Maggie's Farm

It's about Boston, at Sippican.

Photo: The scary "new" Boston City Hall, from the piece at Sip. Note openings for 7.62 mm minigun emplacements above the traditional portcullis.

How does one account for this graph of Antarctic ice? (h/t, Junk Science). Perhaps some of the recent effects in Greenland are local, not global?

The good reason to visit Hyde Park, NY, in the lovely Hudson Valley, is not to visit the home of the worst President of the US, but to visit the CIA.  Paul Bocuse says it is "the best culinary school in the world." The other CIA - The Culinary Institute of America.

They have a choice of restaurants, relatively inexpensive and run by the students, and they aim to please.

Weakness and renunciation do not lead to peace. They lead to war. 

Nicolas Sarkozy to the UN General Assembly

If you cross a Black Lab with a Yellow Lab, what color pups do you get?

Answer: It depends on the parental genotype, not their phenotype, of course. Thus Labs commonly have mixed-color litters.

It's too bad people don't work the same way. It might be fun to wonder what color your kid would be.

Labrador color genetics made simple here. They include all 81 possible crosses between phenotypic black, chocolate, and yellow Labs. It becomes clear why most Labs are black.

Photo: A nice Lab who has just eaten the Easter Bunny a Jackrabbit

A liberal is a man who is too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel.

Robert Frost (h/t, No Pasaran)

The Badia (Abbey) a Passignano in the Chianti region of Tuscany. More nice photos of the area here. A Chianti walking tour sounds good to me, and, for refreshment, a glass of Chianti doesn't do much for me but a nice Chianti Classico can be a fine thing, and the Super Tuscans are the bee's knees.

It's a very major change. Ace.

What did Bush tell them? To produce that kind of dramatic about-face in one week, they must have been told something that the public has not yet been told.

Behind the curtain of the immigration marches and the debate. Anchoress. That guy is everywhere, but always invisibly.

As the IBD editorial concludes:

Soros' "shaping public policies," as OSI calls it, is not illegal. But it's a problem for democracy because it drives issues with cash and then only lets the public know about it after it's old news.

That means the public makes decisions about issues without understanding the special agendas of groups behind them.

Without more transparency, it amounts to political manipulation. This leads to cynicism. As word of these short-term covert ops gets out, the public grows to distrust what it hears and tunes out.

The irony here is that Soros claims to be an advocate of an "open society." His OSI does just the legal minimum to disclose its activities. The public shouldn't have to wait until an annual report is out before the light is flipped on about the Open Society's political action.

Wise advice to Dems from Hanson, re Iraq, quoted from a piece at Dr. Sanity:

...the Democrats need to start once again readjusting, especially on Iraq. They might want to consider a tactic along the following lines: their initial votes for the removal of Iraq were sound and not to be apologized for; then their timely constant haranguing led to the necessary changes that came kicking and screaming; and now thanks to their vigilance there is some hope of resolution — combined with reminders that they always supported principled aid for Middle East reformers.

Yes, they could win elections with that approach, but it would involve so many abrupt changes in direction that they might all end up in neck braces.

I cannot remember where I saw the above statement quoted yesterday, regarding Columbia Pres. Bollinger. The statement does apply, I believe. Admadinejad scored a great PR and political coup, while illuminating nothing and showing contempt for the intelligence of his audience. As Kate noted at SDA, Bollinger has now been attacked by Iranians. Some gratitude.

Here's an email I received early today from Columbia, still pushing the bogus "free speech" spin and trying to hype Bollinger's belated challenges to Ahmadinejad:

Over the past week the scheduled appearance of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Columbia's World Leaders Forum has sparked debate around the world. Here on campus, in countless conversations, students and faculty challenged one another to think critically about the issues raised by his visit. President Bollinger has answered tough questions from the media and from local and regional politicians. The University has heard from hundreds of alumni on the subject expressing both support and dismay.

