Maggie's Farm

I was so poor when I grew up, if I wasn't a boy I would have had nothing to play with.

Rodney Dangerfield

If you are a Tom Wolfe fan, you will enjoy the speech he gave as the Jefferson Lecture at the National Endowment for the Humanities on Wednesday, printed in the New York Sun. In this wide-ranging and a bit random essay, he discusses speech, status, Freud, neo-Darwinism, immigration, Max Weber, rednecks, politics, college kids, drugs, and a host of other matters. One quote:

Evolution came to an end when the human beast developed speech! As soon as he became not Homo sapiens, "man reasoning," but Homo loquax, "man talking"! Speech gave the human beast far more than an ingenious tool. Speech was a veritable nuclear weapon! It gave the human beast the powers of reason, complex memory, and long-term planning, eventually in the form of print and engineering plans. Speech gave him the power to enlarge his food supply at will through an artifice called farming. Speech ended not only the evolution of man, by making it no longer necessary, but also the evolution of animals! Our animal friends—we're very sentimental about predators these days, aren't we—the lions, the tigers, the wolves, the rhinoceroses, the great apes, kangaroos, leopards, cheetahs, grizzly bears, polar bears, cougars—they're "endangered," meaning hanging on for dear life. Today the so-called animal kingdom exists only at the human beast's sufferance. The beast has dealt crippling blows even to the unseen empire of the microbes. Stunted adults from Third World countries with abysmal sanitation come to the United States and their offspring grow six or more inches taller, thanks to the wonders of hygiene. Cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, turkeys would be extinct by now had not the human beasts hit upon the idea of animal husbandry. So far the human beast enjoys the luxury of crying sentimental tears over the deer because she's so pretty. But the day the human beast discovers deer in his cellar, fawns in his bedroom closet, bucks tangling horns in the attic at night above his very bedroom . . . those filthy oversized vermin, the deer, will be added to that big long list above. We're sentimental about the dolphins, because they're so smart. What about the tuna? It's okay to kill tunas by the ton because they're dimwits? It would take an evolutionary mystic (and there are such) to believe these animals will ever evolve their way out of the hole they're in thanks to man's power of speech.

Call the Chianti Squad: Haha. It must smell like my kitchen. Blair

Won't you be my neighbor? (h/t, Allah)

 

I will be seeing an early pre-screening of the movie, and will share my impressions when I do. But I think I already know what they will be: Another solidly-made, tasteful, and very entertaining Ron Howard film, representing no danger either to God or man.

A Nukak tribe from the Colombian bush has arrived in town, and seems to enjoy the free food and shelter. NYT  If it were the US, these folks would already be registered to vote.

Quoted from the French feminist  author Phyllis Chesler's new book, in a very entertaining mini-review at No Pasaran:

The kind of closed-minded "political correctness" which I have just described above is typical of groupthink and totalitarian thinking. If someone thinks for herself in an independent and creative way and dares to come up with non-party-line conclusions, she or he is then, in classic Orwellian style, deemed the enemy, a traitor, a non-person. Their work will not be read or discussed. They will not be invited to debate or to debate in a civilized and honorable way. They will be called a "racist" and a "neoconservative." If a feminist dares raise the specter of Jew-hatred and the demonization of the Jewish state among leftists and feminists, she will quickly discover that she has become unwelcome in the mainstream media and among leftists (who actually think of themselves as liberals), and among feminists.

But what is its safety record?

 

From a fishin' song by Woody Guthrie:

Well I went down to the fishing hole,
And I set down with my fishing pole;
Somethin' grabb'd my hook and it got my bait
And Jerked me out in the middle of the lake.
Huh it was some jump boy,
I got sunk, kinda baptized on credit.

Jumped in the river and went down deep,
There was a hundred pound cat-fish lying there asleep,
Well I jumped on his back and rode him all aroun'
Saddled him up and I came into town.
People came runnin', lookin', dogs a-barkin'
(Kids a-squallin').

Proof that fishing is a fair sport. Fisherman killed by large catfish.

