Tuesday, June 19. 2007
That is, "Post-traumatic stress disorder." Our readers don't know me, or my credentials, so you have no reason to believe me. I will tell you anyway: "PTSD" is a highly dubious diagnosis about which there is little agreement - but much recent discussion - in Psychiatry. Because "trauma" is entirely subjective, and "stress" is entirely subjective - and often a positive thing - the notion of PTSD is difficult to discuss. My colleagues are known to use it as a "diagnosis of convenience." We may put it down on a form, but that doesn't mean that we mean it. Psychiatrists are forced to write diagnoses on government forms and insurance forms, but human difficulties do not commonly lend themselves to such labels, and we tend not to take them overly seriously. There is a recent story about PTSD in our soldiers, at WaPo. I strongly disagree with blog friend Raven, who views PTSD as a disease and not as an ordinary part of life. Life events impact people. Life is traumatic, by definition, unless you live in bubble-wrap. That is not a disorder; it is normal. Many jobs are scary and "stressful", whatever "stress" is. Recent work shows that those who cope poorly with life events - and end up diagnosed with PTSD - generally have pre-existing, underlying vulnerabilities which may deserve attention. PTSD is on its way to becoming a legal scam, in my opinion. In fact, the entire movement to create new diagnoses, and to label more folks "disabled," is destructive to human dignity. Wasn't the whole idea of the "Americans with Disabilities Act" to get the disabled back to work, and to help them regain their autonomy and dignity? Switzerland recently decided that "job therapy" might be a good treatment for the disabled, and I think most shrinks would agree with that.
Marxism is the opiate of academia. Anonymous
Suicide bomb school graduates head for the US.
Warshak v. United States. Orin Kerr at Volokh. What's the role of the 4th Amendment as applied to email?
Eric at Classical Values has an excellent piece on creeping totalitarianism. His views on the subject sound like ours at Maggie's Farm. A quote: ...the problem is, people vote for it, and we live in a democracy. Perry de Havilland has also called the process "Democratic totalitarianism": ...a total state really is what a great many people have in mind for us all. They seek a sort of 'smiley face fascism' in which all interactions are regulated in the name of preventing sexism, promoting health, and defending the environment. The excuses will not invoke the Glory of the Nation or the Proletariat or the Volk or the King or the Flag or any of those old fashioned tools for tyrants, but rather it will be "for our own good", "for the Planet", "for the whales", "for the children", "for the disabled" or "for equality". But if they get their way it will be quite, quite totalitarian. It would be an error to dismiss such warm and fuzzy totalitarianism as the product of top-down rule by a Leviathan state. Pliant and well-meaning citizens (some of whom I suspect in my darker moments are wannabe eunuchs) voluntarily condition themselves first to accept self-imposed limitations, following which it becomes easy to impose them on others.
Lasky asks "Why the MSM love fest for Chavez?" American Thinker.
One Hundred Years of Solitude turns 40 as Gabriel Garcia Marquez turns 80. From an essay on the novel, by Ilan Stavans at The Chronicle Review: In my 40s, I've returned to García Márquez's masterpiece. Now it seems to me that, like Cervantes's Don Quixote, it decodes the DNA of Hispanic civilization. It's a "total" novel, designed by a demiurge capable of creating a universe as comprehensive as ours.
1874. L'allee au Bouffan 
Monday, June 18. 2007
With all the posts Bird Dog and I have written about the tragic fate of so much of the nation's architectural legacy during the 1960s and 70s (here and here, for examples), I decided to put a more positive spin on things by focusing instead on those fortunate towns that survived "urban renewal" more or less intact. Whether through shrewd foresight, adept planning or just plain luck, these towns weathered the storm and survived into a age where the noble civic architecture of the pre-war years is valued and treasured. Our first featured town? Staunton, Virginia, known for being  the birthplace of Woodrow Wilson and a major trade hub of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Unlike many other southern cities, however, Staunton received hardly any damage during the war, so a large number of the elegant antebellum residences have survived to the present day. In the four decades following the war, the city was embellished with stately Victorian and Romanesque architecture courtesy of architect T.J. Collins. Staunton was small enough, moreover, that no urban planner chose to route an interstate through the downtown area during the postwar years. When the city fell into decline in the 60s, many buildings fell into disrepair, but few were actually torn down.  By the late 1970s, civic-minded citizens were already hard at work preserving the precious architectural heritage of Staunton. The one major new addition to the downtown in recent years - a much-needed parking garage - was built in an elegant classical style that melded with the rest of the city and captured an award for outstanding and original design in 2002.
The Comprehensive Bill is part of the War on America: a point of view, with many facts and details, from LinknZona. 
 The quantum computer will make our machines look like the horse and buggy. Science Daily. More details here.
