Maggie's Farm

When Lincoln, with his son Tad, was taking the Presidential train back from Richmond following the fall of Richmond in April, 1865, shortly before his assassination, he saw a Box Turtle sunning near the tracks. He had the train stopped, and went out and played with the turtle with Tad for a while before re-boarding the train.

Anyone who likes Box Turtles is OK with us. They are coming out of hibernation now, hungry, and looking for mates. Don't run them over, and help them across the road. And don't take them home - they don't work as pets, and they like their home territory.

How do I know they are awake? Saw my first one of our local colony, taking the sun yesterday morning. Funny how they always look cheerful.

We have posted earlier on the hazards of being an illegal in Mexico, and the huge obstacles to becoming a legal immigrant into Mexico - while the Mexican govt. takes great joy in dumping their unwanted citizens into the US:

Considered felons by the government, these migrants fear detention, rape and robbery. Police and soldiers hunt them down at railroads, bus stations and fleabag hotels. Sometimes they are deported; more often officers simply take their money. While migrants in the United States have held huge demonstrations in recent weeks, the hundreds of thousands of undocumented Central Americans in Mexico suffer mostly in silence.

Read the whole sorry, hypocritical, ridiculous story, at Ace. Mexico is beautiful, but a screwed-up joke of an irrational country - as bad as Sweden.

From a powerful homily entitled Friendship with Christ by Cardinal Ratzinger, shortly before becoming Pope Benedict last April:

The mercy of Christ is not a cheap grace; it does not presume a trivialization of evil. Christ carries in his body and on his soul all the weight of evil, and all its destructive force. He burns and transforms evil through suffering, in the fire of his suffering love. The day of vindication and the year of favor meet in the paschal mystery, in Christ died and risen. This is the vindication of God: he himself, in the person of the Son, suffers for us. The more we are touched by the mercy of the Lord, the more we draw closer in solidarity with his suffering - and become willing to bear in our flesh "what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ" (Col 1, 24).

This is by Charles Spurgeon, and was recently quoted by a commenter at One Cosmos:

God be thanked for the simplicity of the gospel. The longer I live, the more I bless God that we have not received a classical gospel, nor a mathematical gospel, nor a metaphysical gospel; it is not a gospel confined to scholars and men of genius, but a poor man s gospel, a ploughman's gospel; for that is the kind of gospel which we can live upon and die upon. It is to us not the luxury of refinement, but the staple food of life. We want no fine words when the heart is heavy, neither do we need deep problems when we are lying upon the verge of eternity, weak in body and tempted in mind. At such times we magnify the blessed simplicity of the gospel. Jesus in the flesh made manifest becomes our soul's bread. Jesus bleeding on the cross, a substitute for sinners, is our soul's drink. This is the gospel for babes, and strong men want no more.

Image: C. H. Spurgeon, English Baptist preacher (1834-1892)

I like this piece at One Cosmos as much as I liked Kesler's piece on Passover earlier this week. A couple of quotes:

Faith, on the other hand, is a dynamic engagement with the unknown. Faith, properly understood, is not a cognitive structure or grid to be superimposed upon reality. Rather, it is a psychospiritual probe with which to explore reality--somewhat like the way a blind person might use a cane to to construct an internal image of the dark space around him.

Furthermore, unlike belief, faith should be convertible to knowledge. It is actually a subtle and sophisticated way to gain knowledge that transcends the senses, not a means to provide false but comforting answers and to vanquish curiosity.

Thus, many people of faith are actually "people of knowledge," whereas many so called intellectuals are actually no more than simple "people of faith." You can really see what little genuine knowledge people have when the discussion revolves around something you do happen to know about, whether it is quantum physics or plumbing repair.

and:

The spiritually generative lumin being does not merely report reality. Rather, such an individual imparts reality. You might say that they are a door. Or you might say that they are a way. Or perhaps they are even the life.

The whole piece is worth more than a few minutes.

Image: Storm of gasses in the Orion-Swan nebula, from the Hubble telescope - a storm due to Bush's global warming, claim experts, possibly even worse than Katrina.

America's favorite ground cover, second only to asphalt. It sure does beat grass, because it doesn't get weeds, doesn't need watering, is happy with deep shade, is evergreen, is tough as hell, and doesn't need to be mown. It is an import from Japan.

It's coming into bloom right now, around here. The early-waking bees love those flowers.

Why a curse?  Did you ever try to remove a bed of pachysandra? It's like cleaning terrorists out of Baghdad, except they don't shoot back.

Docks in winter storage.

Aliyah 3-15-06: Galilee   

    We hit the road to the upper and lower Galilee, in opposite order.  A week ago Wed, off with the Ulpan, rising at 530 to get to Ulpan bus by 7 am.  There is a quality of herding cats in such groups, with people meandering off and occasionally back. One girl from Switzerland insists that we stop the bus mid road, as her friend has just arrived at the Ulpan, which we left some ten minutes earlier: she's only three minutes away, she insists. And we stop.  Miss Swiss exits the bus, assuring that we cannot leave, and we learn that her friend is still on the highway, being driven by someone, who doesn't' know Netanya, so can't find us.  About ten minutes later, some reason prevails, and Opher -- our Yemenite guide-song leader-accordianist-pianist-overall core of patience -- negotiates Swissy back on the bus, with assurances that it is easier for her friend's driver to find us downtown Netanya (where another group has been patiently waiting for our now-late arrival).  This was a bit like reverse-hostage negotiation: Opher trying to convince Miss Swiss on-board so that we can be held in thrall en route, rather than mis-en-scene.  When Swissy's friend boards, both of them have a mad on for our not waiting mid-road, rather than going into town. This lasts for a few hours.
    Something curative of the above upon entering "god's vineyard" -- Carmel.  We put Zikhron Yaakov on our right and Haifa north and behind us as we descend into god-will-sow valley, the Jezreel.  "To sow," the word in Hebrew, shares a root with the word, "arm," connecting us bodily with the limb used to broadcast seeds, signs of hope, of future.  This is a very "bodied" land, Israel, also one with sudden, even stark shifts of weather, and we are edging into the season of hope, of spring. Our guide, Sara, points out that this is the best time to see the flowers in the Galilee, before the summer heat wilts them.  Life buds, even blossoms here, sometimes in hidden corners, such as the forests we will visit, in spite of the acrimony surrounding.  Freud, after receiving Stefan Zweig's enthusiastic book about Israel, thanked him, and remarked eliptically, that this is a strange land, from which little art or science has emerged, but only three illusions. (And of such illusions, Freud saw little future.) Freud finishes, it should be studied more.

It is the beginning of Forsythia season in Yankeeland.

Today is "Celebrate Illegal Alien Day."  Let's make it a national holiday, GW. Michelle.  Is this not a case in which foreigners, illegally in the US, are attempting to influence American politics? Does that make sense? My political intuition tells me that these protests will backfire, badly. Since when can you sneak into a country, and then make demands? As our reader comments, what is Spanish for "chutzpah"?

When I last returned from the US after a vacation in Italy, with a US passport, they put me through a meat-grinder. Easier to fly home to Mexico, and walk through the river. They would not have gone through my bags and done a passport check - not that there was anything to find. Well, I had an apple from the airplane in my pocket which I forgot to carry in my stomach - an illegal agricultural product. Shame on me.

Here's the list of places where the protest marches will be occurring. These marches seem to be coordinated by the Center for Community Change.

Auster points out that normalizing illegal immigration means, in essence, an open borders policy in which the US abandons the right to control immigration of any sort. In my opinion, that is an abrogation of nationhood because, as I have said, half the world would come here if all they had to do was wade across the Rio Grande.

In reply to our email, asking Borders to confirm that their cartoon decision was reported accurately, we received the following profession of dhimmitude, dated 4/9:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for your expression of concern about our decision not to carry the issue of Free Inquiry magazine featuring cartoons depicting Muhammad. Borders is committed to our customers' right to choose what to read and what to buy and to the First Amendment right of Free Inquiry to publish the cartoons. In this particular case, we decided not to stock this issue in our stores because we place a priority on the safety and security of our customers and our employees. We believe that carrying this issue presented a challenge to that priority.

We value your thoughts and sincerely appreciate that you invested your time to tell us how you feel about the issue. I can assure you that our management team gave careful deliberation to this decision and considered all sides of the issue before reaching this conclusion.

I hope that this information is helpful. If you should have any other questions or comments, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Sincerely,

Chatica
Borders Customer Care
http://www.bordersstores.com

“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.” - Edward Abbey, naturalist and author

Quote thanks to LaShawn, with these quotes of hers, too:

The rule of law has been eroding for some time now. Think about the effect amnesty will have on criminal aliens who commit additional crimes, especially the ones prone to drinking, driving, and killing innocent people. The word illegal is rendered meaningless. If flouting immigration law isn’t illegal, why should drunk driving be illegal? Or selling drugs?

If you think there’s too much race-talk now, just wait until a critical mass of black people finally “get it” and realize how criminal aliens are hurting black workers forced to compete with them. Elite politicians and “the wealthy” are insulated. They don’t and probably will never have to compete with criminal aliens hired for low wages by criminal businesses. It’s the average person on the street who suffers.

And think about the message this sends to home-grown criminals. Under Bush’s plan, millions of foreign criminals would go unpunished just so they can continue providing low-wage and low-skilled labor. As I said, if you think you’re fed up with race now…

Read it all.

Last chance to put in your orders:

   A great source for native plantings on a large scale: Musser Forests
   A great source for fruits and berries, and miscellaneous: Miller Nurseries
   The premier place for perennials: White Flower Farm
   Great source for unusual varieties: Wayside Gardens

A month or so ago we posted a snarky and unkind critique of a post by Mixing Memory, a blog concerning cognitive psychology which we read weekly because of our interest in the subject.

Specifically, we erroneously claimed that his blog, or at least his post, ignored the religious and/or spiritual, and we also were ill-mannered in doubting the hard-science rigor of the post.

I hope he will accept our apology. Here are some of his posts on religion. And here is his latest: How Motivated Cognition can Save your Marriage.

From an interview with Benedict:

Asked by one student how he realized his own priestly vocation, the 78-year-old pontiff said that when he was young in Germany it was more "normal" to accept faith and vocations than it is today.

"There was the Nazi regime," Benedict said. "We were told very loudly that in the new Germany 'there will not be anymore priests, there will be no more consecrated life, we don't need this anymore, find another profession."'

Looking for a "How-To" book on becoming a Manly Man - a review of a few books on the subject in the CSM:

"A Guy's Guide to Being a Man's Man," is as full of practical tips as Mansfield's is devoid of them. He reminds men exactly how to behave with honor, respect, and gentlemanliness. That includes dating ("don't look too eager"), dressing ("no ties with animals, Looney Tune characters, or Spongebob."), dining ("order New York strip steak for three"), and listening to "man's man" music ("Sinatra was the ultimate"). His formula for men in 2006 is to get a manicure (but no pedicure), money clip (no Velcro wallets), and a DVD of "Saving Private Ryan."

Why aid doesn't work in Africa. It's a well-known fact, and even our State Dept gets it. Africa needs investment by bold entrepreneurs from all over the world. Samizdata. 

Rick Moran gets on a roll. One quote:

There are even efforts in blue states to stop “trading” with people and companies who live in ordinary America, as if people who live, work, play, go to church on Sunday, take off their hat when the flag goes by, and get choked up when they hear the national anthem live in a different country than the urban sophisticates who dominate the culture and to a large extent, the national conversation. We are told what is proper to believe, what we should watch on television, what cartoons are blasphemous, and which European countries are better than we are. We are instructed in what is “good” and even what is funny and what is not.

And when red state America rebels against this cultural tyranny by voting the way they think rather than the way they are told to, they are belittled as morons, mouth breathers, hicks, hillbillies, and dolts.

And liberals wonder why they can’t win an election for dog catcher in most areas of the country?

In truth, as we head into the silly season in politics, Democrats are going to have to find a way to put a lid on this attitude of loathing toward ordinary voters lest they be discovered for the insufferable elitist louts they truly are.

Thanks for that, Rick, from your loutish hillbilly friends at Maggie's Farm. Whole thing here.