Maggie's Farm

Glenn Lowry looks at the future of identity politics and tribalism, in Boston Review. Here he discusses his childhood friend Woody:

Everyone, on first meeting him, assumed as much. I did too when we had begun to play together a decade earlier, just after I had moved into the middle-class neighborhood called Park Manor where Woody’s family had been living for some time. There were a number of white families on our block when we first arrived; within a couple of years they had all been replaced by aspiring black families like our own. Yet, Woody’s parents never moved, which puzzled me. Then one day I overheard his mother declare to one of her new neighbors, “We just wouldn’t run from our own kind.” Somewhat later, while watching the film Imitation of Life on TV, my mother explained how someone could be “black,” even though they looked “white.” She told me about people like that in our own family—second cousins who lived in a fashionable suburb, and on whom one would never dare drop in unannounced because they were passing for white. This was my earliest glimpse of the truth that racial identity in America is inherently a social and cultural, not simply a biological, construct—that it necessarily involves an irreducible element of personal choice.

and

...to the extent that we blacks see ourselves primarily through a racial lens, we may end up sacrificing possibilities for the kind of personal development that would ultimately further our collective racial interests. We cannot be truly free men and women while laboring under a definition of self derived from the perceptual view of our oppressor, confined to the contingent facts of our oppression.

Read the whole thing. I certainly agree with his point that reducing the notion of identity to skin color is a darn thin reed to hold on to. Being white tells me nothing about myself.

John 1:43-51

The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me.

Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.

Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.

And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.

 Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!

Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.

Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel.

Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these.

And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.

Reposted from May 6, 2005:

Save the World on Your Own Time

That's the title of Stanley Fish's oft-quoted 2003 piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

It is not paranoid to state that the Left, since the 60's, has targeted non-profits of all kinds, including churches and universities, as easy take-over opportunities, and the "nice" but well-intentioned, naive, denizens of these worlds frequently rolled out a red carpet for them.

Where else would they go besides into politics and non-profits?

Some of the most innocent organizations in the US succumbed, especially the national headquarters. The dues go from Dubuque and Atlanta to DC and NYC, where they are used as their HQ staff see fit, ie often promoting, advocating, and lobbying for left-wing causes. (Check to see what some of your favorite charities are doing with the dollars that go to their HQ, but you need to dig deeper than just checking their happy websites. Follow the money!)

Same thing with the universities, which are similarly naive and well-intentioned non-profits. But I digress.

 Fish's central statement:

"My concern, however, is not with academic time management but with academic morality, and my assertion is that it is immoral for academics or for academic institutions to proclaim moral views.

The reason was given long ago by a faculty committee report submitted to the president of the University of Chicago. The 1967 report declares that the university exists "only for the limited ... purposes of teaching and research," and it reasons that "since the university is a community only for those limited and distinctive purposes, it is a community which cannot take collective action on the issues of the day without endangering the conditions for its existence and effectiveness."

Read entire  piece.

Bruce Kesler's excellent health care post yesterday has this PS from him:

This survey also suggests that as in the past early support for a number of reform proposals could fade in the face of arguments that opponents might raise in a public debate. For example, seven in ten Americans (71%) say they favor the idea of employer mandates. But when given the argument often made by critics that this may cause some employers to lay off some workers support falls dramatically, to just under three in ten (29%). The same pattern holds on the topic of individual mandates. Roughly two in three (67%) favor requiring all Americans to have health insurance with help for those who could not afford it. When given the criticism that some people may be required to buy health insurance they find too expensive or do not want, support falls to two in ten (19%).

Americans seem most concerned that any health care plan not raise their costs or involve government limiting or dictating their choices. According to the survey, nearly two-thirds (65%) say they would be less likely to support a plan that would get the government get too involved in personal health care decisions, more than six in ten (61%) would be less likely to support a plan that increases people’s insurance premiums or out-of-pocket costs, and more than half (56%) would be less supportive of a plan that limits an individual’s choice in doctors.

“As we have learned from past debates, public support looms for health reform largest at the beginning of the debate, but it's relatively easy to chip away at that support with arguments about tradeoffs,” said Mollyann Brodie, Kaiser vice president and director for Public Opinion and Survey Research.

