Finding One's Apostrophe

"Speak softly and carry a big stick"

There was a touch of Ireland's great comic, surrealist writer, Flann O'Brien, in President Barack O'Bama's speech in Dublin yesterday. Speaking of his ancestors from Ireland and Africa, and how they were inspired by the American Dream, Obama said:

It’s the dream that Falmouth Kearney was attracted to when he went to America. It’s the dream that drew my own father to America from a small village in Africa. It’s a dream that we’ve carried forward -- sometimes through stormy waters, sometimes at great cost -- for more than two centuries. And for my own sake, I’m grateful they made those journeys because if they hadn’t you’d be listening to somebody else speak right now. (Laughter.)

That last line is slightly odd, sort of questioning reality while undermining it. Like the story of the Irish guy who was planning to meet his friend in a bar.

"If I get there first," he said to his pal, "I'll put a big 'X' on the wall, and if you get there first, you rub it out..."

From This To That

Another Icelandic volcano has erupted, but this time the volcano in question was kind enough to possess a name that is more pronounceable than the Eyjafjallajökull incident of April  2010. 

This volcano is called Grímsvötn, and a local man, Ingo Bruun, took these photos of the eruption, a few minutes apart...

It's Not Over

...til it's over, by the Bag Raiders.

If that doesn't do it for you, perhaps John Grant's song, "Sigourney Weaver," will cheer you up, with its chorus:

And I feel just like Sigourney Weaver
When she had to kill those aliens
And one guy tried to get them back to the earth
And she couldn't believe her ears