Tuesday, August 23. 2005
Cindy Summary, at Cao. Barone's 2006 political almanac - good news for Repubs The world's 100 top universities, via Normblog, by the Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai University College prep, from Atlantic Blog: According to the NY Times, the ACT people say that fewer than a quarter of the students finishing high school who took their test are prepared for college in the four areas they test: reading comprehension, math, English, and science.
Read his piece. I disagree with his conclusion. I suspect that it means that only 1/4 of the test-takers should be college-bound. The remainder need more high school, which is what they often get in college.
You cannot be a true man until you learn to obey. Robert E. Lee
Monday, August 22. 2005
(First posted on April 29, 2005) The Gospel of John 4 out of 4 Dog Bones for this movie, which had the misfortune of being overshadowed by Gibson's The Passion last year and was not released in theaters. Sticking tightly to the language and sequence of this very literary Gospel which was written 2 centuries after Christ's death, the 3-hour version captures all of the key moments of Christ's ministry, and is especially good at capturing the rabble-rousing, reckless and provocative style of his ministry and it's inevitable culmination on the cross. It's easy to see why people wanted him out of the way - he was a big trouble-maker and no-one was insulated from his demands or his harsh judgements. Not a go-with-the-flow guy, and more the Jesus of Truth than the sweet Jesus of Love, yet love of God is the whole story. A rebel with a cause. The role of Pilate is small but fascinating, and made me feel that we are all Pilates. What would I have done? Probably what Pilate did. Captain Vere in Billy Budd. The story of Pilate is a Greek tragedy, and I feel sympathy for his fate. My only complaint about the film is that Jesus spends more time talking about his relationship with God than he does preaching the rest of his message that was to change the world. I am not a Bible student - but that focus is a reflection of John's Gospel, which was a message to gentiles - "He is in me and I am in Him" - obviously not a message designed to engage the Jews of the time: "Crucify him. Crucify him." The Jews were not quite ready for a Messiah, nor is anyone, anywhere, any time. How are we to know whether a messiah is the real thing? Pilate is us, and the Jews are us. A holy dream in which we ourselves play every role, as we do in all dreams. Anyway, powerful and very moving stuff, and the narration by Plummer adds a lot.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.Abraham Lincoln
Saturday, August 20. 2005
 Flow Gently Sweet Afton
Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes!
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise!
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream ---
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream! Thou stock dove whose echo resounds thro' the glen,
Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den,
Thou green-crested lapwing, thy screaming forbear ---
I charge you, disturb not my slumbering fair! How lofty, sweet Afton, thy neighbouring hills,
Far mark'd with the courses of clear, winding rills!
There daily I wander, as noon rises high,
My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye. How pleasant thy banks and green vallies below,
Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow;
There oft, as mild ev'ning weeps over the lea,
The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me. Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides,
And winds by the cot where my Mary resides!
How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave,
As, gath'ring sweet flow'rets, she stems thy clear wave! Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes!
Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays!
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream ---
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream! (The tune, of course, is one also used for Away in a Manger, but the tune preceded that Christmas song. For a little etymology on Afton - Gaelic for River, same word as Avon)
Friday, August 19. 2005
Words are instruments we use to beat out tunes on broken drums for bears to dance to, when all we really want to do is move the stars to pity. Flaubert
Thursday, August 18. 2005
Light Blogging through the Weekend Many of us at Maggie's are on well-deserved vacation breaks, but we will pre-post some archival items. First, however, apropos of blogging, I will leave you with a piece in the New Yorker by Holt, concerning the quiddity of bullshit: Philosophers have a vocational bent for trying to divine the essences of things that most people never suspected had an essence, and bullshit is a case in point. Could there really be some property that all instances of bullshit possess and all non-instances lack? The question might sound ludicrous, but it is, at least in form, no different from one that philosophers ask about truth. Among the most divisive issues in philosophy today is whether there is anything important to be said about the essential nature of truth. Bullshit, by contrast, might seem to be a mere bagatelle. Yet there are parallels between the two which lead to the same perplexities. Read the whole thing.
