We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
From an interview with an attendee at the Sanity Rally in DC yesterday:
"Socialism is cool, dude. Look at France, everything is free. Free doctors, great unemployment benefits, free housing, great food. You can retire early. It works, man. The government pays, and the people have the good life."
There are people in this world with no moxie, no grit. Very sad, for them. They want me to be their "brother's keeper," but I am not this guy's brother. I have my own brothers.
Furthermore, the fratricidal Cain's "brother's keeper" rebuke to God was a complex and subtle statement.
Diogenes would find an honest man in Mark Tapscott, editorial page editor for The Examiner.Rare in Washington, D.C., Tapscott has not been compromised by decades there, retaining clear conservative vision and fortitude, always reaching out to promote others rather than himself.
In his editorial, Tapscott writes of the coming major Republican gains and the widespread disillusionment with Democrats� statism, �the message for the GOP: Voters seem willing to give you one more chance to do what you've promised for decades -- cut federal spending, reform entitlements, and restore limited government. Don't blow it.�
As always, Tapscott demands much of our politicians, and of us.He and we will likely have many disappointments.
President Obama will still have the veto, and shows little proclivity to be any less ideologic or self-centered. Even at the most optimistic gains next Tuesday, the Republicans � even if all stick together in legislative battles � will not have a veto-proof weight in Congress. Plus, the regulatory bodies, stocked with Obama allies, will continue to push the left�s agenda.
If the Republicans are wise, there will be many, many opportunities, however, to stall the Obama administration�s leftward march and to expose its waywardness. That will well-serve Republicans and Americans as we consider the 2012 choices.
But, rollbacks, especially major ones, are unlikely, for now.
Just consider, post-1994, how the liberal Congressional minority and its allies in the media even successfully resisted cuts in the federal funding for PBS. And, consider how President Clinton cooperated with Republicans for major welfare reform, compared to the partisan rigidity in all things exhibited by President Obama.
Many will, thus, feel the wind slackening from our sails during the next two years, unless we keep to our oars toward the shore of 2012, to replace President Obama and to send even more courageous Republican conservatives to Congress.
Mark Tapscott and I once reminisced together about how we both started out, lonely in overwhelming Democrat locales in 1964, to see through perseverance following that the growth of a new, vibrant conservatism onto the national stage and mind.I am as optimistic as ever, and so should you be, if we persevere.
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Mark Tapscott, also, points us to this Halloween video:
Sinecures with no competition is the goal. No knowledge or skills required, great benefits, a sense of importance, and no heavy lifting or real world responsbility.
Katherine Lopez interviews Stanley Kurtz on his new book, Radical-in-Chief; as does Hugh Hewitt — who not too long ago would hang up on all the unserious rightwing “nutters” who intimated that Obama was a Marxist or socialist, in between shilling for whatever candidate the GOP establishment put forward.
Turns out that the evidence, largely circumstantial, but compelling nonetheless, suggests that Obama is a candidate trained in stealth socialism, both a product of — and culmination to — the New Left’s long march through the institutions. Of course, today the “New Left” self-identifies as “liberal” or “progressive,” to hide their socialist/Marxist roots. Their governing style is “pragmatic,” “forward thinking,” and “transformative”; and their message is one of economic populism, class warfare, and identity politics — all couched in the Orwellian inversions of protected groups, set-asides, government-approved speech, and the nannystate tentacles of a growing liberal fascism, into the (ironic) buzzwords “fairness” and “tolerance” and “security.”
19:1 He entered Jericho and was passing through it.
19:2 A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich.
19:3 He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature.
19:4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way.
19:5 When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today."
19:6 So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him.
19:7 All who saw it began to grumble and said, "He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner."
19:8 Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, "Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much."
19:9 Then Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham.
19:10 For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost."
The man is not behaving well, and his behavior does not reflect well on the office he holds. He should know, at least, that if there needs to be any nasty and dirty lashing out, it ought to be done by somebody other than the president.
Americans do not want to make an idol of a president, or of the office, but I think they like to feel that the prez aspires to be the president of all the people, even those who hold policy differences.
