Monday, October 25. 2010
The Instyman posts something which might almost be considered a blog post instead of an Instyism. Good stuff, with some Heinlein for dessert. One quote:
The main problem with the “new elite” is that they’re not an elite at all. That is, they aren’t particularly smart, or competent. They are credentialed, but those credentials aren’t so much markers for smartness or competence, or even basic education, as they are admission tickets to the Gentry Class, based on good standardized test scores. That’s fine — ETS was berry, berry good to me — but it doesn’t have much to do with ability to succeed, or lead, in the real world. Worse yet, it seems to have fostered a sense of entitlement.
"Read the whole thing."
Those so-superior French must have crappy lives, so retirement is all they have to look forward to.
From Foreign Policy's The Spectacle of the Society - France's half-century social-spending spree is coming to an end -- and Nicolas Sarkozy is stuck holding the bag.
The drama of rewriting the postwar social contract is taking place across Europe. Over the past generation, globalization has challenged Western economic dominance and forced wages downward throughout the industrialized world; the economic crisis that began in 2008 delivered the coup de grace.
Read the whole excellent cautionary tale.
The moral of the story, I feel, is this: when government becomes too dominant a part of life, people become more childlike and thus, instead of feeling gratitude towards their "leaders," they have entitlement tantrums when they feel deprived.
Is America unique in having many work settings in which managers feel the need to have "forced retirement" by age 70 or 75? And is America unique in having so many people who build second careers after retirement?
Anchoress linked this quick online test from 2008. Yes, I know online quizzes are dumb.
Some folks think we at Maggie's are being facetious when we term ourselves a Centrist website, but that's how I came out on the quiz: Socially Moderate, Economically Conservative - Centrist.
Most of my friends view me as a Conservative, but maybe Conservatives are Centrists nowadays.
That, with other deep wisdom including an irrefutable proof that Tea Partiers are racists, here.
Sometimes a fellow just wants a big bowl of Bob Evans sausage gravy dumped on top of a pile of good biscuits.
Many doctors claim the gravy smooths your arterial linings, thus extending life. The biscuits provide serenity and peace of mind in this troubled world, and many peer-reviewed studies confirm this. It is settled science.
I love to have excuses to travel to places where you can get good biscuits and gravy for breakfast, but I have too few opportunities to do so.
What's your favorite way to dine on this treat? Crumble the biscuit? Split the biscuit? Dump it on top of an intact biscuit? Such details matter in life.
That dramatic � even inflammatory -- title, �Is �Palestinian-killer� the new �Christ-killer�?�, is the first question that occurred to me as I read news reports that a meeting of Catholic Bishops from the Middle East condemned Israel, called for withdrawal to 1967 borders, and that Jews have no Biblical right to Israel.
I just read the actual statement of the gathering. The initial impression I had was wrong, largely due to the poor news reporting and due to the press conference by the archbishop president of the gathering that went beyond the meeting�s report and beyond Catholic Church doctrine. Further, the report itself is not the official position of the Catholic Church. The Pope will consider it before issuing his final statement.
That impression given the world, that the Jews of Israel are, in effect, �Palestinian-killers�, consonant with the catechism of the Left in trying to delegitimize Israel�s very existence, was conveyed by the president of the gathering at a Vatican press conference:
�The Holy Scriptures cannot be used to justify the return of Jews to Israel and the displacement of the Palestinians, to justify the occupation by Israel of Palestinian lands,� Monsignor Cyril Salim Bustros, Greek Melkite archbishop of Our Lady of the Annunciation in Boston, Massachusetts, and president of the �Commission for the Message,� said at Saturday�s Vatican press conference.
�We Christians cannot speak of the �promised land� as an exclusive right for a privileged Jewish people. This promise was nullified by Christ. There is no longer a chosen people � all men and women of all countries have become the chosen people.
�Even if the head of the Israeli state is Jewish, the future is based on democracy.
The Palestinian refugees will eventually come back and this problem will have to be solved,� the Lebanese-born Bustros said.
The Israeli reply was sharp:
Continue reading "Is Palestinian-killer the new Christ-killer?"
Sunday, October 24. 2010
The University of Chicago played Kenyon College in Gambier yesterday afternoon! Neither of the colleges recruit athletes nor offer athletic scholarships. Lots of fumbles, simple bleachers, no cheerleaders, and no admission charge. BYOB. Note cornfields in the distance.
