Maggie's Farm

Cruel but amusing: tons of photos from WalMart, America's favorite store, here.

Wide Load below -

When Christ rode into Jerusalem down from the Mount of Olives on a colt (or small horse, or donkey - whatever) on Palm Sunday, he was greeted with Hosannas by excited crowds who believed him to be the Messiah.

His teachings and his miracles had become famous. People threw their cloaks on the road and, presumably, palm leaves, for his horse to walk on.

Much of their enthusiasm was unwarranted, however: the Jews were hoping for a political messiah (using the word "king"), more than they were hoping for the messiah who came to tell them that much of what they believed about being in relationship with God was wrong - and claiming that he had the authority to say so.

"Salvation," for the crowds, meant salvation from the Romans, and "the kingdom of God," in the Hebrew Bible, referred to the literal restoration of a nation of Israel under God, as had been promised to David. There was no concept at the time, I believe, of the now-Christian idea of salvation or the Christian idea of "the kingdom of God." Furthermore, Jesus had no interest I am aware of in politics or governance and had no beef with the Romans.

A radical for sure, in his apparent renunciation of the ordinary world.

There is plenty of discussion about what is understood by the kingdom of God.

My own view is that it refers to God's domain, ie the universe of those souls who seek relationship with God - not any literal kingdom but a "spiritual" (I hate that word), unworldly kingdom. Maybe "transcendent" is a better word.

I suspect that the Jews who welcomed Jesus to Jerusalem were deeply disappointed to discover that Jesus' mission was not worldly, but other-worldly: only a few handfuls of people remained to constitute what the scholars term the "Christ cult" after the crucifixion. It took Paul's inspired work to rebuild on the foundation.

(That's just my amateur take on it all. I am no expert.)

Image: Fra Angelico's Entry into Jerusalem

Alinsky on rubbing raw the sores of discontent.

It has already worked: I am entirely sore about Alinsky and his minions. As I always ask, "What sane human would want State power over a fellow citizen?"

Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food Control.

Governments love controlling people, don't they? It's a mental disease. Power is a drug for those susceptible to its perverse appeal.

Deresiewicz begins his 2008 essay The Disadvantages of an Elite Education thus:

It didn’t dawn on me that there might be a few holes in my education until I was about 35. I’d just bought a house, the pipes needed fixing, and the plumber was standing in my kitchen. There he was, a short, beefy guy with a goatee and a Red Sox cap and a thick Boston accent, and I suddenly learned that I didn’t have the slightest idea what to say to someone like him. So alien was his experience to me, so unguessable his values, so mysterious his very language, that I couldn’t succeed in engaging him in a few minutes of small talk before he got down to work. Fourteen years of higher education and a handful of Ivy League degrees, and there I was, stiff and stupid, struck dumb by my own dumbness. “Ivy retardation,” a friend of mine calls this. I could carry on conversations with people from other countries, in other languages, but I couldn’t talk to the man who was standing in my own house.

It’s not surprising that it took me so long to discover the extent of my miseducation, because the last thing an elite education will teach you is its own inadequacy.

 

Luke 19: 29-40

²⁹When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples,
³⁰saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here.
³¹If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’”
³²So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them.
³³As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”
³⁴They said, “The Lord needs it.”
³⁵Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it.
³⁶As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road.
³⁷As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen,
³⁸saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”
³⁹Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.”
⁴⁰He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

Mrs. BD is now considering this idea for an August trip: barging through Provence on the Rhone and the canals.

I told her the choice was between that trip and finishing getting my teeth fixed. It's called Fun With Implants. (Of course, if Obama would pay for my teeth then I could do both. Maybe I should write a note and cc Reid and Pelosi and tell them I'm ready for my new choppers right now.)

My Mom and Dad took one of these trips a few years ago. She said their plump Chef decided to try the balloon ride one time, got about 10" in the air and leaned out to tell the Sous-chef some last minute cooking detail and fell out of the basket into the canal. Hilarity ensued.

Also on my bucket list: Sailing cruise down the coast of Turkey. Yes, I do want to visit Turkey again - with digital camera this time. I like the people, the food, the landscape, the markets, the history, the ruins, and their fruit and wines.

Carpe diem. Cave canem. Gnothi sauton, too.

Our pal Sipp is moving to Maine. All of us at Maggie's wish him and his wonderful family an enjoyable "moving experience."

But who moves to Maine? Maybe Texas, but Maine? I recall that Abe Lincoln's dad always believed that you should move on whenever you could see the smoke from another settler's fireplace. (Not sure I believe that story about Thomas Lincoln, however.)

Speaking of presidents, Who's U.S. Grant minus John Quincy Adams?

COMPOSED DURING A STORM (1819) 

Written in Rydal Woods, by the side of a torrent.

One who was suffering tumult in his soul,
Yet failed to seek the sure relief of prayer,
Went forth - his course surrendering to the care
Of the fierce wind, while mid-day lightnings prowl
Insidiously, untimely thunders growl;
While trees, dim-seen, in frenzied numbers, tear
The lingering remnant of their yellow hair,
And shivering wolves, surprised with darkness, howl
As if the sun were not. He raised his eye
Soul-smitten; for, that instant, did appear
Large space ('mid dreadful clouds) of purest sky,
An azure disc-shield of Tranquillity;
Invisible, unlooked-for, minister
Of providential goodness ever nigh!

On medical care (I refuse to term it "health" care. Health requires no care.), from AVI:

Health care costs are rising, not because of inefficiency or heartless business practices or stunning malpractice claims – though these all deserve significant attention – but because the products and services provided simply are very expensive. And they are going to get more expensive - much, much more expensive – for the foreseeable future. We can do magical things we were never able to do. We can keep people alive (such as a family friend with CF) far longer than we could. We can save people who simply died not very long ago. And it costs a fortune.

The first comment there is good, too, about how government interventions increase costs.

The brave escape of Curious George

Cell phone photos: A pal visited NASDAQ HQ yesterday:

Elvis covers Dylan's Tomorrow is a Long Time:

Dylan covers Heartbreak Hotel:

 

Well-organized amateur gardeners keep some sort of calendar or journal of annual tasks to be done (eg April: prune forsythias when blooms done), and a record of things planted (with exact names and maintenance needs).

I keep a casual record and to-do list on my computer with links to tips and info that I tend to forget (I do have a lot of plants with Special Needs), but some more serious folks prefer these pre-printed formats.

Quiz here.

McCotter talks just like a Maggie's Farmer. Government is a special interest. h/t, Sissy's Are tea parties like sex?

 

From Newsmax:

According to (Dick) Armey, the common theme of Democrats' initiatives, from near-universal healthcare to environmental legislation to card check rules limiting a worker's right to a private ballot on unionization, is the establishment of new categories of government-dependent citizens who are more likely to cast ballots for Democrats.

Jesse Abbate with Glock 18 on full auto:

This was an ad for a vacuum cleaner. I need one of those Rowenta vacuums:

In Keep Your Stinking Paws Off My Body and Out of My Pocket, You Damn Dirty Apes!, Gagdad Bob comes down from his double-wide cloud and begins thus:

Know what I hate? I hate it when the left drags me and everything else down to the crudest level of raw power politics, so that I can't ignore them even if I want to. The point is, real Americans mostly just want to be left alone by the State, just as they would be pleased if criminals would refrain from breaking into their cars and houses.

But just as we must take precautions against criminals and sociopaths, our well intended liberal fascists force us to take steps against them. Who would want to spend a moment thinking about the likes of Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid unless they were in your face, trying to purloin your slack? What did I ever do to them? Nothing. Indeed, I pay their salary and for their travel, retirement, and healthcare (hair plugs and botox injections included). All I ask in return is that they leave me alone.

But no, they can't do that. They can't keep their hands off my body and out of my pocketbook...

Hate-filled anti-haters. Good old Ann is a born comedienne and a mocker of the status quo - sort of my Lennie Bruce. I can't believe these jerks who have no sense of fun and who cannot take a jab.

She is having good fun with this.

"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive and unrealistic."

John F. Kennedy, via Media Mythbusters 

Our pal Anchoress is doing a Lenten retreat day today with posting all day long.

As the man says, the beginning of wisdom is the awe of God.

 

Constructing and maintaining shrub and perennial gardens is a Maggie's Farm hobby. Here's good gardening advice from a commenter at some gardening site I was looking at the other day:

JUST STOP!

Take a deep breath and a few steps away from the tree. Look at the package you have created and realize that you are more of a "crammer" than a designer. Your apparent desire is not to better display your specimen but rather to create more room to cram in ever more plants - "I want to be able to have the bottom more open for plants under it."

I believe the overall effect of your landscape would be much improved if you graduated to the design level where you begin an analysis of what you already have and start editing. DIY'ers often fail to realize that as gardens mature, they are dealing with a different set of design parameters than when they began. This present situation requires a different thought process.

When you first began, it was probably "more is better" because you had so much open space to fill. Your landscape has matured to the point that it is now craving some unity and simplification -- yet, here you are trying to figure out how to add even more.

When you go out, do you put on every piece of jewelry that you own or do you select only a few that serve to highlight? Think about your garden in the same way.

Image is a well-balanced garden, mature and perfect, at Christchurch, Oxford, from a post on English Gardens

We posted on the plight of the Mediterranean and Atlantic populations of the majestic Bluefin Tuna recently. The outcome is not good.