Opie likes to tell me about the thriving Cuban art scene. Not even Fidel and his cops and thought police can destroy the human soul. This from a young Cuban artist:

 

At Maggie's Farm, we link things we would like to discuss, had we the time to do so. But what with milkin' the cows, feedin' the chickens, chasin' the bunnies out of the lettuce, poachin' deer, paintin' the shed, bakin' bread, teachin' the goats to speak English, practicin' juggling, shootin' rats at the dump, trainin' the dogs for fall, replacin' the geronificator on the old Ford, arguin' with the neighbor, beatin' the dog, greasin' the snake, and plowin' and plantin', we jes' cannot do it all. Country life.

Leatherback sea turtles stage a comeback. That is happy news. All credit to Bush, of course.

Date Rape. The very notion of date rape seems to be an invitation to injustice - although I am sure it occurs. Here's one guy who really got screwed, at RCP. The un-sayable dirty secret is that gals can get just as out of hand, and excited, as guys. The radical feminists deny that - probably because they don't: they are as sex-less as they are humor-less.

What's Wrong with Harvard? Plenty, and the college alums should get on the job and fix the mess. A new book.

Newark and School vouchers. Slowly but surely, it's an idea that is coming.

The insane rage of the Left. It will not help their case, but it energizes their base. Am. Thinker

Francis Fukayama takes a fresh look at his 1992 book. He remains a neo-Hegelian.

Just one quote:

The question is, therefore, whether the principles of liberty and equality that we see as the foundation of liberal democracy have a similar universal significance. I believe that this is the case, and I think that there is an overall logic to historical evolution that explains why there should be increasing democracy around the world as our societies evolve. It is not a rigid form of historical determinism like Marxism, but a set of underlying forces that drive human social evolution in a way that tells us that there should be more democracy at the end of this evolutionary process than at the beginning.

Take a few minutes, and read the whole thing.

Stolen from Mr. Free Market:

 

Truth is, I know a fair bit about algebra, and trig too, including many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse. I even remember key bits of calc.

I have no idea how anyone can consider themselves educated if they do not. And it isn't all that difficult - it's simple logic. I can teach anyone, with an intact brain, the basics of algebra in an hour. After the basics, it's all fun and creative problem-solving. Good for the mind.

Is it useful, or necessary? I would say so. There is not much that can be understood in depth without math. Silber at TCS takes on the reporters who "don't get it", (and thus surely cannot understand economics either, or statistics, science, or ...). It is difficult for me to believe that reporters would brag about not knowing basic math, but I guess it explains a lot. But how did the guy Silber mentions graduate from college, not to mention high school, without learning it?

Good piece. He also touches on the long history of algebra.

We will try not to rely
on Gagdad Bob too
much, but the guy is
good. He opens with a quote:

Nothing happened in the sixties except that we all dressed up. --John Lennon

He goes on to discuss what the freedoms of the 60s really mean, and why he rebelled against the fashionable dogma. One parapraph:

Obviously, freedom itself cannot be the goal of freedom, for that is a nonsensical tautology. But for the left, it is. This is why most leftist “liberation” movements quickly devolve into the liberation of one’s own inner slave master to further enslave them. Thus, the feminist movement has nothing to do with truly valuing femininity or allowing a woman to truly become herself in the deepest sense. In order to do that, you must specifically rebel against feminist dogma. Likewise, “sexual liberation” hardly leads to anything beyond self-indulgence. The civil rights movement which began with such noble ideals quickly became nothing more than an entrenched establishment platform for venal ethnic lobbying and special consideration. This reached another new low last week, with the massive criminal marches all over the U.S. Why does the left relate to these entitled narcissists? Oh, that’s why.

Yes, read it all.

If anyone gives you the idea that Dylan has lost it - forget it. He just gets more real and true. Less word-intoxicated, for sure, but this 2005 song is one of his very best, and not on any CD. Simple and perfect.

Tell Ol' Bill is available on i-Tunes, so we cannot offer the download. Listen. Lyrics here - on Maggie's.

