable giving per capita in Western Europe (and has church attendance rates that are among the highest as well).
I’ll leave it to you to decide what these statistical variances between the United States and Europe mean and how they relate to the entitlement culture personified by Katrina then and Katrina five years later.
Bring in the Ghouls
Aug 31st
As a vocal proponent of amending the Constitution so that the Federal government’s sole and exclusive power is to regulate college and professional sports, I am still somewhat dismayed at the news that sullied my desk the other day about Roger Clemens.
Roger the Rocket, so dubbed for his ability to strike out batters in years past, is now better known as Roger the Dodger for his inability to tell the truth about his use of performance-enhancing drugs. Unfortunately for Roger, the truth apparently eluded him while under oath before a Congressional hearing on steroid use in professional sports. As a result, Roger has been indicted by a Federal grand jury for what amounts to perjury.
In a sane world – that is, one in which the Federal government’s sole responsibility is policing sports – Clemens’ indictment would have been a necessary evil as part of the government’s only Constitutional power. But in this mixed-up, muddled-up, shook-up world, Clemens is being persecuted for no good reason.
It’s absolutely pointless to spend tax dollars on a Federal show trial of Clemens. I must have checked my copy of the Constitution at least a dozen times searching in vain for any mention of Congressional responsibility for Major League Baseball. But maybe it’s one of those clauses that covers everything, like the Commerce Clause or promoting “the general welfare.”
Let me be clear… This has nothing to do with anything other than a bunch of Congressional blowhards taking down easy targets so they can at least look like they’re accomplishing something. There’s nothing at stake here; only the apparently fragile egos of our beloved representatives. Congressional hearings have become nothing more than a three-ring circus of ghouls pick-pocketing the dead and then piling into their gas-guzzling freeloader-mobile to pick-pocket the taxpayers.
Meanwhile, the city of Houston has to undergo another indignity in a long line of indignities that stretches back to the 1979 Cotton Bowl.
Islamophobia: The Correct Answer
Aug 24th
The most recent issue of Time Magazine asks, “Is America Islamophobic?” I’m sure I could plumb the depths of this issue, but why bother when Mark Steyn fully exposes “Islamophobia” and all the other multi-cultural “phobias” that have emerged during this hyper-tolerant, PC, hate-crime era for what they really are in his classic tome America Alone?
As someone who’s called Islamophobic and homophobic every day of the week, I can’t help marveling at the speed and skill with which Muslim lobby groups have mastered the language of victimhood so adroitly used by the gay lobby. If I were the latter, I’d be a little miffed at these Ahmed-come-latelys. “Homophobia” was always absurd: people who are antipathetic to gays are not afraid of them in any real sense. The invention of a phoney-baloney “phobia” was a way of casting opposition to the gay political agenda as a kind of mental illness: don’t worry, you’re not really against same-sex marriage; with a bit of treatment and some medication, you’ll soon be feeling okay.
On the other hand, “Islamophobia” is not phony or even psychological but very literal – if you’re a Dutch member of parliament or British novelist or Danish cartoonist in hiding under threat of death or a French schoolgirl in certain suburbs getting jeered at as an infidel whore, your Islamophobia is highly justified. But Islam’s appropriation of the gay lobby’s framing of the debate is very artful. It’s the most explicit example of how Islam uses politically correct self-indulgent victimology as a cover. You’ll recall that most Western media outlets declined to publish those Danish cartoons showing the Prophet Mohammed. Thus, even as they were piously warning of a rise in bogus “Islamophobia” – i.e., entirely justified concerns over Islamic terrorism and related issues – they were themselves suffering from genuine Islamophobia – i.e., a very real fear that, if they published those cartoons, an angry mob would storm their offices. It was a fine example of how the progressive mind’s invented psychoses leave it without any words to describe real dangers.
Boats to Nowhere
Aug 19th
What's more likely? This makeshift truck boat is headed from Cuba to the U.S. to escape an oppressive regime, or it's headed from the U.S. to Cuba with refugees clamoring for universal health care?
What motivates someone to build a boat out of a Cadillac and brave 90 miles of open ocean to leave Cuba for America’s shores? What motivates someone to risk life and limb and trek across vast desert wastes to leave Mexico and other Central American countries for America?
On the other hand, what motivates America’s citizens to stay put, excepting crazies like Lee Harvey Oswald, and spend all their time on Facebook? Could it have something to do with American exceptionalism, driven by its foundations in liberty and freedom?