Is the mask slipping, revealing an inner anger, a coldness, a disrespect for the American people, and an indifference to truth?
Or is it just Chicago gutter politics, brought to a national stage?
Whatever it is, it is not seemly - and I think it is disturbing to the country. It certainly is disturbing to me to learn that "our" Prez regards me as more of an enemy than he does Ahmadinejad.
And, if he views me that way, how can I be expected to view him as my President?
I had just finished watching this trailer for the film "Alice Dancing Under The Gallows" when my phone rang. My cousin told me that my Aunt Reva passed away this afternoon from a sudden heart attack at 92. Reva, like my Aunt Muriel, who passed last year at 92, both came up through the hard times of the Depression, were always optimistic, cheerful, helpful, looking for and finding opportunities, silver linings and the good in others, indeed bringing out others' best. Both lived independently and active till their last.
The rest of us are too often lacking by comparison, and lacking by their passing.
I am reposting this because I had a chimney fire yesterday morning, shortly after our men's Bible study group left my study. This has been my second chimney fire here. Fortunately, I am not too far from the firehouse. I had this flue cleaned last winter, and my sweep was scheduled to come again next week. (I use my fireplace daily.) I climbed a ladder and sprayed the top of the chimney with a lawn hose. Seemed to work.
If you ever use a fireplace, you need a chimney sweep. In the past ten years, we have had one chimney fire here and one at the Farm. It's not a joke.
Spring and summer are the cheapest times to get it done.
Not only is Krugman’s article one of the most ridiculous pieces of scare-mongering in the history of modern American journalism, but it is the pathetic whimper of a decaying liberal Ancien Regime that is spectacularly crumbling.
Rather than paring down what they owe, millions of consumers have simply stopped paying the bills, forcing banks to write off hundreds of billions of dollars in mortgages and credit card debts as uncollectible.
People aren't paying down their debt: they are running way from it. A bad idea, if yu care about your credit rating.
Democrats hate Democrats most of all. Witness the policies that Democrats have inflicted on their core constituencies, resulting in vile schools, lawless slums, economic stagnation, and social immobility. Democrats will do anything to make sure that Democratic voters stay helpless and hopeless enough to vote for Democrats.
...the Democrats have the support of more, and more active, billionaires. Of the 20 richest ZIP codes in America, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, 19 gave the bulk of their money to Democrats in the last election, in most cases the vast bulk - 86 percent in 10024 on the Upper West Side. Meanwhile, only 22 percent of non-high-school educated white males are happy with the direction the country is going in. The Democrats' overlap with elites leaves each party with a distinctive liability. The Democrats appear sincerely deluded about whom they actually represent. Democrats - who would have no trouble discerning elite solidarity in the datum that, say, in the 1930s the upper ranks of Britain's media, church, business and political institutions were dominated by Tories - somehow think their own predominance in similar precincts is ... what? Coincidence? Irony?
Nancy Pelosi may lose her gavel, and Harry Reid might well lose his Senate seat, but the damage is done: The entitlement state progresses sometimes by fits, and other times by bounds. But the appetite to spend other peoples’ money on well-intentioned schemes is never sated, and the “progress” thus engendered never seems to unwind.
1 I SING the Body electric; The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them; They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them, And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the Soul.
Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves; And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead? And if the body does not do as much as the Soul? And if the body were not the Soul, what is the Soul?
2 The love of the Body of man or woman balks account—the body itself balks account; That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.
The expression of the face balks account; But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face; It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists;
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees—dress does not hide him; The strong, sweet, supple quality he has, strikes through the cotton and flannel; To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more; You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.
The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the contour of their shape downwards, The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up, and rolls silently to and fro in the heave of the water, The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats—the horseman in his saddle, Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances, The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting, The female soothing a child—the farmer’s daughter in the garden or cow-yard, The young fellow hoeing corn—the sleigh-driver guiding his six horses through the crowd,
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty, good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown, after work, The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance, The upper-hold and the under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes; The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps, The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes suddenly again, and the listening on the alert, The natural, perfect, varied attitudes—the bent head, the curv’d neck, and the counting; Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother’s breast with the little child, Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with the firemen, and pause, listen, and count.
