Maggie's Farm

This is a photo of Gunnhilde, a fine example of this family-friendly and versatile sporting breed. Known
best for pointing and ptracking ptarmigan in the far north, the hardy but socialist Norwegian is also useful for ptracking lost reindeer, aquavit, herring, blonds, and boiled potatoes.

I had one of these dogs once, but he ptracked a lovely smoked herring on a truck on its way from Nova Scotia to North Waddlefield, MA, where he picked up the scent and followed it south to Waterbury, CT. I heard that he and the smoked herring got married, settled down, and opened a successful dry-cleaning shop in Torrington, CT.

Tis Issat is the Smoke of the Nile - the falls of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia (map). The Blue Nile, arising in Lake Tana, provides most of the water to the Nile proper.

Here's a better photo of the falls.

You can learn a lot about 19th C. Ethiopia (Abyssinia) in Flashman on the March (he survives a tumble down the falls - and then a tumble with an obese Queen). The subject comes up today because, after church yesterday, friends were discussing their upcoming mission trip to Ethiopia and I regret that I cannot join their group.

On the other hand, maybe Ethiopia ought to be sending some missions to the USA and Europe. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church (previously the Coptic Orthodox Church) has been around since about 300, and has taken its own path. Note the outfits of the Deacons.

I would love to see that country.

Quoted from Roger K:

Let’s see, on our side we have:

- political, economic, and religious liberty
- full citizenship for women
- separation of church and state
- freedom of inquiry
- embrace of the free market as an engine of wealth
Etc.

On their side we have:

- absolute submission to the will of Allah
- religious intolerance
- servitude of women
- barbaric ritual punishments for crime
- recourse to suicide bombers as an instruments of policy
Etc.

Pace Mr. Buruma, I think that part of what makes “our culture” ours are the customs, values, and practices that have defined it. Some of those values are “Enlightenment values,” some long predate and even conflict with Enlightenment values. But we subscribe to it not because of any abstract inventory of merit but, on the contrary, because it is ours.

Michael Yon's book is out. This is the least we can do for that good guy.

You can buy it here.

This is the 28' Alerion Express day sailer, at Cape Yachts. Nice boat.

Yu Tang with Kreisler's soulful Praeludium and Allegro (h/t, Classical Virtuoso). It's a wonder to me how youthful musicians can put so much heart into music. Perhaps the young have hearts too. I can't remember.

"Preach the Gospel at all times - and use words when necessary."

St. Francis of Assisi

"Let your lives preach."

George Fox

I guess I am a bit of a Gilbert Munger (1830-1904) fan, although I cannot say that he had an entirely coherent body of work - but who does?

Others of the Hudson River School achieved much more prominence, and one of Munger's claims to fame was spending a day sketching with Bierstadt, the master of the School. But Connecticut-born Munger did get around a bit, from Yosemite to Venice, his work evolved, and did not have the over-dramatic Victorian quality that Bierstat is sometimes accused of.

But man, would I like to have a Munger over my office fireplace. The image is is Cazenovia Cornfield, but look at his pictures on the link - good stuff.

This is his Lake Marian, Humboldt Range, Nevada, 1871:

Like all thistles, Sea Holly likes sun and poor or sandy soil.

Like campanula, it's a blue late-summer bloomer for a perennial border.

I found this one here. I like it.

Could any magazine come closer to Maggie's Farm's interests? It's time for another free plug for Garden & Gun - 21st Century Southern America. One blogger snarked the magazine - until she read it.

Two candidates who missed a generation. Barone

Borat is gone. Now it's Bruno, in Kansas. (h/t, Althouse). Cohen has fun with life, doesn't he?

How to turn a bread basket into a basket case in ten easy steps. It's not Malthusian - it's another socialist train wreck.

How to retire cash-rich. Dr. Helen. I don't want to retire cash rich: I'd rather be cash-rich now. Plus I have no intention of ever retiring. Retirement seems like a foolish goal to me, but sometimes it is forced upon one. If one has Yankee values, one turns leisure into effort anyway.

Cell-phones dangerous? I don't believe it. I rarely use mine, though.

I thought he hated "middle classism"

Jail Camp. The new American vacation

An economic stimulus policy for the inner city. SDA

Cowboy deaths, in order of descending dignity

World's second-largest oil reserves. Canada

Condy on race. Powerline

The Bosnia tall tale flap is a proxy for all the Clinton lies

John Dean said:

"Who would you rather have in charge of the defense of the United States of America, a group of people who never served a day overseas in their life, or a guy who served his country honorably and has three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star on the battlefields of Vietnam?"

Driscoll notes:

McCain, by the way, has been awarded the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, two Bronze Star Medals, a Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Photo: One of my wren houses. Those shrubberies are a tall variety of smooth Ilex as an unkempt wind-breaking hedge.

It says 1997, not 1998, on these fine cigars our friend Nathan sent me. Many interesting tart, sweet, funky, sexual, and multi-layered aged flavors in them. I like the 43 ring size, but my humidor is a bit too high on the humidity right now - I think. Stepped on the meter like a complete klutz and broke it a while ago, and I think it is like the Everglades in there right now, judging from the draw.

I did spill some water in there, too - don't ask.

I think I will leave the thing open for a few hours to dry out a bit, and order another crappy $5 hygromificateristicalmeter. Got some fine tobaccy in there: I want it in perfect condition when Nathan visits from Jerusalem next month. 

Jim Kweskin's Jug Band with Geoff Muldaur, 1963. Good stuff, but unfortunately without a video:

Yes, it's another Home Depot morning for me. Black Forest mulch and other stuff.

Political monoculture in the academy. Tiger

FITNA is spreading virally.

Larry Kudlow said today, on the radio, that the Obamas have no retirement plans or savings. They have no investments either, other than real estate, despite making well over a million a year for a while and making de minimus charitable contributions. What's up with that?

The UN's farcical Human Rights Council

The Chronicle of Higher Ed wondered how university presidents do compared to others:

CEO of S&P 500 company—$8.5-million
NBA player—$4-million
College football coach (NCAA Division I)—$1-million
Neurosurgeon—$530,000
President of public research university—$397,000
U.S. Senator—$162,500
NASA astronaut (top pay grade)—$130,000
Reporter—$42,000

The neo-Malthusians in the environmental movement religion. I learned a new word today, in relation to that: "cornucopians." I guess I tend to be one of those - although I would guess that the human race would be better off achieving a sustained human population rather than continued growth. The checkout lines at Costco are too long as it is.

Let them eat cell phones.

Opie tells me that this essay pretty much captures her view of the Iraq war:

Sixty-three years ago, Nazi Germany had overrun almost all of Europe and hammered England to the verge of bankruptcy and defeat. The Nazis had sunk more than 400 British ships in their convoys between England and America taking food and war materials.

At that time the US was in an isolationist, pacifist mood, and most Americans wanted nothing to do with the European or the Asian war.

Then along came Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and in outrage Congress unanimously declared war on Japan, and the following day on Germany, who had not yet attacked us. It was a dicey thing. We had few allies.

France was not an ally, as the Vichy government of France quickly aligned itself with its German occupiers. Germany was certainly not an ally, as Hitler was intent on setting up a Thousand Year Reich in Europe. Japan was not an ally, as it was well on its way to owning and controlling all of Asia.

Together, Japan and Germany had long-range plans of invading Canada and Mexico, as launching pads to get into the United States over our northern and southern borders, after they finished gaining control of Asia and Europe.

America’s only allies then were England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Australia, and Russia. That was about it. All of Europe, from Norway to Italy (except Russia in the East) was already under the Nazi heel.

The US was certainly not prepared for war. The US had drastically downgraded most of its military forces after WW I because of the depression, so that at the outbreak of WW II, Army units were training with broomsticks, because they didn’t have guns, and cars with “tank” painted on the doors, because they didn’t have real tanks. A huge chunk of our Navy had just been sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor.

Read the rest on continuation page below -

h/t, Neatorama

Right Wing Prof likes this place, and I know I would like it too because it seems like a Maggie's Farm sort of joint. Wonder if they deliver to New England states:

Canada's #1 Dating Site: Adult Moose Finder

Roger de H. advises: Make sure you plug in "man" seeking "interracial elk" from the drop down list. And check out the dropdown list for "Country"

The artist Samuel F. B. Morse (Phillips Academy and Yale) is better known as an inventor - and for Morse Code. This is his Niagara Falls from Table Rock (1813), owned by the MFA, Boston.

Mark Twain

I heard one whinny at around 5 AM on Good Friday. It's a treat to hear, and I hope that it means we will have a nesting pair of these pigeon-sized little owls in the area.

Maybe I should put up a Screech Owl nest box, but there are so many trees with holes around here that it's probably not necessary. I have never had to chase them out of any of my Wood Duck boxes, but they are known to occupy them. I had neighbors who had a pair for years using their Wood Duck house on a tiny island in a pond (which seemed reckless of the owls, to me). You could see the owl's face, sometimes, sunning itself in the hole.

It's unusual to see them. Practically speaking, the only way you would know that they are around is by hearing them at night. These owls do not mind suburbia at all, and are probably breeding in all five boroughs of New York City.

These nocturnal birds are not rare everywhere east of the Rockies, and come in Red, Brown, and Grey races. They do not screech; they have a trill and a ghostly whinny. One more of those eery night-time sounds.

Here are their calls.

Read the detailed CLO entry on the Eastern Screech Owl here.

What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.

Mark Twain