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.
How do you carve nature at its joints, when there are no joints? This is good, from Sailer: If race doesn't exist ... He quotes:
...as any psychiatrist involved in the making of the D.S.M. will freely tell you, the disorders listed in the book are not “real diseases,” at least not like measles or hepatitis. Instead, they are useful constructs that capture the ways that people commonly suffer. The manual, they go on, was primarily written to give physicians, schooled in the language of disease, a way to recognize similarities and differences among their patients and to talk to one another about them. And it has been fairly successful at that.
and
“The D.S.M. has been taken too seriously,” another expert told me. “It’s the victim of its success.”
The wife of a friend of mine was recently made to feel uncomfortable while visiting her freshman daughter's dorm to see fellows walking around the halls with towels or undershorts with long-neck beers in their hands as if the dorm were some sort of downscale Roman orgy.
I commented that co-ed showers would be the next new thing. The idea of that is, indeed, titillating.
In my paleo view, co-education itself was a bad idea. It ignores the reality of adolescent sexual tension, the reality of distraction, and the distortion of behavior that can ensue. Speaking for myself, the idea of trying to study or sleep knowing that some leggy blonde was in the next room three feet away, alone and perhaps feeling lonely, would make studying Plato a difficult thing to do.
Why is the US exceptional? Because it focuses on freedom from the state. That remains a revolutionary notion in an era in which so many want the State to be a beneficent God.
The greatest of storytellers, with an eye for vivid details of life and character types, and a tendency for unlikely dramatic plots.
He had no formal education after age 15, when he went to work. Sold his first book at 21, and fame and fortune ensued for this lad whose dad was in debtor's prison.
London. Michaelmas term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes—gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another's umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.
He wrote casually, effortlessly, humorously. You can learn all anybody needs to know about human nature from Dickens. He had been there and done that.
I had to laugh at that, because America is still far from providing a meaningful high school education to the average kid:
The cheerful confidence in face of utter ignorance is the most impressive aspect of this video. You can either blame the schools, the parents, or simply accept that these kids simply are not interesting in knowing much. You can lead a horse to water...
These kids don't need college. They need remedial grammar school. As Black and Right says: "We fund public schools. I demand my money back"
As Gingrich attacks Romney for being successful, and Romney proves too slow on his feet to talk about his admirable business career without apologizing or making gaffes, the Republicans cede the narrative to Obama.
... here's another term that I think deserves to be said out loud: Forced education. Like the term prison, this term sounds harsh. But, again, if we have compulsory education, then we have forced education. The term compulsory, if it has any meaning at all, means that the person has no choice about it.
The question worth debating is this: Is forced education--and the consequential imprisonment of children--a good thing or a bad thing? Most people seem to believe that it is, all in all, a good thing; but I think that it is, all in all, a bad thing. I outline here some of the reasons why I think this, in a list of what I refer to as "seven sins" of our system of forced education...
AVI in Education Changes is sympathetic to Gray's case, and does not wish his kids to have the (seemingly very good) college experience that he had. He says
...what hit me hardest about Grey's essay was what it described about me. I really was one of those who thought my role was to be amazingly brilliant and wait for someone to discover me. I really did think I was better than most of the rest of you. To see in print that this is what our current system encourages in the personalities of some bright students - and to be ready to hear that - was unpleasant. I use my education to entertain myself and others. The only direct application to my job or any useful activities is my ability to string sentences together - which may come more from reading rather than going to school.
"Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves. Even when we had Penn Station, we couldn't afford to keep it clean. We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed."
"Farewell to Penn Station," New York Times editorial, October 30, 1963
There was a fervor for tearing down old buildings in urban American during the 1960s and early 70s. Many historic, but dilapidated, downtowns were bulldozed, as were countless wonderful "Union Stations" - and anything else that seemed "old".
Today, we cherish towns like Savannah which were left untouched by the government scourge of "urban renewal."
19th century housing was replaced by "modern" Soviet-style planned and government-subsidized housing projects (which finally are beginning to be dynamited themselves, for good reason). And the buildings were replaced with parking lots and sterile semi-high rises, and malls - that horrible concept which turns its back on the town in an effort to create an unreal, soul-less consumer paradise for the masses.
When you drive through downtown Bridgeport, CT, Hartford, or Nashville, you will be hard put to find an old building. Lucky towns escaped this frenzy of "modernization," which I term "dehumanization." Nobody wants to be in those sorts of downtowns.
Pennsylvania Station on the West Side of Manhattan - one of the masterpieces of the beaux-art movement -did not escape the epidemic of destruction. Grand Central Station escaped - but only barely. Just tell me - where would you rather wait 40 minutes for a train to meet your girlfriend or boyfriend - the new Penn Station, or Grand Central?
Photo below of the 1910 McKim, Mead and White Penn Station, from this site of NYC architectural images. Who would have the nerve to knock this thing down and replace it with the new (and truly terrible in every way) Madison Square Garden?
Truth be told, this whole commentary was just an excuse to post this photo:
Everyone enjoyed The Firesign Theater, but I have not seen any weed for more years than I can count. Never inhaled. Shoes for Industry! Papoon for President! One organism - one vote.
Bert and I did downbeat Down East humor. Guys who can do that schtick are not uncommon, especially as aging alcoholic cooks in Maine hunting camps. Man, have I heard some good ones, spellbinding for a 30 minute absurd story, provided you keep the guy's glass full.
