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.
This morning on the way to Sunday School, my boys complained at my classical music radio station, "There's no words." Our Maggie's Farm pinup Marianne wrote me later about a childhood experience:
I wonder whether you’ve ever heard Rosa Ponselle. She is the first opera singer I ever heard and the one who made me fall in love with singing. Caruso discovered her on “the Borscht Circuit” where she was singing duets with her sister. They called themselves “Those Italian Girls” and they simply bowled Caruso over. He arranged an audition for her with the manager of The Metropolitan Opera, and he was bowled over by the beauty of her voice and her skill in singing and immediately offered her a contract. Talk about a fairy tale! In the early 1930s, I was just a little squid, and had to take a nap every afternoon. I had smuggled my Mom’s radio into my room and one Saturday afternoon, I found the Metropolitan Opera broadcast, which absolutely astounded me. That’s when I fell in love with opera.
I went to YouTube, listening to many of Rosa Ponselle's recordings, and went to WikiPedia to learn more about her. To sum it up, Maria Callas called Ponselle, "The greatest singer of us all." The New York Times critic called her voice "vocal gold."
Here's Rosa Ponselle in one of her greatest, demonstrating her unique range:
And, as Sunday comes to a close, here's Rosa Ponselle with one of her fitting non-operatic entries:
Every day that I know Marianne is a perfect day. Including one like this when she helps me get vengeance on my boys.
For competitive college admissions, it is tough for Asians to dodge the Asian quotas by labelling themselves as "white." Goes to show how insane this preoccupation with race has become.
What race is a half-Asian? What race is an American Indian or an Eskimo? (Asian, right?) What race is Obama, who "passes" as black to his great advantage in life?
In my opinion, private colleges can do whatever they want (eg Morehouse College), but taxpayer-supported schools should be racially blind. After all, our taxes are racially blind. Ignore race and ethnicity, and just think about their potential to benefit from, and to add something to, the place.
As you go through your list of end-of-year charitable contributions, please consider adding FIRE to your annual giving list.
They do good work on a shoestring with, as I understand it, quite a lot of volunteered legal time. As I see it, FIRE is continuing the work of the Berkeley Free Speech movement of the 60s. In fact, I am considering offering myself to them for occasional free counsel.
In my view, few things in life match the pleasure of giving money for the things one cares about. The freedom to do so is a gift itself, and a privilege. Like many or most of the conservative persuasion, we like to give until it hurts, but without going into debt to do it. The widow's mite: my charitable check sizes range from $50 to $1000, depending on how I feel and where I see the needs, but I have to whittle my list down to 12-15 of my favorite charities.
The great Charles Dickens would, I am sure, be amused that his casual novelette, A Christmas Carol, would be one of his most popular works. It's a story of a cranky sinner becoming a reborn Christian, and the best testimony ever along with being one of the best movies ever made.
From covetous, cheerless insanity to joy in life, the loving "life in abundance" that we are promised. Non-Christians and atheists mght be able to get a sense of what it is all about from this film, even though it is never overtly Christ-centered.
This is somewhat edited, but contains the gist of it:
Every now and then I read some article on how the Web is running out of bandwidth, or the government is going to take it over, or the UN is going to control it, or the increase in domain extensions is going to fragmentize it, or the corporations will soon own everything, or any of a dozen scenarios that spell certain doom.
I think, if only.
Personally, I'd be delighted to see a new 'web' spring up. Personal sites only, please. Commercial ventures okay if owned by only one person.
The problem is that the Web has gotten so massive that trying to search for info is becoming exceedingly difficult. Your initial search will probably come up with millions of hits. Refine it and, if you're lucky, it'll get it down to a mere tens of thousands.
When it gets near to impossible is when you're totally lacking in semi-unique 'keywords'. I twice spent over an hour looking for a WordPress plugin that would display the 'last modified' date when listing the posts — and have it be clickable so the posts could be sorted that way (like it does with the name of the posts, author, date, etc).
And I got nowhere fast, simply because there just wasn't any keyword that helped zone in on the answer. I just now did a search for "wordpress plugin list last modified" and came up with the expected 1.2 million hits. I have Google display 20 hits per page, so, at 10 minutes per page tracking down leads per 8 hours a day, that's 3.4 years to go through them all.
