Maggie's Farm

Blow, blow, thou winter wind (from Act ll, Scene 7 of As You Like it, 1600)

Blow, blow, thou winter wind.
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember’d not.
Heigh-ho! sing, &c.

I happen to know two people who are venturing to Haiti next week, one acquaintance and one friend, to do good works, mostly of a medical nature. They do not know eachother.

Haiti is in a state of anarchy. It was anarchy before the earthquake, which is why it could not deal with an ordinary catastrophe. They tried socialism, but how do you do socialism without producers to take money from? There have been hundreds of NGOs in Haiti, and billions of dollars given, and it all goes into a black hole. Nothing happens. God knows where the money ends up. Switzerland or the Caymans, probably.

Haiti is the sort of disastrous place that draws people who want to do good works. As the whole world grows more prosperous, there are fewer and fewer outlets for such folks. For non-profit types, going to work in Haiti is analogous to getting your combat medals.

In my view, Haiti's problem is the culture - not earthquakes or cholera or the endemic rape or Voodoo or hurricanes. The Dominican Rep, next door on the same island, is flourishing, lovely, and generally civilized and safe despite their rural poverty.

- How do you transplant a new culture to a population of 10 million poor people?
- How do you persuade businesses to invest in a totally corrupt and violent place?
- How do you create an honest and well-intentioned government in an anarchic place where flagrant corruption and violence are the rule?
- And who asked you to do that, anyway?

I advised these folks to read Graham Greene's classic The Comedians, but they had done that already.

So I advised them to watch Masked and Anonymous.

A reader suggested that I stop by Lepcis Magna (aka Leptis Magna, aka Neapolis) while visiting North Africa.

Not a bad idea, but I have seen tons of Roman ruins from England to Pompeii to North Africa, and they're all about the same: an arena, a forum, a bath, a few monuments and lots of columns, etc. The ones in Carthage were cool.

I prefer seeing Greek things, and it seems like it would be a shame to go through life without seeing ancient Egyptian things in situ.

Where I want to poke around, from the Romans, is Ostia.

We posted on a visit to Ostia a few years ago.

At Washington Times:

What was most remarkable about this was the almost hysterical opposition from congressional Democrats and left-wing commentators. In what should have been a united celebration of the nation's foundation document in a period of partisan rancor, liberals instead reinforced the view that they are profoundly uncomfortable with the essential truths underlying American freedom.

I hate to say it, but it appears to be so. If it is so, I say it's a big deal. The Constitution is our secular Bible, and designed to protect us citizens from State power. It was - and remains - radical and revolutionary.

Statists and elitists hate it, and prefer to forget why it was written. They think they know how I should arrange my life and feel somehow anointed to do it for me. I resent their attitude immensely.

"My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met."

Rodney Dangerfield

Barack Obama - Either Doing His Best In One of The Most Difficult Times In American History, Or Hitler

Everything about Bedbugs

Maine Family Robinson: It's Time To Be Interested In Houses Again:

I dare you to go to the library and read House Beautiful from 2000. You won’t even be able to stand looking at the typefaces on the pages, never mind the pictures of the houses. It is unwise to set fads into mortar.

How can there be a right to health?

Health? No. In fact, terminal disease is our definite fate - barring horrible accident.

Via Ace's The Illusion of the "Professional" Class and the Rise of the Liberal Aristocracy:

I've long believed that a key failure of modern society is the widespread disdain for honest labor. There should be no shame in doing a "regular" job and doing it well. However, among many there is the assumption that any person who doesn't work in data or abstractions is a dullard.

Ten dumbest tech predictions

Dr. Helen: "Pretty sad when something all teen males fantasize about happening to them is considered a crime."

