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.
The playbook is clear: A barrage of negative advertising to define your opponent before he can define himself; a stream of issues and events to mobilize your base; and a meticulous ground game to squeeze every last vote out of the base come November. As for the small number of voters who haven’t made up their minds already, you don’t try to argue that they’ve never had it better, but rather that the other guy is unacceptable. In the end, you win a narrow victory by default. Sure, you haven’t really confronted the country’s deepest problems. But there’ll be plenty of time to deal with them next year.
They are dying, and not very slowly. We have often posted on this topic. The reason is obvious: these churches have been co-opted, captured by soft or firm Lefties who have replaced the search for Truth for political attitudes. People want God, but they are delivering pet funerals.
I suppose you could call that one aspect of "the long march through the institutions." Non-profits and other sorts of do-gooder organizations are vulnerable to being corrupted by that sort of activism because they often attract a certain sort of person.
My Protestant church is bursting at the seams with tons of young couples and tons of little kids. I know our pastors pretty well, but have no idea what they think about any political or otherwise controversial topic. Nor do I care, because they view their job as one of saving souls through Christ and that's what they do. Lots of people hunger for that.
There are many reasons people take two hours on Sunday morning to go to church, but politics and trendy silliness are not among them.
Today... the leaders of the Episcopal Church and similar bodies often don’t seem to be offering anything you can’t already get from a purely secular liberalism. Which suggests that perhaps they should pause, amid their frantic renovations, and consider not just what they would change about historic Christianity, but what they would defend and offer uncompromisingly to the world.
Absent such a reconsideration, their fate is nearly certain: they will change, and change, and die.
From Akasie: What Ails the Episcopalians - Its numbers and coffers shrinking, the church votes for pet funerals but offers little to the traditional faithful:
General Convention is also notable for its sheer ostentation and carnival atmosphere. For seven straight nights, lavish cocktail parties spilled into pricey steakhouses, where bishops could use their diocesan funds to order bottles of the finest wines.
During the day, legislators in the lower chamber, the House of Deputies, and the upper chamber, the House of Bishops, discussed such weighty topics as whether to develop funeral rites for dogs and cats, and whether to ratify resolutions condemning genetically modified foods. Both were approved by a vote, along with a resolution to "dismantle the effects of the doctrine of discovery," in effect an apology to Native Americans for exposing them to Christianity.
Re the latter, so much for mission work, I guess. "Gee, I'm sorry we told you about Jesus"! My view of ministry is simple. Preach the Word to all, visit the sick, inspire the marrying and comfort the bereaved. Mostly, preach the Word of God. What people decide to do with the lessons should be no concern of churches.
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. 6 There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9 The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' " 16 From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only,who is at the Father's side, has made him known.
Greatest rock band ever? Could be. Is Let It Bleed their best record? Highly debatable.
Funny to think that Keith Richards now lives a quiet, humble, ordinary suburban life in leafy, winding road Connecticut, same as Paul Simon and many rockers and movie stars. I think many sane stars yearn for the quiet and ordinary where they can try to be relatively anonymous and to be the ordinary people they are at heart.
I'll never forget the first time I heard the Let It Bleed record. The girlfriend too, in vivid detail. However, I could say that about quite a number of pop records.
People prone to collectivist fantasies seek to escape the struggles of their present life and transport themselves to a place where mankind has triumphed over the adversities of the “mundane” to frolic like gods amongst the stars.
Now, imagine you are one of these desperate men or women, and someone promises you in a rather convincing manner that their system of social structure and governance will bring that sterling-silver-gravity-defying-Star-Trek-future to you. What would you be willing to trade for even a glimpse into the next epoch? Some, sadly, are willing to trade everything, including their freedoms...
Even so, is Romney enough of an SOB to handle Chicago politics? Or are his gentlemanly instincts and moral constitution just too strong to play this already very dirty game? I suspect Romney already feels like a punching bag. He needs to remember that these people do not play by Queensberry Rules. They already said their intention was to kill him and, when it comes to Democrats, the media refuses to play their supposed role of Referee.
To mix sports metaphors, the MSM is running interference for Obama. Everybody knows that. Without websites and Krauthammer, there would be no truth to be had.
... if everything you do is designed to make you more appealing to women, you're an eager vibrator. When your muscle is just for show, when everything you do is to make yourself more desirable, you're playing the female role. When your worth as a man depends on how many women you can lure to your loins, you're just a gigolo.
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter. Up vistaed hopes I sped; And shot, precipitated, Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears, From those strong Feet that followed, followed after. But with unhurrying chase, And unperturbèd pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, They beat-and a Voice beat More instant than the Feet- ‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’
As one who also teaches at a community college in New Jersey, I agree with Chuck that you feel the heat at that level for a variety of reasons, including the increasing pressure from administrators and state legislators who want to see evidence of “success.” Students, after all, are “customers” who’ve paid for their courses, and “customers” deserve satisfaction. Whether or not they've learned anything seems secondary to the need to stick diplomas into their hands.
He hasn’t gotten the policy right, he’s told plenty of stories, he sounds like a patronizing jerk, and his self-knowledge is as thin as his self-regard is deep. How about a “second term”?
Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment, and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best, from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need proyning, by study; and studies themselves, do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know, that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.Abeunt studia in mores. [Studies permeate and shape manners.] Nay, there is no stond or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies; like as diseases of the body, may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man’s wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the Schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study 197 the lawyers’ cases. So every defect of the mind, may have a special receipt.
We have mentioned here many times that the EU was designed to evolve into a modern Holy Roman Empire, or maybe just a modern Roman Empire, or a thousand-year reich, or something. I thought imperialism was supposed to be a bad thing nowadays.
The process is moving always towards imperial government, making very clear that the opposite of nationhood is not Enlightenment but Empire. And only one thing stands opposed to this result, and that is the national sentiments of the European people.
I think I represent the Maggie's view when I advocate for decentralization of power. Nationalism doesn't "cause" wars any more than guns kill people. People cause wars. Furthermore, I think that the US over the past 160 years has "evolved" into a sort of empire of states, albeit a representative one (as is the hapless EU). Compare state and local power in 1850 compared to today. Centralized institutions aggregate power the way the sun aggregated planets. They always want more money, control, and power, and there's always a rationalization for it. We're supposed to think they mean well, but they are watching out for their careers, their pensions, and their egos.
The people I respect most are those who want no power or control over anyone or anything other than their own destiny. Exceptions: one's kids and one's livelihood.
I've never done blind tastings, but I'd like to try doing it sometime. All wines do not taste the same. I have had my share of borderline undrinkable, or undrinkable, wines, and my share of mind-blowingly delicious wines too.
It's hard to believe, but we've all read, and Lehrer confirms, that in blind tastings few can even distinguish a red from a white. I'd be a skeptic on that.
I think the meaningful question is whether the average wine drinker can tell the difference between a pretty good cabernet, for example, and a very fancy one, and whether the difference matters much.
"There are no people more fucking dangerous than posing, self-righteous do-gooders. So generous with other people's safety, other people's money, other people's neighborhoods, other people's time. They destroy the social fabric and make generosity less likely."
Everybody's got free advice for the Republican candidate. Here's what I want to hear him say:
"Mr. Obama, I will ask you to quit with the smears and lies about me. The negativity is not dignified and it is not presidential. You promised a new kind of politics, but you have given us nothing but ugly and divisive Chicago-style politics. You have been President for three 1/2 years. Man up and try to defend your record instead of trying to smear a fellow citizen."
Update: I see that, as of today, they are branding Obama as a liar. Even so, I'd like to hear it as a sound bite.
– In the 1960s, there were 18 workers per Medicaid recipient. Today that number is 2.5. – The number of Americans on disability has risen 19% faster than jobs created during this recovery. – There are just 1.2 private sector workers per 1 person on welfare or working for government. – There are now just 1.65 employed persons in private sector per 1 person on welfare assistance
Look around you. You would have people graduating from high school and from college who know no American history, who have no concept of what this nation is for and what it achieved, who have no concept of what the nation stands for, why it should inspire them, why they should take care of it, why it’s any different from Denmark or Norway or Portugal. You’d have students graduating with no grasp of literature, having barely glanced at any of the great and deep artistic and spiritual traditions of the West. You’d have students graduating in this country that emerged from the Bible, this biblical republic, who’ve never opened the Bible in their lives and who’ve been taught that it is toxic. You’d have students emerging from colleges like Yale with ideas that families as traditionally constituted are the problem and that the sooner we can do away with them the better, and that heterosexuality is one random choice on a very long and growing list. Look around you and you can see exactly what would happen. It has happened and it’s a tragedy.
Dire Straits, Telegraph Road (1983). Lyrics here. What is Telegraph Road? Answer here.
When I hear things like this, I imagine it must be more fun to play it than to watch and hear them do it. But I feel that way about Wimbledon too. It sort of sucks not to have world-class talent.
The world only has so much room for geek geniuses. The rest of us need regular jobs, regardless of all of our above-average IQs and our As in Calculus.
As if academia were a misogynistic, Muslim-style environment. These policy-makers are morons, panderers, idiots.
On some days, I feel that the world has gone mad and that we should put Thorazine into the drinking water along with fluoride. One such days, I think the government should require that the NY Rangers be 45% female, 5% mixed vegetable sexual orientation, and 11% black. Same for the Knicks. That would make for a circus, for sure.
It's my seasonal duty to invite our readers to lend Maggie's a hand by recommending us to your friends, relatives, colleagues, neighbors, enemies, and pets. Also, to your readers if you have a site.
We are a boutique website I spose, but I continue to believe that there are millions out there somewhere who would enjoy - or benefit from - our eclectic mix of stuff.
As I always say, a growing readership is our only reward here on the Farm. Well, the fun of doing it also helps.
We try to stay 30% political or less, and to post political things the MSM doesn't want people to read. We are, in fact, centrist and common-sensical, and lots of Libs read us. We have never been categorized as a political website despite our traditional American tendencies. We post about whatever we happen to be interested in.
Anyhow, if you like Maggie, please let people know.
Everyone a Harlot
School bullying: 
2012 
Schulz 
U.S. pushes for more scientists, 
It's my seasonal duty to invite our readers to lend Maggie's a hand by recommending us to your friends, relatives, colleagues, neighbors, enemies, and pets. Also, to your readers if you have a site.