Maggie's Farm

1997. Lyrics here, if you need them. One verse:

Gonna sleep down in the parlor
And relive my dreams
I'll close my eyes and I wonder
If everything is as hollow as it seems
Some trains don't pull no gamblers
No midnight ramblers, like they did before
I been to Sugar Town, I shook the sugar down
Now I'm trying to get to heaven before they close the door

Live, Atlantic City, 2000

What ails literary studies? It's by a lit prof at Annapolis, Bruce Fleming. He begins:

The major victory of professors of literature in the last half-century — the Great March from the New Criticism through structuralism, deconstruction, Foucauldianism, and multiculturalism — has been the invention and codification of a professionalized study of literature. We've made ourselves into a priestly caste: To understand literature, we tell students, you have to come to us. Yet professionalization is a pyrrhic victory: We've won the battle but lost the war. We've turned revelation into drudgery, shut ourselves in airless rooms, and covered over the windows.

It's good. Read it.

Hits cow during emergency landing.

it's waiting for its brief period of glory before it dies:

Liberal Catholicism and Liberal Protestantism at Inside Catholic, by David Carlin, author of The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America. He begins:

Catholic liberals (by which I mean theological liberals, not political liberals) never cease to amaze me. On the one hand, they appear to have a sincere devotion to their religion. On the other, they campaign for moral and theological changes that, if carried into effect, would tend to destroy their Church.

 

Why do I say this? Because the history of Protestantism has made it perfectly clear what happens when a Christian church turns liberal or modern. Unless a Catholic is quite unfamiliar with the sad history of liberal Protestantism, he would not call for the theological liberalization or modernization of Catholicism.

 

In America, liberal Protestantism has always had three characteristics: (1) It is an attempt to find a compromise or via media between traditional Christianity and the fashionable anti-Christianity of the day. (2) In seeking this compromise, it drops certain traditional Christian beliefs as so much excess baggage. (3) To atone, so to speak, for this weakening of doctrine, it intensifies its moral commitments.

 

Three great "moments" in the history of American liberal Protestantism illustrate what I mean here. The first was the emergence of Unitarianism in the first quarter of the 19th century. The fashionable anti-Christianity of the day was Deism -- as found, for instance, in one of the writings of Tom Paine (The Age of Reason). So Unitarianism, in pursuit of a via media, dropped the Trinity, the Divinity of Christ, Original Sin, and a few other Christian doctrines. To make up for these discards, it strongly committed itself to the anti-slavery cause.

Sea levels would drop. Here's why. You can test it at home.

Addendum: Well, it's almost true. Slightly off with salt water.

When the media uses a scary number, it is because the percentage is small. When the media uses a percentage without using a base number, it is because the number is small.

Don Surber

Capitalism undoubtedly has certain boils and blotches upon it, but has it as many as government? Has it as many as marriage? Has it as many as religion? I doubt it. It is the only basic institution of modern man that shows any genuine health and vigor. 

H.L.Mencken (h/t, Vanderleun)

Rush likes to joke about enviro-Nazis, but I didn't know how Greenie the Nazis actually were. 

And no, I am not invoking Godwin's Law here.

Bernard Goldberg's amusing speech on Bias Like Never Before. One quote from the Q&A:

My first job, four days out of college was with the Associated Press. In those days, it was, "Just the facts, ma'am," kind of news organization. Now, they actually have a policy. It's not by accident. It's a policy that they want their reporters to inject what they call accountability journalism into pieces. Accountability journalism, in plain English, is opinion journalism. And I've read stories on the AP wire that are as biased as can be. Nobody would argue, but that's what they want.

So when the AP, which is 162-year-old organization, decides that objectivity is old hat, it's yesterday, it's not exciting enough, I'm telling you, there's not going to be much left of the mainstream media to throw over the side of the ship. They're doing it themselves.

But that's another point, if I could make it briefly. When they finally are so irrelevant that none of us really give a damn about them, you know who they're going to blame. They're going to blame all of us, that we somehow poisoned the well, that conservatives turned the public on them, but the final wound will be self-inflicted. They're doing it to themselves.

Two books for the Dyl:

One by an old friend: Andres Duany's Suburban nation: The rise of sprawl and the decline of the American Dream

And Jane Jacob's The Death and Life of Great American cities

"Depression lust" on the part of the press.

World's most beautiful woman is Russian. It's true. They make beauties there. It's one of the few things Russia does well.

Update on the Marc Dreier investment scam. And re the Madoff scam, look at the "sophisticated investors" he fooled. When a deal sounds too good to be true...

I love the way Bush handled this press guy.

The Brussels Journal and Tribal Nationalism: LGF

Why are we still in Afghanistan?

Beethoven and the Illuminati

How Tom Daschle could destroy new drug development

The change we wanted? Now Richardson under investigation. Dems have a greed problem.

Ask Dr. Helen: How can I keep my students from becoming little Marxists?

Image from SDA

We are still interested in more of your favorite venison recipes. Put 'em in the comments on that post, and we'll post it annually towards the end of deer season.

Here's some venison on the hoof from a friend's Cuddeback scouting camera in Michigan earlier in the fall:

Watt's Up notes:

This is almost enough to make me turn in my Skeptic union card, but increased CO2 warming the earth makes some sense to me, the magnitude is in question. The fact that polar sea ice not melting is not an insignificant point. It is also important to realize that the changes are too small to fit with IPCC statements about the trend. Unlike trees, ice does make a good thermometer. I can’t say this strongly enough— This is a strong indication of substantial errors in the computer models and temperature data which needs to be addressed before we throw what’s left of our global economy to the wind. How would Earth’s total sea ice ignore such substantial warming? It’s a good question which deserves an answer.