Read this, or be willfully ignorant: Caliphate Strategy and Tactics Protein Wisdom
 Katherine Harris
No longer Cruella De Ville, and lookin' like an attractive candidate for FL. Photo from, and a HT to, QandO blog. Let her run, FL Repubs. She looks "votable," does she not, fellas? You'd rather look at Joe Scarborough? If she is really going to take a ride through a primary, though, somebody had better adjust those stirrups for her or she will take a nasty tumble. Primaries are tough when the organization is against you, and she doesn't look like an easy rider. In fact, looks like her first time on a horse. Ride 'em, cowgirl. She has earned a chance, but the Party has other considerations, as always.
Summer Reading Suburban Safari, by Hannah Holmes. Ordered it from Amazon, but haven't read it. But it seems like a great idea, well-executed. It's about Nature in a small suburban backyard. Excerpt from the Amazon review: When science writer Hannah Holmes decided to spend a year studying the inhabitants of her 0.2-acre patch of ground in suburban Portland, Maine, she went about the task with an ecologist's enthusiasm and a scientist's compulsive eye for detail. The result is an entertaining and effortlessly compelling examination of nature's stubborn (and successful) struggle to exist in the face of daunting manmade challenges. Holmes's lawn, unfertilized and rarely mowed, turns out to be a surprisingly diverse ecosystem of bird, mammal, and insect life--a self-perpetuating, constantly evolving community of chipmunks, ladybugs, spiders, slugs, and crows. These creatures, and the complex relationships between them, are the raw material for Holmes's incisive reflections on natural history, urban ecology, and the ignominious story of the over-irrigated, pesticide-laced American lawn--rolling out, Holmes notes, at a rate of one million acres per year.
Why Casey Sheehan Died A HT to Classical Values. Excellent piece in The Idiom, here.
Google Earth Very cool. Thanks, RRWH: See the earth - any location, zoom in, etc., all in 3D. GoogleEarth. It's a free download.
American Princess on Feminism - (which is losing politically and losing $) - "It's so 1992": Because frankly, that jerk just about every girl knows, who sleeps with a different girl every week, is the daddy of three babies, and of many more "fetuses" who never saw the light of day, is not the kind of guy that's coming home with me. So why would I think being equal meant being like that piece of bar poop? List of arrested Moslem fanatics in the US, to date. Dhimmi Watch 40% of Mexicans want to emigrate to US - and they will. Via Drudge. Osteoporosis treatments work. Important, esp for women. Science Daily Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger to perform together in Beacon, NY The Bush Boom - why isn't it talked about? Kudlow. Hawaiian Semi-Secession: Two ex-senators walk you through the BS, here. And the Hawaii Reporter reveals the BS. Is this worth a civil war? Doubt it, but it is truly a scam and a fraud. Bad News: Single-adult households pass two-adult households in US. WaTimes
 excerpt from Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan:
God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe says "Man, you must be puttin me on"
God say "No," Abe say "What?"
God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin you better run"
Well Abe says "Where you want this killin done?"
God says "Out on Highway 61." In his live performances, Dylan and his band rock this song so it soars up to heaven and back - never twice the same way. We must have 15-20 live versions of it. Lyrics here. CD here.
Wednesday, August 17. 2005
A Call for Help Gov. Richardson asks the Feds for help with the border. Call in the cavalry. A Dem has to beg a Repub administration to control the nation's border? Come on. Story in Newsmax.
Neo-neocon on modern journalism, journalistic dishonesty, and journalism education: The old-fashioned idea that a journalist is a mere reporter (or recorder) of the news has been replaced in recent years by the idea of a journalist as a writer first and foremost, and secondarily as an interpreter of the news and an exposer of truth. But why should we trust journalists with such a huge task, and how are we to judge whether they are doing their job well? Please read entire. Thought Police still at work: Stockton College. (Tell me, why is it that is is always schools with the Thought Police, when supposedly it's the Evil Repubs, and the Evil RC Church, and the Evil Boy Scouts, etc. who are the Fascists?) In FIRE: Click here: FIRE - Speech Code of the Month: Richard Stockton College of New Jersey The "You Dont Speak for me, Cindy" Tour: Move America Forward Clinton and the Truth - This jerk just can't help himself. Hansen on guest-worker programs: Americans are not Spartans, and their workers are not helots. So honor and remember the noble braceros, but please don't bring back that age of heartbreak. Read his summary of guest workers in the US. At VDH
 Some excellent misc. sample quotes on Big Topics:
Hansen: Any Western country with open immigration from the Middle East is committing cultural suicide, and for all the politically correct pieties, legislators seem to know it. Right Thinking, on the Islamic bombings in Bangladesh yesterday: Once again the Religion of Peace™ kills civilians because their government refuses to submit to the fascist rule of militant Islam. Beck on Dalrymple and the fragility of civilization, in the New Criterion - Click here: Diagnosis: decadence by Stefan Beck : But the piano, considered as a product and emblem of civilization, is a reminder that to create is the work of centuries, to destroy, the work of a moment. Hence, many of the essays in the present volume are concerned both with great creators (Shakespeare, Turgenev, Gillray, Cassatt) and with thoughtless destroyers (Marx, Lawrence, Kinsey, Virginia Woolf) Barone on Multiculturalism: Multiculturalism is based on the lie that all cultures are morally equal. In practice, that soon degenerates to: All cultures all morally equal, except ours, which is worse. But all cultures are not equal in respecting representative government, guaranteed liberties, and the rule of law. And those things arose not simultaneously and in all cultures but in certain specific times and places--mostly in Britain and America but also in other parts of Europe. Auster, quoting Norman Davies, at View from the Right: Hitler’s democratic triumph exposed the true nature of democracy. Democracy has few values of its own: it is as good, or bad, as the principles of the people who operate it. In the hands of liberal and tolerant people, it will produce a liberal and tolerant government; in the hands of cannibals, a government of cannibals. In Germany of 1933-4 it produced a Nazi government because the prevailing culture of Germany’s voters did not give priority to the exclusion of gangsters. Thomas Reeves, at History News Network, on the temptations of secularism: It is commonplace these days for some journalists and many intellectuals to blame religion for much of the worlds ills. Look at foreign affairs, they say. The Muslim fanatics blowing themselves and others to bits really think they’re going to rewarded in heaven with 40 virgins. Those cowboys and Zionists who are running American foreign policy and endangering the world think they are doing the will of the God. At home, Catholics and others are at work to prevent the research necessary to cure many diseases. Right-wing evangelicals constantly plot to impose their moral restrictions on others. It is only the sober, educated rationalists, we are told, who can see realities beyond the superstitions and bring justice and truth to a world hungering for peace and prosperity. Rid the globe of religion and you free the human mind, at last, to create the wonders of which it is capable.
This is the dogma of the 18th century Enlightenment, of course, later embraced by Marxists who murdered clergy and destroyed churches whenever the opportunity arose. This secular dogma lives still, especially among leftist intellectuals and media moguls who often see themselves as the high priests of knowledge and learning. Woven into their arguments are almost always appeals to end definitions of right and wrong, a move that has the advantage of destroying all moral inhibitions and sanctions. Free sex for a free people. Phelps on God and Science, at Acton Inst, Click here: Commentary: Miracles of God and Miracles of Science : In the minds of many, there is a vague notion that somehow God and science are necessarily in competition. We see this opposition take form in the debates between creationism and evolution, between church and state, where faith is pitted against reason, the secular against the sacred. Why isn’t this opposition more often transferred to our discussions of medicine as well? The reason may be that physicians recognize more readily the relationship between God and science. A recent study by the University of Chicago showed that seventy-six percent of physicians believe in God, and fifty-five percent say their faith influences their medical practice. It seems that the dichotomy between faith and science, while common in popular discourse, is not as popular as among doctors themselves.
Multiculturalism in Seattle, from Sound Politics: Last month there was an article in the Seattle Times on a program where city public swimming pools have regularly scheduled hours for the exclusive use of Muslims: "Preserving modesty, in the pool" It's Saturday evening, the end of a hot day, and a group of women and children have gathered at North Seattle's Meadowbrook Pool for their monthly swim ... The women and children — all Muslims — have been swimming in private once a month at Meadowbrook as part of a program organized by the North Seattle Family Center. Read entire.
The Church is the one thing that prevents a man from the degrading servitude of being a child of his own time. G.K. Chesterton
Tuesday, August 16. 2005
Bill Weld for Gov (of NY)? It's difficult not to like the guy. Click here: Weld Eyeing NY Gov Race Star Parker on why blacks are moving away from the Dems (Click here: Star Parker: New ideas? ): It is ironic that Democratic strategists cannot seem to grasp that the big-government themes and moral relativism that define their party disproportionately hurt lower-income groups. Reconciliation with the truth that traditional values and ownership are the best ticket into the American middle class will open the door to fresh thinking and new ideas in the Democratic Party and build new bridges to traditional Democratic constituencies. From what I see, this new Democratic think tank initiative amounts to rich liberal elitists looking for new marketing techniques for their same old ideas.