3 I know a man, a common farmer—the father of five sons; And in them were the fathers of sons—and in them were the fathers of sons.
Readers might doubt me, but last Saturday was my first visit to a WalMart. It was the "Supercenter" in Mt. Vernon, Ohio.
What a place! Open 24 hrs/day. Humongous.
I realized one thing about this place: Sam Walton did not really have a new idea. He just took the old country General Store, expanded the hell out of it, and got big enough to control the prices of his suppliers.
I may be the last person on earth to learn these things. Why didn't Woolworth's do what Sam did?
With gerrymandering - especially racial gerrymandering to insure black congressional districts - the Dems become increasing reliant on their safe seats in uban areas, the coasts, and small, isolated Dem islands in the rest of the country.
Thus, except for unusual election years (like this one seems to be), few seats are ever really contested. Congressional seats, like state legislative seats, tend to be sinecures.
The irony is that those "safe seats" and guaranteed black seats that the Dems wanted ended up creating Conservative seats also, by concentrating their voters in specific areas. Dem plantations, as it were - regardless of skin color.
Only in major "wave" elections are very many national seats contested. It's too rare. Every election should be contested or contestable. Safe seats cause us to end up with elderly lunatics like Barney Frank and John Conyers in charge of things - people who wouldn't be voted out even if caught running gay prostitution rings out of their houses.
This is one reason the national Dems become an increasingly Lefty party. It's a shame, because it would be the best for the country for no congressional seat to be taken for granted. I am a believer in the big tent approach for both parties. Debate and disagreement is good for all.
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. – Common Sense, Thomas Paine 1776
True � The statement is accurate and there�s nothing significant missing. Mostly True � The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Half True � The statement is accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. Barely True � The statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. False � The statement is not accurate. Pants on Fire � The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim.
In the political world, there are all sorts of truth. In the real world, only one sort. In the real world, a half-truth is a lie.
I think everybody knew that, but the Dems refused to admit it until now. I think Obamacare needs to be destroyed, and re-thought. Reforms are needed:
1. tort reform (half of what docs and hospitals do these days is to avoid lawsuits) 2. some sort of coverage reforms for the uninsurable 3. legalizing interstate sales of medical insurance: free markets and free choice of plans and options 4. expansion of medical savings plans 5. some sort of support for the return of Major Medical insurance instead of insurances that cover every flu and bug bite 6. portability of insurance plans 7. adjust Medicare reimbursement by income and assets
Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury comic strips have been featured on newspapers� funnies pages for four-decades. Some newspapers have moved the strip to their editorial pages, since their theme is often � aside from unfunny � starkly and one-sidedly political.
In a Slateinterview, Garry Trudeau unknowingly satirizes himself.
Slate: How does the current political era stack up against eras past? Is it more or less funny? Is there more or less material?
Trudeau: I no longer compare them. Each era is the best of times, worst of times. Besides, I'm a pointillist, just working my tiny little piece of the canvas. I'm not so good at perspective.
Having said that, I can tell you that there have been some periods when cartoonists were definitely in clover. Watergate was the perfect subject, because every day brought fresh outrages. Everyone was on his game, and we felt unconstrained, because Nixon's wounds were self-inflicted. Monica was good for cartooning, but it was only one running joke. Bush's misrule�accidental war, torture, Katrina, etc.�provoked great cartoons, but there was so much associated tragedy, there wasn't much fun in it.
Then,
Slate: Who's the hardest politician to satirize, and why?
Trudeau: Believe it or not, Obama's very tough for business. The contradictory characterizations of him as fascist or socialist only serve to confirm the truth�he's a raging moderate. And satirists don't do well with moderates, especially thoughtful ones. In addition, Obama rarely makes gaffes and has no salient physical or temperamental features. And sinking popularity isn't a critique. Even SNL's main rap on him is his unflappability, hardly a vice in a world leader.
Trudeau says in the interview that �Any obvious satirical target I pass up is usually spared because of a failure of imagination.�
The interview would make a good comic strip, wouldn�t it?
From a distance, I figured this was a flock of turkeys in an Ohio hayfield outside Mount Vernon last Saturday.
Nope. Vultures. Since I could not see any red on their heads, and because of their apparent sociable habit, they might have been Black Vultures. Or Maybe Turkey Vultures assembling around a corpse. Did not have my binoculars.
Not sure whether Black Vultures are regular in central Ohio.
What sorts of petty vandalism did you engage in on Halloween?
I got in trouble for chalking somebody's driveway with vulgar words one time.
As an adult, I also got in trouble with my wife one year when a neighbor and I escorted our young kids, and we ourselves trick-or-treated our friends and neighbors for cocktails and beers. We got too many. Not our fault for being overserved.
...isn't the tea party, on some level, a reaction to a president who seems not to fully trust the fundamental decency of the American people? Doesn't the tea party fill a void left open by Mr. Obama's ethos of bad faith? Aren't tea partiers, and their many fellow travelers, simply saying that American exceptionalism isn't racism? And if the mainstream media see tea partiers as bumpkins and racists, isn't this just more bad faith�characterizing people as ignorant or evil so as to dismiss them?
Our great presidents have been stewards, men who broadly identified with the whole of America. Stewardship meant responsibility even for those segments of America where one might be reviled. Surely Mr. Obama would claim such stewardship. But he has functioned more as a redeemer than a steward, a leader who sees a badness in us from which we must be redeemed. Many Americans are afraid of this because a mandate as grandiose as redemption justifies a vast expansion of government.
The persecution of Egypt's Coptic minority is taking an ironic, and dangerous, turn: Islamist leaders are now projecting the worst traits of radical Islam onto Egypt's Christians. A psychological phenomenon first described by Sigmund Freud, "projection," is defined as "the attribution of one's own ideas, feelings, or attitudes to other people." As such, consider the following excerpt from this recent report:
In the last month various fundamentalist groups held ten demonstrations [in Egypt], each after coming out of mosques following Friday prayers, against the 86-year-old ailing Coptic Pontiff, in which he was accused of being a US agent, an abductor and torturer of female Muslim converts from Christianity, of stockpiling weapons in monasteries and churches to carry out war against Muslims, and of plans to divide Egypt to create a Coptic State.
All of these accusations are as inapplicable to the Coptic Church as they are applicable to Islamists...
Every Democratic president from here on out will have to reckon with the possibility that an ambitious liberal agenda in his/her first two years is apt to produce utterly crushing losses in the House.
I read something a while back about the Dalai Lama, which I thought was fascinating. He was asked what he says to "his enemies," to persuade them; that is, those who disagree with him about Tibet. He said that he doesn't argue with his enemies. That surprised the interviewer, who asked why. The Dalai Lama answered that it was a waste of his time and his energy. He doesn't want to absorb their aggression. I thought this was a profound lesson, and one that I have tried my best to follow ever since.
National Socialists is what they were. Why it's called "right" I do not understand. Nazi Germany was a socialist police state, and every bit as deserving of the Left's repect as Mao, Pol Pot, or Fidel.
Roughly one-quarter of Americans say they receive some form of cash benefits from the government, and most are not willing to sacrifice any of that money to help cut the size of the federal budget.
The Amish breed Standardbreds, trotters and pacers, for transportation. They are longer and heavier than Thoroughbreds.
It's a delight to see an Amish trotter weaving through the strip mall traffic in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, head held high, prancing along, and mostly keeping up with in-town traffic.
This one was tied to a lamppost while the couple shopped at GoodWill.
It's taken me many years to realize that I can really only take in one piece of art per day. One painting - not a gallery-full. One poem, not a collection of poetry. One dance, not a whole dance concert. One piece of classical music, not a whole concert. One Chippendale highboy, not a room full of Chippendale.
