So Spencer and I are probably going to buy a house in the next year or so. Maybe much sooner than that. This means a lot of looking at grim news about the market and the interest rates and the stock market and other things we have heretofore ignored, in addition to speculating about the future of the small semi-rural town where we’re living. (This means a lot of opportunity for noodling around on the internet doing “research”.) We’re trying to get an older house in an ok neighborhood within walking distance of the college, and this means there are not a lot of places to choose from. Will keep y’all posted as events unfold.

At any rate – It’s Lovely, I’ll Take It is a source of relief during the search. Ridiculous photos from real estate listings on the west coast. Similar pics are posted of places in our area – a farmhouse built in 1800 that’s been converted a la “Monster House” with fake jungle sections, full wall airbrush-style murals of dolphins, etc. A house with dried flowers in bunches all over the walls, floor to ceiling, with about a half dozen trophy deer heads interspersed.

A single voice crying in the wilderness (1)

Guilty on some charges.

The story of Black, his florid prose, his far right-wing wife, his massive sense of entitlement, his rise, his launching of a successful national Canadian paper, his struggle with the Prime Minister to be allowed to accept a Lordship in Great Britain, his (spectacularly) unsuccessful lawsuit against said Prime Minister, his renunciation of his Canadian citizenship, his fall from grace, the abandonment by so many upper class friends he had picked up along the way, the exposure of so many embarrassing details in court, and, finally, his conviction – that story, would take too long to tell, and I would have to be a better storyteller than I am to convey just why the whole thing is so funny. If you haven’t been following the story, you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Howls of outrage (23)

Oh happy, happy, Freude, Freude!:

Conrad Black is facing the battle of his life with U.S. justice officials, who have slapped him with a sweeping criminal indictment that could send him to jail for 40 years.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald alleged yesterday that, through lies, greed and theft, Lord Black and three former colleagues diverted $84-million (U.S.) out of investors’ hands and into their own pockets.

“All in all, what has happened here has been a gross abuse by officers and directors and insiders who decided to line their pockets,” said Mr. Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.

Howls of outrage (3)

I hope you’ve been enjoying Conrad Black’s latest misery as much as I have. Anyway, I found this little gem in the piece linked in the last sentence. I had always assumed that Black and Richard Perle were tight. And perhaps they were. But if they were, it didn’t stop Black from running him down a bit behind his back:

The report contains e-mails from Black to other company officials about Perle, whom Black called a “trimmer and a sharper” who was profiting from Hollinger’s name in establishing his own venture fund.

“I have been exposed to Richard’s full repertoire of histrionics, cajolery, and utilization of fine print,” Black wrote. “He hasn’t been disingenuous exactly, but I understand how he finessed the Russians out of deployed missiles in exchange for non-eventual-deployment of half the number of missiles of unproven design.” Perle was an assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration.

With friends like that, Perle doesn’t need an S.E.C. investigation.

My favourite Conrad Black chronicler is Pogge, but sadly he’s on hiatus. Come on, Pogge, you slacker! Get back in the game, for old time’s sake.

A single voice crying in the wilderness (1)