We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Gwynnie emails me that he saw a pair of these this morning.
A colorful, not uncommon finch-like, sparrow-sized bird often seen in the Eastern US during migration - which is right now. During breeding season, the male is dramatically-pigmented but, depending on the light, they can appear black.
We now live in a country where sixty percent of the households get more from the federal government than they put in. We now live in a country where the Democratic Party has gone a long way towards fulfilling its long-term dream of turning citizens into clients of the state.
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
The condescension inherent in this vision is apparent in every step of Julia’s pilgrimage toward a community-gardening retirement. But in an increasingly atomized society, where communities and families are weaker than ever before, such a vision may have more appeal — to both genders — than many of the conservatives mocking the slide show might like to believe.
... liberalism does not work, contrary as it is to human nature. I wish I could just say that about every thirty years or so, forgetful Americans take an allergy shot of it, suffer the reaction, and then get another three decades of Carter/Obama immunity. But instead statist redistribution and intrusion are an insidious process, no longer specific just to Democrats, but bound up in the growing affluence and leisure of the West—both serving its various needs of alleviating guilt to the masses, subsidizing half the nation, and providing much envied power and lucre to a highly educated and technocratic elite who have little talent for acquiring either in the private sector. That it is not sustainable does not mean that it will not cause havoc as it totters and collapses. Look at Russia and Eastern Europe circa 1989, or the present-day EU, or Greece proper, or California or Illinois today.
15:1 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower.
15:2 He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.
15:3 You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.
15:4 Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.
15:5 I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.
15:6 Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.
15:7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
15:8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.
I refer to Arthur Miller's 1949 Death of a Salesman. I saw it performed once in New Haven, read it once or twice.
It's a dreary play about unhappy people, and I would have no interest in seeing it again. For a reason I cannot understand, it's been viewed as some sort of critique of modern life and capitalist society. I suppose being a regular person seems humdrum to a wealthy, celebrated writer who married Marilyn Monroe. The Lee Siegel comment on the current Broadway production is in that vein: Death of a Salesman’s Dreams.
Lee Siegel's comment is wrong on more counts than I have time to review.
For what it's worth, in my view it's the story, not about middle class dreams, but about life's disappointments. I suppose the endurance of the play has to do with the fact that we all have disappointed dreams. Biff's sanity is his aspiration to be "ordinary."
The play is also, I suppose, a play about clinical depression and a play about kids' perceptions of their fathers. But is that worth paying big bucks to see?
I happened to have a chat with a salesman recently. He sells services for IBM. Loves his job. Somebody told me recently that, in one way or another, "everybody is in sales."
That the Obama White House has taken men and women of repute and transformed them into Axelrodian snark artists long preceded Tanden’s tweet. But it caught my attention because it seemed to be the reductio ad absurdum of modern liberalism. Until, that is, Elizabeth Warren bailed her out.
When Stalinism Was in Vogue - Lillian Hellman disdained a system that made her fabulously rich while romanticizing one that made its citizens spectacularly poor.
"Julia" is the "composite female" with which the Obama campaign is attempting to secure the women's vote.
Not the vote of strong, liberated women, but the vote of those women, I suppose, who want a life of dependency and want government to be some composite of parent and spouse.
"Julia" is a rather pitiful American specimen, so people are having fun with her:
Gwynnie emails me that he saw a pair of these this morning.
Maurice Sendak: Author of ‘Where the Wild Things Are’
Megan Draper's Choice
Image from 
John 15:1-8
The well-known excerpt from Blake's rarely-read poem "Milton" is called "Jerusalem" when used as the popular English wedding hymn.
