Monday, August 2. 2010
At 99, Mitch Miller has died but isn't forgotten, nor his singalongs in our living rooms.
The brief from Wikipedia:
Mitchell William "Mitch" Miller (July 4, 1911 – July 31, 2010)[1] was an American musician, singer, conductor, record producer, A&R man and record company executive. One of the most influential figures in American popular music during the 1950s and early 1960s, both as the head of Artists & Repertoire at Columbia Records and as a best-selling recording artist, he is sometimes thought of as the creator of what would become karaoke with his NBC-TV series, Sing Along with Mitch. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester in the early 1930s, Miller began his musical career as an accomplished player of the oboe and English horn, and recorded several highly regarded classical albums featuring his instrumental work. But he is best remembered as a conductor, choral director, television performer and recording executive.
Let's let Mitch Miller take us for a stroll.
If this is too schmaltzy for you, more the pity. Second part is vaudeville. (When Gavin was born, he wouldn't stop howling. I walked the hospital corridor singing "Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Goodbye" which quieted him. Not a single nurse nor visitor had ever heard of vaudeville!)
We need Mitch Miller in our living rooms today. His lasting impacts.
Students Who Don't Study - Evidence shows that college students put in less and less time on coursework but receive higher grades.
Allitt begins:
American discussions of education often veer over into utopian fantasy, and one of the commonest delusions is that nearly every young person wants to be educated. The reality is quite different.
Nearly every young person wants the qualifications that offer access to well paid work, and will do as much as it takes to get them. But most youngsters do not care deeply about education for its own sake, especially if getting it requires long hours of solitary, disciplined study. Learning is hard, often joyless, and for centuries was understood to be so alien to youngsters’ inclinations that it had to be reinforced with frequent beatings.
Now we indulge the idea that not just basic literacy but a high level of formal education is for everyone, and that they will appreciate it.
Neither man nor life is perfectable. Indeed, it would be difficult to find agreement on "perfection" anyway.
Some people in the psychological health professions have an unspoken and even unacknowledged notion that, given proper therapy and/or proper medicines, we could all be brought to "normality" or "mental health." I term that "psycho-utopianism," and I hold the copyright for the term.
My view of all utopianisms is that they represent infantile wishes; that they are unrealistic dreams. Dreams of Eden. "If only..., this organization would run better." "If only we had..., we'd be happier." "If only the country would..., life would be better." "If only I were more motivated to (work out, make more money, get a better job, Etc.), I'd be happy."
In Psychoanalysis, we often use the term "normal neurotic" for those whose defenses and adaptations are in the normal range, ie not too dysfunctional and not too misery-creating. Most people are in that category. Psychoanalyst Dr. Joyce McDougall wrote a wonderful book in 1992, Plea For A Measure Of Abnormality, which addresses the topic.
I am not a therapeutic nihilist. I try to be a realist. Everybody has character flaws and weaknesses and immaturities, and always will regardless of the next miracle drug or the next whatever. The trick is to know oneself, to know one's strengths and weaknesses and flaws, same as it is to know the limits of external reality. A good life is a struggle with both.
It would not be difficult to preach on this topic at long and tedious length with the implications for how it applies to many or most human endeavors in the post-Eden world, but I'll save my ammunition for another time.
- From Sandel in The Atlantic (2004), The Case Against Perfection - What's wrong with designer children, bionic athletes, and genetic engineering.
- Ars Psychiatrica discusses the ailments of prosperity: The Age of Anomie?
- Yet another normal neurosis may get an "official" diagnosis: Internet Addiction - "What once was parody may soon be diagnosis." Same thing goes for "sex addiction" in my opinion. It's like shopaholics and chocaholics: from Oprah to DSM 5 in one easy step.
- If "Borderline Personality" is up to 10% of the population, is it really all that abnormal?
- One in five Californians say they need mental health care. Those are just the folks who want to deal with their "issues." Willingness to address one's "issues" is partly cultural.