If you, like me, simply don't have the 3.4 years available to do a proper Google search, there are some nifty little tricks that can help out immensely.
This past weekend, my elder son asked me to drive him to the outlets so he could get some Ralph Lauren shirts at a reduced cost. Frankly, I don't know where he got this penchant for name brand clothing, but it's his money, not mine. What is my money is the gas it takes to drive an hour to the outlets and the time I gave up to make the 2 hour (round trip) drive. I thought it would be a good lesson for him on 2 levels. First, I could teach him about opportunity costs by showing him why the trip was frivolous. Second, he'd get some driving practice so he could get his license in 2 weeks.
I wound up getting to fulfill my goals, he got his shirts, and we both learned a valuable lesson.
No good deed goes unpunished. In other words, Murphy was right. You can almost count on unintended consequences.
Currier and Ives' Skating in Central Park (Lots more trees there than in the 1880s but it remains rus in urba, more or less, with some of the best birding in the East in migration time as a green oasis in a sea of urbanization along the Atlantic Flyway):
Newt is right, of course. The very poor need to learn work habits as early as possible, and perhaps more so than middle class kids, who tend to be surrounded by adults who have successful work and marital habits (Newt doesn't mention the marital habits, of course)
"America's growing IQ stratification, and the resulting class war that the clever are waging upon the clueless, is one of the great unmentionables." The subsequent subprime disaster exemplified this.
The Democratic Party has been hijacked by the grifters, con men, and hustlers who should be behind bars rather than behind the Justice Department, the EPA, the National Labor Relations Board, or countless other useless, worthless agencies which serve no purpose and have long overstayed their usefulness.
Leading this pack of these charlatans is its leader, Barack Hussein Obama aka Barry Soetero. If Obama is not the killer of American greatness, he is most certainly its weapon of choice.
Ouch. I think plenty of Dems are beginning to realize this now.
If I when my wife is sleeping and the baby and Kathleen are sleeping and the sun is a flame-white disc in silken mists above shining trees, if I in my north room dance naked, grotesquely before my mirror waving my shirt round my head and singing softly to myself: "I am lonely, lonely. I was born to be lonely, I am best so!" If I admire my arms, my face, my shoulders, flanks, buttocks against the yellow drawn shades, Who shall say I am not the happy genius of my household?
Dr. Williams, a college pal of Ezra Pound at Penn, practiced medicine in Rutherford, NJ until 1951 and delivered over 3000 babies. An optimistic and humane man and poet.
I know it's been said by many people many times, but I'll say it again: Sometimes, cameras do not record things - they create them. Reader reminded me of the Palliwood video below, which reminded me of OWS: would those people have been there without the nightly TV cameras, and all the attention from all the people walking by taking their pictures? I doubt it.
Thus the thousands of mostly cheerful people who swarmed into Macy's on Thanksgiving weekend to enjoy giving up their hard-earned money to evil corporations were not a meaningful meme, but thirty scruffy malcontents still at Zuccotti Park got their daily TV notoriety, maintaining the deeply meaning meme. The former activity does not require the presence of cameras, the latter does and therefore is Palliwood.
Greedy for visual content, those with the cameras create the news. Then they create the narrative to go along with it. Yes, we all know this already.
It's the festive time of year here in the USA. Saturnalia, as I term it - with Advent and the baby Jesus squeezed in there somewhere, out in the barn with the animals, or in our hearts.
Too much festivity packed into too short of a time. Party-hopping, dining out after cocktail parties and open-houses, eating too much tasty stuff, drinking too much, and seeing too many friends, old and new, to do them justice. The whirlwind already began this week, for us. I love it, but it also fatigues me. Even ran into an old prep school classmate at a large party last night, a guy I hadn't seen in around 5 years. "Hey, you look great," I said (lying). "So do you" he said (liar). "Let's go shooting sometime" he said (liar). "Great, love to" I replied (truthfully).
Here's one cool trick to save hassle for your holiday dining reservations: Open Table.com.
I love the old phrase: "We have the answer. Now what was the question again?"
It's the corollary to "For a man with a hammer, every problem is a nail."
Re my post yesterday, I still cannot understand why a jelly shop needs to be licensed and regulated. Haven't farmers been selling jams, jellies, and pies to happy customers for hundreds of years?