Good fun, like a high school game.
Who won? Don't know and don't really care. I never really care very much about sports scores unless I am playing.
These intellectual schools do have their share of sturdy, fine-lookin' young lads, however, according to the BD pupette. Just a lot smarter and far more academically talented than the usual, says she. Literarily or mathematically-inclined. What a wonderful world.
More Ohio pics later.
Well, I hesitate to term these "professional" conferences, because by my definition unionized people cannot really be considered professionals. But, putting that aside, here's Academic Conferences: the Oppressed Versus the Oppressors. One quote:
A preliminary program for the National Council of Teachers of English conference (Nov. 18-21, Orlando) lists a session, "Leading Out Our Profession Through Advocacy," that blames Ronald Reagan (whatever happened to blaming Bush?) for scripted lessons and mandates handed down to classroom teachers in the cause of school reform: "During the Reagan years, systems and structures were set in place so that corporate giants and government would have more control over education," resulting in policies such as No Child Left Behind and now even the Obama Race to the Top. The NCTE workshop's answer to all that? "Critical reflection, dialogue, and action toward an educational reform and advocacy that enables teachers and learners to collaborate, explore, engage, and renew ourselves through positive, empowering, professional advocacy."
If I can peer clearly through the edubabble, I think this is a union training session. Not certain, though. By the way, what's a "learner"?
Purists might object, but these things are made of "resin," not wood. They are heavy. They have been outdoors for over a year and had accumulated mildew and dirt, so I decided to give them a bleach spray bath last weekend. It worked like magic.
I asked Mrs. BD whether she wanted me to put them inside someplace for the winter and she told me not to bother. "They're resin." I said "You mean plastic." I never realized it. I am happy to know that a lifetime of scraping, painting, and replacing rotting Adirondack chairs is over.
Seaside Casual Furniture, from Rhode Island. Only somebody like Sipp would notice that they aren't the real thing.
2 Timothy 4:6-8, 16-18
4:6 As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come.
4:7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
4:8 From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
4:16 At my first defense no one came to my support, but all deserted me. May it not be counted against them!
4:17 But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth.
4:18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and save me for his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
On Cape Cod in September. Thought blogger colleague Retriever might enjoy this pic.
Saturday, October 23. 2010
A patient told me last week that her brother had been arrested again, for the 17th time.
What now? I asked.
Mugged somebody with a knife.
What's he been doing since he got out of jail?
On probation, living on Disability, he gets Medicare. Those are my tax dollars. A Psychiatrist gave him the diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder, but did not know he was using crack at the time. He got Disability, plus he gets extra money for taking online college courses. He has better benefits than I have on my job.
What's he doing out on the street again?
Lost his apartment. Didn't pay the rent. He hates to pay rent. He wants to be back in jail. He's a member of The -----s, they are a big deal in jail. In real life, he isn't. No job is good enough for him.
Talk to him yet?
I won't talk to him. He is such a charmer and spinner of words and tales he could convince you that the moon was blue cheese. I gave up on talking him long ago because he just drags you into his web of lies. He comes across as very earnest and sensitive. Then you start caring, and that's when he gets you. He is evil.
Mr. Surber supplied the toon. The video here.
Somebody asked me this weekend what is meant my the common legal term "in the state's interest."
When you think about it, it does sound like a term from feudal times; an odd turn of phrase for a democratic republic. On the other hand, in socialist or communist countries, they use the term "the peoples' interest" as a euphemism for the same thing.
There is a good brief definition and discussion here, as the term applies in the US.
My problem with this basic legal concept, when I think about it a little with my small brain, is this: What happens when The State becomes a special interest of its own, looming over all other interests? Well, James Madison et al anticipated all of that, didn't they? Very shrewd and wise old dead guys with unfashionable ethnicities.
I have a fatal disease in my large, probably 100 year-old Copper Beech tree. I have diagnosed it as Beech Bark Disease. I've seen the same bark disease on many old Copper Beeches recently - areas of shedding bark on the trunk and dying branches high overhead. It's a damn shame.
That's an overstatement.
On other topics,
If Reagan couldn't do it, who could?
...imagine if your car insurance covered every scratch or dent. Wouldn't you expect your premiums to rise to meet the expanded coverage? And wouldn't you expect your auto repair shops to become clogged with cars that didn't really need to be repaired, competing for time and space with other cars with broken transmissions or burnt-out motors?
