Maggie's Farm

with David Rawlings. You know her song Orphan Girl, dontcha?

The Americans With No Abilities Act of 2006

Clear-cutting and Conservation

Shelby Steele on White Guilt

The Dog's Sense of Smell

The Ruffed Grouse

Photo: Name that actress

"People like to say today that 'diversity is our strength.' It's almost like a State Religion. But diversity isn't our strength: freedom is our strength. Uncontrolled cultural diversity is the story of the Tower of Babel."

Tom Tancredo, as heard (paraphrased) on the Monica Crowley radio show on WABC a few weeks ago.

We have often addressed "diversity" and "tolerance," words which in their pomo incarnations represent appalling if not insane ideas. (For a few examples, No Lux, No Veritas, Scared by His Own Research, Trust Cues and Tribalism, and Steyn on War, Demographics, Multiculturalism, Tolerance, and the Masochism of the West.)

From Daniel Henninger in the WSJ yesterday, The Death of Diversity, a quote (h/t, Loyal Reader):

Diversity was once just another word. Now it's a fighting word. One of the biggest problems with diversity is that it won't let you alone. Corporations everywhere have force-marched middle managers into training sessions led by "diversity trainers." Most people already knew that the basic idea beneath diversity emerged about 2,000 years ago under two rubrics: Love thy neighbor as thyself, and Do unto others as they would do unto you. Then suddenly this got rewritten as "appreciating differentness."

George Bernard Shaw is said to have demurred from the Golden Rule. "Do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you," Shaw advised. "Their tastes may not be the same." No such voluntary opt-out is permissible in our time. The parsons of the press made diversity into a secular commandment; do a word-search of "diversity" in a broad database of newspapers and it might come up 250 million times. In the Supreme Court term just ended, the Seattle schools integration case led most of the justices into arcane discussions of diversity's legal compulsions. More recently it emerged that the University of Michigan, a virtual Mecca of diversity, announced it would install Muslim footbaths in bathrooms, causing a fight.

Read the whole thing. There's a video too. (Too bad he got the "Do unto others..." bit wrong - it sorta spoils a good piece, but you get the point.)

Image: I get a kick out of that old Benetton ad. which was on all of the busses when I lived in NYC.

Johan Galtung, father of the "peace studies" movement. Thompson.

People like this give me the creeps. I guess there are lots of kinds of "peace."

Before the SAT, colleges gave their own achievement tests to see whether you were prepared.

In 1926, the SAT was intended to be a "progressive", democratizing influence by testing your "aptitude" instead of your mastery of Latin, Greek, French, chemistry and trigonometry. At the time, the elite prep schools did the best job preparing kids for the elite colleges' requirements.

Charles Murray on educational testing, college admissions, class and genes. He suggests dumping the SAT, but keeping the Achievement Tests. His discussion makes sense to me: a college ought to be able to state what they expect in terms of preparation.

On the same subject, Ivy Leaguers take untimed SATs. ADD and dyslexia, ya know?

The Global Cooling Crisis. See the Newsweek piece from '75, at the bottom. h/t, Memeorandum

- Discussed further by Tigerhawk

There are 20,000 species of Sunflowers. This is one of them. This happy patch sprung up on the edge of our stream, and it is welcome to stay as long as it wants to.

We like all of the DR products (a great Vermont company) but the one we use the most on the farm is our sturdy and indestructible 17 hp Field and Brush Mower.

The machine really does take down 2" saplings and chews them up, and it can run faster than a weary, sweaty, dirty man can walk.

The only downside is that using the thing is hard work: you have to muscle it around to turn and maneuver it, and it is heavy. Using it for a few hours ends up being a good work out, unless you are just mowing tall grass on a flat surface. I hate saying it, but it isn't a machine for most females. 

We tend to use it in places that the tractors can't get to with the brushwacker, and on slopes that are too steep for the tractors.

Two links to our friend Dino:

Two books from 1962: Harrington and Freidman

A Petraeus Preview

VJ Day. Photo is the White House lawn, Aug. 15, 1945. (Thanks, Roger de H.) 

Mostly Joe Pye Weed and Goldenrod on this tiny sand island in our trout stream. The butterflies love the Joe Pye Weed, mostly Monarchs and Tiger Swallowtails.

When the Marquis de Lafayette snuck out of France against the King's wishes in 1777 to join the many unemployed French - and some German - officers who wanted to aid the Revolutionary cause, he was 19 years old, with a pregnant, lovely - and enormously wealthy - wife at home. He loved to spend her money, but what he really wanted was the glory of his military ancestors, most of whom, like his father, died in battle.

And, like any French aristocrat, marriage was no obstacle to his skirt-chasing.

A wonderful summer read: Adopted Son: Washington and Lafayette, and the Friendship that Saved the Revolution.

On Maggie's Farm, our Jewelweed (aka Touch-Me-Not) is now in bloom everywhere there are damp, semi-shady spots. Where there is Jewelweed, there will be Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds if you sit down and watch.

The Porn Myth, by Naomi Wolf, via Dr. Bob who, speaking of porn, needs to learn more about beavers.

Porn is popular, but is it any good?

Our view is that the human mind is the most pornographic thing that exists, and probably should be banned.

Finally, a Che t-shirt I would wear, via NE Repub. Be the first on your block to proudly display the body of the "doctor"  mass-murdering thug and pig of a human being.

Today on the Farm, 5:30 AM. For the full effect, add the sound of an early-rising croaking raven to the photo.

A Bird Dog pup practicing lawn mowing on slopes. It's always exciting when the front wheels leave the ground. The photo doesn't capture the slope.

Thanks, reader.