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.
In Arizona he said, "An economy built to last also means we've got to renew American values: fair play, shared responsibility." Wild applause. For those who think they have facts on their side, it will be maddening and enraging to watch other Obama audiences across the country cheer and applaud "An Economy Built to Last." Get used to it.
The GOP is appealing, as its candidates so often do, to the American brain. Barack Obama is happy to be left by himself, going for their hearts. If he wins, the Republican will wail at the unfairness, irrationality and illogic of what beat them.
One of these days, Romney is going to say something like “Obama just doesn’t understand how the real economy works, partly because he’s never had a job.” And the New York Times will run a front page story, quoting Al Sharpton and a bevy of psychologists, about how that is racist code. Make book on it.
The mandate by the Obama administration that contraception must be provided by the medical plans of religious hospitals and schools even if contrary to their religious doctrine may influence the Supreme Court’s decisions on ObamaCare.
On a fundamental level, the mandate exhibits the intrusiveness of Obamacare into aspects of private belief, its practice, and freedom of choice. This is at the heart of the portion of the Supreme Court’s deliberations into Obamacare’s individual mandate to buy medical insurance or be fined. The issue is whether Congress exceeded its federal powers.
The intrusiveness of the individual mandate into private rights may or not be held by the Supreme Court to be inextricably linked to whether all or some of ObamaCare should be struck down. The Obama administration brief says that only the guaranteed enrollment and community-rating provisions of ObamaCare may be affected. However, the contraception mandate under the Obamacare requirement to provide preventive and wellness care exhibits the wider impact of Obamacare’s intrusion into private choices.
Until the hearings it cannot be known whether contending counsel will raise the issue of the contraception mandate or whether a Supreme Court justice will. Still, it is reasonable to suppose that it will be on the minds of one or more Supreme Court justices in reaching their decisions.
It has been pointed out that six of the nine Supreme Court justices are Catholic. It is speculative as to how that may affect their judgments. It is interesting to note, however, that a Jewish justice, Elena Kagan, concurring (with justice Alito) to the unanimous decision in the Hosanna-Tabor case upholding the “ministerial” exemption from EEOC, says, “…-it is easy to forget that the autonomy of religious groups, both here in the United States and abroad, has often served as a shield against oppressive civil laws.” Although the Hosanna-Tabor case entails differing discrete matters of law, Kagan’s expressed understanding there of a correct limit to federal power may be reflected in her or other justices’ considerations.
The Supreme Court has waffled back and forth on whether there should be a dividing line between faith and practice, most recently finding for a division if there is a compelling state interest. The Obama administration’s argument, in both the ObamaCare hearings and in the contraception mandate, is that there is a compelling state interest in intruding into the choices of private people or entities. The Hosanna-Tabor decision may indicate that the majority of Supreme Court justices will find otherwise.
The contraception mandate cannot have helped the case for ObamaCare, and may abort ObamaCare.
Support your local poet! A Berkshire neighbor, a poet, has come out with her first book, How Will They Find Me.
Here's a sample:
Croquet
A scarlet dusk, the lawn speckled with light. The players are my family. With mallets and colored balls they move about the field. The klock of mallets and balls, someone’s poison. A branch loosens the kite caught hours ago. It flutters and sinks to earth. A heron flies lazily over us, its feet tucked neatly beneath it. My sons tumble about in the grass. The day melts in my hands.
The protest sign in the piece says "Koch kills democracy."
How the unassuming, philanthropic, and low-profile Kochs were selected as bogeymen of the year I do not know. They are known to be supporters of Libertarian and free market organizations so I suppose, by a certain sort of logic, the Left must always demonize defenders of freedom.
As we have noted countless times here, the Left never includes individual freedom in their political calculations (unless it's about sex). That is not an oversight; it's because We The People are viewed as the feckless masses requiring Ivy League overlords to make our decisions for us. To which we peasants say "Basta!"
Is real democracy consistent with maintaining liberty? The ancient Greeks said it wasn't. They believed that democracy was mob rule, and our Founders decided that they were correct. The modern Greeks are proving it again.
As we have also repeated claimed here, individual liberty, unlike money, really is a zero-sum game. Every drop accrued by the State is a drop taken from me whether it is meant to be "for my own good" or not. We're all here for the freedom, not for the government. The American Spirit is to be annoyed with government, and to view it as a necessary evil but limited in its powers.
Still, it seems odd to me to select a couple of wealthy Libertarians as targets.
The real legacy of Obamaism is the effort to turn the U.S. into a managed society, run by elite technocrats who are exempt from their own policies and sermons — all premised on the notion that collective unhappiness is the result of unfairness and someone else’s having more than the government-approved norm. In other words, we are supposed to be uniform and static peasants, always on the lookout for “them,” who somehow cheated to get one more pig than we have.
If David Brooks isn't being facetious here, then he's gone nuts:
I doubt Murray would agree, but we need a National Service Program. We need a program that would force members of the upper tribe and the lower tribe to live together, if only for a few years. We need a program in which people from both tribes work together to spread out the values, practices and institutions that lead to achievement.
If we could jam the tribes together, we’d have a better elite and a better mass.
Mao called it the Cultural Revolution, enforced by the Red Guard at gunpoint. It did not work out well. And what's with "mass"? I think he is calling my parents the "mass." He ought to meet them sometime. They sacrificed everything, and worked two jobs, to put us kids through U Mass (we all had jobs during school to help out) and have never had any money to spare or to save. Good habits and decency, however.
I've always been 'Green'. Not "I recycle and you should stop driving an SUV and if you don't you're evil" Green. I'm more of a constructive 'green'. In my youth I did ecological projects with the Boy Scouts, planting trees, cleaning parks, learning about nature by hiking the Appalachian Trail. I figure it's better to improve than scold, and you should start at home anyway. It's better to be concerned about how you do things and let other people worry about how they choose to live. If people want to be 'green' because they fear Carbon Dioxide, that's their choice and I'm OK with it. I don't agree with them, and I really don't appreciate when they decide their way is better and want to force me to do things their way.
My teen years were marked by two contrived events now known as "The Energy Crisis". Political situations had led to a belief that oil prices would rise forever and we'd run out of fossil fuels by 2000 (technically, we were supposed to hit Hubbert's Peak in 1979 - but Hubbert didn't count on various factors which extended his timeline). All kinds of crazy stories in the 1970's drove many to the point of hysteria. Not dissimilar to what we're being told today, except back then the world was cooling, not warming. It doesn't matter which way the temperature was going, because ecological consciousness was, and is, part of the 'correct' cultural identity. As I matured, I learned it's not just about ecology. It's about efficiency.
To the American liberal, riches are not a matter of economics, but of identity. Wealth is a moral entity, not an economic one. What distinguishes pious millionaires like Warren from the heathens who make their money the old fashioned way is that the former achieve it through the moral pursuit of the public good, which is all the more pious for taking them to a Harvard professorship or a job in government, while the latter achieve it through economic transactions in the private sector. The former is a form of public service, the latter is public exploitation.
But a closer look at the bones and carcass of this system turns those definitions on their head. It is the Warrens who are the exploiters, consuming the wealth of a nation and spawning more committees, regulations and regulatory committees to keep on feeding off the wealth. What they give to us in exchange for what they take is not a service, it is oppression masquerading as feudal protectionism.
In my view, Newt is unelectable, and not only because he comes across as an unusually unpleasant and undisciplined person. I don't know whether Mitt could win a national election, but I think the point is that he would help hold down potential losses in the House and Senate. He is not a rooted Conservative in the way that Obama is a rooted Leftist, it seems to me, and is the white bread candidate. Likeable, in my view. Not exciting, not overtly humorous, and not too quick on his feet. He'd be fine as President, I think, but not an Obama-style media celeb which seems to be what people enjoy these days, and not a Cut Government Down to Size Conservative.
Of course, holding the House and/or winning the Senate are more important than the White House, but we all tend to focus on the White House race because it's a sport, a soap opera, the Kentucky Derby. It gives us stuff to talk about.
Perhaps I am wrong. Maybe a calm, pragmatic, non-ideological CEO Mitt-type is what the country needs and wants now. However, the Conservative Repubs see, rightly or wrongly, the opportunity to crush a weak Obama and to win all the chips. Emotion can get in the way of mature, logical thinking. If Mitt wins nomination, it's because party members have voted for him in the primaries. There is no puppetmaster.
Who and where is that mystery person who can pleasantly and inspiringly articulate the Constitutional Conservative case (it ain't Sarah Palin)? Would it require a brokered convention to bring that person onto the field? That would make for some very good TV.
Otherwise, Moderate Mitt will be the party's figurehead.
We are considering putting up one of these Country Carpenters pre-fab post and beam barn/garages up at the top of the driveway, perhaps with a small apartment upstairs.
I was told they can be put up in a week, or less, once the slab is laid down. Installing a septic field would be an additional expense that I am not sure I want to take on right now. I think we will also need a well.
Every American needs a barn. Were I running for President, that would be my promise.
You can easily tell if someone is a true environmentalist, i.e. an advocate for a healthy planet – he is one who is happy to hear the news that the arctic ice content has stabilized. He is one who celebrates when the recent climate data show the alarmist’s predictions of catastrophic warming might be wrong. The denier, if he is an eco/political activist, always denies new data that show the planet may be healthy after all. The Media usually defines deniers as those who deny the scientist’s computer model predictions. However, denying the measured climate data meets a better definition in the world of science.
They claim, and I suspect it is true, that this is the best show on the evolution of Renaissance portraiture that will be put together in our lifetimes. Is it a niche topic? Heck, everything in life is a niche topic, but I would say that this is a show for those with more than a passing interest in the history of art. The re-secularization of the arts in the European Renaissance was a big deal, but attributing to that period the "rediscovery of the individual" goes overboard.
High points for me were a couple of Botticelli portraits, and the death mask of Lorenzo di Medici. What a cool dude he was.
A few random pics of the East Side of Manhattan today. The East Side streets are never teeming with people like the colorful West Side or downtown neighborhoods where everybody is young and there are tons of people pushing strollers: Here, people mostly have their doorman fetch a cab.
Human nature and the laws of physics, not technocratic liberalism, are still the best guides to the madness around us. Money borrowed has to be paid back or the debt eaten by someone, period. Poverty is defined by a want of material necessities, not by lacking the appurtenances that someone else better off enjoys. Gas and oil are miracle fuels and it is very hard to find alternate energies at comparable costs and reliability. And as a rule, the green class of environmental elites usually uses more fossil fuels per capita than do the muscular classes who mine and drill them out of the ground — and who do not jet, drive, or live in the comparable fashion of their critics. The content of our character alone matters; those who are not so confident in their own, usually demand that their tribal affiliations be essential and not incidental to their personas. Most accept that culture, not race matters, but it matters still more not to say that. Most of the political class has no interest in history; dogma is their creed. They assume that everyone (far less noble than themselves) in the past would have agreed with them, or now can be postfacto made to agree with them.
I am not saying that it is wrong in any way to help people in need. I am not saying that people who need help are bad. I am suggesting that the specific approach that has been favored by the political progressive left and the Democrats has serious, psychologically damaging consequences that lead to never-ending dependence, passivity, and continued poverty.