Lengthy and complex regulations are employment schemes for government employees and lawyers as much as anything else. Forget state regs -there are 86,000 pages in the Fed Register. Nobody knows what is in there, but it you violate one of them, you can be screwed.
Gotta love those headline writers. "Jobless Rate Falls" will be standard fare for the next week as the MSM continues its cheerleading to promote Obama's campaign. I'm not opposed to cheerleading if it makes sense. But we've heard all this before! It's a broken record.
More workers and lower unemployment are always good. But lying about their meaning is a huge problem. We don't have a hiring trend, let alone a trend meaningful enough to call for an economic recovery!
While part of the decline in the unemployment rate from 9.0 percent in October was due to people leaving the labor force, the household survey from which the jobless rate is derived also showed solid gains in employment.
In other words, about 3/4 of the drop in unemployment is from people leaving the workforce, while the long term trend since January 2011 is flat (at best). In addition, the size of the job gains are still minimal, don't represent a meaningful trend, and come as we gear up for - what? - holiday season. This is a snoozer from the MSM, but if it begins to show strength into 2012 (if we see 200,000+ jobs created in December, Jan, Feb), I'll happily eat crow. But we've seen growth of 122,000 jobs before during the recession. In fact, we've seen months of more than 200,000 several times. At what point does this story get old?
The rules are stacked against even the smallest of entrepreneurs. If and when I decided to set up my own thing, I already know what I'll need to borrow money for: Lawyers.
It is ironic that Jews are fighting the establishment on many college campuses, since Walt and Mearsheimer assert that Jews either are or control the establishment. However, an establishment has arisen at many colleges that tolerates, even supports, a leftist and pro-Palestinian alliance that attacks Israel and Jews and that undermines free speech and academic freedom.
The 1947 film produced by Darryl Zanuck, A Gentleman’s Agreement, stunned audiences with the exposure of upper-class bigotry toward Jews. It was elected the best movie of the year in the Oscars, won two more Oscars, and was nominated for five more.
This post, Jews Confront The Gentlemen’s Agreement On Campuses, is about two such groups that have been successful, and the depth of the gentlemen’s agreement on college campuses that is not only hateful or allows hate but is also inimical to free speech and academic freedom.
My deep felt thanks goes to one of the most prestigious publications, Arma Virumque of The New Criterion, and to its editor Roger Kimball, for posting an abridged version of Jews Confront The Gentlemen's Agreement On Campuses. As in all things, Kimball and The New Criterion stand up for the best of Western culture, under attack for its decency by those who would destroy it. (Just dive in to and savor The New Criterion's December 2011 issue, now online.)
In A Gentleman’s Agreement a reporter passes himself off as Jewish to explore anti-Semitism. He is shocked at how deep it runs among professional associates and friends, even his girlfriend. The gentleman’s agreement operated behind the scenes to discriminate against Jews despite laws or promises, while publicly denying its existence or that the perpetrators are bigots. Zanuck, not Jewish, decided to make the movie after he was rejected for membership in the Los Angeles Country Club who thought he was Jewish. Wikipedia continues: “Before filming commenced, Samuel Goldwyn and other Jewish film executives approached Darryl Zanuck and asked him not to make the film, fearing that it would "stir up trouble".”
Since then, American Jews have come to enjoy and expect successful acceptance in the United States. American Jews, also, took pride in the successes of Israel and Israel’s repeatedly almost-miraculous defensive wars against Arab invaders. Still, Israel and its bad neighborhood was thought of as far away. But, no longer.
Virulent pro-Palestinian groups ally with leftist groups that attack the US as they do Israel. Their demonstrations, their hate language toward Israel and Jews, their disruptions of pro-Israel speakers, their violence, have become all too common-place on US college campuses. Jews on campuses and outside have been shocked at this and have been even more shocked at the neutrality or support for these haters by some college administrators and faculty.
This post, Jews Confront The Gentlemen’s Agreement On Campuses, examines how Jewish groups are now fighting back against this new radical gentlemen’s agreement. Many Jews in “establishment” positions are as blind as the old Hollywood moguls, and complicit in not more forcefully confronting fellows in the establishment about this renewed anti-Semitism. Many Jews of the political Left are downright dismissive of the dangers of the excesses of the pro-Palestinian radicals they ally with.