A cheap MRI. "I am not going to pay a lot for this MRI." Weekly Standard Putin is a martial artist. Never Yet melted. Not surprised. Is The Guardian obstuse about Hamas? Hatemonger. I cannot be that charitable: They are propagandizers for Hamas. Beware of government as the last action hero. Mark Steyn Was Scooter Libby a surrogate defendant? A scapegoat for Armitage? Is Universal Health Care just a Trojan Horse for greater control? Coyote The US: The cause of all problems on the earth. Driscoll The joke that the UN has become, plus a very funny comment - really a series of comments -from Donald Trump about UN incompetence. From a piece at Dinocrat: ...recent history has shown, as it did in the day of Churchill (The River War), the real destruction that can be unleashed, as in Gaza, by the young, bloodthirsty, and religiously hopped-up, who come to love the frenzy of wanton destruction. If such men enjoy their days of slashing throats, shooting the random bypasser, and raping and pillaging and then retire back to families and villages that welcome and house and feed them, what, ultimately, is the alternative to razing those villages?
Photo: a sexy 1958 Ford Model N
Neither Thoreau nor Gandhi fully appreciated the effectiveness and efficiency of unarmed power-grabbing.  If you want to invade a country nowadays, you use immigration, not armies (as in the current invasion by Moslems of Europe, and the invasion by Mexico of the US).
If you want to create an Empire these days, you use bureaucratic methods, not armies (as in the EU, and as the UN has repeatedly attempted). If you want to disempower and oppress your population these days, you suffocate them with rules and regulations and Nanny-state BS. No police-state thugs or neighborhood spies needed: you just wear them out. It's so much easier the modern way. No blood spilled and no skulls cracked, but with the same results. Nobody wants freedom except strong, independent souls and, these days, I wonder how many of those exist.
The purpose of this unsatisfactory and unsuccessful photo in the rain on Saturday was to try to capture the excellent and highly-varied Hosta beds in front of the little antique farmhouse. How many sturdy, self-reliant Connecticut Yankees have been raised in this humble 1720 home? 
The huge 1st century BC Hunnu Kingdom, against which the Great Wall of China was a defence, seems to have consisted of Mongols. Attila, too. As a wag commented, hunnu?
Asmus in The WaPo. A quote: Democrats today have a problem with democracy. We have lost our voice on the issue of promoting democracy abroad -- which means that what was once a core Democratic foreign policy idea is being ceded to the GOP.
Who anointed Bono to speak for millions of Africans? Why should Africans require a pompous if not megalomaniacal condescending white European pop star to speak for them, as if Africa were populated by helpless children? A quote from a piece by Brendan O'Neill in Spiked: Indeed, we could just as easily ask what earthly right the G8 itself has to discuss and determine what should happen in Africa’s poorest countries. Like Bono, no G8 leader has ever been elected by the nations of Africa. For these leaders, the G8 summits have become a kind of moral spectacle, intended to show that they care and they have a humane and giving side; our leaders find it easier to show ‘moral courage’ on Africa than on divisive issues at home.
 The above is a G.K. Chesterton quote. Prof. Deneen considers Chesterton's essay, What I Saw in America. A quote:
In Chesterton’s eyes, democracy and Christianity shared similar worldviews, and with the rise of religious doubt, he believed, one could expect to see a concomitant rise in doubts about the prospects of local self-governance, and instead increasing reliance upon experts and elites, in bureaucratic structures, in a growing divide between the rich and poor and the triumph of abstraction over “reality” (WA, 257-263).
Peter Lawler at The Ashbrook Center offered some response to Deneen's piece, and Deneen responded to Lawler's piece here. That sort of scholarly exchange is a wonderful example of what blogs have to offer. In the pre-internet world, that exchange would have been by letter, and only the two people involved would have had the chance to read them. Photo: Chesterton
Sunday, June 17. 2007
It's official. The Beeb is biased. Captain Ed. Duh.
 From Scott. Moslem Episcopalians?
This is indeed a reason why the Episcopalians are not thriving: their hierarchy doesn't seem to believe in anything, which means, as Chesterton said, they will believe in anything. I suggest that they focus on magic spiritual crystals and leave Jesus to those who seriously want to know Him and who want to be lead by His gracious but demanding hand. If you don't seek that, fine. It's a free country. There is no reason to fake it, other than for social reasons, and it's not the 1950s anymore. You don't have to pretend to be a scotch-drinking Episcopalian to get into the country club anymore. Been there, done that. I golf (badly) with Jews, Methodists, Presbyterians, and even a select few Roman Catholics (just kidding). We're in the post-Ice Storm era now. And yes, I am a recovering Episcopalian. Episcopalians, on the whole, are really nothing more than American Anglicans - and look at the poor Anglicans! (My apologies for my unpleasant comments to any remaining, believing and Christ-seeking Episcopalians - it's all in fun. Sunnis and Shias, American style: good friends, with minimal beheadings - outside of the tennis court or golf course. Those two places are always covered with fresh blood.) Photo: A magical, mystical, highly-psycho-spiritual and cosmic-energy-focusing, fully organic chemical-free quartz crystal. Actually, a nice one.
 Israel will attack Gaza. via Drudge. I suspect they may show America how to do it right, but probably without an obsessional concern with collateral damage.
Repub Senators in danger. Surber. The worst part is that they deserve to be. They aren't called "the stupid party" for nothing. Most smart Repubs go into the world, not into politics, so you end up with bozos like Trent Lott, and with folks who cannot communicate, like George Bush. 60% of Baghdad not under control. It's crunch time. But Flopping Aces says stay the course. Clearly, there are problems trying to fight a compassionate war: it's an oxymoron. Speaking of which, read Habu's comments on the post prior to this one. A quote from Leon De Winter: During the past four years, 170,000 Americans have died in traffic accidents. For young people, traveling in a car is the leading cause of death. Over the same period, 3,500 Americans were killed in Iraq in a war against radical Islam. These statistics haven't been properly contrasted.
Voters are such an annoyance, Part 334. EU pursues superstate powers by bypassing national referenda. It's a perfect set-up for future civil war within the EU, because some people are trying to build an Empire without force of arms. Consider it - Napoleon and Austria and Germany and Russia tried to do the same thing. Speaking of Ramblin' Jack Elliot. Elliot Agnopoz, born as the son of a doctor in Brooklyn. Even "authentic" show biz is fake. I do like Ramblin' Jack, though, even though "ramblin'" referred to his tendency to ramble when he speaks rather than riding the rails. Who doesn't like him? Almost forgot to link that Schwartzenegger story about learning English. What a joke. Learn English - it's a fine language. I wish Bush could speak it. Photo: A bit of Father's Day totty for the dads out there, from the Theo Spark Collection of Fine Art Photography. God bless all Dads, including my own Dad.
Is the universe a quantum computer? New theories may undo the reality of space and time...but everybody knows that: who has any time, and who has space for anything?
 As narrow-minded, knuckle-dragging traditionalists, we Maggie's Farmers honor fathers: fathers that stick around and do their best to do what grown men need to do for their families and for their communities.
Few of us can reach the Atticus Finch ideal. Here are a few Dad-related links from our archives: The Incredible Shrinking Father A few pretty sailboats M200 carbine Are boys just defective girls? Bring back dueling! Fine powerboats: This one and this one David Grossman's Ode to his son Uri What do men want?
Saturday, June 16. 2007
Banging around Yankeeland in the rain all day, and ended up driving through a hailstorm like I have never seen in New England. It looked as if it had snowed, or as if God had dumped his largest box of mothballs on us. There's a herd of Black Angus in the distance on this farm in beautiful Litchfield County. Taking photos in the rain is evidently not my thing. 
Does the American public believe in itself enough to wage war? Robert D. Kaplan looks at Iraq through the lens of Sun Tzu and Clausewitz: On Forgetting the Obvious, in The American Interest. A quote: If a glimpse of the future is possible, it must come from an intimacy with the present clarified by the great works of the past. For over four years now I have been traveling much of the world in the company of U.S. soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen. Upon a halt in my travels, I re-read both The Art of War by the 6th-century BCE Chinese court minister Sun-Tzu and On War by the early 19th-century Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz. What struck me straight away, thanks to my recent travels-in-arms, was not what either author said, but what both assumed. Both Sun-Tzu and Clausewitz believe—in their states, their sovereigns, their homelands. Because they believe, they are willing to fight. This is so clear that they never need to state it, and they never do. What is obvious, however, is left unstated not because it is insignificant, but because it is too significant: War is a fact of the human social condition neither man wishes were so. Sun-Tzu, concerned with war on the highest strategic level, affirms that the greatest warrior is one who calculates so well that he never needs to fight. Clausewitz, interested more in the operational level, allows that war takes precedence only after other forms of politics have failed. Both oppose militarism, but accept the reality of war, and from that acceptance reason that any policy lacking martial vigor—any policy that fails to communicate a warrior spirit—only makes war more likely. That is why Sun-Tzu only respects a leader “who plans and calculates like a hungry man”, who sanctions every manner of deceit provided it is necessary to gain strategic advantage, who is never swayed by public opinion, and “who advances without any thought of winning personal fame and withdraws in spite of certain punishment” if he judges it to be in the interest of his army and his state. Clausewitz is no less committed: In affairs so dangerous as war, false ideas proceeding from kindness of heart are precisely the worst. . . . The fact that slaughter is a horrifying spectacle must make us take war more seriously, but not provide an excuse for gradually blunting our swords in the name of humanity. Sooner or later someone will come along with a sharp sword and hack off our arms.
Read the whole thing. (h/t, Reader)
Photos of Tiger Woods' home in the islands. Ain't talent, discipline, and determination a wonderful combination for fulfilling one's dreams, whatever they may be? For Tiger, clearly, one part of the dream is comfortable shelter. This pad has nothing in common with Maggie's Farm except that both have indoor plumbing. 
 More photos on continuation page below.
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