Uncle Ed and I will never forget the shaggy dog story of the kid who grazed a buck in an orchard up the road, and rode it home on his bicycle draped over the handlebars until the deer came to, and began pedaling the bike himself and rode it into the center of town. These stories fade from reality into fantasy so that you do not quite know where you are. Bert and I made famous the Maine response to the city folk in their fancy car who asked for directions from the farmer: "You can't get there from here."
Bob Bryant and Marshall Dodge made records of this sort of good stuff. Try a couple of the short samples here. You can buy them here.
Why is Maine "down east"? You should know by now. I will not explain it again.
40:21 Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
40:22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in;
40:23 who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.
40:24 Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
40:25 To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One.
40:26 Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing.
40:27 Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, "My way is hidden from the LORD, and my right is disregarded by my God"?
40:28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
40:29 He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.
40:30 Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted;
40:31 but those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
If you want to see a kickass World War II movie, then Red Tails is your ticket. Saturday morning, after dropping Jason off at Little League Umpiring School, candy bar in hand I slipped into a seat at the local Bijou and was transported back to the exciting WWII movies I enjoyed as a kid, and which haven’t been made since.
It’s the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, enduring racism on the ground and fighting Germans in the air. After I got home I scanned the reviews at Rotten Tomatoes. The negative reviews were mostly by relative youngsters who found it over the top or the characters too wooden, or some who not bothering about other films’ literal transgressions searched for them in this one. The more favorable reviews, however, got it. The film is unabashedly about heroism and patriotism. And, the dogfights have you at the edge of your seat, hands sweaty. Well worth the price of admission into when Hollywood made these movies regularly. This isn't about so many of today's so-called youth "heroes" who revel in lewdity and are rewarded with lewd sums of money that they flaunt. This is about real men who risked and gave all for what they believed, with little recompence except self-respect, and did it with dignity and discipline.
During the movie I wished I’d brought 11-year old Jason with me. It seems the movie was actually made for him.
George Lucas, unable to get film companies’ funding, made the movie out of his own pocket, $58-million invested in uplifting youth. As Lucas tells it, "For those of us in my group of filmmakers, like Steven (Spielberg) or Ron (Howard) or Marty (Scorsese), we want to make movies that enthralled us when we were little….It's corny. It's über-patriotic. And it's a really exciting action-adventure movie." But, more than that, “"I have only one agenda, and that's for a lot of young people to see this movie…" The report continues: “The good-vs.-evil, duels-in-the-skies aspect is what makes the movie especially timely, Lucas says. For many young people today, heroes — be they athletes, entertainers or presidents — aren't defined by skin color.”
Go see Red Tails, and take your son, daughter, grandchildren.
I must confess I always thought the Rascal's Groovin said "You and me and Lesley" - figured Lesley was either a dog, or a reference to a menage a trois, or his little sister. Neo's "Sugar fried honey butt" for "Sugar pie, honey bunch" (Four Tops) gave me a giggle. There is a website devoted to mondegreens: Kiss this guy.com. Also, "A girl with colitis walked by" was a pretty good one, too, Sippican: a good nose for them gastro-intestinal mondegreens.
My favorites from my own ears are "Lead us not into Penn Station, but deliver us from evil," and "Rain, rain, go away. Come again on Mother's Day."
And the Stones' "Hey, hey. You, you - get off of my cow."
By now, you've all heard the good news. It's been on the news everywhere, and the market jumped dramatically. This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that job growth exceeded everyone's wildest expectations. 243,000 jobs were added, far more than the expectation of 140,000. More importantly, 257,000 private sector jobs were added, while 14,000 government jobs were lost. Unemployment dipped from 8.5% to 8.3%. All of this is very good news. Even those who oppose the president and his methods of handling the economy will not serve themselves to disparage this growth. I certainly won't. What I will say is that the general media is great at reporting headlines, but not digging into the numbers or providing historical context.
The media won't dig in, but others have in order to see what the numbers behind the numbers say, particularly since the CBO's report earlier this week was so lackluster.
The first bit of perspective comes from the Democrats, who spent most of the early 2000's disparaging the job growth of the Bush years as "McJobs". I notice none of them are speaking right now. Which is odd, because while we added about 90,000 very good paying jobs, over 113,000 of the jobs added were clearly "McJobs", or low wage labor. Any job growth is good, so I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I just want to know why "McJobs" were bad 9 years ago, but good now? If any Democrats would like to comment on this, they are more than welcome.
Another bit of news that went overlooked was the surge in part-time and temp work. Again, any job growth is good. I have nothing but good feeling for people who have been out of work but have managed to wrangle a paycheck. But if Obama's goal is "An Economy That Works", I'm sure he didn't mean "Works Temporarily and Part-Time"
A third, though somewhat justified question, is why the BLS has actually increased job growth estimates by a very large amount over the course of 2011. It's possible preliminary numbers were low, but by 23%? Revisions are always needed - by why so many positive adjustments? Usually it's "seasonal fluctuations". Which means...?
The wife of a friend of mine was recently made to feel uncomfortable while visiting her freshman daughter's dorm to see fellows walking around the halls with towels or undershorts with long-neck beers in their hands as if the dorm were some sort of downscale Roman orgy.
The greatest of storytellers, with an eye for vivid details of life and character types, and a tendency for unlikely dramatic plots.
Rubio Leads Charge as 