If we want lower insurance premiums, we will need to return to a system that favors high deductible, high co-pay catastrophic-type insurance with a built-in disincentive for overuse, such as the kind that some employers have provided as an option up until now. Patients could pay for office visits from health savings accounts or other flexible spending tax shelters. More than 10 million Americans already have such accounts.
A Lukewarmer speaks at Watts. Good comments on the post.
Prof B: How much is too much when it comes to taxes?
Climate regulations coming for trucks, buses
Let's bring on a new Ice Age
No normal human does not enjoy the smell of bacon
Moslems need to lighten up and learn more tolerance.
FOX is the most tolerant network
Greg Sullivan: Buy, Mortimer, Buy! - The Saga of Maine Family Robinson Continues
Anchoress on The Brutality of Grace and Cormac McCarthy
Did you ever see the film El Topo? McCarthy is like that.
Three Charts that Will Infuriate Taxpayers
Public Employees Union Spends Huge to Save Dems
This is corrupt.
The homelessness industry has re-branded San Francisco's street bums (h/t Lucianne).
It's quite a story. The homeless advocates are begging and manipulating for money in a way which is similar to that of the seemingly-sociopathic panhandlers.
 An Old Man's Winter Night
All out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him -- at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off; -- and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon, such as she was,
So late-arising, to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man -- one man -- can't keep a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It's thus he does it of a winter night.
One of the good things about this handyman special on Route 6 in Wellfleet is that you can just walk up the dirveway to the Cumbie and the liquor store. What does anybody really need that cannot be got at one of those places?
Friday, October 22. 2010
A re-post of Shrinkwrapped's fine and thoughtful essay on the causes of poverty in prosperous and opportunity-filled places. He begins with a quote from Heather MacDonald:
A welfare mother in Central Harlem is not poor for the same reasons that a subsistence corn farmer in Mexico is poor. That’s just one of the many self-evident conclusions to emerge from a dangerously misguided antipoverty program begun by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2007. Bloomberg’s initiative, Opportunity NYC–Family Rewards, bestows cash rewards on (for the most part) single parents and their children if they act responsibly—by attending school, for example, or by working. Interim results for New York’s effort, which is modeled on a program in Mexico that targeted agricultural peasants, are now in. Not all of them are as blindingly obvious, though, as the fact that multigenerational urban poverty in America is far different from Third World rural poverty. One detail in particular stands out: that the lives of America’s underclass are characterized by a degree of disorganization that is rarely grasped or acknowledged. The implications of this revelation will be difficult, if not impossible, for the welfare industry to accept.
We have often discussed here that modern life is not only packed with opportunity, but that it is more demanding and challenging than that of the life of a serf on a Lord's estate or of a slave on a plantation. Freedom and free markets are part of what makes it challenging and worthwhile.
America is about opportunity, not security. That's why people want to come here. People who just want freebies go to England or Germany.
Perhaps this sounds like a heartless post during an extended recession. We believe in charity, but we also believe in holding people accountable for their fates and expect them to take charge of their lives as best they can. Furthermore, we do not view truckloads of money as the ultimate goal of life.
Our shrink friend has another post on the topic this week: The Culture of Poverty.
Those without socialist ideologies know that poverty in America is often temporary, often by life-style choice, sometimes by bad luck, and often because of dysfunctional life choices and/or character flaws and mental disability and illness.
And, for contrast, here's the view from the Left.
 Beers range between around 3% to around 9% alcohol by volume. I prefer the lower numbers because it is pleasant to enjoy a few brews without really feeling it.
You can look up your favorite beer's alcohol content (and calories) here.
Over the transom:
Waimea Bay shore-break surfing pioneer, husband, and father of two, Clark Little has gained nationwide recognition for his photography with appearances on Good Morning America, Inside Edition, and many local news stations across the U.S.
It all started in 2007 when Clark 's wife wanted a nice piece of art to decorate a wall. Voluntarily, Clark grabbed a camera, jumped in the water, and starting snapping away capturing the beauty and power of monstrous Hawaiian waves from the inside out.
"Clark's view" is a unique view of the ocean that most will only be able to experience safely on land while studying one of Clark 's photos.
Now with a camera upgrade and an itch to get that better shot, Clark has taken this on full time and has moved his office from land, to the inside of a barrel.
Here is Little's website.
|
Not from The Onion: