Maggie's Farm

As the cartoon nonsense spins out of control, resulting in destruction of property and expressions of religious hatred and intolerance, any blogger worthy of the name must have an opinion.

Our opinion is that people, in the "free world," have and should have the freedom to mock, criticize, and satirize anyone and anything: Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Indians, atheists, whites, blacks, hispanics, Poles, Norwegians, and every other human category. All are fair game.

We do not particularly enjoy it when such things are done in rude, crude or socially unacceptible ways, but that's just too bad: hypersensitivity is the problem of the hypersensitive and, as they say in AA, "Feelings aren't facts." Besides humor, expressions of anger and hate need to be permitted. When Julian Bond terms all Republicans "Nazis," some folks just laugh, some are upset, and some are deeply disturbed. But freedom means freedom to be a dumb jerk, and to express hate, however loony or untrue. Thankfully, we have the freedom to talk back and to satirize such malignant idiocy, and to expose them as wacko fools, as has been done with the KKK.

We've been known to get a little juvenile on these pages, ourselves, with the occasional TR ("therapeutic rant"), etc. I thought that Piss Christ was hideously offensive, and a childish effort to get attention by being "controversial". I find the Moslem newspapers' anti-semitic cartoons equally offensive. Were those Danish cartoons offensive? Only mildly so, if you have a chip on your shoulder and are looking for a fight and have no sense of humor. "Orchestrated tantrums," in the words of Gates of Vienna. But words and pictures are not action. Sticks and stones...

Free speech means we all have to be willing to be offended, rightly or wrongly. The Moslem world clearly does not widely share that ideal, and exists in a different, quasi-medieval culture with entirely different ideals and rules: a theocratic, autocratic culture in which wife-beating is normal practice, in which hanging is an acceptable punishment for gays, beheading the punishment for adultery, and the word of the Prophet, however interpreted, is the Law. Nor do they make the sharp distinction between speech and action that we do, and neither did Jesus.

They are not on the same page that we are on: we left it 400 years ago with The Enlightenment. No-one enjoys having their world-view changed: it entails both a loss, and an unclear future. There are plenty of Americans who, even now, resent the effects of the Enlightenment, regardless of how much we are the beneficiaries of it.

The Moslem Middle-East, it seems to me, is in the position of resisting our Western Enlightenment. All of our ideals - political freedom, democracy, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, hedonism - are felt to be a threat to a long-established world view. What surely makes it feel worse is that these ideas are imports - not home-grown. However, the outside Western influence will prove irresistable in time - just see all of those satellite dishes on the tops of apartment buildings in Tehran. TV, the Internet, and the shrinking world will sooner or later, for better or worse, change the culture of the Middle East. They are experiencing a reaction, similar to our historical Inquisition and Counter-Reformation. But to understand the European Counter-Reformation is not to excuse it. And to understand the cultural threat felt in the Middle East by Western ideas does not to excuse barbaric behavior.

Should we respect other cultures? I see no reason why we should. Respect, like trust, is a precious gift and not a casual commodity. Should we be interested in understanding other cultures? Sure, if we are curious, but just understanding our own is the work of a lifetime or two. Should we tolerate intolerance expressed in destructive action? Of course not. Should we stand for the freedom to say dumb and cruel things? Sure. Should we speak against dumb and cruel statements? Of course. Should we be intimidated? Never. Do we have things worth fighting for? Damn right we do. And not only that, but if the Jihadists will leave us alone, they are free to live however they chose, in their own homeland. Just don't tread on me.

Image on top from yesterday's "protest" in London. Is such a threat of violence covered under freedom of speech? Lawyers know the answer to that.

The catalogs are springing up like crocuses.

For fruit trees, berries, and misc, we like Miller Nurseries.

For unusual and interesting plants, we like Wayside Gardens. Some say they aren't what they used to be, but who is?

For large scale plantings for wildlife, we like Musser Forests.

For perennials, we like White Flower Farm, but they ain't cheap.

Jackson and Perkins is an old stand-by for roses of all sorts, but there are many growers of antique roses these days - Google antique roses. Vintage roses are tougher than modern ones, and they smell like roses. Here's one source.

Failing to plan is planning to fail.

Anon.

Unbelieveable. Whatever happened to "sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me"? This is pathetic. And it would never happen if the cartoons were about Roman Catholics, would it?

I am not a Marxist.

Karl Marx

It has been twenty years since Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death was published. Postman's son Andrew has written the introduction to the 20th Anniversary Edition of the still-fresh book, which might be more applicable in 2006 than it was in 1985. Some quotes from the Intro:

Substantive as this book is, it was predicated on a “hook”: that one British writer (George Orwell) with a frightening vision of the future, a vision that many feared would come true, was mostly off-base, while another British writer (Aldous Huxley) with a frightening vision of the future, a vision less well-known and feared, was scarily on target. My father argued his point, persuasively, but it was a point for another time – the Age of Television. New technologies and media are in the ascendancy.

Fortunately – and this, more than anything, is what I think makes Amusing Ourselves to Death so emphatically relevant – my father asked such good questions that they can be asked of non-television things, of all sorts of transforming developments and events that have happened since 1985, and since his death, and of things still unformed, for generations to come (though “generations to come” may someday mean a span of three years). His questions can be asked about all technologies and media.

What happens to us when we become infatuated with and then seduced by them? Do they free us or imprison us? Do they improve or degrade democracy? Do they make our leaders more accountable or less so? Our system more transparent or less so? Do they make us better citizens or better consumers? Are the trade-offs worth it? If they’re not worth it, yet we still can’t stop ourselves from embracing the next new thing because that’s just how we’re wired, then what strategies can we devise to maintain control? Dignity? Meaning?

Read entire at Pressthink

To accompany the
charming photo of our 
Southern Belle, here is
Flatt and Scruggs with the Ballad of Jed Clampett (both fast and slow picking versions - no download needed).

And the lyrics here. 

A hearty welcome to readers who have been kindly linked over to Maggie's by friendly blogs this week.

A twelve-second perusal of
Maggie's Farm will make it clear
that our approach to blogging is to follow our noses. It is not possible to categorize us, other than as "eclectic."  That's the goal.

To get corny about it, the amazing variety of stuff that life in this astonishing Creation presents to us is our beat, limited of course by time, as we all have plenty of responsibilities: herding sheep, flushing pheasants, being cuddly lapdogs, etc. However, no doubt our "traditionalist, centrist" approach to issues comes through loud and strong.

If you are a new or recently-new reader, click a category to get a sense of the variety of game we fetch for you, every day, for free.

One Year Old. And we act like it, at times. Hoist a pint with us, mateys. It must be cocktail hour somewhere on the planet.

A Birthday Present? Readers: Please bookmark us - show us the loooove. Bloggers: Blogroll us - show us that you care. And many thanks to those of you who have done so. The validation warms our doggy hearts.

And, since you insist, we'll keep on going - but only as long as you read us, and send us to your friends.  We want to grow logarithmically and organically, not arithmetically. Cheers!

 

You are only young once, but you can be immature for a lifetime.

John P. Grier

Unfortunately or fortunately, Bush lacks charisma. But he has other, better qualities. Two good takes on Bush's speech tonite: Althouse, and John at Powerline

Another classic versatile 
hunter.

What do setters do, and why are they called "setters"? They point in a crouching manner - "setting," and they will track, and retrieve too.
That is all very good stuff.

The Gordon Setter Club here.  

If I wasn't Bob Dylan, I'd probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.

Bob Dylan

At the request of Mr. Free Market, we bring you one of
the ugliest birds in North America. These large carrion eaters and scavengers have expanded their range north in recent decades, and now can be found throughout the US during the summer breeding season. They move to the southern US and South America in the fall. Birders call them "TVs."

They find their food by sight and by smell, and are most commonly seen coasting around on thermals, effortlessly searching for dead animals with their long wings at a marked dihedral. They like to nest on cliffs.

Identification: The Black Vulture of the American south is one similar species, and, because of its size, it could be confused with Golden Eagle at a distance.

Why "turkey"? It's not just because of the unfeathered head, but also because they resemble Wild Turkeys from a distance when seated on the ground as they hunker over a dead deer or road kill.

More about this vulture at the CLO site here. Image by Audubon.

Heard Peter Noone (Herman of Herman's Hermits) interviewed on Mark Simone on WABC, Sat. nite. What a charming, unpretentious, and smart fellow. Among other things, he said that "Henry the Eighth" was a pub song that his grandfather was known for singing. He is a third-generation musician. And Peter is still on tour.

The first time that this day hath been yet observed: and Mr. Mills made a most excellent sermon, upon “Lord forgive us our former iniquities;” speaking excellently of the justice of God in punishing men for the sins of their ancestors. Home, and John Goods comes, and after dinner I did pay him 30l. for my Lady, and after that Sir W. Pen and I into Moorfields and had a brave talk, it being a most pleasant day, and besides much discourse did please ourselves to see young Davis and Whitton, two of our clerks, going by us in the field, who we observe to take much pleasure together, and I did most often see them at play together. Back to the Old James in Bishopsgate Street, where Sir W. Batten and Sir Wm. Rider met him about business of the Trinity House. So I went home, and there understand that my mother is come home well from Brampton, and had a letter from my brother John, a very ingenious one, and he therein begs to have leave to come to town at the Coronacion. Then to my Lady Batten’s; where my wife and she are lately come back again from being abroad, and seeing of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw hanged and buried at Tyburn. Then I home.

The frazzled Left would like to limit your free political speech, as was clear from Stalin's quote which we quoted in QQQ last week. Now that we no longer have a monolithic leftist media, they are getting very upset about diversity of ideas. However, the Left historically likes to limit available viewpoints. Bad idea, for a country full of thinking, imaginative people. Important piece by Anderson in Opinion Journal. Quotes:

The irony of campaign-finance reform is that the "corruption" it targets seems not to exist in any widespread sense. Studies galore have found little or no significant influence of campaign contributions on legislators' votes. Ideological commitments, party positions and constituents' wishes are what motivate the typical politician's actions in office. Aha! reformers will often riposte, the corruption is hidden, determining what Congress doesn't do--like enacting big gas taxes. But as Mr. Will notes, "that charge is impossible to refute by disproving a negative." Even so, such conspiracy-theory thinking is transforming election law into what journalist Jonathan Rauch calls "an engine of unlimited political regulation."

Uh huh. Yup.

McCain-Feingold, the latest and scariest step down that slope, makes it a felony for corporations, nonprofit advocacy groups and labor unions to run ads that criticize--or even name or show--members of Congress within 60 days of a federal election, when such quintessentially political speech might actually persuade voters. It forbids political parties from soliciting or spending "soft money" contributions to publicize the principles and ideas they stand for. Amending the already baffling campaign-finance rules from the 1970s, McCain-Feingold's dizzying do's and don'ts, its detailed and onerous reporting requirements of funding sources--which require a dense 300-page book to lay out--have made running for office, contributing to a candidate or cause, or advocating without an attorney at hand unwise and potentially ruinous.

McCain wanted the goody-goody independent image. This is the price we pay for his goo-goo image. 

Not for nothing has Justice Clarence Thomas denounced McCain-Feingold's "unprecedented restrictions" as an "assault on the free exchange of ideas."

For sure. The man speaks the truth.

Campaign-finance reform has a squeaky-clean image, but the dirty truth is that this speech-throttling legislation is partly the result of a hoax perpetrated by a handful of liberal foundations, led by the venerable Pew Charitable Trusts. New York Post reporter Ryan Sager exposed the scam when he got hold of a 2004 videotape of former Pew official Sean Treglia telling a roomful of journalists and professors how Pew and other foundations spent years bankrolling various experts, ostensibly independent nonprofits (including the Center for Public Integrity and Democracy 21), and media outlets (NPR got $1.2 million for "news coverage of financial influence in political decision-making")--all aimed at fooling Washington into thinking that Americans were clamoring for reform, when in truth there was little public pressure to "clean up the system." "The target group for all this activity was 535 people in Washington," said Mr. Treglia matter-of-factly, referring to Congress. "The idea was to create an impression that a mass movement was afoot--that everywhere they looked, in academic institutions, in the business community, in religious groups, in ethnic groups, everywhere, people were talking about reform."

That is what is called "advocacy." This advocacy is performed by the people Horowitz calls "the deep swimmers of the Left."

Mr. Treglia urged grantees to keep Pew's role hush-hush. "If Congress thought this was a Pew effort," he confided, "it'd be worthless. It'd be 20 million bucks thrown down the drain."

Read entire. Everyone, regardless of their politics, should be upset with what is happening. This is infringement of free political speech, and it is an insidious erosion of the Constitution. Repeal McCain-Feingold.

 

I reject your reality, and substitute my own.

Adam Savage (Host of Mythbusters & Visual Effects Creator)

A book: Scotch and Toilet Water,
by Cullum

^{Mark 1:21-28}

They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught. ²²They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. ²³Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, ²⁴and he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” ²⁵But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” ²⁶And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. ²⁷They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” ²⁸At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.

That was the "intellectual impresario" Brockman's highly-stimulating Question of the Year for 2005. Answers from a number of scientists and thinkers via The Edge website were compiled as a book. The Edge 2006 Annual Question is "What is your dangerous idea?"

My dangerous idea, or one of them, is "What if life is real?" Another is "What's for dinner?"

"The New York Times editorial page is like a Ouija board that has only three answers, no matter what the question. The answers are: higher taxes, more restrictions on political speech and stricter gun control."
Ann Coulter

Well, we believe than gun control means a steady aim. Got the idea from Mark Levin to check this out: Here are the folks who write those NYT editorials, with a bit about their backgrounds. If you care. A bunch of lard-asses, as a reader delicately observed.

Have I mentioned lately how much we like The Teaching Company? Check it out, if you aren't familiar with them. Great stuff, and a good alternative to Books on Tape if you spend time in the car. Sign up just to get their catalog - it's an interesting read in itself. This month, a piece on Michael Haydn. Michael? Yes, Joseph's brother, who frequently collaborated with Mozart. The Robert Greenberg music courses are spectacularly enjoyable, entertaining, and educational. But so is most of their stuff.