Maggie's Farm

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.

George Orwell

With the collapse of what I call the Bush-Kennedy Immigration Bill, it has been dramatically demonstrated the people of America have spoken loudly enough to be heard.

Every single phone call helped defeat this bill, which had all the power in the world behind it - The Repub leadership, the President, the Dem leadership, business, labor, MSM, newspapers, etc etc. All the power in the world, except for the power of the common sense of the American people.

The message is this, I believe:

We citizens put up with a lot of crap from the arrogant Bozos in Washington (mainly because we are too busy being independent and working hard and running our lives and driving kids around and paying bills and taxes) to speak out all of the time. But, when it seems critical, we speak loud: We are a sovereign nation, and our country is precious to us. Prevent invasion, secure our borders, enforce existing laws - and then let's discuss what legal immigration policies we want and need.

But first, if you agree with our view on the issue, celebrate the death of a terrible idea which would have been a costly disaster. Raise a glass or three of Veuve Clicquot today with us at Maggie's Farm, where we happily employ our legal Mexicans friends, give them advice, help them learn English, and generally help them get established - but we will not employ illegals.

Addendum: A quote from Sen. Bob Corker (R, TN), in today's piece by Kesler:

”Americans feel that they are losing their country ... to a government that has seemed to not have the competence or the ability to carry out the things that it says it will do.''

The return of the Bald Eagle is a satisfying success story.

With the banning of DDT, protection from idiot shooters, and the transplantation of chicks, the big fish-eaters will be around the US for our kids to see.

This bird can be found, in small numbers, almost everywhere in the US where there are large bodies of water, except in mountains. 10,000 nesting pairs in the lower 48 isn't much, but it's lots more than the 400 in the 1960s.

Read about the Bald Eagle here.

A propos of yesterday's piece on Thought Crime, I see Canada is proposing adding women to the list of those one may not disparage. There go 60% of the jokes in the world.

It is interesting how quickly the irrational and insidious notion of "hate crimes," invented to provide gays with special legal protection from gay-bashing thugs, has evolved into crimes of speech itself - without any violent crime at all.

The world has gone nuts. Mass resistance to the entire notion of thought crime is the only solution: people need to continue speaking, even if it's rude, stupid, obnoxious, hateful, or just plain sick.

We cannot permit bad manners to become a crime: it would create millions of new, innocent criminals. On second thought, I do think that talking with food in one's mouth should be a Class 2 Misdemeanor, at least.

Alabama Getaway (written by The Grateful Dead, but often performed by Bob during the 90s)

32 teeth in a jawbone, Alabama trying for none,
Before I have to hit him, I hope he's got the sense to run.
Reason the poor girls love him, promise them everything,
Why they all believe him? He wears a big diamond ring.

Alabama getaway, getaway. Alabama getaway, getaway,
Only way to please me, ya just gotta leave and walk away.

Major Domo Billy Bojangles, sit down and have a drink with me,
"What's this about Alabama? It keeps a coming back to me.
Heard your plea in the courthouse, Witness box began to rock and rise,
49 sister states all had Alabama in their eyes.

Alabama getaway, getaway. Alabama getaway, getaway,
Only way to please me, ya just gotta leave and walk away.

Major said why don't we give him rope enough to hang himself?
No need to worry the jury, this kind takes care of themselves.
23rd psalm Major Domo, reserve me a table for three,
Down in the valley of the shadow, just you, Alabama, and me.

Alabama getaway, getaway. Alabama getaway, getaway,
Only way to please me, ya just gotta leave and walk away.

Here's a fine 1995 performance of the song in Philly, with Bob doing a lot of pickin'. I heard him do this song in New Haven that same year. That is good old Winston Watson on the drums.

We don't call the Repubs "The Stupid Party" for no reason.

Hot Air audio of Voinovich on Sean Hannity radio this afternoon, re the immigration bill. There is no cure for stupid.

