The St. Jude Marathon is this Saturday. If you’re running low on eggnog, now is the time to stock up.

We know you can’t be subjected to the trouble of sitting in traffic, much less actually participate in an event that saves the lives of children, but for the love of Pete, plan ahead this time.

And if you do happen to run out of eggnog during the course of the event, please remember:

1. It’s nobody’s fault but your own

2. You can live without eggnog for three hours

3. Whining about a fundraiser for sick kids because of a personal, minor inconvenience is about as selfish, lame, ignorant and dishonorable as it gets

Bruce Fein is worried about the fate of our Republic:

American culture has degenerated since the Founding Fathers into a celebration of vice, ignorance, drivel and self-promotion. Money, beauty, sexual indulgence, athletics and fame are saluted as the summum bonum of existence. Exemplary are the wild enthusiasm for “American Idol,” obsession with the tawdry comings and goings of Britney Spears or Paris Hilton and the apotheosis of professional athletes who contribute nothing to preserving government of the people, by the people, for the people. It is inconceivable that a Washington, Madison or Jefferson or Lincoln could emerge from the contemporary culture.

Parents seldom read to children. Students seldom read from inspiration. A dwindling number make it a habit to peruse a serious daily newspaper. Not a single public official or figure in the United States could author paragraphs worthy of the Federalist Papers, Washington’s Farewell Address or Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

It’s a interesting rant, and worth reading in full, but false on at least three counts:

1. If contemporary culture were such a terrible, commanding force, it couldn’t provide critics alert to its own degradation. Thus, the rant is self-refuting.

2. It’s more than a gross over-generalization to say parents and students don’t read and that no single public figure is equipped to write prose of historic value. Those authors didn’t write such documents every day, or for every occasion; there’s a real sense in which crucial times demand and call out greatness.

3. Did the Founding Fathers perfectly mirror their own culture, or can we assume that figures such as Washington and Lincoln towered over their own contemporaries? Did every pioneer or frontiersman quote Shakespeare and Socrates? Is it fair to pluck the greatest men of history, and the greatest things they wrote, and compare them to the everyday comings and goings of the actors, athletes and pampered aristocrats of any given period?

Jason Middlekauf has a great answer.

AND: So does Matt Dabbs.

This Commercial Appeal story on the HUD homeless survey has everything… except for the results of the survey.

In honor of the only candidate who was campaigning in Iowa while I was there, here’s another in my series of fake bumper stickers. Word is that Joe Biden was actually staying in the same hotel, but I never saw him.

Ads heard while in Iowa: Obama, Giuliani and Romney
Signs seen displayed in yards: Paul, McCain, Obama, Clinton
Names mentioned by voters questioned: Biden, Romney and “not Clinton”

Previously:
Hunter/Thompson
Tancredo
Paul
Romney