Sunday, January 25. 2009
Duccio, The Calling of the Fishermen, 1308
Mark 1:14-28
Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.
Now as he walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him.
And when he had gone a little farther thence, he saw James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in the ship mending their nets. And straightway he called them: and they left their father Zebedee in the ship with the hired servants, and went after him.
And they went into Capernaum; and straightway on the sabbath day he entered into the synagogue, and taught. And they were astonished at his doctrine: for he taught them as one that had authority, and not as the scribes.
And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him.
And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? what new doctrine is this? for with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him. And immediately his fame spread abroad throughout all the region round about Galilee.
Saturday, January 24. 2009
Amusingly pointed, from Steyn. He rightly quotes Matthew Parris:
This recession is not a failure of market economics. It is a reassertion of market economics after a decade in which we paid ourselves more than we were producing, and funded it precariously and temporarily by complicated credit instruments that it took a while for the market to rumble.
Moonbat warmist crank James Lovelock interviewed by a sexy babe named Gaia, at Jules. Lovelock predicts a "90% cull" of humans. I predict that somebody in his family will get him back on his medication.
Close Gitmo? OK. And then what? Laura Ingraham suggested sending them all to Barbra Streisand's neighborhood. The Obama transcript is an embarassment. The guy doesn't know what the heck he's talking about.
Big Lizards has good thoughts on the subject.
“If the government is to tell big business men how to run their business, then don’t you see that big business men have to get closer to the government even than they are now?”
Woodrow Wilson, as quoted in an Alex Massie piece Progressive Libertarians.
I wish I had written the essay Ted Dalrymple wrote in The New English Review, Beauty and the Best. It is much more than a grouchy complaint about some of the follies and vanities of modern art - but it is partly that. One quote:
Professor Scruton’s suggestion that western art had become impoverished as a result of its radical repudiation of anything transcendent in human existence in favour of the fleeting present moment, however, exasperated and infuriated the professional art critics of Sweden – as, indeed, it would have done the art critics of any western country. They reacted with the fury of the justly accused: for it is the professional caste of cognoscenti who have consistently applauded the trivialisation of art and its relegation to the status of financial speculation at best, and a game for children showing off to the adults at worst.
another
Originality is not, therefore, a virtue in itself, moral or artistic; and a man who sets out to be original without both the technical ability to express something new, and (most important of all) the possession of something worthwhile new to express, is merely egotistical. That is why the art critics, who are inclined to praise works as being original, path-breaking, taboo-breaking and transgressive, without any reference to their transcendent worth, are wrong, and Roger Scruton is right.
Where does the fear in modern art of such qualities as beauty and tenderness towards the world come from? (I am talking here of art that achieves public notice and notoriety: there may be hundreds or thousands of excellent artists who fear neither beauty nor tenderness, but whose work goes unremarked.)
I think it has something to do also with our inflamed egotism, that requires that we should be entirely self-sufficient and autonomous, philosophically, morally, intellectually and economically.
Read the whole thing. Re the latter quote, there are indeed thousands of artists today who "fear neither beauty nor tenderness," and, however unremarked, people do buy their stuff. One example is our friend Elissa Gore, who will be having a gallery show in NYC this winter:
Our post on A P-51 named February moved us to post Magee's well-known sonnet, High Flight
 Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds...and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of...wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
RCAF Spitfire pilot Magee, an American, was killed in an airplane accident during the Battle of Britain, 1941, age 19. He told his mother that the final verse came to him at 30,000 feet, and that he finished the poem on his way down.
Friday, January 23. 2009
Remarkable photos of the Airbus salvage in the Hudson on the Manhattan shore, taken mainly by the crane crew. Jersey shore opposite. Photos are in sequence in continuation page below.
Continue reading "Salvage photos of Flight 1549"
Israel discovers huge oil reserves.
 I am heading to Killington for a weekend of skiing and general merriment in the snow and cold, and leaving these droppings behind.
Yo Yo and Itzhak faked it? Sheesh. Just like Milli Vanilli. Would have thought it beneath their dignity.
How to get your wife to screw you. (Just thought I'd throw that in the pile to surprise you.)
Too busy for the Medal of Honor Ball? A sick and sickening decision.
Your orange juice is killing the planet. Thought you would like to know. I'll have a Screwdriver, hold the OJ. (h/t, Junk Science)
Major fault in Arkansas. But when?
