Sharkey makes a good point in the linked piece: who are the Secret Service to say that having his predecessor impaled is not within a president's executive powers? I'm sure there's precedent (Ottoman Turkey, for example).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pantufla/114081011/

It isn't Shrub who's the vampire. It's the *other* one. (Personal recommendation for when *he* dies: DNA sample, full autopsy, and a wooden chopstick, soaked in garlic juice and wrapped with silver wire, run through what's left of his heart. Maybe a couple of cloves of garlic stuck in his mouth too.)

Let's hope this story doesn't get too much press, or Sharkey may gain a fringe following larger and more loyal than Nader's

"Undead for impeachment?"

"Vampires for better government?"

Or, to steal a joke that used to float around my campus (from the Campus Crusade for Cthulu)

"Why vote for a *lesser* evil?"

I feed on the flesh of the living...and I vote!

"Vote Dracula: he hasn't inhaled since 1532."

I don't know - "spider eating man-bitch" sounds about right for the pres....

(man, am I going to get my e-mail watched or what!)

And absorb that life-essence into your own eternal existence? Do you think he's insane as well as undead? Give the guy some credit for taste...

I have to admit, the thought has crossed my mind that impaling... certain people... in the fine old Turkish style, pour descourager les autres, would have certain benefits for this country. (Assuming that all the other crooks wouldn't just think *they're* too smart to get caught, which is always one problem with deterrence.) But I always end up concluding that the costs would outweigh the benefits and we'll have to settle for life without parole. Justly it should be in some place with *exactly* the amenities of Guantanamo, but that seems unlikely.

What, you think NSA hasn't heard of rot13? Send me a postcard from Gitmo.

I've got 2 bumperstickers on my car: "Cthulhu: Why vote for a lesser evil?" with a great pastiche of the red white & blue Republican elephant morphed into something with a lot of tentacles, and "Nyarlathotep / Cheney in '08"

That slogan explains one hell of a lot about St. Louis politics. Probably Chicago too. And I always thought the motto was "See Paris and die."

Zombie, maybe.

*frothfroth* That's because they're metaphorical wings!!! Why doesn't anyone understand this obvious truth??!?

...mind you, occasionally my brain does weird mixups between the Mines of Moria and the Lady of Shalott:

Dark in the depths of Khazad-Dum
The orcs swarmed up to Balin's tomb
Beneath cold Caradhras.
The Balrog's shadow spread out wide
Like wings unfurled from side to side;
Cried he, "You shall not pass!"

That's an interesting fragment of verse. Kind of makes me wonder about the before and after that goes with it.

My second thought was, "And given that I've heard no grave-desecration stories from Romania, we can probably safely conclude that Nicolai and Elena Ceauşescu were staked through the heart shortly after being mown down by machine gun bullets, and before being interred. You know. Just in case."

Zombie, maybe.

I'm sorry, but no. He'd clearly be a lich.

...or--possibly--a revenant.

I am, however, not a lawyer.

And the children of citizens of the United States that may be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens: Provided, That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States.

Because I need coffee and new contact lenses, I initially read the middle clause there as "Bush as Drusilla". Speaking of whom, I bet she'd love knitting (or crocheting or tatting or bobbining or whatever) little lace things for her dollies, though again, probably not with... yarn.

I got nothin'.

Beneath the mountains, white with snow
The orcs about their business go
Their orders to maintain below,
In the depths of Khazad-dûm,
A sleeping evil, left to lie
Until required by the Eye.
They care for it and ask not why
They toil in the gloom.

But one who labours in its lair
Has found the Balrog in his care
To be - to orcish senses - fair.
Fires burn in Khazad-dûm
And warm the darkness of the deeps
While he his tender vigil keeps.
His charge, protected, deeply sleeps
Inside its rocky tomb.

The other orcs, freed from its side,
Have different tasks, their might applied
To warlike training, side on side.
Underneath deep Khazad-dûm
The caverns echo with their song
While artificers labour long
To forge them armour, thick and strong,
For when the wars resume.

The flames beneath Caradhras burn
While up above, the seasons turn
Until, in time, the dwarves return.
Plundering rich Khazad-dûm.
At first they linger at the top
Above the yawning chasm's drop
But then they dig, and do not stop
And thereby seal their doom.

They fill their halls with men and elves
And carve great rooms to please themselves
While underneath, a miner delves
Far too deep in Khazad-dûm.
The orc at practice stops his blow
As pickaxe noises grow and grow.
And then to muster-points they go
Lest dwarves their charge exhume.

The beaters start to pound their drums
So from the deeps the great sound comes
And in each chest, the breastbone thrums
Roaring out "O Khazad-dûm".
They rush into the glaring light
And, overwhelming with their might
The feasting dwarves, restore the night,
And then their work resume.

