Saturday, April 11. 2009
VDH, via NRO. It's called "politics."
What I fail to understand about it all is that our hispanic illegals do not seem to me to be dependency-driven, but more opportunity-driven, traditionalist, family-oriented, and religious.
 From the Dylan interview last week re life in general, and his new record:
BF: Are you a mystical person?
BD: Absolutely.
BF: Any thoughts about why?
BD: I think it’s the land. The streams, the forests, the vast emptiness. The land created me. I’m wild and lonesome. Even as I travel the cities, I‘m more at home in the vacant lots. But I have a love for humankind, a love of truth, and a love of justice. I think I have a dualistic nature. I’m more of an adventurous type than a relationship type.
BF: But the album is all about love – love found, love lost, love remembered, love denied.
BD: Inspiration is hard to come by. You have to take it where you find it.
A repost from a couple of years ago -
 This is a real American story about a true American idol. It's also a story about home-town America, which is, sadly, a disappearing way of true community life.
I met with an 83 year-old fellow the other day for a consultation. He was recovering from a heart attack from which he almost died ("I thought it was just a bad stomach ache but my wife didn't like the way I was sweating.") and a stent.
His cardiologist felt he was depressed, as often happens after serious cardiac events, especially with men.
He told me a little story, but first, a bit about him: Irish, retired policeman, living with his frail wife (a retired book-keeper) in the Boston suburb where he was born - same neighborhood and across the street from the house he grew up in (remembers horse-drawn fire engines down the block); daily Mass; in the church choir ("We sang at the Vatican in 1972 and we are proud of that."); plays trombone ("poorly") in his firehouse marching band; five attentive, devoted kids and 14 grandkids within twenty miles; does every charity thing he can find including Meals on Wheels (even though "I think I am older than most of the people I deliver to"); belongs to his local  Vets organization; a WW2 Vet - a gunner in a B-26 Martin Marauder with the 320th Bomber Group of the 12th (Army) Air Force, in Italy: "When flak hit the airplane, it sounded like somebody shaking a bucket of gravel."
Says "We weren't scared. We already knew we would die in this war to save Europe, and we were sort of OK with that, but we were damn well gonna get all of the bad guys we could, first. Heck, we were just kids, looking back now, and full of beans and bacon."
His story: "I was at a wake of a friend a few weeks, ago, drinking and partying of course, and up comes somebody I knew from second grade at St. Anthony's. He says "You need to join our lunch group. We meet once a month at .... restaurant in the back room." I felt flattered to be invited, so I went. My God, I met folks I hadn't seen in years, all from the same home neighborhood - the --th Ward. About 25 guys, retired doctors, teachers, lawyers, mailmen, firemen, mostly moved out of my home parish but all still in town. Somehow lost track of them. A great joy, since so many friends still in my neighborhood have died. We took about 15 minutes to eat, and talked for two hours and had a few beers. I almost said we should meet once a week, but it wasn't my place as a newcomer. I need to stay active, Doctor, because my wife needs me. Doc, life is good, and I'd like to make a few more of these lunches before the good Lord takes me."
God Bless America. And God bless him. No, he did not need me as a shrink: I need some more of what he's got: the true American spirit. One secret: we psychiatrists are more blessed by what we get from our patients than by what we have to give.
Details altered just barely enough for confidentiality (not that he would mind, but he would be embarassed by admiration and attention) - but not the 320th BG - that is accurate.
 It's Holy Saturday - another day to mourn and to reflect on the cross - and to anticipate Easter. We all encounter our personal Good Fridays - the seeming death of God to us in our own foolish lives, and the feeling of abandonment by God. Through prayer, constant prayer, we can humble and diminish our precious selves and reestablish the link by making space for Him to return to us and to talk to us. Think I am crazy? Try it. Our self-love and self-pity leave little room for Him in our hearts.
But here are some unholy links:
Who are the Socialists in America? Whatever happened to love of freedom? When did a decadent yearning for dependency take over?
Health care reform and free markets. Q&O
Piracy. Why there are no armed men on freighters in that area is a mystery to me.
Western Civilization inconsistent with Brown's values. Which are what????
Global sea ice far above normal now. Explain that. Related: NASA now says it's not CO2 - it's aerosols. So much for "settled science."
The elephant in the room: Obama vs. USA. A quote from Phila Enquirer:
What is indisputable is that Koh calls himself a "transnationalist." He believes U.S. courts "must look beyond national interest to the mutual interests of all nations in a smoothly functioning international legal regime. ..." He thinks the courts have "a central role to play in domesticating international law into U.S. law" and should "use their interpretive powers to promote the development of a global legal system."
Koh's "transnationalism" stands in contrast to good, old-fashioned notions of national sovereignty, in which our Constitution is the highest law of the land. In the traditional view, controversial matters, whatever they may be, are subject to democratic debate here. They should be resolved by the American people and their representatives, not "internationalized." What Holland or Belgium or Kenya or any other nation or coalition of nations thinks has no bearing on our exercise of executive, legislative, or judicial power.
Koh disagrees. He would decide such matters based on the views of other countries or transnational organizations - or, rather, those entities' elites.
Shades of Oceania.
Obama's arrogance: neoneo. I think he thinks he's smarter than he is.
What is the carbon footprint of green pizza? It reminds me of how Elvis used to send his plane from Memphis to LA to pick up his favorite PB&J sandwiches.
The Left is "monitoring" the Tea Parties
Obama is reaching out to the moderate pirate community
Hey Dems - keep your hands off Teddy Roosevelt
I wondered this too: if universities receive federal funds, why doesn't the gov try to run them too?
O makes a case for unilateral disarmament. Bret Stephens:
It's also worth considering just what a new round of arms control is meant to accomplish. In his speech, Mr. Obama painted it as a matter of setting an example to the wider world.
But as the journalist Walter Lippmann observed in 1943, the disarmament movement of the interwar years only proved "tragically successful in disarming the nations that believed in disarmament." Mr. Obama himself noted that "some countries will break the rules" of nuclear nonproliferation, adding that "That's why we need a structure in place that ensures when any nation does, they will face consequences."
Sure. Like the UN? Related: The Department of No Defence
 Poor Joe Biden. He really seems to be a compulsive liar and self-aggrandizer. Maybe it's a good match. Related: Rush Limbaugh's meeting with Obama!
Different visions. David Limbaugh via Intell Cons:
The liberals see they now have a chance to actualize their vision for an America remade in their image and radically at odds with the vision of this nation's Founders. It doesn't matter that there couldn't be a worse time in our history for implementing their reckless policies. They know they may not get another chance in their lifetimes to work such mischief. Even though it will break the federal bank, us, our children and our grandchildren, it's all going to be OK because they will finally have achieved their statist vision for America.
Yep, they think they are smarter and wiser than the average rubes like us.
From Vanderleun's Deer in the headlights:
Of course, much of the current government's institutionalized death wish, and the culture of cowardice that both precedes and envelops it, is carefully camouflaged, hidden from the sight of the less-than-persuaded centrists, independents, and other Americans who might not be ready to follow the Democrats across the Styx and down into the hell of collectivism "done right, this time, trust us." The love of death-in-life in political philosophies must always be hidden. If it were not the American collectivist party would wither to its small and wizened core. After all one must, even while taking the country down the path to defeat and ruin, pretend that one has only the very best core American values at heart. It keeps the marks and the rubes from wising up, waking up, or blinking in the glare of the headlights.
Thursday, April 9. 2009
 Let's tax 'em at 80%. Just for the heck of it. They'll keep on working hard...won't they?
Is amnesty designed to be a distraction from the Big One - the budget?
One of the scariest things in America is prosecutorial power. Am Thinker discusses.
17 Socialists in the House? At the very least, it seems to me. Plus one in the White House.
From David Warren on Thomas Sowell (and MLK):
I love Sowell, because he can "do" desolation without wandering into despair. Reciprocally, he can do hope -- the real thing, not the rhetorical posture. A black man, from a fatherless home, raised by an aunt whom he thought was his mother, in rural then urban conditions that would excuse any man for failure, he saw through his circumstances. He dragged himself up, through a machine shop, through the Marines, eventually to great eminence in the academic world, at a time before he could trade on his race. And he continued rising, with the help of honest friends, and by ignoring vilifications.
 Today is Holy Thursday. Our church holds a silent Seder each Holy Thursday, in remembrance of Christ's last supper.
No wine, unfortunately, but all of the traditional Seder foods.
We do not post things on this site on Good Friday because it is a day of prayer and reflection on the cross and its meaning to us.
 Yesterday morning's NJ post on "Quality Care" from the WSJ was enlightening, and just gives me one more reason to stay away from Medicare (besides the fact that they pay me peanuts, and that their paperwork requirements are over my head and take more time than my patients take).