Unrelated, but interesting: A Simulation Of What It’s Like To Experience Schizophrenic Symptoms. h/t, Linkiest
 If you blinked this morning you missed the link I posted to a gallery of the Playboy centerfolds, semi- and unclad, "Maggie's Farmcritters", from 1953-2008. It was taken down by order from she-who-must-be-obeyed, our in-farm censor. Banned from the Farm even as a link, not to mention in full display "below the fold" as a hidden page.
As a site posting great art, I wonder if painted nudes will be banned, or statues figleafed. Bird Dog, better skip the Belvedere Museum outside Vienna.
But, my wife is from Europe, and enjoys the female form. She posed nude and in lingerie when younger. Her mother has a nude drawing of my wife on her living room wall. We have several Klimpts hanging in our house, and it hasn't corrupted our sons, both former champion breast-feeders. My wife enjoyed and emailed around my review of the Hooters International Swimsuit Pageant.
The other day I replied to a Commenter that "As I age, I would find more delight in finding the perfect Italian Cheesecake, far rarer than the perfect 'cheesecake.' " Personally, I would never allow cream cheese cake to pass my lips, but I wouldn't ban others from enjoying it when tastefully done.
What are your tastes and limits in either cheesecake?
(Photo is an Italian Cheesecake. Ricotta cheese. Not too sweet.)
"The real argument against aristocracy is that it always means the rule of the ignorant. For the most dangerous of all forms of ignorance is ignorance of work."
G.K. Chesterton, 1918
 Tiger takes a walk on the High Line
Women 'view modesty as sign of weakness'
The WaPo doesn't get it
Report: Connecticut No. 2 In Unfunded Pension Liability
ADA update:
In recent months a New Jersey jury ordered a rheumatologist to pay $400,000 for not providing a deaf patient with a sign language interpreter at his own expense...
Related: Jury Damage Award Could Close Calif. Healthcare Facilities
Megatool Prince Charles Declares He's Here to Save the Planet or Something
The Ruling Class Tosses Americans Overboard
Young Illegals Out Themselves, Daring To Be Deported
Americans Cut Back On Visits To Doctor
Alcohol Use Now at 25-Year High
Palin: Obama lacks 'the cojones' to tackle immigration
Michelle: Summer of Corruption: Maxine Waters/OneUnited Bank refresher course\
The yacht vs. the pickup truck - Democrats are now the party of perceived privilege, and GOP is the party of the people
Related: the story of two weddings. Also related: Dems are the party of the rich
Surber: It was not a stimulus. It was a raid on the Treasury
Powerline:
That's what happens under government medicine. Political considerations are substituted for medical judgment, and over time many doctors and nurses, government employees all, come to view their patients much as postal employees view the letters and packages they sort. With no competition, patients have no choices, and the quality of care steadily erodes even as the price--like the price of everything run by government--rises.
Gateway: It’s Back: Public Option Again Rears It’s Ugly Head
Can Rubio win?
NYT Blogger Who Knocked Fox News' Audience Diversity Has the Same Problem
Something we can learn from Cuba:
After the crash of the former Soviet bloc, Cuba's cash-strapped government in the 1990s approved a wide range of self-employment. Positions such as beauticians, dog groomers, small restaurant owners and even lighter refillers were legalized as long as workers got licenses and paid taxes.
But social resentment emerged as an issue when some workers, particularly in small private restaurants, achieved dramatic levels of success.
The government began increasing taxation and regulation, and decreasing license-granting, until the self-employed sector was largely rendered paralyzed, like the rest of the economy.
Sunday, August 1. 2010
 Why? Because he says it all, here.
Photo from the post.
That's a Picasso quote. For me, even his small etchings and line drawings have more soul and substance and solidity (and variety and visual surprise) than all the work of the other great artists I have seen. Every line shows strength, boldness, certainty, inevitability, regardless of whether it is etchings, lithos, oil, ink, watercolor, collage, sculpture - anything. It's called "talent."
If you're in the neighborhood, I'd advise not missing the Picasso show at the Metropolitan Museum. We got there yesterday. 300 works, all dusted off from their own mind-boggling collection. If I didn't suffer from "museum brain," I could have spent an hour just in the last room with the small etchings from the 1960s. As always, the audio guide is very good ($6, and two for one if you are a member.)
The show runs until Aug 15, and it's never crowded in August. I'd say the show is worth a special trip to NYC because it is a visual feast. For me, an overdose because just a handful of wonderful pictures fills my feeble brain to the brim.
This from his "Classical" period, 1920s.
More of my pics below the fold -
Continue reading ""Good artists borrow. Great artists steal." The Met's Picasso show"
FBI Files Reveal Historian Howard Zinn Lied to Hide CPUSA Membership. Who is surprised? This America-hater made many millions, and led a cushy life in freedom on his fashionable America-hating. The only good thing about Zinn is that he loved Wellfleet, which fortunately was never in the Soviet Union.
Malanga: Government dietary advice often proves disastrous. As we have repeatedly said here, nobody knows what an optimal diet is, and definitions of "healthy eating" change constantly. It's a field full of fads, and full of cranks with the delusion that they know what's best for you. At Maggie's Farm, we have been thriving on Thai Noodle Soup (the hot version) this summer. Eat your Bok Choy! Scientists say it's good for you!
Vanderleun on poetry. We like poems.
Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23
1:2 Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
1:12 I, the Teacher, when king over Israel in Jerusalem,
1:13 applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to human beings to be busy with.
1:14 I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun; and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.
2:18 I hated all my toil in which I had toiled under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to those who come after me
2:19 --and who knows whether they will be wise or foolish? Yet they will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity.
2:20 So I turned and gave my heart up to despair concerning all the toil of my labors under the sun,
2:21 because sometimes one who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave all to be enjoyed by another who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil.
2:22 What do mortals get from all the toil and strain with which they toil under the sun?
2:23 For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.
Saturday, July 31. 2010
Who do you think has the firmer handshake? The fellow has some strange submissive, unmanly impulses. Perhaps Harvard removed his testosterone and replaced it with a dose of narcissism. This via Vanderleun via Fausta:
Thanks, Opie, for these photos with the data, which came in over the transom. I cannot source it, but kudos to whoever put this together. It is interesting not only to see the different sorts of families (extended, nuclear, large, small, desert, middle-class) but to see what they typically eat in a week.
Germany: The Melander family of Bargteheide. Food expenditure for one week: 375.39 Euros or $500.07. (I guess that included the wine and beer)
Egypt: The Ahmed family of Cairo: Food expenditure for one week: 387.85 Egyptian Pounds or $68.53
Ecuador: The Ayme family of Tingo. Food expenditure for one week: $31.55
On continuation page below, USA, Bhutan, Mexico, Poland, Chad, and Italy:
Continue reading "Food and Families around the world"
It’s not for me to argue Catholic teachings, but my friend The Anchoress Elizabeth Scalia’s reply to Anne Rice's problem with whether Christians are living her political liberalism probably comes as close as to the Catholicism I learned being raised a Jew in a Catholic and Jewish neighborhood. Rice, like many or most of various religions, confuses politics with faith or, worse, substitutes politics for faith.
There’s a universal message, whether from scripture or Pope, that works: Open your heart and G-d will walk in. Close your mind and G-d’s presence is clouded, at least until your heart is set free.
Struggle with that as you wish or need to find meaning and salvation. Struggle is important in building strengths and to advance. That allows the confidence and trust that ultimately works, to accept the faith in man and in our actions being truer to G-d’s missions for us.
There’s a practical measure each can easily know, if not denied: Are you living life’s struggles with contentment instead of anguish or anger.
There are varying interpretations of whom Jacob wrestles, the result of which is his renaming as Israel. There’s agreement, however, that wrestling spirits with spirit is transforming.
A poem I just dashed off (revised in keeping with the form):
I
Am Nothing
Struggle Makes Us
Strong Enough To Accept
The Guiding Light To Make
Something Better Of I
G-d’s Better I
Is All
Us
Rembrandt's depiction of Jacob's wrestling is one of engagement, not separation.
Those holes are rocket launchers, also found on custom cabs and ambulances.
Brilliant ad for Linda McMahon in CT. We think she has a real chance against Blumenthal.
Tim Pawlenty talks. He seems like Mr. Rogers.
A Dagestan wedding. Good grief.
Bruce told me about the 1949 movie, The Third Man. Sounds wonderful.
A reader sent this link which explains Gramsci's cultural hegemony
More about the sleazy Sherrods
Powerline: Whatever happened to the Constitution? Apparently it is too radically right wing for modern times, with all its focus on individual freedom and restrictions on state power. I like to remind myself that King George lll had nothing close to the power that our modern federal government wields today.
Reason: Growing Pains - ObamaCare won't stop rising health care costs.
A basic component of air remains illegal
Justice Department Encourages Voting by Felons as It Suppresses Military Vote
VDH: The Truths We Dare Not Speak About Illegal Immigration
Forbes: Why Keynes Was Wrong
Did The Government Cause The Gulf Oil Spill? Indirectly, yes. But the government directly caused the housing bubble and housing bust.
Maybe it’s Time For Jews to Fess Up. Evil Jews run the world. Everybody knows that. More about the evil Jews at Legal Ins.
The Screw-Guns
(A Screw-Gun was a small mountain ("mounting") cannon. Like many of Kipling's poems, this has been put to music, with wonderful success. Sadly, I cannot find a Youtube or midi-file of the tune, but I can hum it for you.)
Smokin' my pipe on the mountings, sniffin' the mornin' cool,
I walks in my old brown gaiters along o' my old brown mule,
With seventy gunners be'ind me, an' never a beggar forgets
It's only the pick of the Army
that handles the dear little pets -
Refrain:
For you all love the screw-guns - the screw-guns they all love you!
So when we call round with a few guns,
o' course you will know what to do
Jest send in your Chief an' surrender -
it's worse if you fights or you runs:
You can go where you please, you can skid up the trees,
but you don't get away from the guns!
They sends us along where the roads are, but mostly we goes where they ain't:
We'd climb up the side of a sign-board an' trust to the stick o' the paint:
We've chivied the Naga an' Looshai, we've give the Afreedeeman fits,
For we fancies ourselves at two thousand,
we guns that are built in two bits -
For you all love the screw-guns . . .
If a man doesn't work, why, we drills 'im an' teaches 'im 'ow to behave;
If a beggar can't march, why, we kills 'im an' rattles 'im into 'is grave.
You've got to stand up to our business an' spring without snatchin' or fuss.
D'you say that you sweat with the field-guns?
By God, you must lather with us -
For you all love the screw-guns . . .
The eagles is screamin' around us, the river's a-moanin' below,
We're clear o' the pine an' the oak-scrub,
we're out on the rocks an' the snow,
An' the wind is as thin as a whip-lash what carries away to the plains
The rattle an' stamp o' the lead-mules -
the jinglety-jink o' the chains -
For you all love the screw-guns . . .
Continue reading "Saturday Verse: Kipling"
Friday, July 30. 2010
Last month, the Congressional Budget Office issued its own set of updated projections, but the frame of reference was the long-term, and not just the next 10 years. Unfortunately, the farther out one looks, the worse the picture gets. CBO’s latest projections again make it clear that the nation is rushing headlong toward a fiscal crisis, and the health law does nothing to head it off.
Read it all.
 The Volt: G.M.’s Electric Lemon.
Can somebody tell me how this piece of expensive and useless crap is supposed to save the world?
Where do people think electricity comes from? Thor?
Photo is a Yugo, not a Volt. But you knew that.
 Since News Junkie is taking off for August, and only the names and the dates change, here’s a guide to the daily news for our readers. Fill in the blanks.
CONGRESS:
Congressional Democrats Deny Scheme To _________________.
Congressional Democrats Propose Scheme To _________________.
Congressional Democrats Expect To Survive 2010 Elections Because _________________.
Congressional Democrats Poll Numbers Continue To Decline Because _________________.
Congressional Democrats Refuse To Investigate ___________________.
Congressional Republicans Have A Secret Plan to ______________________.
Congressional Republican’s Secret Plan Is Not To _______________________.
Congressional Republicans’ Chances Hindered By Extreme Statements About _____________.
Congressional Republicans’ Extreme Statements Are Only So To Leftist Journalists Who Say ________.
PRESIDENT:
President Obama declares urgency of ____________________.
President Obama puts off decision on __________________.
President Obama vacations in _____________________.
President Obama nominates ____________________.
President Obama’s nominee’s past reveals _______________.
President Obama recess appoints _________________.
President Obama’s longtime friend under the bus ______________.
President Obama says Bush at fault for _________________.
President Obama breaks another campaign pledge to _________________.
President Obama praises despot ___________________.
President Obama criticizes ally ________________.
JOURNALISM AND COMMENTARY:
Major media journalists ignore above news about ____________________.
Bloggers investigate and reveal facts about ___________________.
Major media find excuses for _________________________.
Bloggers persist about ___________________.
Major media run stories about bloggers not being journalists ____________________.
Polls indicate more people believe bloggers about _________________.
Major media continues to ignore facts about ________________.
Major media continues to shrink ___________________.
Major media appoints new liberal to masthead ___________________.
Major media reports scientist saying science says to ____________________.
Scientist’s science is based on faulty methodology ________________________.
Major media repeats scientist’s assertion about ___________________.
Smart person eloquently points out the obvious about ________________.
Smarty pants commentator points out purported minor exceptions to the obvious to disprove the obvious about _________________.
MAGGIE’S FARM:
Old server crashes again and excused as ________________________.
Bird Dog vacations in ____________________.
Photos of Bird Dog’s vacation in _________________________.
Debate continues on how much cheesecake is appropriate ________________________.
Big links to Maggie’s cheesecake from major blogger _________________________.
Serious subjects essayed at Maggie’s Farm arouse commenters about other subjects ____________.
Fun subjects at Maggie’s Farm arouse commenters to add to fun about ___________________.
Maggie’s Farm recipes and computer advice only work for blogger _________________.
Bruce interrupts permanent vacation to say (sometimes boring) _________________.
Joy Bliss pithily starts a subject and doesn’t finish about ______________________.
Great art and literature you never heard of about _____________________.
I think that the religious faith of most average Christians waxes and wanes over time, sometimes even in the course of a day. I do know people whose faith seems to be 100% and rock solid. In the end, I don't find thinking about the topic of strength of faith particularly useful or productive. God is a mystery to me, as is existence itself (and most other things too), but I believe that in prayer and in practice one can come into relationship with God - or at least with Jesus.
Ron Rosenbaum speaks up for the Enlightenment agnostic in everyone: An Agnostic Manifesto - At least we know what we don't know. One quote:
Atheists have no evidence—and certainly no proof!—that science will ever solve the question of why there is something rather than nothing. Just because other difficult-seeming problems have been solved does not mean all difficult problems will always be solved. And so atheists really exist on the same superstitious plane as Thomas Aquinas, who tried to prove by logic the possibility of creation "ex nihilo" (from nothing). His eventual explanation entailed a Supreme Being standing outside of time and space somehow endowing it with existence (and interfering once in a while) without explaining what caused this source of "uncaused causation" to be created in the first place.
This is—or should be—grade-school stuff, but many of the New Atheists seemed to have stopped thinking since their early grade-school science-fair triumphs.
Right, sort-of (I don't think we even know what we don't know). Science is not a religion. It's just a formalized, rigorous mode of inquiry from which most of the data and facts and theories are inevitably replaced over time. It is incapable of handling the Big Questions and Big Truth, but it sure can be useful. For example, we currently believe that "gravity" doesn't exist as a "force," but it's a handy concept anyway. Someday, our talk of "forces" wil be viewed as little more than 18th century gods.
Chesterton: ""If there were no God, there would be no atheists."
I am taking a mental health break from Maggie's for August. I love Maggie's, but I am sick of having to see all of the outrages du jour. As that guy Drinking with Bob says on the radio, "What next? What next!"
We lease one of these babies:
Good site, discovered by Vanderleun: I Want a New Left
NEA Removes Post Encouraging Teachers To Celebrate Chinese Communist Revolution
Poll shows opposition to health care overhaul declining. Of course. It hasn't gone into effect yet.
Dalmia: The Death Of The Global Warming Movement
Galston: How Americans’ Shifting Political Ideologies Threaten the Democrats
Ann McElhinney:
“So when my husband and I came to America, we heard a story about conservatives. We heard that these conservatives are a really really weird lot. Nutjobs, basically. And these conservatives, they’re obsessed with sex. They’re obsessed with sex and they’re obsessed with what you’re doing in your bedroom. It’s all they think about. They’re just constantly worrying about what you’re up to in your bedroom.
But you know something? Since we’ve moved here, we haven’t found that. But what we have found is that liberals, are in every other room in your house. They’re in the fridge. They’re in your car. They’re in your air miles. They’re in your clothes. They’re in your hair. They’re in your cleaning products, and your washing machine and the refrigerator. They’re all over the place! And they’re in your light bulb! And I want to say them .. This is America! Get out of my light bulb"
Once again: Schwarzenegger Declares Fiscal Emergency in California. They needed a real man like Chris Christie.
Lopez: Ohio Wants Something Different
Kafka-trapping:
"The longer the playing of the race card continues, the probability that someone will deny the accusation, and thereby provide proof of the accusation, approaches one."
Sissy reminded us of this excellent Am Thinker post: Cultural Marxism
How science led the Third Reich. Totally related via Q&O: Why "science" has a problem:
If science wants to redeem itself and regain its place with the public’s affection, scientists need to come out every time some politician says, “The science says we must…” and reply, “Science only tells us what is. It does not, and can never tell us what we should or must do.” If they say that often enough, and loudly enough, they might be able to reclaim the mantle of objectivity that they’ve given up over the last 40 years by letting themselves become the regulatory state’s ultimate appeal to authority.
Thursday, July 29. 2010
For the second day in a row, our home-made mini-nuke plant in the basement, which provides the power to the Maggie's servers as well as to our milking machines and our a/c, went down due to mice. Today, I picked up a cat at the shelter to live in the basement. Nuclear power problem solved.
In apology, and since I am headed to Vienna soon, I offer something from the King of the Waltz, Johann Strauss Jr:
Not to be confused with his dad, Johann Strauss Sr., composer of the Radetzky March among much other music. Dad, famously, never forgave his son for going into music instead of banking.
Neither are related to the great German composer Richard Strauss:
Conscious guilt causes agony while unconscious guilt can shape a person.
I tend to see more people wracked with conscious guilt. Sometimes it's neurotic (ie, irrational in proportion), and sometimes it is good old ordinary guilt for rotten behavior and/or evil thoughts.
There are many causes of self-defeating or self-sabotaging behavior besides unconscious guilt (for examples, avoidance of difficult things or avoidance of risky challenges), but guilt is always on the list of considerations.
Dr. X discusses the topic here and here.
Washington Rebel found a remarkable rant from Takuan Seiyo in Brussels Journal: Shotgun Marriage In Europe. One quote:
... to return a Western democracy to its rightful owners requires a majority of votes. Such a majority can no longer obtain for any political platform that would tackle even the top three major problems that bedevil the West: bankrupting socialism, nonwhite immigration, and implanted Islam. Not to mention the next dozen grave problems: irredeemable debt, the tyranny of the metastized State, the Looters’ coalition’s chokehold, sham global economy, fraudulent financial capitalism, minoritarian tyranny, shattered social capital, barbaric mass culture, nihilism, democracy turned idiocracy, breakdown of sexual norms and results (i.e. no babies), and falsehoods and self-hate careening through the land like a band of headless horsemen.
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