Lexicon: "It was all perfectly fine until you came along!"

"It was all perfectly fine until you came along!"

As usual, a mild misquote on my part.

This comes from an episode of the Goon Show, "The Histories of Pliny the Elder". Specifically, a slow-building gag about rowing as slaves on board a Roman galley:

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Orchestra, Grams: Seagoing music; boat-bound voices in background; ship sounds
Greenslade: And so, some months later, a Roman slave galley drew nigh to Ostia.
Slave Driver: In, out... in, out...
Eccles: Make up your mind...
Bluebottle: Have you ever rowed a gallery before, Ecclus?
Eccles: Is that what we're doing?
Bluebottle: Yes.
Eccles: No, I've never done this before.
Slave Driver: Faster, you dogs!
Bluebottle: He wants us dogs to go faster.
Slave Driver: Silence, you scum!
Eccles: He wants us scum to go silent...
Slave Driver: Or do you want a kiss of the lash?
Bluebottle: No, thanks, I just had some cocoa.
Eccles: Oh, look, they're bringing a new slave from the reserve.
Bluebottle: Goody!
Seagoon: Let me go, you devil, how dare you? Take your hands off me! Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. How dare you chain me to this oar? I shall write to the Times about this! In print!
Flowerdew: Shut up, you! It was perfectly quiet until you came along! You're not the only man chained to the oars, you know...

-- "The Histories of Pliny the Elder," The Goon Show, Spike Milligan and Larry Stephens

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"I shall write to the Times about this!" also tends to be used as lexicon from this source

Where you are

Nicholas Kristof has a piece in the New York Times titled, "Obama and the War on Brains." Lead paragraph:

"Barack Obama’s election is a milestone in more than his pigmentation. The second most remarkable thing about his election is that American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual."

This was particularly clear a few cycles ago, when Democrats rejected Bill Bradley because he was too smart, followed by a large national suspicion of Al Gore for being too smart.

But it reminded me of a different aspect of Obama that's not getting much play.

He's the first president in a loooooooong time who goes "home" to a big city -- Chicago. Consider the list:

Bush 43 -- Crawford, TX
Clinton -- Little Rock, AR
Bush 41 -- Kennebunkport, ME
Reagan -- "Rancho del Cielo" in the Santa Ynez mountains NW of Santa Barbara, CA
Carter -- Plains, GA
Ford -- Grand Rapids, MI and Rancho Mirage, CA
Nixon -- either San Clemente, CA, or Key Biscayne, FL
LBJ -- Johnson City, TX
JFK -- Hyannisport, MA
Eisenhower -- Gettysburg, PA
Truman -- Independence, MO
FDR -- Hyde Park, NY

...etc, etc.