Via Insty:

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The New Sophists. “In 2009, brilliant economists in the Obama administration — Peter Orszag, Larry Summers and Christina Romer — assured us that record trillion-plus budget defects were critical to prevent stalled growth and 10 percent unemployment. For nearly two years we have experienced both, but now with an addition $3 trillion in national debt. All three have quietly either returned to academia or Wall Street. . . . The public might have better believed the deficit nostrums of former budget director Peter Orszag had he not retired after less than two years on the job to position himself for a multimillion-dollar billet at Citigroup — itself a recent recipient of some $25 billion in government bailout funds. Are we to wonder why an angry, grassroots tea party movement spread — or why it was instantly derided by our experts and technocrats as ill-informed or worse?”

AVI has a comment for some of our commenters

Rubin: What would it cost to repeal ObamaCare?

Tanner: What Republicans Can -- And Can't -- Do about ObamaCare

 O'Rourke on "Gimme rights" and "Get out of here" rights

Bob Parks: The New York Times: Three-Fifths Of A Newspaper

Bookworm: Reading the Constitution in Congress

Two books I want to re-link:

Vedder's Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much

Minogue's The Servile Mind: How Democracy Erodes the Moral Life

Art above by our friend Elissa Gore

From RailPictures, this pic of the Nevada Northern #93 operating on the Heber Valley Railroad line for the Salt Lake Winter Olympics, near Wildwood, Utah, by G. Brubaker. (That site has over 300,000 rail photos):

Life is a long lesson in humility.

James M. Barrie

        

 

 Anchoress: Surrender unto Surrender for Peace – UPDATED

Hennessey: The ten most important American economic policy issues of 2010

Pethokoukis: ‘Cut and grow’ is really the only way forward

Why Our Best Officers Are Leaving

McArdle: Commercial Real Estate on the Mend?

Via Neptunus:

"The New York Times is just basically being a mouthpiece for political correctness,” King said, later adding: “These are very legitimate hearings.”

Miller begins:

Feminists began to embrace and promote the legacy of author Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) in the 1970s, starting with an article by Alice Walker in Ms. magazine. This rescue effort was necessary, according to a pair of Harvard professors in the Chronicle of Higher Education, because Hurston had lapsed into obscurity “probably due to her political views.”

Reb recalls The vicious lie behind the global warming scare

Russian News Discusses Rise of Communism in New York City

Television Losing Ground to the Internet as a Main Source of News

No Pasaran:

...the percentage of the world living poverty is shrinking, and no-one sought Europe’s permission for that to take place.

Volokh: District Court Upholds Stolen Valor Act Again First Amendment Challenge

The value of Facebook: Take the money and run

Anonymous on the internet: Schniederman

Watts: Are huge northeast snow storms due to global warming?

From Dr. Ablow:

I now see more clearly than ever that helping people identify and embrace their own beliefs, inclinations, hopes and dreams is essentially helping them embrace God. And if I may have been timid about saying so before, I am no longer.

As we quote more than once in The 7:
You are the temple of God.

Reader Buddy prompted me to refresh my memory of the Children's Crusades.

While of no historical importance, there is a cautionary tale in the story.

The story begins:

One day in May 1212 there appeared at Saint-Denis, where King Philip of France was holding his court, a shepherd-boy of about twelve years old called Stephen, from the small town of Cloyes in the Orléannais. He brought with him a letter for the King, which, he said, had been given to him by Christ in person, who had appeared to him as he was tending his sheep and who had bidden him go and preach the Crusade. King Philip was not impressed by the child and told him to go home. But Stephen, whose enthusiasm had been fired by his mysterious visitor, saw himself now as an inspired leader who would succeed where his elders had failed. For the past fifteen years preachers had been going round the country-side urging a Crusade against the Moslems of the East or of Spain or against the heretics of Languedoc. It was easy for an hysterical boy to be infected with the idea that he too could be a preacher and could emulate Peter the Hermit, whose prowess had during the past century reached a legendary grandeur. Undismayed by the King's indifference, he began to preach at the very entrance to the abbey of Saint-Denis and to announce that he would lead a band of children to the rescue of Christendom. The seas would dry up before them, and they would pass, like Moses through the Red Sea, safe to the Holy Land.