The simple fact that people the world over are willing to die to get to America tells me all I need to know about which system is best. America, in short, is fantastic. But it’s not fantastic because our government has forced some utopian notion of equality on its citizens or provided “rights” like health care, housing and a comfortable standard of living. Our comfortable standard of living exists because government never provided it in the first place.
America was founded on the notion that governments are instituted to protect our rights to pursue such things with very little or no government intervention. In fact, government intervention was seen as a threat to liberty and freedom. This philosophy is the only sane and logical approach to good government in an imperfect world. The evidence that this is true is overwhelming.
The evidence that a giant centralized government that meddles in and plans every aspect of a citizen’s life is destructive is also overwhelming. While the likes of Michael Moore, Oliver Stone, Sean Penn and Danny Glover return from worker paradises like Cuba and Venezuela with glowing reports of utopian equality, the citizens of those nations languish in widespread poverty and oppression.
No one who believes in American exceptionalism believes America is perfect, but America is the closest model to perfection we have and are likely to have. Again, this is not because our government has made everything perfectly safe and wonderful for each and every citizen; it’s because a person free to pursue happiness is more likely to find it on their own than through someone a thousand miles away who thinks they know what’s best for them.
The left in America, meanwhile, is constantly advocating for “social justice,” and other euphemisms to control the individual. In practice, this supposed social justice leads to a concentration of wealth and power in the ruling class. Those of us who believe the world is imperfect and that there’s no such thing as Utopia, other than the small town in Texas of that name, understand how dangerous it is to cede our responsibilities, and ultimately our liberties, to a powerful minority.
Just ask any Cuban who’s not with one of their Party handlers if they’ve found Utopia. Sure, they have “free” health care and I’m sure gun violence is practically non-existent, but at what price? I don’t know about you, but I’m much more willing to take my chances in a free society and all the risks that come with it than to be controlled within an inch of my life by the state.
I have a feeling that most people agree with me since I don’t see a lot of people in Miami building makeshift boats to escape America and take advantage of Cuba’s health care system and high “literacy” rates. What I see instead are Canadians coming to America for health care because they have to wait months, if not years, for treatment.
Nor do America’s progressives head for the supposedly greener pastures in more “progressive” nations. Maybe that’s because deep down they understand that America is not the racist, imperialistic devil they’ve been taught it is, but actually is the land of opportunity. I suppose progressives don’t understand that our opportunity is, as the founders put it, derived from our Creator and not a central planning authority, a.k.a., the Federal government. They must think it appeared out of thin air.
When a society’s philosophy shifts from “endowed by the Creator” to “endowed by a centralized bureaucracy,” you can kiss freedom goodbye. Even atheists who understand human nature and have an inkling of history know that it’s far better to be endowed by what they consider to be a mere sociological illusion than it is by their fellow man, who has a long and storied history of doing everything he can to oppress and control others to benefit himself.
Why else do they riot in Greece when their benefits are going to be cut so that the government remains at least nominally solvent? Why else do America’s senior citizens, supported by the AARP, fight tooth and claw for the unsustainable entitlements that will bathe their descendents in debt and, ultimately, economic calamity?
Do they really care about their fellow citizens, particularly those who will follow them? They can cry and whine about the “children” all day long, but until they make actual sacrifices for said “children” you can bet that the “children” are being used as human shields to ensure they get all the goodies the taxpayer can provide them.
America’s unfunded liabilities – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – currently stand at more than $110 trillion. That’s a “t” followed by “rillion,” and it’s not a typo. That works out to about $350,000 for every man, woman and child in America. Who’s going to pay for that? Will it be the senior citizens currently receiving benefits, or will it be Yours Truly and my children and grandchildren?
Tell a senior citizen that their benefits will need to be cut to ease the burden on future generations and observe the wrath that follows. So, if you hear a senior citizen say something weepy about the “children” and how we have to secure health care or whatnot for them, know that they’re really looking out for themselves. You can safely substitute “me” for “children” whenever you hear a Democrat defend the latest unsustainable program, as in, “We’re doing this for [me].”
Something tells me that future generations will be building rafts out of used compact fluorescent light bulbs and heading for China. If we continue on this “progressive” path, America will no longer be that “city upon a hill” that brought the oppressed to its shores.
Imagine if America’s founding had been based on “social justice” and providing creature comforts (health care, unemployment insurance, etc., etc.), rather than the individual’s freedom to pursue those things through their own ingenuity and industry. If based on the former, would we have the same standard of living we do now? What would the world look like now if America had been founded as a nanny state? I’m not sure, but there’s a good chance we’d all be speaking German.