Maybe it's my limitation in what I am able to process. Maybe it's my ADD, or maybe I am slow, but to me a wonderful thing is like a found jewel, or like finding an ancient coin washed up on a beach.
I assume that the people who make these things put a lot into them, and they can demand the same of me.
Thus one very special thing per day is plenty for me. I do not like to linger in museums - I prefer to hit and run.
[Republicans have] transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic fratboys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong�s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt�s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we�re deaf, dumb, and dangerous.
Truth is, I am a registered Repub but think of myself as a Conservative, despite my always testing out as "Centrist." Why is Gary so angry? Why are Lefties always angry? I am almost never angry, but often cranky and indignant.
Why does Gary hate me? I have enjoyed his humor very much over the years, but his politics are puerile and hyper-emotional.
I should add that I am a "know-noting flat earther" too. Yep, that's me: an Ivy Chem major and dumb as a post, clinging to my Bible and guns for dear life.
"Every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive...”
She has the hull of a liner, but the superstructure of a Miami Beach hotel. Everything is quite elegant inside, but on ships like this you can too easily forget that you are on a ship at sea.
Call me a snob if you want to. I like the Ryndam, below. I was looking at her because we need somewhere new to go to in 2011 - and I love ships 'n boats.
I suppose people would classify me as a member of the American "elite."
Like several of us Maggie's Farmers, WASP New England roots, prep school and double-Ivy-educated, fairly well-bred with a good pedigree, decent table manners when sober, a semi-entertaining but pedantic dinner companion, and in a supposedly-respectable profession. I am a member of blue blood clubs (and clubs that used to be), and I try to watch my grammar. I wear tweed jackets and a bow tie in order to emphasize my existence - and my adherence to tradition. I avoid a flashy life style, and buy my work clothes at good old, fashionless Brooks Brothers like my Dad and Grandpa. I am not wealthy, but relatively comfortable for now, with my kids through with college.
Yes, I am in some elite category, for better or worse. But not an elitist, I think.
In my life, since my arrogant youth, I have dedicated myself to learning new things every day. We isolated and insulated elites can learn a heck of a lot of wisdom, and a lot about life, from getting away from the elites. America has no class system. Wise and savvy people are found everywhere, in equal proportions. Fools, also.
Most people are like me, just another human: Part fool, part smart, part insane, and a teeny bit wise. The latter came from life, not school.
The regular American fellow with his boots on the American ground and struggling on the American soil knows more about life than any elites in Washington. The "problem" is that most regular American folks do not seek power over others - and thus do not seek political careers unless they are personally insecure or failures (there are rare exceptions).
See, whilst many… are psychologically able to ignore, or excuse, or basically discount altogether the taking money from people bit of public spending, there are some of us that just can’t. One day it occurs to ask the question, “What exactly gives them the right to help themselves to whatever they want?” and the answer turns out to be because they can. Then you get a bit angry and frustrated, feel almost entirely helpless, then, just to make things that little bit worse, everyone else in the world comes and slaps you in the face for even daring to consider such heretical notions. The taking from me bit doesn’t count. I don’t matter. It’s the no longer giving bit that counts. Think about how people feel! Think about all the things they could do with that money, or that job, or learn from those people or achieve with the support of those others! Don’t you understand? Have you no feelings? Apparently not. I just keep thinking, “But it’s not your money. How can you live with yourselves taking it?”
Body paint Halloween pics 
And those are just the ones that were reported.
Brodsky: 
Pic is Middle Path at Kenyon College, last weekend.
I didn't think it could be done, but maybe it can:
I got in trouble for chalking somebody's driveway with vulgar words one time. 
It's taken me many years to realize that I can really only take in one piece of art per day. One painting - not a gallery-full. One poem, not a collection of poetry. One dance, not a whole dance concert. One piece of classical music, not a whole concert. One Chippendale highboy, not a room full of Chippendale.
WSJ: 
Your tax dollars at work: 
I suppose people would classify me as a member of the American "elite." 
More links later. Server problems...