I recalled a piece I wrote in this column on January 29, 2009, just after Obama took office. It was headlined: “This is the sub-prime house that Barack Obama built”. As a rising young Chicago politician in 1995, no one campaigned more actively than Mr Obama for an amendment to the US Community Reinvestment Act, legally requiring banks to lend huge sums to millions of poor, mainly black Americans, guaranteed by the two giant mortgage associations, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Loreena McKennitt put the lyrics of this poem by the Spanish mystic monk, poet, and theologian John of the Cross (1541-1592) to music. Some of our readers will love what she did with it. The Youtube blurb on McKennitt's piece:
"Dark Night of the Soul," like much of John's poetry, is based on "Song of Songs" from the Biblical Old Testament, and also on much of the romantic poetry and lyrics of Spanish popular balladry of that time, i.e., 16th century. The "secret stair" has less to do with a staircase in a monastery, and more to do with the popular theme of lovers meeting for a late night romantic tryst. In order for this to be possible, the young maiden of the song or poem would have to sneak out of the house, by the "secret stair." John uses this as a metaphor for the soul in prayer who, by means of contemplation, steals away from the world unnoticed, to meet in loving relationship with God. The dark night refers to the soul's search for God, beyond the confines of the human definitions we have put upon God."
John also wrote a treatise on his poem, of the same title. As I understand it, the "dark night" also refers to the period between death and resurrection and union with God, or between death and heaven, and as a metaphor for the condition of being out of touch with God and His love, seeking it in the dark. However, John of the Cross makes a sexy love poem of it too, in the tradition of Song of Songs (Solomon, the old rascal, had 700 wives and 300 concubines to keep him from straying too far from the harem, and out of trouble.)
Here's one translation from: THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS, translated by Kieran Kavanaugh, OCD, and Otilio Rodriguez, OCD, revised edition (1991). (Copyright 1991 ICS Publications. Permission is hereby granted for any non-commercial use, if this copyright notice is included.)
1. One dark night, fired with love's urgent longings - ah, the sheer grace! - I went out unseen, my house being now all stilled.
2. In darkness, and secure, by the secret ladder, disguised, - ah, the sheer grace! - in darkness and concealment, my house being now all stilled.
3. On that glad night, in secret, for no one saw me, nor did I look at anything, with no other light or guide than the one that burned in my heart.
4. This guided me more surely than the light of noon to where he was awaiting me - him I knew so well - there in a place where no one appeared.
5. O guiding night! O night more lovely than the dawn! O night that has united the Lover with his beloved, transforming the beloved in her Lover.
6. Upon my flowering breast which I kept wholly for him alone, there he lay sleeping, and I caressing him there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.
7. When the breeze blew from the turret, as I parted his hair, it wounded my neck with its gentle hand, suspending all my senses.
8. I abandoned and forgot myself, laying my face on my Beloved; all things ceased; I went out from myself, leaving my cares
In case readers didn't take the time to read the WSJ opinion piece this week by prominent scientists, here it is:No Need to Panic About Global Warming -There's no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to 'decarbonize' the world's economy.
The brief video interview with the Princeton Physics prof there is interesting too. He says they would have had many signatures if they had taken the time.
These fellows are saying what we have been saying here for years, but they have more street cred than we have. Indeed, the story of the AGW hysteria is a fascinating story of the politicization of scientific inquiry coupled with governmental and academic greed for money and power. It is a cautionary tale.
Furthermore, I think many of us would welcome a little global warming. I think it would improve the planet, overall. It certainly did so in the past. Watch, over the next year, more scientific organizations and agencies find the courage to publicize these politically-incorrect views.
At Maggie's Farm, most or all of us are Environmentalists and Conservationists. We want land and water and air to be protected. We do not even approve of urban sprawl because we may need all of our farmlands someday and, as pleasant as urban hiking can be, we need the woods too. But at the same time, we like to live in reality.
"My idea was to bribe the working classes, or shall I say, to win them over, to regard the state as a social institution existing for their sake and interested in their welfare.”
Isolated Peru tribe 
Croquet
The protest sign 
The Great Texas Pig War of 1841
Spike Lee: The New Bill Cosby?
Old ad via
Loreena McKennitt