Yesterday the Morningside Heights campus was alive as thousands of students participated in peaceful demonstrations and dialogue about issues relating to both Iran and free speech. Many alumni would have been proud of our students who, however intense and disparate their viewpoints, upheld the values of free expression and respect that define the essence of our campus community and our society.

At the World Leaders Forum event in Roone Arledge auditorium, President Bollinger, SIPA interim dean John Coatsworth, and Columbia students called the Iranian President to account for his positions on the Holocaust, Israel, nuclear weapons, homosexuals, women's rights, and many other matters—and afforded Ahmadinejad the opportunity to respond. I hope you will take the time to visit http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/07/09/sipairan.html, where you can see a full video of the event, read transcripts of President Bollinger's introduction and President Ahmadinejad's remarks, and read other statements relating to the event. You may also want to read an editorial, "Free Speech in Practice," published in the Spectator, Columbia's student newspaper.

The issues raised at, and by, yesterday's World Leaders Forum will continue to reverberate. I invite you to follow the links above and then log in to share your thoughts with other alumni in Columbia's free speech discussion group at alumni.columbia.edu/forum.

Yours,
Eric J. Furda
Vice President for Alumni Relations

If an infinite number of rednecks riding in an infinite number of pickup trucks fire an infinite number of shotgun rounds at an infinite number of highway signs, they will eventually produce all the world's great literary works in Braille.

Anon., via Synthstuff

Thanks, reader, for pointing us to Heather MacDonald's The Jena Dodge at City Journal.

As we have noted here many times, the post-war downhill slide of American blacks is due to the breakdown of the black family. Blame whomever or whatever you will for that. Moynihan preached about this years ago. As white folks imitate the single-parent life, they will eventually reap the same whirlwind. It's called social breakdown.

The lovely tune is named "So What?"

Gateway. The UN is a joke, and everyone pretends, publicly, that it isn't. Like Head Start, it's one of those things that employs a lot of people and demonstrably does no good, but is easy to be sanctimonious about. Feel-good BS - on my nickel.

But that's OK. As we often say here, if the UN fuctioned as it would like to, it would be scary. Envision a World EU: no escape.

Oxford Medievalist. Yes, and not just the Iranians - probably most of the world. Columbia Pres. Bollinger is a shlemozzle. (University board of directors generally like to select weak sisters for their presidents.)

(For those whose Yiddish is weak, I have been told that a shlemiel is the guy who always spills the soup, and a shlemozzle is the guy who always gets soup spilled on him. A fine distinction, in both senses.)

Addendum: More on topic - "Rave review" - at Dino. It was one shlemiel and one shlemozzle - Perfect Together on Morningside Heights.

It's been a long time since we posted a Dog of the Week.

But all domestic dogs, mutts or purebred, are, of course, just dogs.

There is a Genome Project for dogs. If genetics is of interest, this dog genetic update in American Scientist will be fascinating. It begins thus:

A Pekingese weighs only a couple of pounds; a St. Bernard can weigh over 180. Both dogs, though vastly different in appearance, are members of the same genus and species, Canis familiaris. How dog breeds can exhibit such an enormous level of variation between breeds, and yet show strong conformity within a breed, is a question of interest to breeders and everyday dog lovers alike. In the past few years, it has also become a compelling question for mammalian geneticists.

The "dog genome project" was launched in the early 1990s, motivated by scientists' desire to find the genes that contributed to many of the ills suffered by purebred dogs. Most dog breeds have only been in existence for a few hundred years. Many exhibit limited genetic diversity, as dog breeds are typically descended from a small number of founders, created by crossing closely related individuals. Further, breeds often experience population bottlenecks as the popularity of the breed waxes and wanes. As a result of this population structure, genetic diseases are more common in purebred dogs than in mixed-breed dogs. Scientists have been motivated to use dog populations to find genes for diseases that affect both humans and dogs, including cancer, deafness, epilepsy, diabetes, cataracts and heart disease. In doing so we can simultaneously help man and man's best friend.

The whole (multi-page) thing is here.

Photo: That is a Chessie.