The Rolling Stones in 1972: Dr. Bob found some of his old photos: The Jack Daniels Tour. Saskatchewan by SDA: Since 1995, our provincial government has grown its payroll by 12,190 bodies and hiked the average wage by 22 per cent. The number of working people sticking around in Saskatchewan to pay these wages is in slow but steady decline. In 2002, 22.1 percent of Saskatchewan employees were on the public sector payroll.
At this rate - you do the math - when will it reach 100% ?
 From my grieving, but wine-comforted Connecticut and Ducks Unlimited pal Rick today, re his Lab Buzz, with whom I have hunted - but not often enough. Buzz was an aggressive dog, a true bird dog, but not a natural family animal:
The world lost another four legged soldier yesterday. At 3:00 in the afternoon yesterday a fine hunting companion whose earlier years of strife were washed away with lots of love in the remaining 4. Buzz lost a battle with Cancer which was unexpected and only found yesterday. I had to put him down immediately Though he was only in my family for 4.5 years he was a valued and loyal companion. He learned that he could love and be loved in the last 4 years and developed a very nice relaxed way about him after coming to me from the Texas Penitentiary. A convicted felon who had truly been reformed. He passed in my arms with dignity and never let me know he was sick until this weekend. He will be missed.
All Too True From WaPo, Big Govt Conservatives: The nation is at war. It faces large expenses for homeland security. It is about to go through a demographic transition that will strain important entitlement programs. How can this president -- an allegedly conservative president -- believe that the federal government should spend money on the Red River National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center in Louisiana? Or on the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan? The bill Mr. Bush has signed devotes more than $24 billion to such earmarked projects, continuing a trend in which the use of earmarks has spread steadily each year. Remember, Republicans control the Senate and the House as well as the White House. So somebody remind us: Which is the party of big government?
Well, the sad answer is BOTH, ever since they got their hands on our money to buy votes with. If we cannot count on these Repub guys to respect our hard-earned taxes, we cannot count on anyone. The Game is too big, and we voters are innocent pawns in their childish but fundamentally corrupt game, which is why good, decent people tend to avoid politics. They play their games: We live our lives. And in the final end, they are the suckers, not us. Email article link here.
Photo via StormTrack of 
Hurricane Irene, nurtured by the Gulf Stream, being pushed out to sea by the clearly visible cold front which is happily passing through New England. While we welcome the relief from the heat, we are sorry we missed Irene. We like storms. They do not scare us.
Immigration Polipundit, a recent legal immigrant, wonders why Congress is considering guest-worker programs, when no-one is asking for them: Even leaving aside issues of homeland security and respect for the rule of law, mass immigration on the scale the president is proposing is terrible policy. When white-collar workers get hurt because of a few hundred thousand temporary visas issued to high-tech workers, it gets a lot of attention. But what about low-income American workers who will face severely depressed wages because of the millions of low-skilled immigrants who will now be able to compete for their jobs? You can’t “outsource” a job at McDonalds to India or China. But now you’ll be able to hire an immigrant to do it at a low wage. And isn’t there such a thing as an American culture that deserves to be protected by keeping immigration at reasonable-enough levels that immigrants will want to, be forced to, assimilate into the melting pot? Large “guest worker” programs have been miserable failures everywhere they’ve been tried, creating resentful racial underclasses and culturally-alienated urban ghettoes. Read the whole post, here.
More Krugman bashing. It's fun, I guess: The Conspiracy... Scandal goes on annan annan: Annan's brother. Here. A Failed actor? Read the truth about Reagan's career, GM Rice: Does anyone want it? Here. Hypocrisy about illegal immigration: John Fund Gambling and Alcohol Addictions: They are different. Here. Military reservations are nature preserves? Thompson on homeschooling - This piece made ne view it differently. Now it's the Lutheran's turn to bash Israel. One by one, the mainline Protestants are turning on Israel. Hinderaker: Click here: Fences and a "Just Peace" Johnny Cash's house still for sale.
|