Like Darryl Zanuck and the reporter in the film, the pro-Israel groups covered in my article are not afraid to “stir up trouble” to confront the hate culture that runs rampant on too many college campuses. More and more US Jews now know that Israel’s defense is no longer far away, and their own defense as Americans enjoying free speech, academic freedom, non-discrimination is under attack within academia, often looked away from or abetted by those in responsible positions who Jews once thought of as decent people.
For Internet posterity and additional guidance for those who may want to be more active, continue on to see “Jews Confront The Gentlemen’s Agreement On Campuses” in the much longer version of the article, which contains some differing views and lessons-learned/how-tos at the end.
Today, there’s a new gentlemen’s agreement on many college campuses that tolerates and often supports anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism. Shocked out of their comforts, many Jews are fighting back.
When we ask how our current political state of affairs measures up to the Founders’ standard, we usually find ourselves discussing whether a given law or program is constitutional, and soon enough get tangled in precedents and lawyerly rigmarole. But let’s frame the question a little differently: How far does present-day America meet the Founders’ ideal of free government, protecting individual liberty while avoiding what they considered tyranny? A few specific examples will serve as a gauge...
Read it. Wonderful essay. Another quote:
There’s indeed a lot of petty tyranny going around. The question is, at what point do many little tyrannies add up to Tyranny? Likely voters suggested a troubling answer in an August Rasmussen poll: 69 percent of them said they didn’t think today’s U.S. government enjoys the consent of the governed. And in September, 49 percent of respondents, an unprecedented high, told Gallup pollsters that “the federal government poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens.”
So proclaims Andy Stern in the WSJ: China's Superior Economic Model - The free-market fundamentalist economic model is being thrown onto the trash heap of history.
A centrally-controlled Communist economy? Brilliant idea, Andy. Quite a novel idea. You in charge, of course?
You just have to laugh. I remember when the left envied the Soviet economy, the Cuban economy, the Japanese economy, the West German economy, the European economy. Now, the Chinese - until it blows up.
Spoiler alert: I usually just include a brief clip or two in my movie reviews so as not to give too much away, but the second part of this video is somewhat near the end so I figured it deserved an official spoiler alert. It's not the climax of the film, though, just a major hurdle to be overcome. As usual, this is designed to be played in full-screen mode, so click the little gadget on the player's tool bar to expand it, ESC to bring it back down.
The Viking god Thor was a pretty awesome dude, right? I mean, he was really strong and was the god of thunder and had that really cool hammer and-
Wait a sec.
A hammer? You mean, like, if a bunch of nails stage a rebellion, Thor's the guy to call?
A hammer? I warned him, "You know, you could put an eye out with that thing!" So, that's who you're up against? Someone who can give you a really nasty conk on the ol' noggin?
A hammer?
So there I was watching Thor the other night and wow, what a great movie. I confess I usually don't like 'superhero' movies. I thought Batman 6 stunk up the joint, every Superman has been absolutely terrible (except every scene with the irrepressible Gene Hackman, of course), I never bothered watching the other Spiderman movies after that first travesty, and the list goes on. Green Lantern and Captain America are both in my Netflix queue, but I'm not hopeful.
Side question: If you were producing the first major 'Superman' movie of the modern era, wouldn't you want the plot to be a little more plausible than "If you reverse the rotation of the Earth, time goes backwards"?
Anyway, not only was Thor terrific, but it also answered our original question:
A hammer?
Yes, Virginia, a hammer. Here are three ways in which he uses the empowered hammer Mjölnir, utilizing elements such as lightning, raw energy, and the awesome cyclonic power of the vortex.
Elements you would expect from the God of Thunder.
Like the last line in the clip, there are a handful of cute comedic moments blended in. When they first come across the handsome, unconscious Thor, one of the girls says, "Whoa, does he need CPR? Because I totally know CPR."
How to Make Beer: Our Family Discovers 
Danse Russe
It's the festive time of year here in the USA. Saturnalia, as I term it - with Advent and the baby Jesus squeezed in there somewhere, out in the barn with the animals, or in our hearts.
I love the old phrase: "We have the answer. Now what was the question again?"
What will make her happier: a new Hoover vacuum or this: 
