Tuesday, February 16. 2010
 From the post:
The Nazi propaganda poster says: "This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community 60,000 Reichsmark during his lifetime. Fellow German, that is your money, too."
Monday, February 15. 2010
It's like a full-time job trying to keep up with all of the debunking of the IPCC report. Today, Hurricanegate. There has been no increase in tropical cyclones, contrary to the IPCC claims.
Story here. His pictures kind of pleasantly remind me of 1950s illustrations. Image is his Motel Pool:
From Mrs Ike: Memories of the Life of Mamie Eisenhower, which contains a lot of letters Ike wrote to Mamie during the war. A quote from one of them:
"When I find myself contemplating a post-war experience, I always picture a little place away from the cities (but with someone near enough for occasional bridge) and the two of us just getting brown in the sun, (and possibly thick in the middle). A dozen cats and dogs, with a horse or two, maybe a place to fish (not too strenuously) and a field in which to shoot a few birds once in a while - I think that's roughly my idea of a good life."
Image is Currier and Ives' 1851 portrait of "America," the first boat to win the famous race.
The America's Cup (named for the sailboat, not the country) is now sailed with multi-hulls with 17-story masts. 33 knots out of a 10 knot wind speed. Here's winner US-17:
h/t, SDA, with links to more details of the race
Sunday, February 14. 2010
I am making my usual St. Valentine's Day day steamed mussels and lobster feast, but I did at least one other act of love today - remembering that love is action, not sentiment. Carpet cleaning done! (They have a special spray for dog pee bedroom carpet spots. Isn't it romantic? Carpet sucks, in my opinion.)
No more eccentric than the rest of her Amherst family. Indeed, her life has been sentimentalized.
Well, always interesting to have an epileptic nympho around the place, especially on St. Valentine's Day when the Christian saint seems to give way to the celebration of Eros.
Eros (Cupid) - "desire" - is the mischievous prankster son of Venus who, at the same time, is responsible for keeping humanity thriving. He is, indeed, a troublemaker and a pest, isn't he, with his devilish little arrows and bow? As Kesler and I observed the other day, those little arrows can hit you at the oddest, most unsuspecting moments. Like at the supermarket.
You can refresh your memory of the folktale of Cupid and Psyche here.
This is Caravaggio's c. 1600 Eros Victorious:
Saturday, February 13. 2010
Poof! You're in the union. Right when you thought you were your own boss.
h/t, Theo
To a Skylark (1825)
ETHEREAL minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!
Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will,
Those quivering wings composed, that music still!
Leave to the nightingale her shady wood;
A privacy of glorious light is thine;
Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood
Of harmony, with instinct more divine; 10
Type of the wise who soar, but never roam;
True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!
Friday, February 12. 2010
Photo: Tenerife, Canary Islands
Mrs. BD and I have been engaged in a month-long debate about trips this year (in addition to the usual Cape Cod family reunion and, I think, hunting in Manitoba).
Cruise or car or trains? Scotland? Provence? Vienna and Prague? Venice and Veneto and the south Tyrol? Canary Islands and Madeira with stops in Morocco and Portugal? Turkey (I love that country)? Sailboat down the Turkish coast? Israel and Egypt?
Carpe diem, right? Now, or never. Could get hit by a bus tomorrow.
I am more in a Provence mood (or maybe Sicily again), but I always do love to get on a ship or a boat. It gives me a reason (besides tuitions) to work. (My theory of life? We can relax when we are dead.) Put it on the credit card...
Where do our readers want to go?
A Catholic Church is the only thing that saves a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age.
G.K. Chesterton (h/t, Anchoress)
Thursday, February 11. 2010
Who knew? The restoration of Elk to Kentucky has been a huge success. (Thanks, reader.) Now they need their hunting season, since the predators haven't found them yet. No Cougars or wolves seen in KY lately, alas. Wildcats, yes! A wonderful state, but too far from salt water for me.
There used to be forest-dwelling buffalo ("Bison" for purists) throughout Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Illinois, Ohio, too. How about trying a restoration of them? I do know that they bust through fences...
As Mrs. BD quips, "Lorenzo was sort of a Renaissance Man, wasn't he?" Lorenzo took an active role in designing the Villa Medici in Poggio a Caiano, 12 miles north of Florence, in 1485.
The design of this rural Medici farming villa, which so much impressed and influenced Palladio, was revolutionary in several ways, not the least of which were its orientation outwards rather than towards an inner courtyard and its lack of defensive fortifications. (Lorenzo was famously casual about security.)
From the Value of a Life at Ragamuffin Studies:
...as we were speaking, I realized that my friend had wandered into a collectivist view of the value of a life. His value of liberty was not completely based on the principle of individual rights. Because if his values were firmly rooted there, he would realize immediately that the value of a life is not based on how useful to society, or how precious that person is to another.
That friend is a victim of pernicious Utilitarianism - John Dewey's contribution to the totalitarianism of the Left. "The greater good" and all that soul-crushing stuff.
There is no greater earthly good than individual freedom.
I sure hope this is the ugliest building on the Princeton campus:
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