Got an email from the NJ in Maine. He had -19 degrees F last night, with snow flurries. Lowest thermometer he'd ever seen in person. Possibly too cold for downhill skiing, even for tough guys. Sounds like pub weather to me. I have heard a number of people say that this cold is due to global warming. Of course - everything is. It's 3 here right now, and our Dr. Bliss is skiing in New Hampshire. Maggie's Farm people like cold weather. It makes us feel alive - and we get to use our gear.

Two links about coffee: 7 cups of coffee cause you to hallucinate. Also, drinking coffee reduces risk of Alzheimer's/ Photo from the latter article.

A little research on commercial airplane ditchings. Related: Somebody who studies bird-plane collisions

 A very good Snow Goose recipe. On a serious note, I think I might make this hors d'oevres tonight, with Canada Goose breast. But I'm afraid the goose will end up overcooked.

Historian offered a choice. Sort of a Hobson's Choice.

The deliberate dumbing down of America. Video

Ace on asexuality:

I'm not being misogynist when I say that men and women are basically alien species living together on the same planet, united only by our matching genitals.

OK, but is matching the best word?

A mere $217,000 per job. That's my money. I earned it.

Road to Serfdom. A condensed version.

Everybody has reported that Bush's wiretapping was legal. It will remain in force, I think.

A gay sex orgy for the inauguration. Dare I ask what rimming has to do with the inauguration? Maybe Chris Matthews might know.

Rick Moran:

Geithner is lying when he says he “forgot” to pay his taxes. This is a given. It also insults our intelligence when he claims that his failure to pay the IRS what he owes is an “honest mistake.” We will now see if the rest of the Washington Democratic establishment plays along with Geithner and pretends they believe his lies, thus perpetrating a “business as usual” climate in the Obama government rather than the promised reform that so many believed so passionately he could bring about.

It is a little lie, a white lie, but telling nevertheless. And like Republican lawmakers preaching “family values” who get caught with their pants down around their ankles, anyone who preaches reform and changing the way Washington does business and then tolerates the bald faced lying of Geithner can and will be rightly accused of rank hypocrisy if they don’t do the right thing and yank this tax dodge from consideration for any high office in the Obama Administration.

Or are Democrats to be allowed a different standard of hypocrisy because of bad economic times?

I appreciate the dilemma. Geithner is a good choice, but I think I tend to worry more about the accuracy of my taxes, and general law obedience, than he does. And I have less to lose. He's a smart and clever Wall Street/DC yuppie.

In the snow and cold (13 degrees F yesterday morning, 9 this morning), we had hungry Gray Squirrels but not much of a variety of birds: Cardinal, Chickadee, Blue Jay, Mourning Dove, Song Sparrow, English Sparrow, Red-bellied Woodpecker, White Throated Sparrow, SC Junco. Boring.

The problem is the rats at night, picking up the cherries fallen off the plate, as it were. It gives some fun for the pup, though. But you hate to get licked on the face by a pup who just ate a rat. Our Great Horned Owls need to get busier. I hear them at night. They like it here in the winter. Lots of rats. I think they ate most of the bunnies already.

“I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show... ”

- Andrew Wyeth. Andrew Wyeth dead at 91. Illustrator? Artist? What's the diff? They called his Dad, NC Wyeth, an "illustrator." Image above is Andrew Wyeth's Long Limbs, 1999.

Who voted for Obama? Patriot Post (scroll to Patriot Perspective)

How to deal with a home invasion (h/t, Alphecca). Related: Gun Salesman of the Year

More details of the plane crash

Look on the bright side: Consumer prices fall again. It's a good time to buy stuff.

Citigroup Citibank Whatever update. Thanks for nuthin, Sandy Weill.

What if Israel had lost the Six-Day War?

The mess that is Putin's Russia

Scathing about Bush's Presidency: View from the Right. OK, Lawrence, but drop it now. Just look at these people.

From guest poster Bruce Kesler:

Only when voters speak out loudly, and only occasionally even then, do our legislators take heed.  Newly elected president Barack Obama and his choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services former Senator Tom Daschle, who is also tasked as “health reform” czar by Obama, say they intend major changes in how Americans receive health care, with government taking vastly increased control.

The latest Rasmussen poll reports that most Americans are highly skeptical and unwilling to pay higher taxes for it: Forty-three percent (43%) of U.S. voters say the quality of health care in America will get worse if a government-run health insurance plan is created to compete with private plans. Thirty-three percent (33%) say quality will get better, and 10% say it will stay the same… Forty-seven percent (47%) of voters say it is better to expand coverage through private health insurance plans than through government-run programs like Medicaid. Thirty-five percent (35%) believe the opposite to be true, with 17% not sure. In a survey last April, just 29% of American adults supported a national health insurance program overseen by the Federal Government…. just 36% favor a government-controlled health plan for the uninsured if it means an increase in their income taxes. Fifty percent (50%) are opposed to such a plan for those who cannot get insurance if it means a tax increase, and 14% are undecided….

A majority of U.S. voters (58%), however, oppose any kind of government-controlled health plan if it means they have to change their own insurance coverage.

Wednesday’s overwhelming vote in the US House to pass the huge expansion of the SCHIP program, formerly passed by the last Congress and twice vetoed by President Bush, is touted as a “down payment” on Obama-Daschle getting their way on their bigger healthcare goals.  Republican efforts to amend the SCHIP bill – for example, requiring that sponsors who pledged to support legal immigrants do so -- were not allowed by the Democrats in the House.  The recent empirical evidence in Hawaii was ignored that allowing those with high incomes -- those with incomes up to $80,000 may enter SCHIP -- results in many abandoning existing insurance and greatly increased government deficits.  Hawaii abandoned the unaffordable program:

State health officials argued that most of the children enrolled in the universal child care program previously had private health insurance, indicating that it was helping those who didn't need it.

As with many of Obama’s choices for top spots, Tom Daschle’s nomination is running into some turbulence over his dealings with his own “charitable” tax deductions and associations with a “charity” that may have abused its status for political ends – as too many do.  He’ll likely be confirmed anyway, especially with Democrat control of Congress.

Yet, as opposition has mounted in Congress – reacting to heavy public opposition –  over the lack of transparency and use of hundreds of billions of dollars of “bailout” funds and Obama’s intents for over a trillion dollars more, the portent for Obama-Daschle “charities” getting their way to control over the 15% of the US’s economy in healthcare diminishes.

Thus the key question: Will data dash Daschle?

It would be infra our dig to award a prize to the low-class and monotonous YouPorn.com, but, for Our Favorite Gun P*rn: Mr. Free Market (It would have been a tie with Kim Du Toit, but he wisely retired from blogging.)

Favorite Gun P*rn Site (where you can buy them): Gunbroker.com. It is even fun just to look.

Best Skank Soft Porn Female Art Photos Lovely Women: Theo

Most Frustrating Site Because When You Think You Discovered Some Cool Obscure Article You Find Out That He's Already Linked It: Insty

Our Most-Linked Pro Columnists of 2008: A three-way tie between Krauthammer, Kimball, and Steyn.

Columnist Who Most Often Articulates Clearly What We're Thinking But Cannot Articulate: Sowell

Met some darn nice all-American folks today, delivering an eBay furniture purchase to us. They drove up here from the Eastern Shore of Maryland. He does intel-related stuff for the gummint. She does eBay. We almost never use eBay, but this worked out very well indeed.

Not only were they good folks, but the item was far better than described and the price entirely reasonable. I steered them to a delicious lunch up here before their trip home.

Thanks, friends!

Never use a wine for cooking or marinating that you would not be very happy to drink in a glass.

Dr. Joy Bliss

Some reheated links at Thompson highlighted Vanessa Eagle's documentary series Lefties, which is about the effort to create a Leninist Sunday tabloid in London, and their quixotic effort to topple the great Maggie Thatcher.

If you have a few spare minutes, give the video a look. It's about newspapers, sort of.

Nothing will surprise you about their failure to recognize the realities of life and the demands of high functioning and accomplishment, but it's still a fascinating record. It's sort of like "We're All Bozos On This Bus," or a Monty Python skit. The bits about "caring about the environment" are especially poignant from folks who have probably never hoed a garden, mucked out a stall, or gotten lost in the Maine woods or spent a week camping in the Montana wilderness.

These bozos should have started a blog. That might have worked, but this was the pre-blog era.

Photo: The Maggie's Farm Team presenting the coveted imitation-parchment Maggie's Farm Blog Award to a fortunate winner. (Surely you can pick out our specific contributors in the pic.)

Wryest and Driest: IowaHawk

Most Similar to Us: It's a tie between American Digest and David Thompson

Always Thinks When He Writes: AVI

Best New Shrink Blog We Found This Year: Ars Psychiatrica

Best Toons: Theo

Best Reportage: Michael Yon

Most Likeable Social Worker: neoneoneoneo

Best Skeptics: Another tie, between Watt's Up and Junk Science. We think skepticism is a virtue.

Winners can see a close-up of their award, and award money transfer details,  via one of our previous 2008 awards posts here.

"When I get out of here, I am getting off the stage. I have had my time in the Klieg lights."

George Bush. God bless him. I still don't think he ever really wanted or enjoyed the job and the power and visibility all that much. I think he took it on as a duty while his personal core lay elsewhere - with God, family and pals, and his ranch - which I think is entirely to his credit. No grandiosity or narcissism at all in him, as befits his Yankee heritage, which is why he's always been a half-hearted pol: he is a man, not a political pimp. A kind, caring, self-deprecating man with a great sense of humor, plenty of humility and plenty of balls - and plenty of good AA under his belt. Some of us have met the guy, and agree. But go ahead and argue with that if you want to.

John Johansen's "Bridge House" in New Canaan, CT, is for sale.

New Canaan is famous for its collection of modern residential  architecture. The prosperous town changed from farmland to suburbia during the height of the modernist craze. John Johansen is the only living member of "The Harvard Five," of whom Philip Johnson is probably the best-known.

I like to look at these houses, but would not want to live in them. For life, I prefer rambling, drafty, random, cozy structures with plenty of fireplaces, and which were never really designed, but just kinda grew over time, like Topsy.

They are asking $5 million for this small but striking house. I am told it needs some "repairs." I like it, but I do not want it.

You can read about the Bridge House here.

Quoted from The Limits of Reaganism at Debatable Land (we need to add this site to our Anglosphere category)

...the Cult of Reagan actually helps explain the mess the Republican movement finds itself in. It used to be that it was the left that specialised in writing dissenters out of the movement; these days, in America at least, that's become a conservative trait. The RNC debate was illuminating in this respect: in addition to passing the Reagan litmus tests candidates were asked how many guns they own. And that was more or less it. Tick those boxes and you're a proper Republican; waver on either question and you're subject to suspicion.

It's this sort of blinkered thinking, this elevation of ideology above the messy business of winning elections that has helped condemn the GOP to minority status. A two party system in a nation of 300m people demands that each party be a broad church. Reagan recognised this; his successors seem to have forgotten it.

Read the whole thoughtful thing. You can get the other side of the argument from an emotional Michelle today. Debate is good. Certainty is never good.

Related: Could Obama's centrism drive the GOP out of business?

Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run.

Mark Twain (via LGF)

Most Soulful Site: Sippican Cottage

Best New Personal Mom Blog: The Retriever

Best Vintage Photos At a Site With Which We Often Politically Disagree: Dr X

Favorite Aussie Blog: Tim Blair

Favorite Canadian Blog: A tie between Dust My Broom and Small Dead Pangolins

Attention Winners! See continuation page below the fold for your imitation parchment suitable-for-framing award, along with your prize money transfer details -

There are two ways. One is just to leave it in my house for a few months. The other is the professional way, like Sipp does it.

Article with video here. It's very distressing. Or you can just watch Sipp on TV here:

From Dylan's masterpiece Visions of Johanna:

The peddler now speaks to the countess who's pretending to care for him
Saying, "Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him"
But like Louise always says
"Ya can't look at much, can ya man "
As she, herself prepares for him.

Our post on the letter to students about business careers and the thoughts about parasitism brought the tune to mind.

Here's the original recording of the astonishing tune. He's so clear you don't need the lyrics:

NB: There will be no awards to Major Blogs and Sites, mostly, in keeping with our redistributionist ideology. Additional winners will be announced through the end of this week. Here's today's batch:

Closest Cousins Across the Pond:  A tie between Mr. Free Market and The Englishman

In addition to the tax-free $1 million, and the distinguished and official-looking medal which is appropriate for wear at any formal occasion such as White House White Tie dinners, winners also receive the suitable-for-framing imitation parchment diploma-thingy below.

 Money transfer info below the fold -

Stolen from Driscoll:

In the interest of improving the bird interest among our readers, a reader took this photo this week of these hardy shorebirds on the CT coast, not yet in their breeding plumage. Can you name it?