Computer models aren't facts: far from it. Despite Al Gore's recent hysteria, there has been no loss of Arctic ice. I agree with others who observe that, as climate data fail to conform to computer models, the fearmongers become more shrill and desperate.

This over-the-top AP story contains so many inaccuracies that it hardly counts as a news story. It's shameful climate propaganda, and satirizes itself by concluding that any global cooling is due to global warming. John at Powerline does a good job with it.

Our position is that we are open to facts, but that the topic of climate has become politicized - which is never helpful to scientific endeavors.

Furthermore, we suspect that some warming would be good for mankind, but unfortunately the data show that we have experienced ten years of climate cooling, with 30 years more of cooling predicted. So I think everybody should just chill.

Photo: Last week's New Hampshire ice storm from No Looking Backwards

Thanks to our pal Dr. Bob for finding this. Apparently Edward Feser and Heather (who we also like very much) have been having an exciting correspondence about religion and politics.

Feser more or less begins thus:

The source of my dispute with you is the criticism that you (like Kathleen Parker and others) have been making of religion – not of this or that kind of religion, and not of this or that individual religious believer, but of religion per se – to the effect that it is irrational, and that this irrationality has something to do with its purported lack of scientific grounding.

Read the whole thing (link above).

A techie reader likes these handy machines: ASUS Netbooks.

Bismarck. Global cooling is our new crisis. New Hampshire is in the deep freeze, with ice storms and unseasonable cold - and their power is out. Not mine.

All we can do to help is to drive our Hummers to the mall.

Eagerly awaiting explanation from Al Gore.

Oh, he did have something to say: North Pole to disappear in 5 years. Is that a promise? So how come the ice cap is growing? And who cares anyway?

His fear-mongering hyperbole has turned him into a joke.

Galatians 5:15-26 (NIV)

16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. 17 For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.

19 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

Paul's letter to the argumentative and self-righteous Galatian Christians was my mens' group study on Friday. "Resist the flesh by nailing it to the cross," says Martin Luther on this passage. Hmmm. Right now?

A comment at Bible Gateway says this about Galatians:

Moral failure in the church should not be a surprise, nor should it be considered fatal to the life of the church. What is important is the church's response when such failure occurs. The church may respond with harsh condemnation under the law. That response will crush the sinner and divide the church. That seems to have been what was happening in the churches in Galatia. The zealots for the law were merciless to sinners. But Paul wants to show that the occasion of sin is the opportunity for Spirit-led people to display the fruit of the Spirit in order to bring healing to the sinner and unity in the church.

and this:

In order to bring healing to the sinner, we must have a compassionate view of the one who has sinned. Paul does not define the kind of sin, but he does describe the consequence of sin. He views the sinner as one who is caught in a sin. When a person sins, other people are hurt; other people are victims of that sin. But we must remember that sinners themselves are also in some sense victims of sin. Abusers have also been abused. They have been overtaken, ambushed and seized by sin. Paul is not excusing the sinner of personal responsibility. But he is recognizing the terrible captivating force of sin. Just as Jesus said, "Everyone who sins is a slave to sin" (Jn 8:34), so now Paul says that the one who sins is trapped by sin. When we view moral offenders as those who are enslaved and entrapped, we have a compassionate attitude toward them. We will want to help them break the bondage of sin over their life.

I tend to avoid the f-word in polite company, but that is what this celebratory season of the birth of our Savior can bring out in anybody if we aren't careful. Shopping, when one should be hunting.

I journeyed forth out into the cold with the puppy in the front seat (dog driving, natch) to fetch a special antique item, finally found after 5 years of searching. A 5' long, shallow-depth gen-u-ine Queen Anne hunt table. A Christmas season addition to the Farm pile of heirlooms.

They sold the thing yesterday. I thought times were tough. Maybe not. Wasn't cheap but not expensive either: $1450. A fine but phony-looking repro could cost triple the real deal.

Got a nice happy tree on the way back, but I am still still f-ing right now, which I do not wish to be doing today.

I tried to teach my kids that life's opportunities are an endless, but non-repeating, conveyor belt of chances. Life keeps reminding me of that fact. To tell the truth, I really did like that table, dings, sags, cracks and all, but not quite worn-out yet. It contained many stories of Olde England.

Of course, it's not really important...just a bunch of black 1690 oak which some barbarian might start a fire with. But perfect for the open spot, and perfect for pre-hunt rows of sherry glasses and a hearty toast to our huntsman, the stalwart Col. Reggie Smythe.

Lady at the antique consignment store said biz is great. But why the f- didn't Mrs. BD take the plunge and just buy it when she first saw it?

She must know by now that I like anything Queen Anne. F-.

Anchoress:

Getting some hate mail from my piece up at Pajamas Media. I’m being accused of wanting an “American theocracy”. Not at all. I simply am pointing out that a determinedly secular mindset will not make much of a dent against an equally determined supernatural mindset, and so the West should not be so dismissive of the power and usefulness of the vocabulary of faith. And I can’t be completely wrong since, as we see here at Hot Air, most Americans are open to that vocabulary.

An annual repost:

The Beeb decided to censor this classic 20 year-old song by The Pogues (with Kirsty McColl) last year. Lyrics here. Due to presumably overwhelming pressure, the Beeb reversed itself.