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.
Tuesday night Tonight, Sunday, was the first night of the Hebrew month of Elul. This month is special in preparation for the Jewish High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We search ourselves for our failings, commit to cease them, sincerely apologize to those we've harmed, and create new ways of behavior. The process is called Teshuvah, or return. This doesn't mean we have come all the way or achieved perfection, but rather we have made the sincere and real efforts to come closer to being and acting as we understand G-d desires for us.
When Moses ascended Mount Sinai for forty days to receive the Ten Commandments, G-d's Law, the Hebrews were fearful he wouldn't return and created a Golden Calf to worship and party. When Moses descended, in anger he smashed the tablets. G-d has not decided 'what to do with you,' and requires the Hebrews to abandon their former ways and corruptions of living as slaves in Egypt. G-d instructed Moses to again climb Mount Sinai to receive a replacement. Forty days later, during which time Moses asked of G-d to forgive the Hebrews' sin he was instructed that the Israelites repent of their weakness and faithfully observe certain holy days. Moses returned with the Ten Commandments and G-d's forgiveness.
The first day of Elul is the second time Moses went up on Mount Sinai, and 40-days later, when Moses returns, Yom Kippur, is when our fate is sealed based upon our acts.
It is not our sins toward G-d that most matters but our sins toward each other. A central reading during Yom Kippur is from Isaiah in which it is not our pieties that earn us G-d's favor but how we treat each other, particularly those more in need. Before our sins toward G-d can be forgiven, we must first earnestly strive for the fine balance of G-d's earthly standards of justice and mercy.
As distinct from holy days, like the Sabbath, during Elul we do not cease the work that can distract from our focus on G-d's way, or dress up to enter a sanctuary and pray our devotions as we would in entering the Lord's palace. We continue our mundane activities while our Lord is consciously invited into our fields to see how we daily live, correct and improve ourselves.
"The narcissism of small differences" was Freud's 1917 term for his observation that people with minor differences between them can be more combative and hateful than those with major differences. It is a handy concept.
He viewed this as a narcissistic issue because the distress comes from looking in the mirror, as it were, and seeing a pimple.
What it is about is that we want all of "us" to think exactly like us - that is, perfectly, and the "others" be damned - who cares? Until the "others" give us big trouble.
Freud's psychoanalytic "movement" was repeatedly fractured by such things. Pioneers advanced into the human unconscious, and focused on different aspects, and fought and lost friendships over it. In the end, Freud was usually correct, because he had the courage to tell the often-unpleasant, unpopular, and uncivilized truths about deep human nature.
Of course, the narcissism of small differences often applies to politics. But my best joke on the subject concerns religion:
I was walking across a bridge one sunny day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump. I ran over and said: 'Stop. Don't do it.' 'Why shouldn't I?' he asked. 'Well, there's so much to live for!' 'Like what?' 'Are you religious?' He said: 'Yes.' I said. 'Me too. Are you Christian or Buddhist?' 'Christian.' 'Me too. Are you Catholic or Protestant?'' 'Protestant.' 'Me too. Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?' 'Baptist.' 'Wow. Me too. Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?' 'Baptist Church of God.' 'Me too. Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you reformed Baptist Church of God?' 'Reformed Baptist Church of God.' 'Me too. Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?' He said: 'Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915.' I said: "Die, heretic scum," and pushed him off the bridge.
The wise, it seems to me, become comfortable with the idea of their own death. Christians even more so, with the hope of eternal life of some sort, free of pain and worry.
While health, disease, and fear of death are big concerns of many people, apocalyptic fantasies of mass catastrophe have captured the imagination of humans since the beginning. Life can be humdrum, but imagining apocalypse is exciting.
6:51 "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."
6:52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"
6:53 So Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
6:54 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day;
6:55 for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.
6:56 Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.
6:57 Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me.
6:58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever."
7-year old Gavin and I went this afternoon to see The Odd Life of Timothy Green. At Rotten Tomatoes only 38% of the 78 "professional" critics liked the movie but 75% of the 12-thousand audience members who posted an opinion liked the movie.
This is really a case of the "professionals" lacking the touch of the everyman (or woman). It is a moving story about the feelings and dreams that parents have for a child, and about a child who more than fulfills their wishes. It is about the seasons of life and about never quitting. It is about giving love to get love. It is about how funny we are. Throughout the film, Gavin cuddled with me, and I went through several tissues. I'll give the film a 5-tissue rating. More of the "professional" critics need more schmaltz in their empty lives.
We provide the food (it's called craft service) - we are not union - and they turn the place upside-down creating sets. Delightful, well-mannered and very attractive kids in their 20s up from the city, full of good cheer and inventiveness. Also, plenty of film, acting, and lighting experience.
What a world! Life, for better or worse, just cracks me up. There is always something interesting going on and, if there isn't, you can make it happen. Having some kids helps to keep life interesting and complicated.
I tell them they are all after fame and fortune. They are.
Have to tip-toe around and keep out of their way.
I'd rather be back in Cape Cod - or Montana. In mid-summer, Cape Cod suits me best. Inland is too darn hot and buggy in the summer. In the summer, one needs cool salt water, cherrystone clams, sand, and a Robert Parker novel or two.
Now you can get it by mail, close your eyes, and pretend you are in God's country.
(Woops. Sorry - once again, we violated our rule to never say anything good about Montana. I will correct it by saying Montana Sucks. Do not go there, and do not move there. Chardonnay-sippers beware: you would hate it. It is full of redskin injuns, rattlesnakes, crazy horses, aggressive pangolins, evil horney toads, and Grizzly Bears, and excessively-armed paranoid meth-intoxicated right-wing rednecks who are always spoiling for a fight.)
Cereal is no good either. Pure carbs, no nutrition. Nobody under 50 eats cereal anymore except cowboys.
Pic on top is with friends hiking up on Ear Mountain, near the Bob Marshall Wilderness. A big hike. Leave the horses with the wrangler at the base. Have water in your backpack. Mountain Goats are up there. They eat the rocks.
With such an important event coming up in a few months, I figured we should install a countdown clock here on Maggie's, since so many of us are eagerly anticipating having the Democrats kicked right out of Washington, if not right off the planet.
You have to admit — if the world disappears into an alternate dimension, at least it'll take care of runaway inflation. And those pesky Democrats.
While I don't think you'll particularly learn anything new here, it's still interesting watching an official JPL guy cover the bases.
And if he's wrong?
Just do as we learned to do back in the 60's when Russia was about ready to launch 25,000 nukes at us.
Just crawl under your school desk. You'll be fine.
The honest reflections of the more thoughtful voices on the American left confirm that Romney and Ryan are, in effect, leading the country. First there was William Saletan of Slate, who wrote--without irony: "A wonderful thing has happened for this country. Paul Ryan will be the Republican nominee for vice president." He added that Republicans like Ryan were the perfect antidote to Democratic excesses: "Maybe, like me, you were raised in a liberal household. You don’t agree with conservative ideas on social or foreign policy. But this is why God made Republicans: to force a reality check when Democrats overpromise and overspend."
Larry Bailey unleashed a prepared Democrat chorus to discredit former military special operators who oppose President Obama’s re-election.
"I have to admit that I'm a Birther," said SOS founder Larry Bailey, a retired 27-year veteran of the Navy SEALs, in an interview. "If there were a jury of 12 good men and women and the evidence were placed before them, there would be absolutely no question Barack Obama was not born where he said he was and is not who he says he is."
Larry Bailey and I are friends. Larry is absolutely not a speaker who minds his PR Ps & Qs, nor ever tried to be a diplomat. He is a devout patriot who has devoted his life to the security of the United States. I am not a birther, nor are those I know who supported his first efforts, the first of several independent other organizations of former military special operators, to raise attention to the concerns – also expressed by several leading politicians, including some Democrats -- that President Obama and his minions exposed national security secrets in order to bolster Obama’s re-election.
The usual Obama apologists and partisans quickly expressed their distaste for birtherism, understandable, but used Bailey’s words to attack all the other leaders of other organizations of special operators opposed to President Obama’s re-election. (Here's the leader of one of the other organizations of former special operators.)
Omigosh, Obama For America website reveals that there are Republicans among the leaders of the four independent groups of special operators. Obama For America was an internet-based campaign organization for Obama in 2008, re-named Organizing For America after the election for his permanent campaign, and now Obama For America is back.Guess what Obama For America, there are far more Republicans than Democrats among the military, and especially so among special operators in the various military branches
James Joyner, who sways with Democrat memes inside the beltway at his blog Outside the Beltway, with regard to one of the organizations of special operators, OPSEC (operations security), chimes in with “the fact that the group’s key spokesmen are all Republican operatives certainly changes the lens through which their charges should be viewed.” Oh, does it? Only for those looking for an excuse to look the other way.
Failed Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry – who trumped up his Vietnam veteran status, as usual, rolls out his attack on the over 60 of fellow Swift Boat veterans who exposed his lies or exaggerations about his service in Vietnam, and Kerry’s certain betrayal of Vietnam veterans after in likening us to the army of Genghis Khan. Paul Mirengoff notes: " Kerry never explains why he finds the criticism of Obama “outrageous.” Doing so would have required a defense of the administration’s serial disclosure of sensitive national security information."
I’m not defending Larry Bailey’s words, by any means. But, the effort by those supporting Obama’s re-election to avoid and broadbrush besmirch the valid concerns of special operators is typical of the Obama re-election campaign.Patriots, to the Obama folk, are those who support him. The special operators from the military and national security experts, whose lives are actually on the line and endangered by loose self-serving lips in the Obama administration, are denigrated by the Obama minions. In 2004, veterans and their families and friends saw right through John Kerry and, I confidently predict, will see through Obama like a soggy thin tissue too.
Like Animal Farm's Boxer, the American workhorse has worked itself to the bone, paying taxes on everything imaginable to subsidize the revolutionary state of the left, its mammoth bureaucracies and the bribes and favors that it doles out to its voting bases. Homes have been lost, lives shattered and families broken up so that America might "live up to" whatever promises the left has made to itself on their behalf. And like Boxer, the American and his way of life, is being taken away in a knacker's van billed as a trip to the veterinarian.
The left has forcefully accelerated the death throes of the American mule by pushing government spending beyond anything that the horse can cover. That leaves the overworked horse with only two options. It can either become a donkey and be fed and work without any say in what it is fed or how it works, or it can try to break free of the great socialist boneyard.
His essay/post summarizes many or most of the Maggie's political concerns about America. The government is making it too difficult to be a mule, but it is the mule who pulls their electoral wagon and pays their bills.
I know that we have a few Chinese readers. We would welcome more.
A reader in China asked me to post this shout-out. I believe that many in the Middle Kingdom might enjoy a refreshing dose of freedom-oriented Americana - if only to practice their reading!
We'd love to see Maggie's go viral in China, but it ain't gonna happen. Politicians would shut us down.
We would like it if our Chinese readers would forward our site around to their email list. I do not believe that we are censored by your government.
Not yet, at least, despite our dangerously-subversive attitudes towards state power.
On July 11, 2011, two high-speed 'bullet' trains collided in Wenzhou, China, killing 40 people and injuring over 190. It was the second-worst high-speed train wreck in history.
As a disaster documentary buff, I've occasionally dashed over to YouTube to see if some company like the people who produce the 'Seconds From Disaster' or 'Mayday' series have done a special on it.
But I've left disappointed. No one's ever produced a comprehensive documentary covering the entire sad event.
“Under the plan, all Massachusetts doctors, hospitals and other providers must register with a new state bureaucracy as a condition of licensure—that is, permission to practice. They’ll be required to track and report their financial performance, price and cost trends, state-sanctioned quality measures, market share and other metrics.”
Were you thinking of setting out a shingle in Massachusetts as a GP/Cardiologist/Obstetrician/Gastroenterologist/etc.? Bet you’ll think twice about that.
The Journal appropriately invokes Jeremy Bentham’s totalitarian idea of the all-seeing pantopticon here:
* “Massachusetts takes 360-degree surveillance and converts it into a panopticon prison. An 11-member board known as the Health Policy Commission will use the data to set and enforce rules to ensure that total Massachusetts health spending, public and private, grows no more than projected gross state product through 2017, and 0.5 percentage points lower thereafter.”
Got that? Your doctor is actively discouraged from spending too much on you lest that extra test that might save your life add too much red ink to the bottom line.
RomneyCare is a disaster unfolding before our eyes. I’ll leave it to others to apportion the appropriate quantum of blame to its eponymous architect or sponsor or whatever role Mitt Romney played in the creation of misbegotten piece of legislation. We all make mistakes. The important thing is that Mitt Romney has recognized his mistake and has credibly outline a plan to make amends by repealing and replacing ObamaCare. Meanwhile, team Obama continue to tout the most unpopular piece of legislation since prohibition. And people wonder why I predict Romney/Ryan will win by a landslide.
Why Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, and Truman Capote All Failed to Write the Great American Novel
"The narcissism of small differences" was Freud's 
John 6:51-58
Among the many fine things in Montana is 
Is a Cuba Libre just a Rum and Coke? 
The death of the American mule.
I know that we have a few Chinese readers. We would welcome more.