Are Republicans too nice? I do think they have trouble playing the dirty pool. Dems don't mind looking bad, and accept the reality that politics is the ugliest sport.
Rick Moran:
...are we to endure 4 or 8 years of this over the top, out of control, masturbatory media overkill? Everything about him his so perfect that any criticism at all seems harsh. Obama doesn’t necessarily invite this sort of thing but it seems to happen anyway. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to examine this phenomenon as the months pass and reality sets in.
First time I ever heard of Hillary's "people skills." I've heard that she is a chain-smoking, no-class, potty-mouthed, menopausal bitch on wheels butchy harridan who expects to be treated like royalty. But otherwise a very nice person. I do not think I would want to work for her sort.
Related: The new US foreign policy - Make them love us. Didn't Jimmy Carter try that? Guess what. They have their own interests, and do not give a damn about ours.
Frum's new website: New Majority
Vanderleun's personal journey with abortion
Scientists get misty-eyed over Obama
Stephanopoulis gets misty-eyed over Obama
 Black lawn jockeys - old horse hitching posts - used to be common sights but have largely disappeared across the Eastern US. Some have been changed to whiteface.
How many folks realize that these statues of grooms, which many assume to be degrading images of servitude, were used as the secret road-markers for the Underground Railroad?
As such, they deserve to be preserved with pride and pleasure for the good and just service they provided to runaway, freedom-seeking slaves.
Oftentimes, PC insanity destroys meaningful history.
Over the transom and most likely apocryphal, said to be from a Nashville teacher:
 We are worried about "the cow" when it is all about the "Ice Cream."
The most eye-opening civics lesson I ever had was while teaching third grade this year. The presidential election was heating up and some of the children showed an interest. I decided we would have an election for a class president. We would choose our nominees. They would make a campaign speech and the class would vote.
To simplify the process, candidates were nominated by other class members. We discussed what kinds of characteristics these students should have. We got many nominations and from those, Jamie and Olivia were picked to run for the top spot. The class had done a great job in their selections. Both candidates were good kids. I thought Jamie might have an advantage because he got lots of parental support. I had never seen Olivia's mother.
The day arrived when they were to make their speeches Jamie went first. He had specific ideas about how to make our class a better place. He ended by promising to do his very best. Every one applauded. He sat down and Olivia came to the podium. Her speech was concise. She said, "If you will vote for me, I will give you ice cream." She sat down. The class went wild. "Yes! Yes! We want ice cream." She surely would say more. She did not have to. A discussion followed. How did she plan to pay for the ice cream? She wasn't sure. Would her parents buy it or would the class pay for it. She didn't know. The class really didn't care. All they were thinking about was ice cream.
Jamie was forgotten. Olivia won by a landslide.
Every time Barack Obama opened his mouth he offered ice cream and fifty-two percent of the people reacted like nine year olds. They want ice cream. The other forty-eight percent know they're going to have to feed the cow and clean up the crap.
From Bruce Kesler:
Now that the grand coronation, er inauguration, is old news, with our major media continuing in its electoral path of ignoring the troubling portents of the policies and appointments coming from now President Obama, can we look forward to the major media resurrecting its role as -- it likes to view itself, but polls showing majority distrust from its consumers -- speaking truth to power?
There are plenty of opportunities for the major media to do so, from a bloated economic recovery bill that explodes with political payoff boondoggles and catastrophically expands inflation-inducing inflation, to payoffs to unions that reduce independent worker protections and hobble efficient business management, to ignoring the desires of the 85% of Americans who don’t want their health care dictated by bureaucrats in Washington, to half-hearted defenses against worldwide terrorists.
As readership and viewership continue their sharp declines, and major newspapers shrink in content and TV networks increase their cheaper to produce unreality offerings, they might stop to reconsider the poor survival sense of being inane lackies of the reckless ideologies and pontifications that now hold power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, and its echoing commercial failures from Hollywood.
Not likely, but one can hope for change, can’t one?
Broadway, 1894. More here. h/t, Theo
Touching it makes you want it.
The myth of the business cycle, and why Greenspan is bewildered.
The Wilders prosecution persecution. Front Page
A trillion bucks but they cannot promise a single job.
Obama to press: Kiss my ass
Do you want these interrogation centers closed?
What the Left is saying these days. Thompson. Good grief.
Mr. Free Market remembers Rorke's Drift
Still perpetuating the lie of Leftist "compassion"
Declaration of Dependence:
"We hold this truth to be self-evident, that all men are endowed by their government with the unalienable right to be taxed, subsidized, regulated, lectured, scolded, herded, harassed, and otherwise ruled in whatever ways work."
Thursday, January 22. 2009
From guest poster Bruce Kesler:
Murtha's Latest Pork - Guantanamo
Never missing an opportunity to bring pork to his congressional district, the porkmeister Congressman Jack Murtha says he’ll be pleased to relocate the prisoners at Guantanamo to his district.
The news report notes: “Murtha only has a minimum security prison in his district. But he says he'd have no reservations about holding detainees there in a maximum security prison.”
The construction cost of a maximum security prison is upwards of $110 million, and operating costs in US prisons run an average of almost $100 per day per prisoner, and higher for maximum security. Plus there will be all the extra costs of housing and officing the government lawyers needed. Then, there’s the boon to the local hotels and restaurants from all the defense attorneys and reporters. Murtha’s constituents might disagree with Murtha’s comment that, "They're no more dangerous in my district than in Guantanamo." But, hey, there’s jobs and profits involved. I wonder which friend or contributor of Murtha owns the site that would be sold to the government. I wonder how close the site may be to Murtha’s house.
I don’t wonder anymore at Murtha’s gumption to bring home the pork, er or whatever it might be renamed in respect to Moslem food sensitivities.
Heads up, cousins. Jonah is coming! (The author of Liberal Fascism - if they still permit you to read such radical and subversive books.)
Of course, the Brits are already experts on liberal fascism. They live it.
Gummint rules keep WH in dark ages
Docs have to treat anybody? No, they do not. They can treat who they want, when they want, and how they want.
Tax cheat to head IRS. It's "change."
Prosecuted for criticizing Islam. Good grief. Seems like everybody criticizes some religion or other these days.
What we don't know about Obama. Politico
Insty:
STEVE CHAPMAN: “We all know how we got into this economic mess. We spent too much, borrowed with abandon, and acted like the bills would never come due. So what’s the prescription for getting out? Spending more, borrowing more, and acting like the bills will never come due.”
Yeah, that’ll work.
Tiger:
... if Republicans did nothing but expose pork and keep their own noses relentlessly clean for two years -- a tall order, I admit -- they would rehabilitate their reputation as the guardian of the hardworking, taxpaying non-complainer who puts his shoulder to the wheel every day whether he likes it or not, and vastly improve their chances in 2010 and beyond.
Sad to say, I'm not holding my breath.
"Great to have a black guy in the White House (whether or not I like his politics)."
I had the above thought about "a black guy in the WH," and then realized it was a racist thought. It's discriminating (1: making a distinction : distinguishing <a discriminating mark>2: marked by discrimination: a: discerning , judicious <discriminating buyers>) on race. It's just the flip side of the same coin of race-awareness with which loud voices in this country have hammered us with for years.
From a race-awareness (ie racist) viewpoint, what's the difference between "electing the black guy is great" vs. "electing the black guy is bad"? Or electing a white guy is better or worse? Neither do justice to the human inside.
Truth is, we white folks are generally pleased about electing an African-American fellow. However, I believe we are pleased for the wrong reason - our moral vanity. I hear people say "It means we are post-racial." Then they talk about their surprise that so many "other people" would vote for a black guy. It's always "other people," and that's the tell.
If we are post-racial, why is it such a big deal? How is being pleased about voting for a black guy "post-racial"?
I am ready to take on Obama and Congress on the issues, not on skin color. And I will, to the best of my limited ability.
Related: Jules vs. Limbaugh.
More good stuff later, busy today. No recession in my biz. Counter-cyclical is good.
Reality check: Your career in IT
Why major in Econ? Mankiw
Brave TV. Ex-Jihadists talk about why.
Did the dinosaurs die out quickly?
The Oprahfication of Obama. I never saw Oprah. What exactly does she do?
Remembering Fr. Neuhaus. Acton Inst.
Back to a spending orgy. Michelle
Good luck demonizing John Kasich. We love the guy. Demonization is the new political tool.
From Rick Moran:
On my radio show last night, Rich Baehr of the American Thinker pointed out that in the last decade we have freed Muslims from persecution and tyranny in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Praytell why is it the United States who should be coming hat in hand to the Muslim world? What more could we possibly do to prove our “respect?” Time for the moderate Muslims to stand up and start reciprocating. That is the true way forward with US-Muslim relations.
From Barone on Obama's speech:
...when Obama says, "We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth," he's not far away from plugging the multicultural idea, more prevalent in Western Europe than here in America, that every culture has the same moral worth—except maybe ours, which is worse. That's a very dangerous and wrongheaded way of thinking. And it's directly contrary to the way our first black president—and our first Catholic one—won their elections. Kennedy excelled and Obama excels at speaking the English language. The civic culture they mastered was our Anglo-Protestant culture, despite the fact that one went to a Catholic church and the other's father was a citizen of Kenya (and not, I think, as people tend to say, an immigrant: I presume he was in the United States on a student visa, and we know that he went home to Kenya and participated in politics there). Kennedy and Obama won because they did not fit the negative stereotypes of their ethnic groups, just as Margaret Thatcher won in Britain not because she was warm and cuddly but because she was the Iron Lady. Kennedy seemed more like an English lord than an Irish pol (one of his sisters was engaged to the marquis of Hartington), and Obama seemed more like a law professor than a ghetto protester.
Several months ago we posted a week-long tribute to Gordon Lightfoot. This week we present Dylan covering Lightfoot's "I'm Not Supposed To Care," from a May 1998 concert (Lightfoot's original is here):
Our reader advises "don't read this" unless you want to feel depressed all day - or longer. It's Dick Morris' Here Comes Socialism. He begins:
2009-2010 will rank with 1913-14, 1933-36, 1964-65 and 1981-82 as years that will permanently change our government, politics and lives. Just as the stars were aligned for Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson and Reagan, they are aligned for Obama. Simply put, we enter his administration as free-enterprise, market-dominated, laissez-faire America. We will shortly become like Germany, France, the United Kingdom, or Sweden — a socialist democracy in which the government dominates the economy, determines private-sector priorities and offers a vastly expanded range of services to many more people at much higher taxes.
Obama will accomplish his agenda of “reform” under the rubric of “recovery.” Using the electoral mandate bestowed on a Democratic Congress by restless voters and the economic power given his administration by terrified Americans, he will change our country fundamentally in the name of lifting the depression. His stimulus packages won’t do much to shorten the downturn — although they will make it less painful — but they will do a great deal to change our nation.
Do not read the whole thing at the link above.
Nope, none of the above. Sippican built this for me, and the good guy delivered it in person with his heir as porter. I insisted that they stay for dinner, and put the heir to work keeping the fireplaces stoked.
This big box has a name: The Seven Stogey Mountain. Surely one-of-a-kind. Those "pages" of the "book" aren't painted on: they are grooves in the wood.
I think it will hold around 6 boxes of cigars, maybe more. If they come in tubes, I take them out of the tubes before putting them in.
It is not every day that you find a humidor made of 3/4 inch solid Spanish Cedar and solid Maple. The weight and thickness of this wood will hold humidity better than the ordinary, non-electric humidor. This should become an heirloom, if I can only talk my kids into the fine, peaceful, satisfying and serene habit of tobacco enjoyment. They worry about tobacco when driving cars and sky-diving and working on Wall Street are things that are truly dangerous. Hey, Obama has made smoking cool again.
After I took the photos, I began a rapid humidification of the Spanish Cedar with distilled water. I use a sponge for that, repeating daily for several days before putting any ceegars in it. Otherwise, the dry, thirsty wood will suck the moisture out of the smokes.
Wednesday, January 21. 2009
 My favorite photo of George Bush, carrying pesky cedar logs on his shoulder instead of the Free World.
Leonhardt, in The NYT. Makes sense to me. I was there. In my view, some folks hype the badness simply to rationalize government power and money grabs.
The Big Three car-assemblers are dead men walking, and have been for years. I do have a concern about the banks, however, because when governments end up owning them, politics ends up running them. That is even worse than having politics run medical treatment.
Maybe it's a query: Which is worse: Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Nancy Pelosi controlling your doctor - or controlling your bank?
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