Joseph Goebbels, Call Your Office
Aug 10th
I just read at Powerline (a conservative blog) that a movie is being made about Margaret Thatcher. Unfortunately, our open-minded, tolerant friends in Hollywood have apparently decided to make Thatcher in their own image, as an imbecile.
Hollywood has a revolting habit of patting themselves on the back for their “bravery” and “speaking truth to power,” but most of what they churn out is nothing of the sort. It’s more akin to Joseph Goebbels’ role in the Nazi regime.
Hyperbolic? Maybe, but like Goebbels, Hollywood and other “mainstream” pop culture media specialize in character assassinations of those who aren’t on board with their stripe of politics; essentially, anyone to the right of Olympia Snowe.
In the topsy-turvy American leftwing media oxymoronic world, a racist, murdering homophobe is a noble and tragic figure, while the duo that brought the Soviet Union to its knees are soulless buffoons. Maybe it has something to do with Marxism and the left’s religious belief that it will bring “social justice” and Utopia to earth, all the while denying they’re Marxist.
Anyone to the left of Lenin, however, is sure to be the subject of some hagiographic memoir that makes you laugh, cry, sing and cheer (Che Guevara, Harvey Milk, Frida Kahlo, and on and on and on). I know the media’s propaganda has been quite effective, particularly over time as reality morphs with each nail the media pounds into the coffin it’s preparing for certain conservative figures year after year.
For instance, I have conservative friends who tell me that Newt Gingrich is not a viable presidential candidate. They say he’s “damaged goods,” but usually have nothing to back this up other than dredging up Gingrich’s affair. I think my friends’ negativity about Gingrich has more to do with the constant barrage of negative press Gingrich received when he was Speaker of the House, and the implication that if he wasn’t simply a lunatic, then he was “extreme”.
Gingrich was targeted by the media, Alinsky style. The media created a hobgoblin image of him that even conservatives bought into following years of unrelenting negative press. The “news” media use innuendo while the pop media bolster the innuendo with lies and distortions. Today’s news cycle is very predictable: CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, The Washington Post, NPR, etc., etc., yada yada, imply through their reporting that the Tea Party is full of racist homophobes, then the bulk of Law & Order‘s episodes are devoted to bringing the white male Christian serial killer to justice, Jon Stewart devotes half his show to smirkily deriding the Tea Party, Janeane Garofalo prattles on and on about how it’s all about “hating a black man” and so on and so forth until the American public is duped into believing it’s all true.
So, while the news media in the ’80s subtly portrayed Thatcher and Reagan, for instance, as heartless demagogues by placing greater emphasis on certain aspects of society that have always been with us (homelessness), the pop media characterize them as doddering old fools who end up regretting their role as monsters.
America Alone Redux
Jul 29th
I finally bought my own copy of Mark Steyn’s book, America Alone. I read a library copy shortly after it was published in 2006, but enjoyed it so much that I knew I would re-read it and refer to it often. It is, in a word, brilliant.
If you’re a “progressive,” you probably won’t agree with its premise, which is basically that there are two populations going in opposite directions: one is shrinking and getting older (post-Christian, postmodern Western civilization) while the other is growing and decidedly younger (Islam).
What happens when the first is coddled by the state from cradle to grave and believes in nothing while the other is animated by a violent ideology that takes no prisoners? Then add the fact that the former are elderly and addled by pop culture and politcally-correct multiculturalism while the latter are youthful and angry? The end of the world as we know it, at least according to Steyn.
The edition delivered to my front door includes a new introduction. While almost every sentence in the book is quotable, here’s a tasty one I found in the intro:
“Why do radical imams seek to convert young Canadian, British and even American men and women in their late teens and twenties? Because they understand that when you raise a generation in the great wobbling blancmange of cultural relativism, a certain percentage of its youth will have a great gaping hole where their sense of identity should be. And into that hole you can pour something primal and raging. Islam is an ideology. To claim it’s “race” is so breathtakingly stupid as to give the game away – and to confirm that “Racist!” is now no more than the cry of a western liberal who can’t stand his illusions being disturbed.”
Semi-Daily Fizz: Wasting Crises and the Bumper Sticker Paradox
Jul 28th
The Crisis Lobby: The Obama administration’s mantra – never let a crisis go to waste – has turned the normal news cycle into an Orwellian nightmare. Now, whenever anything bad or seemingly bad happens, we’re faced with some new federal regulation, tax, bureaucratic agency, or all of the above, to respond to the “crisis” and prevent its ever happening again. Take the Gulf oil spill… Instead of putting every effort into capping and cleaning the spill, the Obama administration put most of its energy into denouncing the oil industry and placing a moratorium on future deep water offshore drilling. Why are we drilling so far offshore in the first place? It might just be all the environmental restrictions that don’t allow us to drill closer to shore, in other areas up and down America’s coast or in ANWAR. So it’s ironic that “saving the environment” actually destroyed it, but that’s how unintended consequences work. The Unintended Consequences Factor ratchets up exponentially when the federal government strays farther and farther from its limited Constitutional mission. So when you hear a lot of bad news about obesity, be afraid. Be very afraid.
Dueling bumper stickers: I was driving to Target the other day to partake in some rampant consumerism. Before I did my little part in destroying the planet, I noticed a car with two bumper stickers. One read, “Obama ’08,” the other, “I love my country but fear my government.” This puzzled me, because if one fears their government, is it prudent vote for the candidate who promises more of it? The problem with voting for more government is that, eventually, some right-wing fascist will be in power and abuse the hell out of the behemoth you helped create in the first place by voting for big-government guy (or gal). George W. Bush, for instance, would have been less likely to constantly violate our rights had the federal government been limited to begin with. It’s not a good idea to create an infrastructure that allows the next Hitler unfettered access to almost unlimited power.
Editing the Internet
Jul 27th
“The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.”
John Adams
Ever since people started reporting on and analyzing the news on the Internet and other new media outside the traditional media outlets, the traditional media has been going through its own version of the Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Grief…
Denial… “This can’t be happening.”
Anger… “Who the hell do these pajama-clad people think they are?”
Bargaining… “Okay. We hate you, so we’ll start doing the same thing.”
Depression… “Our business model sucks and we’re going out of business.”
Acceptance… “Everything will be okay since I can get a federal bailout and have the feds regulate and harass my competition out of business, all in the name of some nebulous public good!”
Fake but accurate: When traditional "journalists" are sure something's true but have no evidence, it's time to go to Kinko's! Image from michellemalkin.com.
Whenever a high-profile blogger gets it wrong, jumps the gun or takes something out of context, the traditional media launches into “I-told-you-so” mode, most recently and notably with the Breitbart/Shirley Sherrod fiasco. However, when one of their own does it, there’s nothing to see (Rathergate).
The traditional media would like nothing better than to consolidate their power in such a way that everyone but the traditional media is held accountable for their actions. I think they call it “accountability journalism,” or what I like to call “baby talk.”
This begs the question: who fact-checks the fact-checkers? Who holds those who wield the sword of accountability accountable? What the traditional media desire is a monopoly on accountability, which is convenient for a demonstrably biased group advancing specific political and ideological agendas. As “gatekeepers” they will ensure the unwashed masses stay outside the gates. Safely inside the gates, the gatekeepers can do whatever the hell they want. Who needs transparency when the gatekeepers are so ethically and morally pure?
Was Breitbart held accountable for posting an out-of-context video? Certainly. Now that the entire video is out and people can see it for themselves they can make their own judgment about it without a monopolistic “accountability” filter designed to tell them what to think.
Fake but accurate: Filmed from multiple angles with hundreds of cell phone cameras recording at the same moment, not one person has come forth with evidence that Tea Partiers screamed racial epithets at black Congressmen who purposely walked the gauntlet to incite the racism that supposedly infuses the Tea Party movement. The accusation may be fake, but the traditional media decided it was accurate so there was no need to verify the veracity of the claims. Now that's accountability journalism!
By the same token, when the media reported with absolute certainty that the N-word was hurled more than a dozen times at black legislators purposely running the Tea Party gauntlet on Capitol Hill, the blogosphere cast serious doubt on this assertion. The traditional media’s reaction? Ignore the evidence and mindlessly repeat a lie since it fits their worldview and narrative.
The traditional media believes the Tea Party is racist, primarily because the Tea Party opposes the first black president’s agenda. In the traditional media narrative, opposition to Obama equals racism. So if A=B is true, then naturally the stuff we make up, C, is true, even if it really didn’t happen.
Rathergate was based on the same thinking. Dan Rather and his colleagues at CBS believed that George W. Bush was a nincompoop and a shirker so they didn’t waste any time double-checking the documents sent to them by a dubious source that helped prove the point. When the documents were shown to be obvious forgeries, Rather and the traditional media circled the wagons. Their final defense? Fake but accurate! I don’t know about you, but I prefer news that’s genuine and accurate.