One of the pups just got back tonight from a little pre-beginning-real-job jaunt to Beaver Creek, with photos in hand, as requested.

"In polite society, you don’t say certain things lest there be violence. In civil society, you can say what you need to, and there won’t be violence. Let’s stop being so damned polite to the wrong people."

Augean Stables, in a piece on the NYT's handling of the Rushdie knighthood. 

My life experience, and common sense, tell me that clear cultural and subcultural structures are necessary foundations for dependable and predictable human interaction. People associate tribally for good reasons - they don't know what the deal is with other tribes, nor are they powerfully curious about finding out (which cannot really be done non-superficially anyway, since inculcation into a culture requires the time from birth to around age 18).

Multiculturalism throws a bomb at those grounding, life-sustaining  structures, which is why I consider it to be a nihilistic political movement.

Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam is seemingly scared by the non-PC, non-multicult results of his new diversity research. He has reason to be scared: The PC Speech Control Enforcers can be ruthless: recall the academic fury towards Charles Murray's Bell Curve, the Larry Summers massacre, etc.

John Leo's piece about Putnam, Bowling with our Own at City Journal, begins thus:

Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, is very nervous about releasing his new research, and understandably so. His five-year study shows that immigration and ethnic diversity have a devastating short- and medium-term influence on the social capital, fabric of associations, trust, and neighborliness that create and sustain communities. He fears that his work on the surprisingly negative effects of diversity will become part of the immigration debate, even though he finds that in the long run, people do forge new communities and new ties.

Putnam’s study reveals that immigration and diversity not only reduce social capital between ethnic groups, but also within the groups themselves. Trust, even for members of one’s own race, is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friendships fewer.

Read Leo's whole piece about Putnam. We like John Leo - he is an expert birder and birders are a good, if a bit eccentric, crew.

Interesting comments on Leo's piece from, among others, our friends Rick Moran and  Dr. Sanity,

Addendum: Here's our archive piece on Trust Cues and Tribalism

Her farewell ABT performance yesterday, in Romeo and Juliet - video clips here. (You have to click on the Alessandra Ferri photo link.)

How does that look, for a retirement performance? You could mistake her for a 20 year-old.

"A kind of fierce love" from her audience for this passionate prima ballerina.

Photo: Alessandra Ferri. Not sure what dance that photo is from, but will try to find out.

                Because she smells like a new truck.

Daily Telegraph (The cartoon involves Mr. Tim Blair)

The bill is unpopular, but powerful forces — businesses, journalists, officials in both parties, and racial pressure groups — are determined to push it through. They do not mind if a few senators vote against the bill for the cameras while greasing the track for it when it counts.

With the interest in old time traditional cast iron cookware on our piece on A Darn Good Steak, (in which I learned that lots of folks prefer fried to grilled steak), here's a little cast iron cookware info.

Lodge is a good source, and you can buy directly from them. I like the assist handle and the pouring lip. Here's their advice for care and feeding of iron. I think two sizes of skillets ought to do it.

I know darn little about the subject, but I see that Wagner bought out Griswold, and that both brands are now owned by American Culinary Corp., which now produces a Wagner line.

Here's another source of cast iron cookware care.

Grabar takes on Hitchens' atheism at TCS. Q quote:

How odd, then, for Hitchens to invoke literature as he does:

"We are not immune to the lure of wonder and mystery and awe: we have music and art and literature, and find that the serious ethical dilemmas are better handled by Shakespeare and Tolstoy and Schiller and Dostoyevsky and George Eliot than in the mythical morality tales of the holy books."

But Hitchens must be banking on a readership that has not read Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and Dostoyevsky. These Christian authors dramatized the themes and stories of the holy book that Hitchens disparages. Shakespeare has Iago explain the materialist origins of his wickedness:

"Virtue? A fig! 'tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens."

For Shakespeare, the sociopath emerges from a materialist conception of the self, from the rejection of the spiritual -- specifically, Christianity.