I see how government "Quality Care" works: the academic medical experts take a vote, and that becomes "Quality Care." That's not medical care: that's government policy. Forget the individual patient and his or her unique situation, forget the Doc's experience and skills and insight, forget the Doc's judgement, forget the fact that academic Docs aren't always practical, forget that next week's new data will completely alter the information at hand. Just Follow The Rules and stay out of trouble.
I have seen plenty of cases go bad in the hands of young Docs who strictly follow the rules. It's not a good example of that, but when I was a resident one of "the rules" of the time included strict limits on the use of pain-killers, even for terminal cancer patients. Didn't want them to become addicts, you know. They forgot that pain relief remains one of a handful of the greatest blessings medicine has bestowed on humanity (along with anesthesia, antibiotics - and Lexapro).
One of the best things about seasoned physicians is that they are a cranky bunch who do not take orders, who think for themselves, who feel that rules are made to be broken, and who do not like to take crap from anybody - especially anybody in "authority". Your patient comes first, or you are nothing. There is a "House" inside every Doc. In most lines of work, you can't get away with that sort of attitude.
When government gets involved in things, they tend to screw them up. The article's example of high blood sugars in the ICU was a perfect example. Even I, who have not cared for ICU patients for more than a decade, know that tight sugar control for critical patients is insane and dangerous. Not only that, but it doesn't matter: if the patient survives and gets healthy, a few days of higher sugars with a good margin of error will not have hurt them one darn bit. But I am a Doc with a practical mind.
Expertise always has to be taken with a grain of salt, and government-emitted expertise with a tablespoon-full. I am not disparaging expertise, which I respect enormously. I just distrust the combination of expertise with power over others: anointed experts who want power instead of simply to educate give me the willies.
Non-"experts" often have loads of common sense. We take an ancient oath, too.
Ed. note: Somewhat related: Socialized medicine: A warning from across the pond
"Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from life what conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government agencies to do good."
Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan (h/t, Vanderleun). Moynihan was the kind of wise Dem for whom I could have considered voting.
 Medved on Obama the Leveler. It's either a different view of the world, or it's simply a political strategy.
Obama's immigration agenda on the way. Once again, it's either a different view of the world, or it's simply a political strategy. I suspect the latter.
AVI takes on the movie "Doubt" from the DVD cover, without knowing anything about it. A quote:
Doubt is the proper stance to take about anything religious. That way you can be conflicted and can’t ever judge anyone else’s actions, but you can still be a sensitive thoughtful good person and not have to commit to anything as solid as unbelief.
They are transparent to us. We are opaque to them.
More on how the Left is bewildered and upset by the Tea Parties. Remind me - how much money did ACORN get from the "stimulus"? Was it $5 billion? ACORN is a government-supported radical political organization. We hope the Tea Party movement has legs.
Lefty crybaby bloggers want to get paid by political orgs. Lefties always want other peoples' money. (In the interest of fair disclosure, we must admit that MF, like most of us centrist sites, does receive $10,000/month from a low-profile RNC-related media org in return for mindlessly echoing the Repub talking points which are emailed to us daily from deep within a hidden bunker somewhere in the Real America. A pittance, but every little bit helps to keep us in beans and rice.)
Money image on loan from Wall Street Fighter
Wednesday, April 8. 2009
 Getting dates: What's your FICO score?
College admissions officers emote. What a horrible job they have: all those snot-nosed kids putting their egos on the line.
Powerline gets rough on Harold Koh: Curtailing our representative democracy. Yes, this is a serious issue.
Related, from Dick Morris: The repeal of the Declaration of Independence. Not funny.
Utter economic ignorance in the NYT. Does the Left think money is manna from heaven? Somebody has to make it, you know.
A good reason for the gummint to encourage smoking. Plus, they get the tobacco taxes. Smoking is patriotic.
A good story about charter schools: We don't want your money
Taxes heading up for the middle class. Duh. No free lunch.
Guess what? If you spend $50 billion on construction, you do get a little bit of construction. Not a lot, but some.
We are now bailing out life insurance companies. Did you know that?
Paglia on Obama's painful missteps. I would not have made all of those gaffes, nor would have Paglia.
For the ignorant press, this counts as "evidence" nowadays. Unbelievably stupid.
Transgender laws headed for New England. Whoopee! We're almost all transgenders up here, ya know. We like those of the opposite sex, if that is what it means.
76% vote to live off the other 24%. Hey, who wouldn't? Unless you happen to have some dignity and pride...
Let's not offend...Britain? WHT? Do these people know anything?
"It's like Miley Cyrus Does Europe." I don't know who Miley Cyrus is, but Jules does.