The battle in the past belongs:
Another chapter in their songs
Of dwarven deaths and ancient wrongs.
Deep in shadowed Khazad-dûm
The Balrog shifts its mighty frame
At dreams of swords, and fear, and flame.
Its keeper strokes it, rasps its name,
And turns to leave its room.

But then, a sound. A single stone
Comes clattering from where it's thrown
Into a well, and this alone
Rouses all of Khazad-dûm.
And as the drummers beat and pound
The battle-rhythm shakes the ground.
The orcs come swarming all around
To Balin's stony tomb.

Then, in its room, the sleeper wakes
And with one blow, its prison breaks.
So from the depths, its coming shakes
All the stones of Khazad-dûm.
It sees the fleeing figures hide
And casts its shadows far and wide
Like wings unfurled from either side
To smother them in gloom.

And then he comes, as from its dreams:
A bearded figure whose sword gleams
With silver light. Its lancing beams
Bringing day to Khazad-dûm.
The Balrog roars with blinded eyes.
The grey-robed form its way denies:
"You shall not pass," the wizard cries.
And still the drumbeats boom.

They struggle then, the swordsman small
Against his foe, but brave withal.
He strikes the Balrog, and they fall
Into deepest Khazad-dûm.
The fighters plunging, dark and bright,
Leave eight companions, put to flight,
To scramble upward, to the light
And, grieved, their quest resume.

Behind them, howling hordes surround
The broken bridge, while all around
From depths to heights the battles sound
Echoing through Khazad-dûm.
They clash their blades and stamp their feet
And roar defiance and defeat
At enemies they cannot meet,
Then silence fills the gloom.

But one orc gives a keening call:
He somehow sees the Balrog's fall.
And terror comes upon them all
Standing massed in Khazad-dûm.
The wizard is of no concern,
But should the Dark Lord come to learn
Their charge is dead, then they will burn.
The Eye will be their doom.

And so the orcs depart the mines.
At night, when only moonlight shines
They march away in scattered lines
Fleeing from black Khazad-dûm.
While in the lonely, lightless deeps
The Balrog-keeper howls and weeps
Then in the depthless chasm leaps
In empty Khazad-dûm.

Wow.

At Edhellond, Amroth's grey ship stayed,
Waiting for Nimrodel;
A wind blew out of the North by night
As if some evil spell
Would drive his ship far out to sea
Without his Nimrodel.
He cursed the faithless ship that bore
Him far across the swell,
Away from his Nimrodel.

But his love was stronger by far than the love
Of those who lived to tell:
From helm to sea they saw Amroth leap
To return to Nimrodel.

[At this point, out of caffeine I ran; quoth the Raven, "Bloody hell."]

Holy smokin' Toledo!

Do you take requests?

g.

It was Julie's comment at 31 that set me off, though I couldn't keep the continuity between Khazad-dûm and anywhere else (Balin's tomb?), so it strays from the original more than I like.

But I think it's kinda sweet, in a maudlin, tragic way. Which is what I've always felt about the Lady of Shallott.

Very nice. Sweet, umm, not sure about that, maudlin, maybe so, but come on now, this is epic verse, the kind of stuff a bard would sing to praise and recount the quest of the Ring-bearer. So that makes you a bard. Good work, keep singing.

Julie

The same, really, though yours is more romantic than martial. Get some more coffee in you and finish it, woman!

I may take to my grave the image of Bush crocheting in various inappropriate situations. Meetings of the Joint Chiefs, intelligence briefings, stuff like that... `Dammit, General, you made me drop a stitch!'

There, i just washed off my brain in an effort to remove the image. Didn't work. Damnit.

Isn't it time you had a holiday? :)

Okay okay, here's what caffeine hath wrought for the last stanza:

But his love was stronger by far than the love
Of those who lived to tell:
From helm to sea they saw Amroth leap
To return to Nimrodel.
His strong limbs flashed forth through the sea
As deep as a funeral knell.
Those havens are called now for that Elf-king,
And still the waters of Lorien sing
The songs of Nimrodel;
But nothing is known of Amroth's fate
Nor that of Nimrodel,
The beautiful Nimrodel.

Tangentially, I was delighted to find a version of the original Song of Nimrodel in French.

And also, paging through FOTR has reminded me of the hobbits' jaunty travel song from which some lines were adapted into Pippin's dirge in ROTK, but which mostly still sounds in my head like the "Habanera" from Carmen

However, back to my own Shalott re-reboot, which I'm probably trying too hard to keep to the original AAABCCCB scheme; then again, it isn't retaining much else from Tennyson. I think abi's version has a much better thematic fit in making the Balrog the direct parallel to the Lady.

The world was green, the Trees yet shone,
When Durin woke and walked alone.
In many-pillared halls of stone
A king he was on carven throne
Beneath cold Caradhras.
Fanuidhol and Celebdil
Dwarves also delved for pale mithril
Down through the mountains' roots until
They dug too deep, alas.

They roused from sleep in brimstone bed
A nameless terror, wroth and red;
They wakened Durin's Bane and fled
From Silvertine and Cloudyhead,
From Redhorn's snowy pass.
Yet in far lands, the dwarves still sang
Of Khazad-Dum, Kheled-Zaram,
Of great halls where their hammers rang
Beneath cold Caradhras.

So Balin, Fundin's son, came forth
With friends and kinsmen from the North
Rekindling as by right of birth
That ancient realm beneath the earth
With lamps of crystal glass.
A few years prospered, but the cold
And silent dark returned of old;
No further word came from the bold
Of what had come to pass.

Through hidden doors in Hollin land
The wizard Tharkun came unplanned,
Gondolin's sword swift in his hand
And Anor's fire at his command;
Cried he, "You shall not pass!"
The Balrog's shadow spread out wide
Like wings unfurled from side to side
Upon the narrow bridge astride
The depths of Caradhras.

The wizard smote the bridge; they fell
Long time through darkness, deep as hell,
And still by sword and flame and spell
They fought. High on Zirak-zigil
As white as silver glass,
Ascending through the Endless Stair
To Durin's Tower, still the pair
Fought fiercely in the icy air
Beside cold Caradhras.

The Balrog fell, the Tower crashed
Upon the mountainside in ash;
At last was quenched his fiery lash.
But Gandalf's body too was smashed
Like shards of silver glass.
And yet by Valar's grace reborn
he rose again like silver morn;
Away by eagles he was borne
From cruel Caradhras.

When at last Isildur's Bane
Fell too into its mountain's flame,
Barad-Dur crumbled. The end came
To Sauron and to Mordor's reign.
Away from Caradhras,
Away from Middle-Earth the sail
Of the last elf-ship glimmered pale.
And so too ends the wizard's tale:
Namarie at last.

Clearly time for me to go downstairs where the books dwell and try to find my Tennyson. It's been long and long since I read anything but Ullyses. Heinlein seemed to think it made a good epitaph, but I'm not ready for that yet.

Does anyone else think it odd that this thread started out with Bush Co. as vampires and zombies and gradually they became knitters? I'm pretty sure that's not exactly how the Spectrum of Evil goes. ("Zombies-->Vampires-->People who talk at the theater", not "people who knit".)

(I can't remember at the mo; does the Buffyverse care what the stake is made of?)

Hillary's new Iraq plan has all the clarity, simplicity and political appeal of her old health insurance plan.Her New York Times Interview: Questioning Bush's tactics but not the premises of his policy, the plan triangulates by half steps and half measures to perpetuate the morass we find ourselves in. It seems destined to fail. Like her ill-fated health insurance proposal of 1993, it offers bewildering complexity when bold initiatives are called for. If, by some miracle, the plan survives the Democratic primaries, it would most likely destroy any administration that tried to implement it. The American people want out of Iraq, and this doesn't do it.

Before Hillary and the other Democrats totally take over ownership of this war, they need to realize that the real issue facing the American public is no longer just Iraq. The real issue is whether we should get out of the business of empire before we expend even more treasure, both human and financial, destroy our democracy, and bankrupt our nation.

In order to do this we would first have to admit that we are in the business of empire. As has been pointed out by many people before me, the general US culture is in total denial of this fact, even though it's been an implicit government policy for a very long time, and was explicit for many years after the founding of the country (Manifest Destiny, anyone?).

Putting on my cynical hat (oh ... I never took it off), I have to say I expect the US to become a failed empire before it ever rejects imperial aspirations; it will take us that long to admit what we are. Which is a shame, because most of us aren't interested in empire at all.

No, but it would be cool. And easier to manage with magic and the fact that we've already seen multiple timelines in canon.

OK, odd personal anecdote time: Six years ago, I was living in LA. I had to go to LAX (which is some circle of Hell, I'm pretty sure) to pick up the man I was living with. I had forgotten to write down his flight number, and when I checked the arrivals board failed to note that there was more than one flight coming in from his city of origin. As a result, I ended up in the wrong part of the airport.

While I was there, I saw three people walking along. They looked like Cordelia, Angel and Wesley. Not to say that they bore much resemblance to Charisma Carpenter, David Boreanaz, or Alexis Denisov, because they didn't*, but they really looked like Cordelia, Angel and Wesley. When the woman went into the ladies' room, I was tempted to follow her but didn't because I was afraid that talking to her or getting too close to any of them might cause me to end up in a universe with vampires and whatnot, where I would be spectacularly unsuited to live.

And then, because I was in the wrong concourse, I waited while the wrong plane emptied completely and the man I was living with did not disembark. That was entertaining. Evnetually I figured out what I'd done and got to his gate just in time to see his plane come in, but there was some freaking out in the interval, lemme tell you.

*Except in the sense that, say, "Tall, dark hair and pale skin, reasonably handsome if you like rugged" could have described both Boreanaz and "Angel".

I don't know about the Buffyverse, but in the many parts of eastern Europe where traditional (unmediated) vampire lore survives, iron is preferred. In Stoker, isn't Lucy (aka The Bloofer Lady) staked with iron?

(Did I ever tell you guys about my conversation with an eyewitness to an actual vampire slaying? I tell that story all the time; so, probably I did.)

Maybe you did, but I haven't read it. So...tell! :)

One day we got to talking, and I asked, "So where in Romania are you from?"

"I am from a small village in Transylvania. You have not heard of it."

"Transylvania, eh? You're a long way from home, then."

"Yes, there are many diffences between America and Transylvania."

"For one thing," I said, "There's not as many vampires in America."

"Excuse me?" He looked suddenly surprised and angry.

"I'm sorry. It was a dumb joke. You know, Transylvania, Dracula, vampires -- like in the movies."

"Ah, I see," he said. "I have heard of such movies. But let me tell you something." And here he walked right up to my face and locked on my eyes. "In my village in Transylvania, my family are the only Jews, so of course we do not believe in such things. But I have seen, with my own eyes, the corpse dug out of the ground, the head cut off, the mouth filled with salt and garlic, and the lips sewn shut. The head was then tossed in a pit on unhallowed ground. Do not speak to me," he finished, "of wampyr."

And I never mentioned it again. But ever since then, I've understood that "vampire-slaying" is a fancy term for "the desecration of corpses in the name of superstition."

I can, however, confirm that in Norwegian folk lore iron, steel, and silver are used to magical ends, most notably to dispel glamours. (This is the way they are used in folk tales, anyway.)

By the way, I have a vague memory of reading, many years ago (mid-70s) a legend that explained why silver was an apotropaic. After the betrayal and crucifixion of Christ, the metal silver made complaint to God because it had been used in the betrayal. As recompense, God gave it power over evil things. (This also explains why vampires don't reflect - in silvered mirrors.)
If anyone else has ever come across this legend, please advise, because I've never found it since, and I'd love to know which culture it comes from.
I've got a theory that the apotropaic qualities of the thorn woods come from the crown of thorns, too, but I can't make it work for the rest of the instruments of the Passion.

But I suspect I am stretching a bit here...

Want to try again?

Not a problem, because when people are late returning their copy of the Necronomicon, that generally means that they're LATE returning their copy.

Serge, I believe they rebind it in the nearest convenient source of skin: the borrower.

And PPL actually stands for Paranoid Programming Language, where variable and routine names cannot resemble words in any known language, and the compiler automatically deletes the source code.

(*)played by Jane Curtin, of course.

There is a new Jack Chick tract out: "First Kiss," in which we learn that Jesus can cure vampirism!

First Kiss

Easy? Perhaps.

Smart? No.

A. Because of his coffin.

But seriously, tying the desecration of the dead (#75) and Providence (#87) threads together, Lovecraft reported that in his own memory, corpses of suspected vampires had been dug up in New England. And Buried Alive (by Jan Bondeson), a book I have recommended before, talks of those very things.

Buried Alive is a history of the search for tests of death, and the customs surrounding death and burial, primarily in the 19th century, with many anecdotes about the sometimes weird things that the doctors who were otherwise engaged in inventing modern medicine were up to.

Back to the subject: vampires in New England were often destroyed by cutting off the legs and laying them cross-wise on the chest. (Whatever else that may or may not have done, that would have made sure that the person was dead.)

Barbara Gordon #77: I'd be pretty confident that story is yet another Christian retcon. Silver has an ancient association with the moon, not to mention an aura of magic (it's still used in Indian [Asian] folk medicine). It seems natural to turn it against a monster of the night. See also: Werewolves, which IIUC emerged from the same folk legends as the modern vampire concept.

The original legend supposedly combined those "processes of decomposition", with certain living people bearing a genetic condition called porphyria. This condition causes, among other things, anomalous hair growth... and necrosis of the skin, which is triggered by exposure to sunlight.