So, while the traditional media whines and moans about the lack of accountability in the blogosphere, talk radio and Fox News, we’re actually living in a time of hyper-accountability. You can’t publish, post or air anything without someone somewhere holding you to account.
There are obvious drawbacks to this Wild West information age, such as the ease of defamation, but that’s a trade-off I’m willing to make. Information is power, and once concentrated in too few hands it is dangerous.
Semi-Daily Fizz: Flush and Fizz, Paying for Plagiarism, Lohan Watch
Jul 24th
Flush, Flush, Fizz, Fizz, and so forth: Club Soda is taking the the Daily Flush mantle and making it his own whilst Henshaw boozes his way across Idaho. The title of this temporary series, in lieu of the Flush, recognizes the fizz in Club Soda and the likeliness that it will be posted inconsistently.
Plagiarism Pays? Apparently it did for Colorado Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott McInnis, to the tune of $300,000. That’s $300,000, as in a 3 with five zeroes behind it. I need to renegotiate my contract with The Daily Plunge! McInnis “wrote” a series of essays about water rights that turned out to be written mostly by Colorado Supreme Court Justice Gregory Hobbs years earlier. McInnis blames it on a research assistant; the research assistant blames McInnis, and so it goes. McInnis claims that when you’re a busy politician stuff falls through the cracks. Be that as it may, my vote in the Republican primary is going to Dan Maes. I’m exhausted by career politicians whose first priority is Me, followed by I.
Handicapping Colorado: Tom Tancredo, former U.S. Congressman best known either fairly or unfairly as a one-issue politician (immigration), is threatening to join the fray as the third candidate to vie in the Republican gubernatorial primary on Aug. 10. It’s probably not going to happen and it will still be the seasoned politician with a peppery past of questionable ethics, McInnis, against Maes, who has little to no name recognition. McInnis will win the primary because people can’t help themselves when they look at a ballot and see a name they’re familiar with. Why bother researching the candidates before you vote? That wouldn’t be the democratic way. The McInnis scandal virtually assures that the Democratic nominee, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, will be
Colorado’s next governor. Though Hickenlooper is sure to saddle Coloradoans with higher taxes and more intrusive regulations he can’t be all bad. He was one of the founders of the Wynkoop Brewing Company in Denver’s LoDo district. The beer is fantastic, but I always keep a close eye on my wallet when I’m there.
Lohan Watch: Oops! I meant Lauper Watch… You may remember Cyndi Lauper from such one-hit wonders of the 1980s as Girls Just Want to Have Fun and True Colors. Okay, so that makes her a two-hit wonder and, apparently, an expert on foreign and domestic policy. Here’s a sampling of Ms. Lauper elevating the discussion in America. Ignorance and Intolerance Warning: http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2010/07/23/cyndi-lauper-bush-a-criminal-evangelism-bullsht-nsfw/
The Young Frankenstein Recovery
Jul 2nd
“Please! Remain in your seats, I beg you! We are not children here, we are scientists! I assure you there is nothing to fear!”
-Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, Young Frankenstein
Back in April 2002, David Levy proclaimed that the Unted States was in “the Frankenstein recovery.” If 2002 was the Frankenstein Recovery, then this is the Young Frankenstein Recovery. It’s so bad that it’s a parody of a stitched-together, made-up recovery. Charged with finding what we need to reanimate our economy, the geniuses on Capitol Hill, a.k.a., Igor, bring us the Abby Normal brain of “stimulus” spending. Unfortunately, after inserting the abnormal brain and pumping megagigawatts of electricity into his creature, Dr. Frankenstein didn’t have a plan after it came to life.
Likewise, our own Dr. Frankenstein, Obama, and his foolish sidekick, Igor, have created a monstrosity that threatens to force a double-dip recession. Sure, I suppose there’s a smattering of “shovel-ready” jobs, but that doesn’t exactly save the economy. To see another version of how Obama and Congress explained all the pointless spending to the American taxpayer, please check out the video clip below (the part of Obama/Congress is played by Marty Feldman; the part of the American taxpayer by Gene Wilder):
Liberals continue to believe the Great Depression myth that Franklin D. Roosevelt’s massive growth of the federal government somehow saved the economy and will always save it. All it really did was create a 7-foot-tall, 54-inch-wide gorilla that lumbered around terrorizing the villagers for an entire freaking decade. Now the monster’s twice as large and the angry racists villagers are fresh out of torches and pitchforks. Oh well. At least it can sing Puttin’ on the Ritz…