Revolution

You say you want a revolution
Well you know
we all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know you can count me out, in
Don't you know it's gonna be alright
Alright Alright

You say you got a real solution
Well you know
we'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well you know
We're all doing what we can
If you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is brother you have to wait
Don't you know it's gonna be alright
Alright Alright

You say you'll change the constitution
Well you know
we'd all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well you know
You better free your mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow
Don't you know know it's gonna be alright
Alright ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.

Mark Twain

So says Scott, of Bing Crosby.

"In the beginning was the Word..." Our favorite blogging metaphysician, Gagdad Bob, takes on gnosis and logos. You have to give his stuff a little time - he should not post more than once or twice a week: you cannot rush a search for Ultimate Truth. Like all really smart guys, Bob has his eccentricities: he can switch from the cosmic to hearty conservative politics so fast you can get whiplash. I do not think you can sue someone for mental whiplash...or can you? It is time to blogroll him.

But gnosis is neither naturalistic or idealistic. Rather, it is logoistic. That is, the truth of things is found neither in the external world nor in the mind that contemplates it. The esoterist worships neither gaia nor the intellect. Rather, he worships the eternal Word that is the source of each. As expressed by an anonymous Christian friend, reality is founded upon the Word, or Logos, “whose objective manifestation is the world of prototypes underlying the phenomenal world, and whose subjective manifestation is the light or prototype of human intelligence”: “all things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.”

So therefore, the only truly true and objective knowledge is knowledge of the Word. Objects are only real in the sense that they inhere in the Word--otherwise we could not know them. And our intellectual conceptions--our gnosis--are only true insofar as they reflect the Word. Real truth is not a construct or acquisition of the ego, but something to which we humbly submit.

His whole piece is here.

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.

Mark Twain

A quote from Dinocrat's piece on the May Day foolishness:

The idea of illegal people ‘demanding’ anything at all is as offensive as the Sun-Times editorial, particularly when you think of all those people who go through hoops and the horrible, terrible labyrinth of lawyers and government bureaucrats, spending years and thousands of dollars trying to get one of the 140,000 green cards issued annually.

There is no ‘middle ground’ between homeowners and home invaders, and to suggest that there is, with an attitude of noblesse oblige, makes our blood boil. By the way, what business is it of the Chicago Sun-Times to suggest that citizens give up the sovereignty of their country just because some people take the day off and walk around with the flags of various nations? Fortunately for us all, there is no ‘middle ground’ in the trend of the MSM as they decline towards zero year after year.

The marchers may not be fully aware of this but their leaders are: they are pawns in a much bigger political chess game. It's about the demography, stupid!

A guy was sitting quietly reading his paper when his wife walked up  behind him and whacked him on the head with a magazine. "What was that for?" he asked.

"That was for the piece of paper in your pants pocket with the name Laura Lou written on it," she replied.
"Two weeks ago when I went to the races, Laura Lou was the name of
one of the horses I bet on," he explained.
"Oh honey, I'm sorry," she said. "I should have known there was a good explanation."
Three days later he was watching a ball game on TV when she walked up and hit him in the head again, this time with the iron skillet, which knocked him out cold. When he came to, he asked, "What the hell was that for?"
She replied, "Your horse called."

This post below stolen from Willisms - his entire piece is here:

Voting With Their Feet-

When it comes to domestic migration (Americans moving from one part of America to another), not all states are created equal. On April 20, the United States Census Bureau released its latest current population report (which has lots of neat maps, if you are interested), detailing which states gained population at the expense of others, and vice-versa (.pdf):

Generally, people are leaving states that John Kerry won in 2004 in favor of states that George W. Bush won in 2004. Again, this isn't immigration from other countries, or even birthrate-based population changes. This is strictly a measure of Americans moving from blue states to red states, from blue counties to red counties, from blue cities to red cities.

Policies matter.

Pro-growth policies, not surprisingly, produce growth.

Indeed, the counties with the most outmigration from 2000-2004 tended to be left-leaning counties (.pdf):

It's clear that people are leaving Democrat-dominated areas to escape tyranny (of taxes, of weird rules and regulations, of higher crime rates, of the higher cost of living, of failing schools, etc.), to find opportunity elsewhere.

Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside.

Mark Twain