The 2010 Census as a welfare project
Tony Blankley begins:
Of all President Barack Obama's transformative domestic policy proposals, none is more far-reaching and less transparent than health care.
President's science advisor: Let's cool the earth. Not up here, please. We had snow today, and we are burning oil like crazy in NYC to keep the furnaces blasting.
Impossible to solve. Just do your best...
1 Corinthians 11:23-25 23For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." 25In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me."
The Last Supper is thought to have been a Passover seder.
Da Vinci's Last Supper in Milan (c. 1498). Unfortunately, the dramatic picture began deteriorating and flaking within years of its completion. It's not a fresco.
"You're blessed when you are at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and His rule."
Matthew 5, The Message Bible
Mrs. BD had increasing pain in her right shoulder, then running down her biceps, for two weeks, finally keeping her awake at night. Gets an appointment with the #1 shoulder guy in the world at the Hospital for Special Surgery in three days (last Monday). He is a kind, caring fellow who takes time with her. She gets a shoulder MRI two days later. Gets the diagnosis of early frozen shoulder one day later. Begins physical therapy and anti-inflammatory meds one day later.
Feeling better already. Even Fidel Castro couldn't get that kind of care and help, nor could Obama get better. Do I want my neighbor to pay for this for me? No - but thanks so much for offering to pay her bill. I believe in taking care of my own.
The bad news for her: no tennis for at least 2 months. The bad news for me: I gotta do all the cleaning and scrubbing, right when it's time to begin enjoying yard and garden work.
Well, we have snow flurries today, thanks to global warming climate change, so I guess the gardens can wait a while.
 Myron Magnet terms Alexander Hamilton Modern America's Founding Father. One quote from the essay in City Journal:
The New York that welcomed Alexander Hamilton had its own distinctive culture, too, whose uniqueness went far deeper than John Adams’s description of a town where “they talk very fast, very loud, and all together.” Its Dutch past, from Peter Minuit’s 1626 purchase of Manhattan to Peter Stuyvesant’s handover of the flourishing New Netherland colony to the British in 1664, left an indelible legacy. After decades of brutish religious war, the Dutch Republic had embraced tolerance with fervor and transplanted to its trading post on the Hudson its constitutional promise that “each person shall remain free, especially in his religion, and no one shall be persecuted or investigated because of his religion.” So, for example, when Governor General Stuyvesant wanted to limit the rights of 23 Jews who sought asylum in New Amsterdam in 1654, they petitioned the Dutch authorities, who commanded Stuyvesant to treat them with Dutch tolerance, reminding him also that Jews were big investors in the West India Company. And then—as if Jews weren’t bad enough—Quakers appeared in the Long Island village of Vlissingen. When Stuyvesant forbade the villagers, mostly English, from taking them in, they disobeyed, citing in their 1657 “Flushing Remonstrance,” one of the foundation documents of American religious liberty, the Dutch principle that “love peace and libertie” must extend even to “Jewes Turkes and Egiptians” and reminding him of their charter, which granted the right “to have and Enjoy the Liberty of Conscience, according to the Custome and manner of Holland.”
And so New Amsterdam became a melting pot like no other place in North America, with settlers arriving from all over the globe and not only living side by side but also marrying each other.
They think they own protests. They do not. They have the power now, and I do not like what they do to my country.
Funny how fast compromise and consensus flew out the window.
1. Chicago Cubs outfielder Andre Dawson on being a role model: "I wan' all dem kids to do what I do, to look up to me. I wan' all the kids to copulate me."
2. New Orleans Saint RB George Rogers when asked about the upcoming season: "I want to rush for 1,000 or 1,500 yards, whichever comes first."
3. And, upon hearing Joe Jacobi of the 'Skins say: "I'd run over my own mother to win the Super Bowl," Matt Millen of the Raiders said: "To win, I'd run over Joe's Mom, too."
4. Torrin Polk, University of Houston receiver, on his coach, John Jenkins: "He treats us like men. He lets us wear earrings."
5. Football commentator and former player Joe Theismann, 1996: "Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein."
6. Senior basketball player at the University of Pittsburgh : "I'm going to graduate on time, no matter how long it takes."
7. Bill Peterson, a Florida State football coach: "You guys line up alphabetically by height." And, "You guys pair up in groups of three, and then line up in a circle."
8. Boxing promoter Dan Duva on Mike Tyson going to prison: "Why would anyone expect him to come out smarter? He went to prison for three years, not Princeton."
9. Stu Grimson, Chicago Blackhawks left wing, explaining why he keeps a color photo of himself above his locker: "That's so when I forget how to spell my name, I can still find my clothes."