A quote from the Columbia Spectator (h/t, Minding the Campus):

In the 1930s, the Columbia administration participated in what could be described as the coddling of the Nazi regime. In 1933, Nazi ambassador Hans Luther gave a speech on campus in which, according to a 2006 article in Spectator by Rafeal Medoff, he focused on Hitler’s “peaceful intentions” in Europe. Columbia maintained student exchange programs with Nazi universities throughout the ’30s, while, in 1936, our university sent a representative to the 550th anniversary celebration of the University of Heidelberg, even though, writes Medoff, it had “already had been purged of Jewish faculty members, instituted a Nazi curriculum, and hosted a burning of books by Jewish authors.”

Read the whole piece, which I feel is rather unfair. Columbia is hardly an anti-semitic institution. The failure is one of discrimination - of being unwilling to decide what is good and what is bad, or, as our NJ says, "what is worthy and what is not"... or, worse, in actually declaring that one thing - ignorant murderous scum - is worth welcoming into your home, but another (ROTC and campus recruiting) is not.

In modern academia, Columbia is hardly unique in these failures of conscience, decency, honor, and vigorous adult judgement. Columbia is, in fact, an amazing place, but not so much so that the administration is immunized from Pomo Psychosis: they may even still believe that it is the "advanced" way of thinking. My message to Columbia today: Grow a pair, and stand for something.

My old Mater has embarrassed me.

I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have a hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.

E.B. White, as quoted in yesterdays post "No Blood for What?"

Maggie's Farm is a state of mind, and doesn't really represent a single literal farm, as The Barrister has said.

At the same time, to add some ambiguity to the idea, it is partly inspired by a literal farm which was given as a land grant by King George lll to my ancestors, many of whom are buried in the graveyard by the side of the road. It is in the Massachusetts Berkshire Hills, and close enough to Tanglewood for convenience, but I will not say where.

It is remarkable that a place should be in the family, fully intact, after all of these years, although the original farmhouses burned down (cellar-holes still in place) and many of the barns, buildings, and the marble-cutting mill by the river have fallen down over the years.

Much of our stone is marble up here, and much of it was quarried in the first half of the 1800s and pulled by oxen to be floated down the Housatonic River for shipment to NYC, Providence, and Boston for their fancy buildings. All of our barns and buildings have marble foundations beneath their rickety structures. Even the diving "board" at the stream's swimming hole is a 6x4x4 block of marble sticking out into the water which must have been left behind when the last load of marble departed.

The marble was surely a nice income supplement for thse hardscrabble dairy farmers.

One of the two surviving, and gradually being renovated, liveable quarters on the farm was originally built as a rustic and simple dwelling for the mill workers in 1820.

Assistant Village Idiot, in his post Wisdom from a Liberal of Another Era, quoted this paragraph - among others - from a 1938 E.B. White essay in One Man's Meat:

I'm down now; the barn is tight, and the peace is preserved. It is the ugliest peace the earth has ever received for a Christmas present. Old England eating swastika for breakfast instead of kipper is a sight I had as lief not lived to see. And though I am no warrior, I would gladly fight for the things Nazism seeks to destroy. (Living in a sanitary age, we are getting so we place too high a value on human life - which rightfully must always come second to human ideas.)

I say "Old England eating Islam instead of kippers." (I love kippers for breakfast.) The New Yorker has always had an anglophilic streak. But AVI  asks:

Does anyone at the New Yorker think that today?

Read his whole piece, which I have been thinking about for a week. AVI rightly observes that today's anti-war folks would probably renounce  pacifism, but claim that Iraq is not a place for Americans to die. That is debatable, but it seems that the bad guys need to be killed somewhere. Why not there?

But on to the bigger issues: Do we, today, tend to place too high a value on human life? Are there ideas we will die for, or communities we will die for, or will we only die for family? Is our precious selfhood, which some might term narcissism, more important than anything else to us and, if it is, what changed between 1938 (before the US was in the war) and today?

Photos: Yes, we are E.B. White fans. Below is the Maine boathouse in which he wrote Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little. A favorite E.B. White quote:

"I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have a hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult."