Maggie's Farm

Smokestack Lightning, 1964

A foggy morning at Newcomb Hollow, Wellfleet, 2 weeks ago

Despite its uselessness, squishy relativism remains a force in some sectors of society. It's dangerous because it makes people feel that they shouldn't evaluate anything. Dr. Bob explains the inherent contradictions. A quote:

I find it interesting that most every argument rejecting absolutes contains within its very language and structure, not to mention its premises, a framework of absolute assertions. And our subject does not disappoint: tossing around terms like “wise” and “fools” and “shame” and “credit”, qualitative words without meaning when there is no transcendent standard against which to measure them. What is shame if not the humiliation of rejecting an absolute good? Who is wise, and who a fool, if there is no standard of enduring and unchangeable wisdom by which to categorize one thusly? The lines of their straightedge are random and irregularly spaced — if there are measuring lines at all — yet they carefully measure and mark off “progress”, confident they have measured accurately. There is, of course, the inevitable rejoinder to all such foolishness which asks, “Are you absolutely sure there are no absolutes?” But beyond this childish rebuttal — childish, not in the sense of silliness or immaturity, but rather of unvarnished simplicity — there lies an even more evident and profound incoherence which can be discerned — from which a not-so-evident proposition emerges from the heart of anti-absolutism.

Read the whole thing.

I took this close-up of a clump of Indian Pipe (aka Corpse Plant) at the farm this weekend, in the Hemlock woods on the hillside. A fungus? Nope. It's a parasitic plant.

Our friend sent us these pictures he took yesterday, experimenting with his new Leica:

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It's prose poems and photos. A quote from the NYT piece:

“It was the lost manuscript,” Mr. Feinstein recalled in a telephone interview from his home in Woodstock, N.Y. “Everybody forgot about it but me.”

The poems were so lost that Mr. Dylan, when told of the discovery, had forgotten that he had written them...

But after languishing in storage for more than 40 years, the text and photographs will be published in November in a collection titled “Hollywood Foto-Rhetoric: The Lost Manuscript.”

A reader sent in this photo of an Eastern American Toad (Bufo Americanus) in the garden this past weekend. Everybody enjoys stumbling upon these goofy critters, which tend to be active at night (when the sun will not dry them out) or during rain. If find it remarkable how often they can be found far from any pools or ponds in which to breed. They travel.

I remember rainy days in Cape Cod when the baby toads had completed their magical transformation from tadpole to tiny (1/2") toads in August in such numbers that you could hardly find a place to put your foot, like Red Efts on cloudy days in the Berkshires.

The only thing I know that likes to eat them is the Hognose Snake, and I've never seen one of them.

Scientificalistical experts have proven (the debate is over) that if you touch a toad, you will get warts, but if you are a girl, and kiss one, it will turn into a Handsome Prince (but you will get warts all over your face).

We have tons of Eastern Toads here. Like all critters, it cheers me to see them.

One quote from his 1978 Harvard Commencement address:

However, in early democracies, as in the American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual human rights were granted because man is God's creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. Such was the heritage of the preceding thousand years. Two hundred or even fifty years ago, it would have seemed quite impossible, in America, that an individual could be granted boundless freedom simply for the satisfaction of his instincts or whims. Subsequently, however, all such limitations were discarded everywhere in the West; a total liberation occurred from the moral heritage of Christian centuries with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice. State systems were -- State systems were becoming increasingly and totally materialistic. The West ended up by truly enforcing human rights, sometimes even excessively, but man's sense of responsibility to God and society grew dimmer and dimmer. In the past decades, the legalistically selfish aspect of Western approach and thinking has reached its final dimension and the world wound up in a harsh spiritual crisis and a political impasse. All the glorified technological achievements of Progress, including the conquest of outer space, do not redeem the 20th century's moral poverty which no one could imagine even as late as in the 19th Century.

As humanism in its development became more and more materialistic, it made itself increasingly accessible to speculation and manipulation by socialism and then by communism. So that Karl Marx was able to say that "communism is naturalized humanism."

This statement turned out not to be entirely senseless. One does see the same stones in the foundations of a despiritualized humanism and of any type of socialism: endless materialism; freedom from religion and religious responsibility, which under communist regimes reach the stage of anti-religious dictatorships; concentration on social structures with a seemingly scientific approach. This is typical of the Enlightenment in the 18th Century and of Marxism.

I thought feeding birds was one of those quintessentially Brit things, like saving toads.

Don't be surprised if Obama picks Hillary for VP. Related: Obama on infanticide

Women want it both ways on choice. Villainous

Russia's chief exports, after oil: Vodka, criminals and whores

A new bird species found in Africa (h/t, Jungle Trader)

Sec. of Defense Robert Gates is impressive on this video. Related: Russia, NATO, and Russia's "territorial norms"

Jerry Wexler died.

Surber takes a look at the campaign fund-raising race

Corn, silly Senator, is for food! Reason

The Saddleback Church event last night with Rick Warren, Obama and McCain. Ace was surprised by how impressed he was by McCain. Also, what else is "above Obama's pay grade"?

Back by popular demand!

This funny but handsome hodge-podge of a place�is called Morning Glory, now undergoing long-delayed major renovation and necessary graffiti:

�I like this simple�look very much. It could use a garden, though. Or maybe not.

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We linked Vanderleun's Frame Up photo essay yesterday, but I thought it was worth further highlighting - or framing, as it were. Especially because my photography teacher friend thought that his idea was cool, and plans to use it in her classes. A few random thoughts and a quote:

- Vanderleun is apparently a big Hopkins fan, as am I. Hopkins was a student of the medieval metaphysician Duns Scotus, from whom he seems to have come up with his notions of "inscape" and "instress." While Hopkins never defined these terms, he attempted to realize the immanent presence of God in his poetry with rhythm and imagery (eg, here.)

- Are photographers simply artists with ADD? I am (obviously) no photographer. I specialize in minimally-composed, poorly-lit, half-focused snapshots with a camera I don't know how to use, which are more intended to document a thing than anything else. In my youth, I drew and painted but I never developed those interests. I have always had too many interests - a dilettante in the perjorative sense of the word. However, I know that when you paint a thing you enter fully into it, of necessity, with brain, soul and hand. Same as playing a song with piano or guitar.

- Framing has, indeed, a magical effect. It has always been a wonder to me how putting a frame on a canvas transforms it. Or how a wall, fence or hedge gives structure and architecture to a garden. Or how framing a fact with context does the same. Or how putting a quote in a "quote box" inclines one to read it. Are frames our tools or are they our protection from TMI, or even from the terrors of the infinite and of chaos? Or both? I'm in over my head now. One day, long ago, I took a B&W random photo of an old dock piling with a spike in it and some weeds next to it, on the West Side of Manhattan. It was one of the 20 photos I've taken in my life that came out well. Produced it in the darkroom myself. I put it in a $1.99 black frame and it looked like art. It's long lost, though.

- In a comment on Vanderleun's piece, the internet metaphysician and master neologist Gagdad Bob has this to say:

This is an extremely provocative subject. The other day I posted about the importance of boundaries in the creation of meaning. In the absence of a frame there is no art or science. But who knew that simply providing one allows one to appreciate the superabundance of beauty that is always pouring forth from virgin nature?

In fact, you may remember the young videographer in American Beauty, who was able to perceive beauty by virtue of framing it with the camera, whether is was a paper bag blowing in the wind or a dead animal by the side of the road.

I often go mountain biking in my area, and just by virtue of taking along a camera and framing the shots (even if I don't even take a picture), a different level of beauty suddenly emerges. You start to see things from a "God's eye view," for what is creation but a finite limitation on infinite possibility, i.e., the imposition of boundary conditions on the infinite?

One could say the same thing of the formal structure of a poem, or of the structural narrative of a great novel that elevates the mundane to a higher plane, or the stage in theatre, which is also a kind of frame.

Bottom line: in the conduct of your life, choose your frame very carefully. It makes all the difference. On one level the frame is an artifice, but on another level it is the doorway into the infinite and eternal.

I guess it goes without saying that I see theology as a frame though which we may see, know, and experience all sorts of things (i.e., truth and beauty) that will go unnoticed in the absence of the frame.

Image is from Vanderleun's piece.

I try to avoid Maggie's Farm because I find too many things to get interested in, and I just don't have the time.

A friend and occasional MF reader

The glories of alcohol and tobacco. Prof B. But why did he omit firearms?

Somewhat related, via Insty: Beer goggles are real

The McGovern Coalition is back. I thought they died, but I guess they were hibernating. If true, it's bad news for the USA I know and love.

So sophisticated. Needle-neck art critic looks down his nose at sports: Tim Blair. You just know this guy never made the team, and didn't get the chicks.

How the East was lost: Walker at Am Thinker misses Reagan. Me too.

Related, John Bolton on Georgia. Not sure I agree with him.

Do as I say, not as I do. NBC air-conditions Beijing. That's how you know people don't really take it seriously.

The Old Man's Comforts, and How He Gained Them

You are old, Father William, the young man cried,
   The few locks which are left are grey;
You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man,
   Now tell me the reason, I pray.

In the days of my youth, Father William replied,        
   I remember'd that youth would fly fast,
And abused not my health and my vigour at first,
   That I never might need them at last.

You are old, Father William, the young man cried,
   And pleasures with youth pass away;                 
And yet you lament not the days that are gone,
   Now tell me the reason, I pray.

In the days of my youth, Father William replied,
   I remember'd that youth could not last;
I thought of the future, whatever I did,               
   That I never might grieve for the past.

You are old, Father William, the young man cried,
   And life must be hastening away;
You are cheerful, and love to converse upon death,
   Now tell me the reason, I pray.                     

I am cheerful, young man, Father William replied,
   Let the cause thy attention engage;
In the days of my youth I remember'd my God!
   And He hath not forgotten my age.

You are old, Father William

"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head --
Do you think, at your age, it is right?

"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
And you have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door --
Pray what is the reason for that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
"I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment -- one shilling a box --
Allow me to sell you a couple?"

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak --
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose --
What made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs.

Outside a handful of majors -- engineering and some of the sciences -- a bachelor's degree tells an employer nothing except that the applicant has a certain amount of intellectual ability and perseverance. Even a degree in a vocational major like business administration can mean anything from a solid base of knowledge to four years of barely remembered gut courses.

The solution is not better degrees, but no degrees. Young people entering the job market should have a known, trusted measure of their qualifications they can carry into job interviews. That measure should express what they know, not where they learned it or how long it took them. They need a certification, not a degree.

The BA degree was created for scholars, and as a foundation for the professions. It meant that you knew Latin and Greek, probably German and French, the sciences, math, and history - but it mostly meant that you wanted to be a scholarly person who intended to study stuff for the rest of your life. I think I'm on safe ground in saying that that is no longer the case. Education is such a huge, entrenched industry today that things are unlikely to change, but it's still worthwhile thinking about rational alternatives.

via Surber:

(Republican New Jersey Assemblyman Michael Doherty) has called for repealing New Jersey’s ridiculous global warming panic laws. Doherty said:

“There are many credible members of the scientific community who have questioned the theory of global warming, and now we have some scientists actually suggesting the earth’s temperatures may be entering a period of dramatic cooling. With this growing level of scientific uncertainty, it makes no sense to enact a new set of economically damaging regulations prompted by the global warming hysteria of recent years.”

A small harborside boathouse in Wellfleet, at low tide

There are tests of your social situational sensitivity.

I know, and like, people from across the spectrum. And severely autistic people are still people. Nobody's wiring is perfect. How could it be?

From Bowyer's Teddy Roosevelt vs. the Noisy Environmentalists at TCS, one quote:

TR and his Director of Forestry Services, Gifford Pinchot created a system of 'wildlife Reserves'. They argued that it would not be fair for one generation to do all the logging and all the digging and to leave nothing behind for future generations. They didn't think of these reserves as something pristine, which would be rendered somehow ceremonially unclean by the signs of human development. They just wanted to share natural resources and beauty with future generations, like ours. In fact the shift in language from 'resources' to 'the environment' signals the shift in world-view from conservation to preservation. A resource, by its very nature, is to be used, sparingly, perhaps, but nonetheless, used.

This is why the Roosevelt-Pinchot philosophy is known to historians as the 'wise-use' movement. It's why the administration's forestry handbook contained explicit instructions for how to extract lumber and minerals from the protected lands. That's why the memorial lauds 'development', which contemporary environmentalists forbid in places like ANWR.

The preservationists of the time, like Sierra Club founder, John Muir, fought against them. While Roosevelt/Pinchot sought to make nature useful to humanity, by opening it to efficient use, and protecting it from destruction, Muir claimed that nature was to be useful to nature itself, not to man. For Roosevelt earth is for us, for people. For Muir man and land were equals. It wasn't the conservationist Roosevelt who put ANWR's oil out of our reach, but the environmentalist Carter.

Shucks, that is cute as hell. Hunter though I may be, I would never shoot one of these splendid animals. Deer? No problema.

And I love Alison Krauss too. (h/t, Theo)

Roger Kimball. Related: NYT debt heads towards junk status (h/t, Vanderleun).

The title of the eventual book will be "How to Destroy a Successful Franchise."

As we have been saying for over two years now. This quote via Surber:

The Belfast Telegraph has reported: “Based on the past Armagh measurements, this suggests that over the next two decades, global temperatures may fall by about 2 degrees C — that is, to a level lower than any we have seen in the last 100 years. Of course, nothing in science is certain. Perhaps (though I doubt it) Armagh’s old measurements are wrong or perhaps there are now other factors, such as CO2 emissions, which may change things somewhat. However, temperatures have already fallen by about 0.5 degrees C over the past 12 months and, if this is only the start of it, it would be a serious concern.”

Be very afraid.

Image via Moravec's cool illustrations.

We spoiled Americans love to bitch about things, but even without the recently dropping gas prices, fuel is more affordable than it was during the early '60s.

Sometimes I think we Americans want everything for free, a life without limits, without pain, without death and with perfect love: fairy tales and childish dreams.