From the FEMA fiasco article:

The White House said it was unaware of the briefing beforehand. "It is not a practice that we would employ here at the White House," said press secretary Dana Perino.

Yeah, now that it's been revealed how badly it blew up in the face of the FEMA brass! Without that test case, I'm not so sure...

Susan, my first instinct is Bach.

Hmm. I'll look into it. I'm not sure my character is a Bach kind of guy, but my own exposure is limited to some of the more obvious church pieces--e.g. "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring," which I've heard at so many weddings over the past decade or so that I've actually burned out on it.

Oh, the Bush Administration would never use fake reporters.

t sprains eyes from rolling them

Susan, you could e-mail this guy: [link] He's writing a social history of the violin. The train of thought that led me to him started with "Jefferson was an amateur violin player."

More Valhalla.

I think it’s interesting to consider the concept of heaven across cultures. The fallen Viking warrior can expect to be greeted valkyrja just as (some) Muslims can expect to be greeted by virgins. But this is where Valhalla and paradise diverge. Viking warriors get the valkyrja AND all-you-can-eat barbeque AND beer! That’s a heaven! I’m pretty sure that you don’t get any pork ribs or beer in the Muslim heaven.

Thanks, Ginger!

Viking warriors get the valkyrja AND all-you-can-eat barbeque AND beer!

Also, I don't recall anything specific to the effect that the Valkyries would do any greeting beyond "Move over! Hand me that haunch of meat, will you?"

Also, there's teh part where you have to practice every day for the battle at thr end of the world, which you are guaranteed to lose. Kind of like tailgating for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, except you don't get dismembered at the end of that.

Also, I don't recall anything specific to the effect that the Valkyries would do any greeting beyond "Move over! Hand me that haunch of meat, will you?"

Well, the descriptions we have of the, uh, interactions, were carefully edited by Christian scholars, and they have a tendency to leave certain things out. If the fallen get to live like the other imortals up there, then there should be plenty of mutual greeting going on.

Also, there's teh part where you have to practice every day for the battle at thr end of the world, which you are guaranteed to lose. Kind of like tailgating for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, except you don't get dismembered at the end of that.

Yeah, you get killed every day before heading back to "Joe's Rib's and Suds" for dinner, and then you get killed in the big battle where Joe's gets destroyed, but it's all a wheel, you know, so the big battle just starts the whole thing over. Like Tampa Bay looking ahead to the next season.

Heh. I'd never fully contemplated the connection between baseball and Norse cosmology, but that explains a lot...

I was never clear if the Einherjar were supposed to be destroyed forever by the battle of Ragnarok, or if they were supposed to return to "life" afterwards and serve the gods who were to start over.