10. Lou Duva, veteran boxing trainer, on the Spartan training regime of heavyweight Andrew Golota: "He's a guy who gets up at six o'clock in the morning, regardless of what time it is."
11. Chuck Nevitt, North Carolina State basketball player, explaining to Coach Jim Valvano why he appeared nervous at practice: "My sister's expecting a baby, and I don't know if I'm going to be an uncle or an aunt."
12. Frank Layden, Utah Jazz president, on a former player: "I told him, 'Son, what is it with you? Is it ignorance or apathy?' He said, 'Coach, I don't know and I don't care.'"
13. Shelby Metcalf, basketball coach at Texas A&M, recounting what he told a player who received four F's and one D: "Son, looks to me like you're spending too much time on one subject."
14. Amarillo High School and Oiler coach Bum Phillips when asked by Bob Costas why he takes his wife on all the road trips, Phillips responded: "Because she is too damn ugly to kiss good-bye."
15. Bobby Bowden, Florida States football coach, when ask why he didn't invest in condos, Bobby said, I am too old to use them now.
This link can save everybody a lot of trouble in life. It's actually titled Fifty Things every 18 year-old Should Know. (h/t, SDA)
I sent it to everybody in my family.
 Image on right via Surber. Related, at Volokh:
Good to hear that American free speech tradition isn't "too deeply unsettling to world order." But wait -- check out the footnote following this paragraph:
See generally Louis Henkin, Gerald L. Neuman, Diane F. Orentlicher & David W. Leebron, Human Rights 564 (1999). Admittedly, in a globalizing world, our exceptional free speech tradition can cause problems abroad, as, for example, may occur when hate speech is disseminated over the Internet. In my view, however, our Supreme Court can moderate these conflicts by applying more consistently the transnationalist approach to judicial interpretation discussed infra Part III.C.
And what is this "transnationalist approach" that can help "moderate these conflicts" caused by American constitutional protection for "hate speech ... disseminated over the Internet"?
Read it. I say "Good grief."
A vote for sanity: Climate change bill sidetracked
Harvard student takes on Barney Frank
Black Caucus praises Castro. Nice role model. Everybody wants to emigrate to Cuba, don't they? The Gulf of Mexico is packed with Mexicans and Liberals trying to get to the peoples' paradise.
Obama's anti-nuke speech. Dino
Why "quality" medical care is dangerous
Are American housing policies rational? Prof B says no, and I agree. The American Dream isn't home ownership - it's freedom. I am a flat-taxer and opposed on principle to the mortgage interest deduction.
O's foreign apologies: What did you expect? Still, Rick says:
Yes, it discomfits me that Obama seemed eager to disrespect his own country in front of those who, at times, have been equally arrogant, equally dismissive, and certainly more derisive when George Bush was president. But in perilous times, it is best to keep your friends close. And despite a few gaffes (”Austrian” language? Are you fricking kidding me?), Obama’s trip was helpful to our interests and will hopefully pay big dividends in the future.
This is entertaining:
Tuesday, April 7. 2009
This is a 4x10 "Cloudband" Kazak, 70-100 years old. I think it's a knockout. Asking $6000:
Our friend Nathan thought some of our readers might be interested in "Unspoken (Or What is Said After Death)" by Naftali Moshe.
Nathan says "The basic idea is what do you wish you could have said to someone after you have left; some unspoken words that resonate in your head and it is too late to speak them. Then, imagine the ultimate leaving - death; what if you could speak those words after death. What if you could tell someone whom you loved dearly what you had not been able to say before."
It's the reverse of what people usually talk about - what they wished they had told someone who died. The story is written in the voice of a Kosher butcher who has commited suicide. A quote from Chapter 1:
My last breath, my last precious breath, was the freest breath since I was twelve. I stood in Ulysses' and Aeneas' waters. Like the Baal Shem Tov, I test the Wusthoff's edge with a finger; drew a drop of blood; shed a tear of joy and sadness.
Brief pain as the knife drew across the skin, my throat slipping slightly beneath its edge until the knife could catch, bite. Then through the trachea for that final, but decades delayed fresh breath. The carotids bathe the knife, then my hands in last warmth. The Mediterranean took me.
My son, unlike Abraham over Isaac, unlike God over Jesus, I will not sacrifice you. But through you I, I could breath again.
And now I can speak to you from this dream-ether.
The story is serialized in The International Journal of Psychoanalysis. Here's Chapter 1.
Here's Chapter 2.
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