Maggie's Farm

Auster and Brooks Pile on Bush

OK, Bush isn't the Great Communicator. That is true. "Witless"? Not sure. Heart in the right place? Definitely. Raw deal from the media? For sure, but it's partially his fault - he doesn't court them or charm them. His bad. Throw them a quote from Sartre like JFK used to do and they'll eat out of your hand forever. Like, you'll be complex and groovy, like, can you dig it, dude? Just not that super-square no-fun Jesus dude all the time, ya see where I'm comin from, like? You have to understand the psychology of The Press: Because they just report, and don't DO, they have an inferiority issue. They compensate by wanting to feel like swashbucklers, macho guys, big drinkers and cutting-edge thinkers, etc. Feed their adolescent egos by flattering their intelligence: assume they believe there is a mini-Hemingway or Norman Mailer or Bob Woodward inside of each of 'em.

Red Tide

The worst red tide in memory has hit the New England coast this spring, from Maine to Nantucket, slamming Cape Cod and Cape Cod Bay. This nasty algae bloom renders mollusks toxic, so it's a disaster for the shellfishers as well as for the shellfish-eaters. Thus far, it has not moved south into Rhode Island. Details in Boston Globe. Basics on algal blooms here.

Wow

Paul Johnson gets it re Euristan, with a punch:

There is another still more fundamental factor in the EU malaise. Europe has turned its back not only on the U.S. and the future of capitalism, but also on its own historic past. Europe was essentially a creation of the marriage between Greco-Roman culture and Christianity. Brussels has, in effect, repudiated both. There was no mention of Europe's Christian origins in the ill-fated Constitution, and Europe's Strasbourg Parliament has insisted that a practicing Catholic cannot hold office as the EU Justice Commissioner.

Read entire piece about the failures and arrogance of Europe on Opinion Journal  here.

Non-Stop Cartoons

from the New Yorker's archives. Just leave it on your screen. It changes every 30 seconds. You will never leave your seat. You will just waste time, like the rest of us.

Three from Jose Ortega y Gasset:

"A revolution only lasts fifteen years, a period which coincides with the effectiveness of a generation."

"Effort is only effort when it hurts."

"The metaphor is perhaps one of man's most fruitful potentialities. Its efficacy verges on magic, and it seems a tool for creation which God forgot inside one of His creatures when He made him."

A note on Ortega: Many of us read his Revolt of the Masses in college, but not everyone knows that this philosopher also wrote one of the all-time classics on the joys and ethics of hunting, Meditations on Hunting.

Matthew 6, 1-4

Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they will have their reward. But when you give alms, let your left hand not know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees you in secret will reward you.

The Hawk

The deluxe super-duper ultra-stupendous and also real good Iowahawk is back. We hope all is well with him. Now back to the garden.

Turban Durbin, more

From the Dartmouth guys at Powerline: "We give Durbin failing grades in attention, conduct, intelligence, knowledge, candor, logic, manners, loyalty and decency."

So many blogs, so little time: three excellent blogs we have recently found:

Atlantic Blog, by an American economist in Ireland
Ex-Donkey Blog, a fellow New Englander from Connecticut
Free Market Fairy Tales, from England

And a site for the legal implications of blogging:

EFF Legal Guide for Bloggers

What's This?

A Full-Rigged Ship, a Bark, a Barkentine, a Brig, a Brigantine, or a Schooner? Well, you know she's not a schooner because of the square sails. Not a Full-Rigged or a Bark because she only has two masts. But what's the difference between a Full-Rigged and a Bark? Learn your Tall Ships here. They are among the most majestic, yet lovely, of all of man's creations. (She's a Brigantine, the UK's 132-foot Eye of the Wind)

"Be careful, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

(I have also seen this translated as "Be kind,...")

Philo

Gay Patriot's Ordeal

Gay Patriot, an excellent anonymous blogger, has been on our blogroll since the beginning, but it is only now that we realize what has been going on with him. LGF had the story in March, and now Gay Patriot tells part of the story of harassment by left-wing activists. It is an ugly story, judging from what his post implies.

Schiavo

We hated the entire Schiavo story, but RWNuthouse has written a very thoughtful retrospective on the whole thing. Worth your attention.

And, for balance, BlameBush has some tasteless black humor on the same subject:

Malicious rhetoric from right-wing polemicists like the Pope has done serious damage to the Right to Die crusade, but there's still a glimmer of hope for those longing for death - either their own, or of a loved-one whose continuing existence has become an inconvenience to everyone. Read entire.

Too Cool

If only Samuel Pepys had the internet. He would be thrilled to know that you can follow his diary daily or weekly at The Diary of Samuel Pepys. Don't miss the June 14th entry, about a hanging. This is the right way to read his wonderful diary, a day or two at a time.

Carnival of History Blogs

On Spinning Clio

Banning Spanking, Again

Massachusetts, and now Canada. What are these people thinking? In MassRight

The Cuyahoga Valley Land Grab

Thompson describes his first disillusionment with the Federal Govt, on a conservation issue, in Thompson

You say you love me
And you're thinking of me,
But you know you could be wrong.
You say you told me
That you want to hold me,
But you know you're not that strong.
I just can't do what I done before,
I just can't beg you any more.
I'm gonna let you pass
And I'll go last.
Then time will tell just who fell
And who's been left behind,
When you go your way and I go mine.

Dylan, from Most Likely You'll Go Your Way (and I'll Go Mine)
on Blonde on Blonde

400th Anniversary of Don Quixote

This masterwork of western literature holds up very well today, and yes, I read it recently - for the first time. A contemporary of Shakepeare (and thought to have been familiar with Shakespeare's work), Cervantes fought, and was wounded, in the epic sea battle of Lepanto, which held off Islam's last effort to invade the west - until now. A piece in the NYT.

"The past is never dead; it's not even past."

William Faulkner

Like Recycling

Makes you feel virtuous, but it goes to the same darn landfill. Just like money to Africa.

Mudcat tries to return country folk to the Dem fold

Well, I'd be happy to hunt or fish with this old boy, but as the future of the Dems, I dunno. In Weekly Standard: Click here: Hunting Bubba

A moving and touching piece on Grace, by Warren.

On Loving God, and the levels of Loving God, by Real Ministries

It works in practice, but it doesn't work in theory.

Anon.

A Jackson Verdict

Thank goodness. We don't have to hear about that any more. (NG on all)